devildog

Gen 21:33, Deu 33:27, Isa 26:4, Jer 10:10, Hab 3:6, etc all refer to God being eternal Great. You have succesfully torpedoed the argument that there must be a creator and it must be god. Not really. I merely said there might be things outside of time beyond God. That says nothing to something that is created needs a Creator. Because other people insist on justifying belief in god by saying that everything must have a beginning. You're missing an important part. It's not that everything must have a beginning. It's anything with a beginning must have a cause. The universe has a beginning, therefore must have a cause. You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

From what I've read, the bill does not change the EMTALA at all and allows federal funds for an abortion to save the mother's life. Sounds like hysterics as usual. You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

Hold the horses. You (the generic you) want to argue that the God of the OT/NT doesn't exist. Fine. To attack that belief, one argument used is, "Well, who created your God?" So, to properly answer, we look to see what the God of the OT/NT is in terms characteristics. And one of those characteristics is, God is eternal. It's not like the OT/NT is silent on this, and us pesky, dumb Christians said, "Oh no, we're in a pinch. Quick! Make God eternal!" This has been a standard belief throughout all of the texts. No one just made up the eternal trait on the spot to solve some "Who created God?" question. I have no idea what else exists or does not exist outside of time. I know this Universe is bound by it though. Correct. I say no, because my beliefs on what God is like is that God is eternal. No beginning or end. Still not sure why people insist on saying believing in god(s) necessitates believing that god(s) must have a beginning. You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

, I'm not sure how it's defining the problem away. If anything, it's defining what the supposed problem is about. You can't begin to solve a problem unless you know the characteristics of the items in said problem. This doesn't follow. At least, not w/o further explanation. Not sure how you got here. It was a general observation The more correct argument is "everything that is caused must have a causer / everything with a beginning must have a beginner, etc" Which then goes back to, if the claim is, "Since the Universe had a beginning, and God thus began it" we evaluate, "Does God have a beginning?" If yes, see recursion scenarios. If no, stop. You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

Because you're only following it as far as you want to go, and ignoring what comes next. You've decided that the origin of the universe is mysterious enough to demand the existence of a god, and claim that as the basis for a life changing decision, but you don't care when faced with the same question about the origin of that god. All you do by proposing a god is move the perceived problem one step back and make it worse. Depends on the god you believe in. If your god requires a beginning, or has a beginning myth (see Greek Mythology) then yes. If your god is outside of time, then no. Its funny that a lot of atheists slam theists for saying, "God is eternal and doesn't have a beginning" but will turn right around and say, "The universe is eternal and doesn't have a beginning." You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

How do you know? Have you personally seen every amptuee out there in all of history? Of course not. And if we are directly looking at Christianity, if a person coming back from the dead doesn't convince you, healing a missing arm certainly wouldn't. And seriously, would any of you really, REALLY convert if all of a sudden in the next My Fav Medical Journal there was a documented case of an amputee's arm regenerating? I doubt it. I bet people would scramble for a natural explanation faster than a bunch of fatties in a weight watchers convention noticing a stray eclair. But that's just a bit of fun to really run down. The real funny thing about this line of attack is that the critics are guilty of doing exactly what they attack believers for doing quite often: that is, they anthropomorphize God(s). No matter how you cut it, the argument eventually breaks down to, "If I were God, I would do this. Since this didn't happen, God doesn't exist". It's a pretty weak argument, especially when the God in question would have a focus no where near our own, have knowledge far greater than our own, and operates in a time frame outside of anything we could imagine. You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

Really? Wow. I had to do PLFs over and over and over and over and over before my first jump (AFF) and if I hadn't, I'd probably have broken a few bones as I flared waaaaay to early and came crashing down on pavement. PLF saved my ass and all I got was a little bruise on my leg and little cut to the elbow. You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

None of that points to the Universe springing from absolutely nothing. That's all internal. You're confusing what point I'm making. You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

Not according to previous posts and the links provided. The universe came forth because certain laws demanded it, more or less. That is something coming from something (the universe coming from laws). Look what you just wrote. "it's all an inevitable consequence of physics and chemistry" THAT is something. I'm not even arguing anything supernatural in those 13,750,000,000 years from the BB to present. I'm saying that science, "In the beginning" has never once been able to show that all of this, from the very moment the Universe came to be, came from literally nothing. No other universes. No outside energy fields. No pre-existing laws. Nothing, nothing. The moment you start invoking physics (or anything else) you've got "something". For a group of people that seem to like to ask questions and find origins of things, it's strange that the most obvious questions, "Where did these laws come from?" and "Why are they even in existence?" are so shunned. You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

Actually, we have. Further, it's not all that hard to understand the basics of it. Just because you seem to have not made the effort to do so doesn't mean its not out there. Here are some of the basics to get you started; http://curiosity.discovery.com/topic/space-exploration/did-god-create-universe-episode.htm Yeah, like I said before, it's still all speculation. "What ifs, Maybes, Might, Couldas" What we have in essence, even if we allow the "it might be possible for the universe to spring into existence" is not from nothing, but from the very laws of the Universe. That's hardly coming from nothing at all. Why should those laws even exist outside where we are at? We could run that train of thought all over the place, and even the vids you linked to state we haven't the slightest clue on explaining said laws or their existence. If everything you believe is bullshit layered upon bullshit, I can see how you might assume that everyone else is subject to similar limitations. That is, however, not the case. The argument that an in invisible friend MUST exist to account for the existence of everything, since it is impossible for anything to exist without explanation - except for an invisible friend - is not just invalid, it is insane. BSBD, Winsor When you're argument is reduced to "everything you believe is bullshit layered upon bullshit" it speaks more to the strength of your beliefs than mine. You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

If we can't observe/measure god, nor his influence in this world, it pretty much makes god irrelevant to us humans. Plenty of religions and beliefs out there claim otherwise. It's all how you see the world. Part of the problem in designing any sort of experiment that would say, show God(s) at work in your life (say, something like, I feel blessed by God. Or, God helps me through difficult times, If I keep God's laws, I will live longer and happier, etc), is that we have nothing to compare it to. How do you know what is going on right now is either a no-God universe or a has-God universe? You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

Actually, we have. Further, it's not all that hard to understand the basics of it. Just because you seem to have not made the effort to do so doesn't mean its not out there. Here are some of the basics to get you started; http://curiosity.discovery.com/topic/space-exploration/did-god-create-universe-episode.htm Yeah, like I said before, it's still all speculation. "What ifs, Maybes, Might, Couldas" What we have in essence, even if we allow the "it might be possible for the universe to spring into existence" is not from nothing, but from the very laws of the Universe. That's hardly coming from nothing at all. Why should those laws even exist outside where we are at? We could run that train of thought all over the place, and even the vids you linked to state we haven't the slightest clue on explaining said laws or their existence. You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

None of these are the creation of the entire universe, nor do any prove the non existence of God -- or rather the non-necessity of God. Maybe I should have been more clear in my original point. I'm not saying that God is a necessary component to bring about life inside the Universe, as in, God created the Universe and then had to do some fine tuning inside to get life. I'm going much further back than the origin of life, or planets, or galaxies. I'm going to the very beginning and saying we have not come anywhere close to saying, let alone understanding, what exactly caused the beginning of the Universe itself (Big Bang and friends), what it looked like to any certainty, etc. The only way God is truly knocked out of the picture is to show the entire Universe coming from nothing, which we haven't done, and honestly, can't even test for (which gets back to the idea that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence because no test can be concocted to give an answer either way). You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

Lemmings is one of the best games ever created. You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

I'll extend the same courtesy to you. Feel free to cite the source(s). I'd love to read about us witnessing the creation of an entire universe :) I always see these amazing claims, but hardly a definitive source. And when sources are given, they end up reading with lines like, "It's possible that..." or "Maybe if..." or "We could then imagine that..." You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

Science hasn't done any such thing. We haven't even begun to really understand how the universe works, let alone what really took place in the beginning, let alone what did or did not cause the Universe to come into being. What's out there in literature right now is nothing more than vague speculation and guesswork. If you read comic books, sure, it would seem so. However, the level of correlation at the cutting edge of research is nothing short of remarkable. Almost none of these data show up in pictorial form. You want vague? Scare up some heavily redacted archaic accounts and you're all set. BSBD, Winsor Feel free to cite your specific cutting edge research then. You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

Science hasn't done any such thing. We haven't even begun to really understand how the universe works, let alone what really took place in the beginning, let alone what did or did not cause the Universe to come into being. What's out there in literature right now is nothing more than vague speculation and guesswork. You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

why did they care if you asked for a pincheck? You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

You can't fix stupid, but you can certainly demand it You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

To be fair, that's just the modern bastardization of faith's definition. As far as OT/NT is concerned, faith is synonymous with trust, no blind belief. And that trust was built on, "Look with your eyes at the what's been done before, what you know is true, etc. and *trust* that I (God) will deliver". God throughout both the OT/NT narrative has been pretty consistent about offering evidence that He is trustworthy, and is pretty big on "Don't follow / believe something blindly." The whole point of miracles and prophecy was to identify true prophets from false ones. After all, if the standard was "No proof, you just have to believe" you could say anything you wanted. You might not agree with the ultimate conclusion / belief system that God exists in any form, but as for the OT/NT narrative, it's pretty clear that faith is not the blind, irrational belief people like to label it today. You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

The biggest problem, IMHO, with the "I want 100% proof of God/no God" is that such a thing is not possible whatsoever. If God exists outside this Universe, of our space/time, how on earth would you ever test for it one way or another? In the case of testing for God, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence because there is no test to gain any sort of results -- no possible way to observe anything that might or might not exist beyond our own universe. Thus, we're left with inferring from data we can see and observe (physics, biology, history, etc) on whether or not we believe such observations are the results of something (God) acting from the outside. Either way, being a theist or atheist, is never a 100% certainty. You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

People in Florida still live with dinosaurs. It's really not that big of a deal :) You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

First google hit of "number of crimes prevented with guns": In 1997, he said there were about 440,000 violent crimes and 9,000 murders committed with guns. By contrast, there were over 2 million violent crimes prevented through the use of guns. The media, Lott said, focus on the former category because it produces an actual victim or a dead body. The latter usually produces no rapist or murderer or actual crime. http://www.aim.org/media-monitor/anti-gun-propaganda/ second: According to the National Self Defense Survey conducted by Florida State University criminologists in 1994, the rate of Defensive Gun Uses can be projected nationwide to approximately 2.5 million per year -- one Defensive Gun Use every 13 seconds. Among 15.7% of gun defenders interviewed nationwide during The National Self Defense Survey, the defender believed that someone "almost certainly" would have died had the gun not been used for protection -- a life saved by a privately held gun about once every 1.3 minutes. (In another 14.2% cases, the defender believed someone "probably" would have died if the gun hadn't been used in defense.)...Source: "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun," by Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, in The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, Northwestern University School of Law, Volume 86, Number 1, Fall, 1995 http://www.pulpless.com/gunclock/noframedex.html third: Lott: Criminals are deterred by higher penalties. Just as higher arrest and conviction rates deter crime, so does the risk that someone committing a crime will confront someone able to defend him or herself. There is a strong negative relationship between the number of law-abiding citizens with permits and the crime rate—as more people obtain permits there is a greater decline in violent crime rates. For each additional year that a concealed handgun law is in effect the murder rate declines by 3 percent, rape by 2 percent, and robberies by over 2 percent. http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/493636.html --------------- Seems pretty effective to me You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

Totally 100% avoidable death right there. You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

qft You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.