But God does (and has chosen to) demonstrate His wisdom, power, intelligence, and will through the laws of nature that He has created.
Whether you choose to accept this or not, God has created this space-time continuum (or cosmos) with definite, fixed laws and constants in place to support human life.
That's why natural laws exist, because a Lawgiver willed for them to exist.
This truth can be substantiated through simple logic, common sense, deductive reasoning, and science.
Stephen Hawking committed one of the biggest blunders of his scientific career when he stated,
[Quote]Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.[end of quote]
--The Grand Design (by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow)
Only a fool could come to such a foolish conclusion.
When has anything ever created itself? This flies in the face of sound reason, common sense, and just plain logic.
If the universe created itself then what caused it? What was its impetus or driving force that actuated it? What started it? What caused the spontaneous creation?
Where did the matter and energy for the universe that expanded come from?
This runs counter to every known law of science and yet your beloved proponent was so anti-God that he resorted to making absurd, non-scientific claims that violates and insults the intelligence of every rational human being on the planet, and calls into question his sanity.
What if I declared,
Because there is a law such as gravity, a laptop (with numerous pre-installed software) can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the laptop exists, why my mind exists.
It's good for a scientist to call into question what is established, to stir things up, to challenge current understanding. Hawking was referring to M Theory; an empirical approach to the cosmological constant as opposed to a theistic one.
You think you have this grand understanding and that everything just makes sense with God as the one responsible for the cosmological constant. But science isn't that simple. It is all information that can potentially be falsified. It is an ever-evolving mind-twister, not good to explain something unknown with religion and explain it with that, "oh, that crazy thing is because of God. It must be." Scientists have to actually shed light on it.
__________________ "Compounding these trickster aspects, the Joker ethos is verbally explicated as such by his psychiatrist, who describes his madness as "super-sanity." Where "sanity" previously suggested acquiescence with cultural codes, the addition of "super" implies that this common "sanity" has been replaced by a superior form, in which perception and processing are completely ungoverned and unconstrained"
Last edited by KillaKassara on Sep 25th, 2013 at 06:48 AM
It doesn't matter what theory it is, if it is illogical, unscientific, irrational, and just plain foolish--it should be discarded.
Stephen Hawkings' spontaneous universe creation theory should be discarded because it lacks basic common sense.
Again, What if I declared,
Because there is a law such as gravity, a laptop (with numerous pre-installed software) can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is a laptop with intelligently designed, pre-installed software rather than nothing, why the laptop exists, and why my mind exists.
M Thoery is a real, quantifiable science. Just because you don't understand it (you're not alone, I'm no quantum mechanics/particle physicist either); doesn't mean it's not a workable science.
And God does not explain why the universe is expanding, or why Galaxies and matter is held together in clumps, God does not tell us what particles make up Dark Matter.
However, declaring "God did it" is unscientific. You'll convince yourself of a truth, without actually knowing it or having shed any light on it.
And, perhaps with the advent of science we've made the world more complex, and that it will only ever be more complex. It's like the Tower of Babylon, we build and build and build trying to find God, and we just make things harder on ourselves. That is this possibility I can't shake - as it makes science, our only tool for understanding anything, a tool of Satan that makes it more difficult for us. But then again, what if the Bible really isn't the word of God? What if their is no God? You see why I am torn between science and religion? It's driving me insane.
__________________ "Compounding these trickster aspects, the Joker ethos is verbally explicated as such by his psychiatrist, who describes his madness as "super-sanity." Where "sanity" previously suggested acquiescence with cultural codes, the addition of "super" implies that this common "sanity" has been replaced by a superior form, in which perception and processing are completely ungoverned and unconstrained"
The simplest explanation is usually (more often than not) the answer to the question.
Spontaneous creation is out of the question. It is not a viable or plausible explanation for the formation of the universe for reasons that I've already explained.
The only explanation that makes sense may be difficult for you to accept is that a supernatural Being, Who is all-powerful, all-wise, eternal, supremely intelligent, and Who's greatness is beyond our ability to fully comprehend--created this universe.
He has the power to cause life because He lives.
He has the wisdom to create laws, design, and a universe with constants that support life because His understanding is infinite.
He does not have, need, nor does He require a beginning because He transcends (or exists) outside space-time and is thus eternal.
We have a soul (i.e. a mind, a will, and emotions) because we are created in His image and likeness.
We can think, express compassion, reason, and speak because God can.
None of atheistic postulations make any sense because man in his finite mind is trying desperately to avoid the inevitable truth that God is real.
All the theories in the world will never explain God away.
God has left His fingerprint as it were on the hearts of every person. Our conscience knows deep down inside that God exists.
When humanity feels down and out, depressed, or is sick, dying, discouraged, lonely, suicidal, or simply at the end of their rope, they always seem to turn to the One Who was there all along waiting for them.
It's a shame that it takes personal tragedy or catastrophe to bring a person to their knees in faith.
But God doesn't cause suffering.
The thief (satan) comes to steal, and to kill, and to destroy because he is a merciless oppressor.
But there, do you see how your theological explanation of the cosmological constant is an improvisation of the Bible? The Bible never said anything about the big bang, the cosmological constant. The expanding curtain could be a reference to day unraveling into night, the curtain of stars and the cosmos would be night expanding to conceal day, a circular earth doesn't mean a round earth, stars may be circular but not round when perceived on a 2 dimensional plane. That's not good, if you're a Christian, you can't create, expand, or add new material to the text, because your word isn't the word of God. You are improvising by bringing up the laws of thermodynamics, etc.
Christianity is unfalsifiable, God's existence is irrefutable. What do those two words mean? Unscientific; or, examples of pseudoscience.
__________________ "Compounding these trickster aspects, the Joker ethos is verbally explicated as such by his psychiatrist, who describes his madness as "super-sanity." Where "sanity" previously suggested acquiescence with cultural codes, the addition of "super" implies that this common "sanity" has been replaced by a superior form, in which perception and processing are completely ungoverned and unconstrained"
Last edited by KillaKassara on Sep 25th, 2013 at 07:33 AM
The Bible does not have to define or spell out scientific terminology (that were invented by humans anyway) to reveal their characteristics, how they operate, or their existence.
What the scientific community dubs one thing, God in His Word describes using terms that were understood by the people of that day.
It is not me that is improvising. Although it appears that you are attempting to foist your interpretation on what the Bible plainly reveals.
It states that God stretches out the heavens like a curtain. There's no mention of day or night in the context. So it is not me who is adding anything, but perhaps you that is adding what is not there.
Whether the word circle, circuit, circular, or round is employed, the concept relative to earth's shape was still not known by modern science until over 2,000 years after Isaiah 40:22 was written.
This is proof of divine inspiration.
Again, the laws of thermodynamics existed prior to modern scientific discovery. The Bible does not have to call it by that name for it to be a reality that the Bible provides the basis for understanding.
So why would you need scientific understanding to follow God?
Assuming a fact without empirical backing is unscientific.
I'm not questioning the text, I'm questioning what it is implying. Was it talking about what you're talking about? Most likely not.
Or, perhaps it was what they were referring to. After all, night was the only time in which they could observe the heavens, to them; the night sky and heaven would have been one in the same. That is more likely given the fact that there was the lack of scientific understanding, a fact in which you yourself admitted.
Whether it is on a 2D or 3D plane, however, really does.
That depends on whether or not you're accurate in your interpretation of that one, single text.
__________________ "Compounding these trickster aspects, the Joker ethos is verbally explicated as such by his psychiatrist, who describes his madness as "super-sanity." Where "sanity" previously suggested acquiescence with cultural codes, the addition of "super" implies that this common "sanity" has been replaced by a superior form, in which perception and processing are completely ungoverned and unconstrained"
Last edited by KillaKassara on Sep 25th, 2013 at 08:44 AM
I don't need scientific understanding to follow God. You do.
You assume M-Theory, evolutionary theory, and an atheistic worldview, yet you have no empirical evidence that supports any of them.
That is unscientific.
There is no other interpretation for Isaiah 40:22.
God stretches (or expands) the cosmos (or universe) and science, Einstein's Theory of Relativity, and Edwin Hubble's Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation discoveries supports this.
You cannot see the heavens (or universe) expanding by simply looking up into the night sky, so I don't follow what you mean by
the night sky and heaven would have been one in the same.
The point is God got it right.
The earth is not flat.
It is in the shape of a circle not a square, rectangle, or pentagon.
And God got it right over 2,000 years before Christopher Columbus, and revealed it through the writings of an 8th-century, Jewish prophet.
I am accurate in my interpretation of that one single text (and many others too).
I don't need science either, even through anything that is unfalsifiable, like God, is unscientific. Scientific agnosticism isn't the rejection of everything that is unfalsifiable, it simply admits the resounding truth that such a thing is impossible to know empirically. I happen to have faith, I never said I didn't.
I'll repeat again: A circle can be flat on a 2D plane. The stars were the heavens to them, you said that yourself, earlier. The stars are in the night sky. The bible never elaborates on the yet-to-be discovered force that holds matter together in clumps, thought to be dark matter. This is M Theory, M Theory is a branch of quantum mechanics and particle physics. Unlike religion, M Theory is a falsifiable, quantitative hypothesis that not only accounts for why galaxies aren't blown apart, it also accounts for the cosmological constant. It is a workable science, particles with super positions or different "string" frequencies/wavelengths can be created via atom smashers like the LHC, but that is the extent of my knowledge on the subject.
__________________ "Compounding these trickster aspects, the Joker ethos is verbally explicated as such by his psychiatrist, who describes his madness as "super-sanity." Where "sanity" previously suggested acquiescence with cultural codes, the addition of "super" implies that this common "sanity" has been replaced by a superior form, in which perception and processing are completely ungoverned and unconstrained"
Last edited by KillaKassara on Sep 25th, 2013 at 05:22 PM
A person doesn't have to say that they don't have faith because he/she can demonstrate the lack thereof by the other things that they do, don't do, say, or don't say.
I don't recall saying The stars were the heavens to them.
However, I do remember saying that the word heavens is another word for cosmos or universe.
With all due respect you are missing the point of Isaiah 40:22. There is no way that the earth could ever be two-dimensional irrespective of point of view.
They did not have globes in the 8th century, so God inspired the prophet Isaiah to use the word circle to describe the shape of the earth, which I believe was more than sufficient to get that fact across to the readers.
Furthermore, it was not necessary for God to go into exhaustive, technical detail in revealing a simple fact about the shape of the earth. He expected you to get it without majoring on it like the whole world depends on it (no pun intended).
It's kinda of like using slang. A person says the brass to refer to military members of higher rank.
It is not necessary to spell out each military member's full title when you can include all of them succinctly in two words.
Hence, circle of the earth is a concise description for the three dimensional shape of the planet called earth.
But M-theory does not answer the basic question: how did the finite universe come into existence?
So because I claim that religion is unquantifiable, and science is a method of understanding the same nature God influences, without all the unknowable supernatural, I can't have faith? Mmmkay.
__________________ "Compounding these trickster aspects, the Joker ethos is verbally explicated as such by his psychiatrist, who describes his madness as "super-sanity." Where "sanity" previously suggested acquiescence with cultural codes, the addition of "super" implies that this common "sanity" has been replaced by a superior form, in which perception and processing are completely ungoverned and unconstrained"
With all due respect is your conscience unquantifiable?
What about your mind?
How about your personality and emotions?
Are they any less real because they cannot be quantified?
True Bible faith believes without seeing.
After the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead (just as He said He would) He came to His disciples (the doors being shut) and stood in the midst of them.
One of the disciples named Thomas was not with them at the time that the Lord appeared. The disciples told Thomas that they had seen the Lord. Thomas knew that the Lord had died on the cross, and had been laid in the rich man's tomb.
In other words, Thomas knew that the Lord Jesus had died. So when the disciples told him that they had seen Him he didn't believe them.
In fact Thomas said,
John 20:24
...Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe
This kind of faith is based on what one can perceive through the five senses. It is not based on the Word of God.
It is not Bible faith.
Eight days later the Lord came again (the doors being shut) and stood in the midst of His disciples. This time Thomas was with them.
The Lord said to Thomas,
John 20:26-29
Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side . Do not be unbelieving, but believing.
And Thomas answered and said to Him, My Lord and my God!
Jesus said to him, Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
Science is wonderful.
I am all in favor of science. In fact, I believe that science points us to God. Discovery after discovery confirms what God has been saying in His Word all along.
For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream.
He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak;
as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.
That has been the very essence of my argument with you all along. Religion requires faith because the supernatural will always be beyond science. Science is the study of nature, not of God's spiritual and, as you put it, "timeless form". No instrument of science will find such a thing, only nature that is, if one is religious, the product of design.
The point I was making against Digi was that religion doesn't negatively affect a scientist in a practical sense. Look at Isaac Newton.
__________________ "Compounding these trickster aspects, the Joker ethos is verbally explicated as such by his psychiatrist, who describes his madness as "super-sanity." Where "sanity" previously suggested acquiescence with cultural codes, the addition of "super" implies that this common "sanity" has been replaced by a superior form, in which perception and processing are completely ungoverned and unconstrained"
Last edited by KillaKassara on Sep 25th, 2013 at 08:47 PM
Christianity is a personal relationship with a Personal God Who loves the sinner and gave His life for him/her.
We can know that God exists through observing the laws of nature and the various phenomena that it entails.
The world around us teems with life and is intelligible because it is the product of the living, intelligent God.
It's interesting how we can clearly see this in the manufacture of high-end, luxury commodities, but when it comes to God intelligent people somehow lose all logic, common sense, and reason--and say things like,
Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.
--The Grand Design (by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow)
Notice how glibly Stephen Hawking uses the word law to refer to gravity.
The very fact that gravity is called a law implies intelligence and will in its creation and thus a Personal Lawmaker.
The definition of law is:
a principle based on the predictable consequences of an act, condition, etc.: the law of supply and demand.
a rule, principle, or convention regarded as governing the structure or the relationship of an element in the structure of something, as of a language or work of art
But in all his erudition and scholarship Stephen cannot see this.
I suggest that Stephen first acknowledge that gravity was created by an intelligent, Personal God, Who exercises His will arbitrarily, before he goes any further with his quote.
Assuredly I say to you, had Stephen done this he wouldn't have made such an asinine remark about the universe creating itself.
That's just as foolish as me saying,
Because there is a law such as gravity, a laptop (with the latest processor, most storage and memory, plus numerous pre-installed software) can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is a laptop with intelligently designed hardware, circuits and other electronics, rather than nothing, why the laptop exists, and why my password to access this orderly, and sophisticated phenomenon exists.
My point is that Stephen's theory violates basic logic, common sense, reason, the Laws of science, Efficient cause (one of the four types of causation), Newton's laws of motion, Scientific law, as an atheist, the first law of thermodynamics (specifically the law of conservation of energy), and other well-established laws/principles.
You say,
no instrument will find such a thing.
Well, based on the Bible you don't need to be able to ascertain God's existence through the use of instrumentation.
All you have to do is look around you.
Romans 1:20
20 For ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature and attributes, that is, His eternal power and divinity, have been made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through the things that have been made (His handiworks).
So [men] are without excuse [altogether without any defense or justification],
According to the Word of God His invisible nature and attributes (i.e. the things that atheists claim is all they want Christians to furnish so that they can believe that God exists) are already available to them.
According to the Scriptures these things have already been made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through the things (i.e. matter, energy, the finely-tuned universe, the laws of nature, DNA, the cosmological constants, living cells, photosynthesis, the human brain (which, by the way, not even the largest supercomputer can match in terms of efficiency) language, conscience, the will, and the mind just to get started.
I'm starting believe that atheists really don't want to know the truth. Atheists just want to go on believing a lie no matter how unreasonable, illogical, unscientific, impossible, miraculous, foolish, ridiculous, and asinine it is.
They hold their cherished beliefs with tightly-clutched fists close to their hearts no matter how irrational it makes them appear. They just refuse to give in to the avalanche of evidence, the mountain of proof, and the universe of wisdom, knowledge, and common sense that prevails despite their obstinance.
Folks, something cannot just spontaneously exist on its own accord.
This universe didn't.
Nothing does.
These are the facts.
There has to be a cause.
Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist.
Hubble's law (or Lemaître's law) demonstrated through Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation redshift proves this.
Therefore, the universe has a cause.
Since the universe (or cosmos, which, incidentally means orderly or harmonious arrangement) shows overwhelming design based on the finely-tuned cosmological constant (i.e. dark energy), then logically it follows that it must have a Designer.
Christianity is a personal relationship with a Personal God Who loves the sinner and gave His life for him/her.
We can know that God exists through observing the laws of nature and the various phenomena that it entails.
The world around us teems with life and is intelligible because it is the product of the living, intelligent God.
It's interesting how we can clearly see this in the manufacture of high-end, luxury commodities, but when it comes to God intelligent people somehow lose all logic, common sense, and reason--and say things like,
Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.
--The Grand Design (by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow)
Notice how glibly Stephen Hawking uses the word law to refer to gravity.
The very fact that gravity is called a law implies intelligence and will in its creation and thus a Personal Lawmaker.
The definition of law is:
a principle based on the predictable consequences of an act, condition, etc.: the law of supply and demand.
a rule, principle, or convention regarded as governing the structure or the relationship of an element in the structure of something, as of a language or work of art
But in all his erudition and scholarship Stephen cannot see this.
I suggest that Stephen first acknowledge that gravity was created by an intelligent, Personal God, Who exercises His will arbitrarily, before he goes any further with his quote.
Assuredly I say to you, had Stephen done this he wouldn't have made such an asinine remark about the universe creating itself.
That's just as foolish as me saying,
Because there is a law such as gravity, a laptop (with the latest processor, most storage and memory, plus numerous pre-installed software) can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is a laptop with intelligently designed hardware, circuits and other electronics, rather than nothing, why the laptop exists, and why my password to access this orderly, and sophisticated phenomenon exists.
My point is that Stephen's theory violates basic logic, common sense, reason, the Laws of science, Efficient cause (one of the four types of causation), Newton's laws of motion, Scientific law, as an atheist, the first law of thermodynamics (specifically the law of conservation of energy), and other well-established laws/principles.
You say,
no instrument will find such a thing.
Well, based on the Bible you don't need to be able to ascertain God's existence through the use of instrumentation.
All you have to do is look around you.
Romans 1:20
20 For ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature and attributes, that is, His eternal power and divinity, have been made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through the things that have been made (His handiworks).
So [men] are without excuse [altogether without any defense or justification],
According to the Word of God His invisible nature and attributes (i.e. the things that atheists claim is all they want Christians to furnish so that they can believe that God exists) are already available to them.
According to the Scriptures these things have already been made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through the things that are made i.e. matter, energy, the finely-tuned cosmological constant of the universe, the laws of nature, DNA, living cells, photosynthesis, the human brain (which, by the way, not even the largest supercomputer can match in terms of efficiency) language, conscience, the will, and the mind just to get started.
I'm starting believe that atheists really don't want to know the truth. Atheists just want to go on believing a lie no matter how unreasonable, illogical, unscientific, impossible, miraculous, foolish, ridiculous, and asinine it is.
They hold their cherished beliefs with tightly-clutched fists close to their hearts no matter how irrational it makes them appear. They just refuse to give in to the avalanche of evidence, the mountain of proof, and the universe of wisdom, knowledge, and common sense that prevails despite their obstinance.
Folks, something cannot just spontaneously exist on its own accord.
This universe didn't.
Nothing does.
These are the facts.
There has to be a cause.
Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist.
Hubble's law (or Lemaître's law) demonstrated through Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation redshift proves this.
Therefore, the universe has a cause.
Since the universe (or cosmos, which, incidentally means orderly or harmonious arrangement) shows overwhelming design based on the finely-tuned cosmological constant (i.e. dark energy), then logically it follows that it must have a Designer.
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Sep 25th, 2013 06:10 AM
