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I think the law goes as follows:
Energy cannot be created nor destroyed.
Matter cannot be created nor destroyed.
Energy can be converted to matter and vice verse (this part isn't word for word).
But summed up, something cannot come from nothing, not even energy.
More precisely it is dE/dt = 0
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Again, that statement is known to be false in high energy applications.
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That actually contradicts your 2nd statement; which really isn't a problem, because your second statement is false.
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Actually the precise definition above opens a loophole; allowing the possibility of creating energy from no energy, provided you make it in equal and opposite amounts; thereby maintaining dE/dt = 0 for all time periods. BTW: the estimates of the energy contained in the universe are within 1% of being equal and opposite amounts.
So answer me this. Can something indeed come from nothing?
Can matter, energy, space or time come into existence without anything to start with?
Matter and energy certainly can. There is currently no framework for dealing with a state that has a geometry of no points; so the verdict is still out on the other two; but it violates none of the currently known fundamental laws.
How exactly can matter and energy come from nothing?
I just gave you an overview of how it is possible (remember the dE/dt = 0?). If it is made in equal and opposite amounts it does not violate the conversation of energy (since that will not change the total amount in any time period). Did you not read it? What part did you not understand?
I dont believe in god because the evidence for our world arising from natural causes outweighs the evidence that something supernatural is the cause. That said, I dont think if there was a god, even the christian god, that someone could prove it. I understand that the burden of proof is on the theist, but its likely that if such a god did exist, no one could prove it the way science demands. This being a possibility, I prefer to use logical arguments rather than demand proof. Its just as effective, and provides some amusement.
Christianity is valid because Jesus Christ rose from the dead to become Christianity and has the most followers 2.3 billion and growing.From scientist, to philosphers to journalist etc etc . There just isn`t any explanation in todays scholarship how this happened .You`ll never find it thru scientific means it comes down to faith and reason here.
So you admit the only way to prove your god is by faith? Is faith a reliable way to truth?
Two simple examples, a god could schedule a meeting and simply appear at the appointed time and perform miracles regrowing limbs. Another convincing miracle at the same show would have a verifiable celebrity such as Abraham Lincoln appear and give a short speech.
Thats just for starters, the god should be willing upon request to do additional miracles to confirm
his/her's existence.
That's a pretty low bar though. If God exists, he'd have to do this in every generation, in every locality, and in the past.
What Christians believe is you can actually, upon request, have a conversation with him. This thread really isn't about that so let's stop at that.
Jon the Catholic: “he'd have to do this in every generation”
No he would not, this generation would be fine. He could take advantage of modern methods of communication to spread news of the miracles.
So he'd only have to do it once? What if I said he already did and still a lot of people chose not to believe.
Now your trying a straw man argument. I gave you an example and your moving the goal post. Your god appears and the limb replacement healing is recorded and witnessed by scientists. Abraham Lincoln is brought back to life to give a speech that is also recorded. Lincoln gives DNA evidence to prove he is Lincoln not just a look alike. After that evidence is supplied then credibility can be considered. Until that time your tap dancing by moving the goal post because you know such evidence will never be presented.
For a solid piece of evidence for God and His book, see thread entitled "proof for the Torah" - of which so far no atheists could answer.
PJB
What proof do you have that a god is real? Do you have testable evidence, that could pass peer review?
One proof would not be sufficient. You would, in fact, need several proofs, all of them meeting the standards of any repeatable, verifiable scientific experiment, to prove the existence of any god. And it would have to be possible to examine these proofs and determine that they are not possibly the result of any known scientific phenomenon that could occur independently of the influence of a god.
Say, for example, that you were trying to prove the existence of the Norse goddess Idunn. First you would need to produce the supposed goddess and demonstrate that she matches the descriptions of Idunn in available mythology. Then, most importantly, you would have to demonstrate that she grows magical golden apples that grant eternal youth and health. Testing these apples on mortals to demonstrate their properties would be necessary, and you would have to do a tightly-controlled double-blind study with Idunn's apples and placebo apples to confirm both the conferred immortality, and that other dietary or medicinal factors were not responsible for these results.
That's a relatively simple "divine proof," since Norse deities like Idunn are fairly low-key in comparison to monotheistic deities like YVWH (the Judeo-Christian god), which have a far greater scope of power and would need a correspondingly greater body of evidence to prove their existence.
Do you believe that before you'd believe in anything, that you'd need a scientific proof like the one you've discussed?
I don't know if it possible to prove there IS a God. However I think it is theoretical possible to prove that there ISN'T one.
What is God? Fundamentally it a knowledge-gap filler. The ancients didn't know how the sun rose in the sky, the create a sun God. Didn't know how the seasons changed, they invented a god for each season, as well the lore. Even Isaac Newton use the term "divine influence" when he couldn't explain something to do with gravity. I cannot remember exactly the problem was but it had something to do with the Gas giants maintaining in orbit around the sun.
My point is, when we can't explain something we rely on the notion of God for an explanation. So with that in mind, if answer every question ever so that there are no more questions to ask, then the notion of God would be obsolete.
I think agnostic prophet has hit it on the head. In the christian world, they first thought that everything revolved around the earth and that the earth was flat. They couldn't explain things so they attributed those mysteries to a god. Which literally proves that gods come from human imagination and nowhere else.
That doesn`t explain Jesus Christ, He wasn`t the figment of one`s imagination but a real person who was god in the flesh. Current scholarship both liberal and conservative can`t explain what happened to jesus body. They can`t discount that he rose bodily.Saul of Tarsus life was turned completely around by the life of jesus, So was the Lords half brother James and look at the doubting Thomas No Christianity is the way to and best explain a belief in a particular God.
The evidence that Jesus was a figment of mythology is greater than evidence he existed so again, he would need evidence first before you declare him as evidence.
Where is this evidence? Please give sources. Thanks!
Maybe we should start by examining what the contemporary sources tell us about Jesus. Oh wait, there aren't any!
Which evidence is better, that a man who has no trace of existing didn't exist or that a book which talks about a man is not based on any fact?
Mykcob4, some christians still we live on a flat, geocentric world, the sake type that believe the is only 6000 years old... dispite a mountain of evidence to the contrary.
Didn't scientists think this as well?
I'm sorry but it seems to me you're attributing scientific falsehoods to Christianity while not admitting that there was a time that these things were the universally accepted truths at the time even by scientists.
Well every legend has an element of truth to it, archaeology speaking, yes, I'm willing to admit that there was a man, called Jesus, there is evidence he was a twin. He was mostly a freedom fighter for persecuted peasant Jews.
And the Easter, him dying for 3 day and being risen from the dead was actually his twin brother that was seen.
But any of the so-called miracles that he perform, there are no eye witness accounts outside the Bible. I'd argue that as the early gospels were written 100 years, the after the death of Jesus, at the earliest, that there are no eye witness accounts in the Bible.
Where are you getting your sources on Jesus having a twin? And that the gospels were written 100 years after the death of Jesus? Coz I'd like to read that coz this sounds like some conspiracy theory cooked up very recently and definitely not based on historical facts. The best you could probably find is that Jesus had a half brother and not a twin. And that you could find gospel scrolls dating to 100 years after Christ but that doesn't mean they were written 100 years after
A link would suffice. Thanks.
It woulf not be hard for a god to give is proof if he wanted. All he had to do was show himself and say 'hi'.
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