By now it should be pretty clear that Gabriel is a religious fanatic to whom logic, reason, and evidence are mere props poorly used, abused, or ignored as is convenient. In his mind he owns the TRUTH and any other opinion, religious or secular, is dismissed with the certainty and confidence that only a fanatic can have. He lacks sustained concentration, is always drifting, and willfully ignores the questions of The Pragmatic and others. Indeed, no attempt at all has been made to address my last few, major posts that identified specific shortcomings that make his posts so incoherent. Now, Gabriel unreservedly preaches to us! That, in a debate forum! Either that or Gabriel goes into his eternal circles, repeating his mantras over and over and over, being oblivious to criticism of those points.

Neither mountain of evidence nor purest reason will move a true fanatic, because no real debate exists. He already has the TRUTH in the most dogmatic sense, and his interest is to preach--not debate. Once a fanatic is clearly identified, if you are not in a mood to practice your debating skills, the only thing left to do is to just ignore the guy. See you in some of the OTHER forum topics.

@Gabriel

"Dictionaries are products of man and therefore, its definitions must be validated by logic, reason, and common sense."

Substitute 'bibles' for 'dictionaries' and 'jumbled mess' for 'definitions' and there you have it in a nutshell.

Gentlemen,
You are confusing many subjects and topics together. I thought we were discussing cosmology, not how the world interacts with each other, which can be logically explained. Let's keep this simple.

(1) First, we've been, no, I've been postulating who or what is responsible for matter and our universe. When an open and honest person looks at the way matter and nature behaves/moves (i.e., properties of order, synergy, and fine-tuning), based on reality and human experience, they should be left with the logical conclusion that Someone who possesses MIND is responsible for it. The idea of "MIND" (intelligence) is the only thing I've "pragmatically" concluded is responsible for its order, synergy, and fine-tuning. If not, as I keep asking, give an alternative view? How is it that organic matter and nature KNOW what to do and HOW to do it to provide an ordered and synergistic world? The onus is on you to explain this phenomena in a cogent and logical manner.

(2) Now the reason I keep saying that this MIND is eternal is because it doesn't make sense to me that matter, which is prone to destruction and decay, in of itself is the creator or eternal. Hence, what matter teaches us is, it was made, by Someone or Something greater than it. This leads me to the conclusion that Someone or Something with immense power and knowledge created matter, thus making Him or it eternal. For me, there has to be a Being, which is eternal and powerful, that created all things, because postulating alien life, multi-universes, etc. only begs more questions. With my suggestion, at least there is closure.

(3) The ETERNAL MIND is what is responsible for our reality. But don't confuse this with, that the ETERNAL MIND is everything and in everything (i.e., pantheism). This is incorrect. In other words, the ETERNAL MIND doesn't govern or control, like a puppet master, the world directly, rather the world was given self-governing properties, which are rules and laws that are pre-programmed and interact with other aspects of nature. What are the results of this? Time and chance events, which incidentally, the Bible speaks of (Eccl. 9:11). And with regard to mankind, it is a little different. While man was given self-sustaining properties (i.e., immune system, while blood cells) that doesn't need divine intervention, man was also given choice, and with that choice can put a gun to his head and pull the trigger thus invalidating the self-sustaining properties of the human body.

(4) So don't confuse subject of cosmology with the way nature interacts with each other. These are two totally different thoughts. As I mentioned, when nature interacts with each other through their pre-programmed functions, what it causes is, unfortunate circumstances of life. This is what is responsible for your earthquakes, tsunamis, tornados, hurricanes, etc., and not the ETERNAL MIND. Now you may ask, why did the ETERNAL MIND make the world this way to begin with? My answer would be, He didn't. The world in the beginning was a pleasant place until something horrible happened, which changed the way nature interacted with each other. Now before you comment something on this point, think about this from this perspective. Why does mankind possess freewill (choice)? Seems to me that pre-programmed thinking would have saved our race from the greed, hate, and violence perpetuated against each other. But since this is not the case and we all have choice, with those choices, we're able to do and say things that will offend or hurt someone, thus causing the rise of unfortunate circumstances of life. So you see, it is the same with nature. Nature does what it will do and in doing so, may interact with other parts of nature and create firestorms of life. But this is no way suggests that nature breeds chaos from order, suggesting that nature isn't ordered or synergistic. These are two separate thoughts you are discussing.

(5) And once again, don't confuse the process of evolution with the subject of cosmology. I agree with some parts of evolution, like gradualism, species multiply, and natural selection (change). And this does evince evidence of intelligent design! Thanks for acknowledging this. But I do not accept the teaching of common descent. This is a stretch of the imagination and one that is often postulated in response to God as their Creator. And yes, evolution does teach us that we are all leading to death, but for the conscious person, as we contemplate life, we ask some very important questions: Why am I here? Who made me? And where am I going? For us to ask these things, doesn't suggest that we're accidents, rather there is a purpose for my existence; or else, why fall in love? have children? or for that matter, do anything in life. This seems fatalistic.

cos·mol·o·gy
käzˈmäləjē/Submit
noun
the science of the origin and development of the universe. Modern astronomy is dominated by the Big Bang theory, which brings together observational astronomy and particle physics.
an account or theory of the origin of the universe.
plural noun: cosmologies

"The ETERNAL MIND is what is responsible for our reality. "

That seems highly anti scientific. You can't test, observe, or even call your eternal mind a hypothesis.....

Hear this, and hear this well. There is no place for religion in science of any sort

@ Gabriel

( Answer to your post here: http://www.atheistrepublic.com/comment/40811 )

- "MIND has given nature ALL of its properties. Whatever we discover nature to do, MIND gave it those properties, but those properties are self-governing, pre-programmed laws; like a computer programmer who programs a computer. So MIND is not directly controlling nature, rather through the pre-programmed laws, nature will do as it has been commanded to do. What you are getting confused is, MIND is responsible for everything, but isn't responsible for its interactions with each other."

So, to continue your analogy of a computer programmer:

The programmer has written the program to govern all the rules and tweaked all the start parameters. Then the programmer started the program (The Big Bang).

If I understand you correctly, the programmer then just sits back and watches all the events unfold?

I guess this is where your unique interpretation of Bible comes in: Is there any interaction by the programmer while the program is running?