Science and God

Quote: Evenbob

But you say that to everybody who
doesn't agree with you, remember?

Not at all I have said many times that I am wrong, something I have yet to see you do.

Quote:

We're always 100% wrong and you're
100% right on every subject,

You are not 100% wrong on every topic, even on religion you sometimes say things that are true or quasi-true. About Catholicism you have been mostly wrong, but that is because of your sources and ignorance.

Quote: FrGamble

Do you know of any material thing that has no beginning or no end?

The universe?

Quote:

Everything you have ever seen and touched had a beginning and will have an end.

That's not entirely true. Information seems to have a hard time in the universe, but matter/energy does quite well.

Suppose we take a painting, say Dali's Melted Clocks (whatever it's called), and burn it in an enclosed oven at 2,500 degrees for a suitable time. At the end the canvas, paint, nails and frame will have been reduced to ash and gasses. Has the painting been ended? Certainly. Has the matter making up the painting been ended? Certainly not. It's all there inside the oven.

I'll go further and claim no matter has ever been ended. When you annihilate it with anti-matter, for example, it remains as energy in various forms.

If you review the scenarios for the "end" of the universe, what ends is first habitability and then the transfer of energy. But the energy remains. Be it the Big Crunch, Big Rip, Little Rip, heat-death, etc. The universe doesn't end, so much as it becomes useless, cold and empty (or dense, hot and crowded, but still uninhabitable). Either way, the energy is still there.

You're fond of asking how something can arise from nothing. let me flip the question: how can nothing come from something?

Quote: FrGamble

Everything you have ever seen and touched had a beginning and will have an end.
.

Using Nareed's example, when you burn
a painting, it's no longer a painting, it's
become something else. It didn't end, it
was changed. And will be changed many
times in the future. You think you see a
creation, so you invent a creator. What
you're really seeing is something that was
once something else and is now our
universe. For now. No creator, no 'something
out of nothing', just ongoing unstoppable
evolution.

Quote: Nareed

You're fond of asking how something can arise from nothing. let me flip the question: how can nothing come from something?

What a great question. I would agree that once something is made or created it exists for ever or at least until God who alone can create or destroy does something. However, destruction doesn't seem like it is part of the plan. Our souls no matter if we do evil or good are not obliterated into nothingness at death but our souls are truly immortal.

Again I really think it is a good example of the painting that is destroyed, but not really destroyed, because it still exists as ash and energy expelled into the world. However, it doesn't really bear on the still pressing question as to where did the materials from this painting first come from? Contingency does not make a statement about if something will continue for ever, but it simply states that something does not have the reason for its existence in itself, it is not a necessary being. This eternal matter or energy you posit being material did not create itself and therefore needs a creator.

Quote: Evenbob

You think you see a
creation, so you invent a creator.

I know I see something that did not create itself and therefore needs a cause. I'm not inventing anything. It seems as if it is you who are inventing eternal material, which besides being illogical, has no proof or evidence to support it. You are going just on your limited experience and feeling and I suggest that there needs to be something more to posit such a ridiculous claim.

Quote: FrGamble

I know I see something that did not create itself

Actually, you don't know what you're
seeing so you make assumptions. That's
what all god religions do, they make
broad assumptions (guesses) and fill in
the blanks with theories disguised as
facts. You think you see a creation so
it's off to the races looking for a god
who was behind it. Of course you found
one, he's on the other side of the circle
you're running in.

Quote: FrGamble

This eternal matter or energy you posit being material did not create itself and therefore needs a creator.

Didn't have to be created, it's always
been here. You can't wrap your mind
around this because it would mean
your religion is pointless. In all god
religions, god is the creator of everything,
he's in charge. If the universe has been
here forever god vanishes in an instant,
there's no need for him and his man
made rules.

Quote: Evenbob

Actually, you don't know what you're
seeing so you make assumptions.

So my assumption is that material things did not create themselves and do not have the reason for their being in themselves. Your assumption is that material things have always been here and they do not have a cause or reason for their existence at all. If I am filling in the blanks you seem to be creating large holes in logic and reason.

Quote: Evenbob

Didn't have to be created, it's always
been here. You can't wrap your mind
around this because it would mean
your religion is pointless.

I can't wrap my mind around it because it doesn't make sense and it has no evidence to support it. However, I have told you before that many of our greatest theologians assumed like you do, based on their limited scientific knowledge, that the universe has always been around. You can even do a fundamentalist reading of Genesis and think this way. It doesn't mean that God is not needed or that religion is pointless. You still have to explain how this mass of eternal matter began to evolve, change, or move. You still need a first cause or an unmoved mover.

Quote: FrGamble

they do not have a cause or reason for their existence .

Everything is the result of random chance,
there is no cause or reason behind anything
on the basic level. This is what the evolution
of random chance over eternity looks like.
Eternity isn't a place, it's not a destination,
it's the here and now, we're in it. And always
will be.