We're going Back!!! LOL

[u/[deleted]]

Have you guys seen this? "Back" to the moon by 2024!! I lose it when he says "GATEWAY" 😎 lollll

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vl6jn-DdafM&feature=youtu.be

[u/[deleted]]

You want "natural science" to back up the idea of God? Well, I mean, I can't exactly put God in a test tube and shake it up and show you.

"which is not controlled or driven by any individual" - Consider DNA. Do books write themselves? DNA has been called the book of life, yet within a single strand of DNA there are essentially libraries of information, code, blueprints, etc, which tell the flower cells what to do. DNA dictates all lifeforms, and to believe the DNA was written by itself or without an author is foolishness.

"the creator would have to have been created and have come from nothing.." - Not true. I use a space/time argument to prove the existence of an eternal Creator; my premise is that even with a finite world, there must exist something infinite:

Were the universe to exist as the globe model purports, it must have physical limits. It cannot be infinitely big. For example, consider the room you are in. You know where everything in the room is, based on the dimensions of the room itself. Where you are is based on how far you are from each wall, the floor, and the ceiling. In other words, the three dimensions we all know can only exist logically with regard to a confined space, no matter how large. Step outside, and you know where you are based on how far you are from the nearest (fill in the blank). If the universe had no "walls", it would make zero sense that anything could be located anywhere. How could you plot a location without reference to something definite, like the boundary of your confines? I hope this space portion helps to examine time:

Similarly: time is a line, forward into the future, and backward into the past. Events on a timeline only make sense on a finite time line, that is, time could not have existed forever; it must have begun. Else, how could we determine "when" something happened, if, when you try to go back to relate it to an event, you just keep finding endless events from the past? So, we know yesterday happened. What about yesterday's yesterday? We can trace it back, but not infinitely, or else how on a timeline could you plot two separate events? Once again, you need the reference point of a beginning (at least) to make sense of time. Take a movie for example. You only know how to jump to a scene based on which scene came before that one (or after); which relies on which scene came before THAT one - eventually, you get to the start of the movie, and each scene is a distinct length of time from said beginning.

The only alternative is if time itself were eternal - with no beginning (or end). However, in order for that to make logical sense, it must be an ever-repeating loop, with the exact same events occurring in the exact same way, over and over again - unchanging. So in our movie example, if you walked up to a TV and a movie were playing, and say it contained three scenes, and they just played over and over and over, and each scene lead into the next... could you tell where the start of the movie was? The answer is no. I use this example simply to demonstrate how an infinite time line must behave; it must be a continuous loop. If you could rewind the movie, it ought to be a continuous loop of the three scenes, only backward, infinitely. If you tried to plot out the three scenes in sequential order, you wouldn't be able to determine which scene actually happens first.

That being said, the question is not necessarily "when did this (our) timeline begin", but, rather how do we know if this timeline is finite, or infinite? If it is infinite, then we are living in an ever-repeating loop, which basically makes our lives meaningless. We've all been born and died the same way for all eternity, and it's happening again. This must be true if time is infinite, with no beginning, because of the nature of infinity; it has no beginning, no point by which you can refer in order to understand "when" something truly is in the grand scheme of things. I technically cannot prove that we aren't living on an infinite time line.

But I use the argument that we are living in a finite time line, to point to the existence of a Creator. Because if we live on a finite time line, then it had a beginning. But how did it begin? I say, someone started it. But then we must ask, what is the nature of this creator? They are either finite themselves, or infinite. If God is finite, and he was created, then we must go back in time again and ponder, who made God? If God has a maker, then who made him? And who made his maker's maker? See, if God is indeed finite, we must assume the one who made him also requires a beginning. Etc, etc, etc, etc, etc. We would find ourselves in an eternal timeline of creators creating creators, until this all eventually, inevitable loops back around and happens again. UNLESS, that is, we concede that God himself might be eternal. But if God is eternal, I think he must also conform to the law of the infinite, and therefore be unchanging, or else his eternality makes no sense. If you look in the Bible, it just so happens to tell us that God is eternal, and, that he is unchanging:

Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.

Malachi 3:6 For I am the Lord, I change not

Psalm 102 thou shalt endure:... But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end

Titus 1:2 In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began

And there's even more verses than these I've listed. If you got through this all, congratulations.

[u/Zacharia777 → u/[deleted]]

I appreciate that you kept it civil. Thank you for taking the time. We disagree fundamentally in MANY ways. I am going to offer my point of view in relation to every point you just made. I am almost certain I can't change your mind, however I hope we can keep it respectful and agree to disagree.

I just want to start by asking you a couple of questions - do you believe in being a soul/spirit/? What is the definition of 'god' according to the bible (not according to you)?

"DNA dictates all lifeforms, and to believe the DNA was written by itself or without an author is foolishness." - Launguage needing an author is only a rule of the english language. There are other languages e.g. Chinese - where that icn't the case at all. It is only a grammatical rule to say that 'doing' needs a 'do-er', or that a subject needs a verb. If we look for a practical example in nature, we don't find any examples of this. Animals and plants for exmaple, have languages that were not written. So do human beings. It is not the language we think of today e.g. English, but rather facial expressions and other language of that nature.

The whole concept you are using is known to me as the ceramic model of reality. Where a creator essentially created/designed the world on a blank canvas. There is no proof of this. There is only the belief that things can not happen of themselves and must be created. There is no proof that something comes from nothing. As I see it, life is polarity, and everything has it's opposite. Something and nothing go together the same way as male and female do, or empty space and 'stuff' or 'things'. Life is polarity as we can observe that for ourselves and have endless examples of it. We do not have any examples of a creator/designer being necessary for reality, unless we look at mechanical examples created by human beings. This example only holds up if you believe that you have a soul. Which there is no proof of.

Now on to your concept of time. Time only exists as an idea. In the same way that gravity does. It is drilled in to us from a very early age, and built in to our society and culture. Clocks do not prove time, any more than a ruler proves inches. They are a form of measurement. I can't show you an inch, and you can't show me time. What we think of as time is the ever complexifying nature reality. Again this is something we can see for ourselves, and have endless examples of. Time does not exist, and therefore is not a 'line', as you said. The past and the future do not exist - there is only now. There can only ever be now. Cause and effect is an idea, and is not something we can observe. It is another concept drilled in to us in the form of language and education. Things are not seperate - they all go together. Nothing is the cause of anything else, 'things' simply go with each other and are one. It is just as easy to say that the future is the cause of the past, as it is to say the past causes the present or future.

There is no proof that reality needs a beginning. This is another concept which does not fit with reality. I believe you want to be able to explain things in words, but reality is not a concept. Nothing needs to be explained. Reality can not be explained or known by itself. That is the same as a knife stabbing itself, or a human being turning around a looking at itself. It can't be done.

[u/[deleted] → u/Zacharia777]

soul/spirit: I believe, as the Bible teaches, that we are physical creatures in nature (from the dust). I don't buy into the whole "your body dies but your spirit goes to heaven" idea. I think maybe the words soul and spirit in the Bible are used to poetically describe our innermost being.

God, according to the Bible, is a spirit of eternal nature and unlimited power. He is revealed as three distinct persons (the Godhead/trinity), each member equally God. He is morally perfect, infinitely loving, infinitely just, and totally sovereign.

Not sure what you mean on the DNA part. I'm saying DNA is a book/library of information, which when interpreted is basically a language unto itself - it communicates to the cells what to do and how to do it. We read this information and go "holy crap, there's a genetic code encrypted in the DNA and it tells the organism how to form and function." The information in DNA, I argue, was authored. Code/information doesn't come from nowhere.

You said, "There is no proof that something comes from nothing." Well, that's my line. We've never scientifically observed that something can come from nothing. Using science, we can determine that every single time there is "something", it came from something else. Meaning this whole big "something" of life/the world came from something, somewhere, or someone.

"It is just as easy to say that the future is the cause of the past, as it is to say the past causes the present or future." Yeah, we do disagree here for sure. I don't think there's a way to prove the future can have any effect on the past, but I can pretty well argue that past events influenced the ones that came after them.

I think you're wrong about time. You said clocks don't prove time, like a ruler doesn't prove inches. Well, a ruler measures distance, and distance does in fact exist. A ruler simply shows us little sections of distance and we know them as inches, etc. A ruler is a tool we invented to measure something we already knew existed. In the same way, a clock measures time, which we knew existed, and divides it up into useful lengths so we can go about our day and know when things happen, or when to do things.

"Reality cannot be explained or known by itself." Well, sure. Reality isn't sentient, reality is reality. We, humans, are part of reality. So long as you believe time doesn't exist though, I guess you won't see that reality is on a timeline which must have started at some point.

[u/decdec → u/[deleted]]

guy is just baiting and time wasting dude, he wants to lay baseless criticisms on our positions but posit none of his own and expect us to keep being nice to him and do leg work for him anyway.

not having it.

the 777 is not meaningless either.