Original Sin?

Quote: Evenbob

Of course it's the reason! They're insecure,
they're not really sure. That's why they're
so overjoyed when they convert somebody,
it must really be true, I talked another person
into it. There's no evidence for any god,
there's no evidence Jesus rose from the dead.
And in the back of their minds every Christian
knows they're running on pure high octane
faith, and relying on the faith of others. And
if that's all you have, the air can get
pretty rarefied sometimes, breathing can
get tough at those heights. You need all
the help you can get to keep that faith.

Again I think you need to think some more about this. You are a Trump supporter and I have seen how you clam up in some of the threads when people make good points criticizing him. If you have doubts I think the natural response is to disengage head to the Drudge Report and be reaffirmed by like minded people. If you really thought you were right you would keep responding and never quit. If you really liked him that much you would never stop defending him. I know there is a God and He established a Church to guide us and more than anything I love Jesus. I will never stop defending Him and sharing my love for Him and the truth of His teachings.

Quote: FrGamble

Therefore I have tried to use premises that are unmistakenly true such as; "something cannot come from nothing" "the universe began to exist" "there cannot be an actual infintie regress" "everything that begins to exist has a cause" "a contingent thing cannot have the cause for its existence in itself" etc. etc. I don't think these premises are in doubt nor is there any chance that some other discovery will counter them as they fall outside of the purview of the observable sciences.

Every single premise in your last paragraph is in doubt and has not been demonstrated to be true.

Every single one you take on faith.

Logic and reason have led you to those conclusions, but there isn't actually any evidence to support them.

In the case of rock-as-universe, there is no way to know who, or what, set it in motion, if anything, and as Face pointed out no way to know if it was a being, if it was a conscious being.

From that unknown cause, there is no logical step or evidence to establish that this unknown force is one and the same with the god that you call the father of Jesus.

So like I have said I don't know how many times before,
you can not know that you are right.
You can not prove that you are right.
You can not prove that any of the other religions are wrong.
You can not prove that any of the scientific theories (the ones which have not yet been disproven) wrong.

You can substitute prove with "demonstrate evidence". Saving on typing. I am not talking about absolute proof, just actual evidence (more than just "logic and reason")

Quote: Dalex64

Every single premise in your last paragraph is in doubt and has not been demonstrated to be true.

I disagree. Are you saying that something can come from nothing?

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Logic and reason have led you to those conclusions, but there isn't actually any evidence to support them.

Actually I think there is evidence all around us that something cannot come from nothing, etc. Just to see how far apart we are on this issue Can you tell me if you agree that A cannot equal not-A and that such a premise will never be proven false?

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In the case of rock-as-universe, there is no way to know who, or what, set it in motion, if anything, and as Face pointed out no way to know if it was a being, if it was a conscious being.

From that unknown cause, there is no logical step or evidence to establish that this unknown force is one and the same with the god that you call the father of Jesus.

I think I have already said this. I agree.

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So like I have said I don't know how many times before,
you can not know that you are right.
You can not prove that you are right.
You can not prove that any of the other religions are wrong.
You can not prove that any of the scientific theories (the ones which have not yet been disproven) wrong.

You can substitute prove with "demonstrate evidence". Saving on typing. I am not talking about absolute proof, just actual evidence (more than just "logic and reason")

You say prove here like we need the certainty of a mathematical proof of a smoking gun. It is not just demonstrable evidence but a gathering weight of evidence that leads to conclusions of faith and belief. This does not make it weaker than mathematical proofs, but we simply live by faith as humans. It is a gift to be able to reason from probability and converging evidence to make conclusions based not on proof but reasonable faith. We are not robots and we cannot live any other way.

Quote: FrGamble

You are a Trump supporter and I have seen how you clam up in some of the threads when people make good points criticizing him.

I can't clam up if I never read them.
I don't read those threads anymore,
it's a waste of time. I might post
there, but I never read the responses.
Ask AZ, he's knows this is true because
I've told him in PM's.

Quote:

I will never stop defending Him and sharing my love for Him and the truth of His teachings.

What does this have to do with Christians
running on faith alone and not on facts.
That they don't really believe deep down
that any of it is true, and they constantly
look for validation from other Christians
to bolster their hearsay based faith. This
is why martyrs are so admired, they actually
died for their belief. Most Christians know
they never would because their faith based
on hearsay is weak. As well it should be.

I have to go to the airplane analogy again.
We don't only fly because of the faith
of the pilots and other passengers, we
know the math and science behind
flying is ironclad. The thing has to fly.
And it does. Our faith is backed by rock
hard science.

Quote: FrGamble

It is a gift to be able to reason from probability and converging evidence .

But you have no real evidence, quit
thinking you do. If you did, nobody
on earth would be having this
conversation. You have talked yourself
into believing you have evidence. You
have nothing but speculation. You
have faith, not evidence.

Quote: FrGamble

Actually I think there is evidence all around us that something cannot come from nothing, etc.

Yup, you have literally millions of evidence of things coming before that are ordinary processes and material and not a supernatural cause.

That's millions of argument against supernatural causes.

Quote: FrGamble

I disagree. Are you saying that something can come from nothing?

Can: yes. Did: don't know.

You don't disagree that the rest of your statements in that paragraph are not settled and undisputed?

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Actually I think there is evidence all around us that something cannot come from nothing, etc. Just to see how far apart we are on this issue Can you tell me if you agree that A cannot equal not-A and that such a premise will never be proven false?

No, there is evidence that some things came from something else. That is not evidence that everything came from something else. This is the 'some therefore all' fallacy.

As for a and not a, most of the time on this I believe I disagree on your premise on what a and not a are, and if it forms a logical conjecture that allows you to draw the conclusion from it that you do.

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I think I have already said this. I agree.

Then you need to stop telling us that you know the answer, and you know you are right, and you know who is wrong

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You say prove here like we need the certainty of a mathematical proof of a smoking gun. It is not just demonstrable evidence but a gathering weight of evidence that leads to conclusions of faith and belief. This does not make it weaker than mathematical proofs, but we simply live by faith as humans. It is a gift to be able to reason from probability and converging evidence to make conclusions based not on proof but reasonable faith. We are not robots and we cannot live any other way.

I told you I did not mean absolute certainty when I used the word proof, you are again doing something that face pointed out, and that is twisting the meaning of the words to mean what YOU want them to mean, and are then pointing out how under that interpretation the argument is wrong. I think this is a variation of a straw man.

As to your actual point, the "evidence" you point to all the time supports multiple conclusions, and until you can eliminate the other conclusions as possibilities, the evidence is "inconclusive"

Faith is not related to a mathematical proof, or a scientific proof. You also put on the same level things that we strongly believe are true, things we believe might be true, and things that people believe are true purely on faith.

I dispute that you can put on the same level things which are believed based only on logic and reason, such as geocentrism, and based on logic, reason, and a whole lot of math, such as m-theory.

The bigger problem is the conclusions you have provided have missing links in the chains of evidence, the actual evidence that demonstrates that the conclusion is correct, rather than just possible among a sea of other possibilities.

There is much evidence that m-theory could be correct, but no evidence that strings themselves, the basis of the theory, exists.

Quote: FrGamble

Oh I thought you meant giants currently living among us.

So you're saying giants existed in the past? What's your evidence for that claim?

Quote: Nareed

So you're saying giants existed in the past? What's your evidence for that claim?

I'm saying neither existed but I acknowledge that proving something existed in the past is difficult.

First of all thanks. I don't know if I just wasn't paying attention, distracted, or if there was some miscommunication but these last posts you have laid out are really good and explain your illogical claims much better. Sorry for the inconvenience of posting again and your frustration for what you thought was my ignoring them.

Quote: Dalex64

You don't disagree that the rest of your statements in that paragraph are not settled and undisputed?

I think that all of those statements are settled and undisputed. I just thought we could agree on one of the most intuitive and self evident ones.

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No, there is evidence that some things came from something else. That is not evidence that everything came from something else. This is the 'some therefore all' fallacy.

So are you saying that there is evidence of some things that came from nothing? I contend that all contingent material things came from something else or have their reason for existing not in themselves. Again I am puzzled that you disagree with this. I'm not saying 'some therefore all'. I am saying all therefore all. One of the defining characteristics of material things are they are not necessary and therefore dependent on something else for their existence.

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As for a and not a, most of the time on this I believe I disagree on your premise on what a and not a are, and if it forms a logical conjecture that allows you to draw the conclusion from it that you do.

It matters not a bit what A might mean. I just want to make sure that you and I are at least in agreement that A cannot equal non-A. A could be hot dogs or an integer. The point is that this is a logical truth that is undisputable and settled.

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Then you need to stop telling us that you know the answer, and you know you are right, and you know who is wrong

Are you saying that we should stop making truth claims? I've never asked you or anyone else to do that. I just want people to realize if their thinking is not sound or logical. It sounds like the same thing you want me to realize. I want people to show their work so to speak and why they believe something is right and another person is wrong. Then we can look at what logically doesn't follow and what is not supported by evidence.

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I told you I did not mean absolute certainty when I used the word proof, you are again doing something that face pointed out, and that is twisting the meaning of the words to mean what YOU want them to mean, and are then pointing out how under that interpretation the argument is wrong. I think this is a variation of a straw man.

You are right here, I see that, sorry.

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As to your actual point, the "evidence" you point to all the time supports multiple conclusions, and until you can eliminate the other conclusions as possibilities, the evidence is "inconclusive"

Yes it supports multiple conclusions, but it allow us to eliminate atheism. If we define atheism as the denial of a higher being or supernatural force as the cause of all that exists.

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Faith is not related to a mathematical proof, or a scientific proof. You also put on the same level things that we strongly believe are true, things we believe might be true, and things that people believe are true purely on faith.

Actually I place things we believe to be true by a reasonable faith, one based on logic, philosophy, evidence, study, etc., at a higher level. This is because it is practical and necessary for us as human beings to live. It is not just religion that depends on faith and trust, it is everyone and everything that we do.

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The bigger problem is the conclusions you have provided have missing links in the chains of evidence, the actual evidence that demonstrates that the conclusion is correct, rather than just possible among a sea of other possibilities.

What you consider missing links seems to me to be hypothetical impossibilities. In my discussion with Nareed we were talking about not believing in giants. Nareed brought up that we have not excavated the entire world and they could have existed in the past. Granted but do we really need to do that in order to be certain that giants did not exist? There are multiple possibilities like Face once pointed out, maybe we are all on a subatomic particle floating in some aliens coffee. Do we really need to rule that out ignoring the actual evidence and observations we have before we can move on? I don't think so. Where does the evidence point and gather and have faith that we are not part of a cosmic series of farts.