TSR

I don't believe it was ever invented at all, but always was, inherent in God. Don't be getting all philisophical about that right now because I am going to bed in a minute and its just like trying to understand how there was nothing, and then it exploded. And the second thing I am not sure exactly what you are talking about, in cartesian space this is true? What is?

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"Give me control of the textbooks, and I will control the States." -Hitler

romansh

in cartesian space 2+2 = 4

I too have a hard time understanding the universe being created from a singularity. The singularity was not nothing. For that singularity contained the matter of the universe.

I have a even harder time understanding how a god (espcially a Christian or any other theistic god) had anything to do with this?

Now just because I don't understand, does not mean I accept or dismiss either of these two hypotheses, (I do dismiss the theistic god one, though I know there is no proof. But there is no proof for science, just understanding).

good night....

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There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. ........... Douglas Adams

skeptic griggsy

To aver that God did so is to make the god of the gaps argument; science, not theology, as Clifton Richard Dawkins so notes, will let us know of the transformations in Existence, all there is, perhaps a multi-verse. The law of the conservation of matter-energy attests to eternal Existence. Scientists have to discover which bounce or bud or other theory explains this Universe.
As David Mills notes in "Atheist Universe:" Scientists have now discovered that even in a perfect vacuum, in which all traditionally-understood forms of matter and energy are absent [ so-called nothing,sg.],random electromagnetic oscillations are present. These oscillations represent a form of energy now called vacuum fluctuation energy, which can be converted into matter in complete harmony with the mass-energy conservation laws,. In other words,, the " nothingness" of a perfect vacuum in empty space can and does produce matter in accordance with Einstein's long-established laws.
...There never was a time when the mass-energy comprising our universe did not exist, if only in the form of an empty oscillating vacuum."
And as cosmological arguments beg the question at issue and the ignostic-Ockahm shows God as vacuous and useless and the presumption of naturalism shows from all that, that natural causes are the sufficient reason. .
Quentin Smith tries to show that there is a circle of causes that, in effect, show Existence creating itself!
Ergo, no god need apply for work!

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:: Fr.Griggs rests in his Socratic ignorance and humble naturalism. He might be wrong. And his cortical defects might harm his thinking and posting. Logic is the bane of theists.

Derbonic

Morality is simply having respect for the individual. The bible calls it "do unto others... " other religions have other ways of saying it. Its something we all have built in. Its a quality that lets us animals that survive by working together thrive. If you examine any of the sets of the 10 comandments you will find that the self evident rule of Respect for the individual covers all of them. Well.. exept for the one that states " Love God... "

Things like Religion only serve to cloud and obscure the simple nature of that Golden Rule that makes living in a society , be it a school of fish , a pack of wolves, or a neighborhood of humans, not only possible but adventagious.

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You can do it your own way, long as its done just how I say.~the hypocrit

Absolute

Within logic there is no such thing like “relative truth”. The belief in the absence of absolute truth is a logical impossibility because of this: Assume for a moment that there is no absolute truth. If there is no absolute truth, the statement itself (“There is no absolute truth”) is not absolute true, too. So it may be false. But in this case, its opposite is true: “There is absolute truth”. Hence we have inferred something with its opposite at the same time. The law of noncontradiction forces us to conclude that the original statement is self-contradictory and therefore false. So only its opposite can be true: There is absolute truth. A question for doubters: Is your existence an absolute truth?

This problem stands for an important characteristic of relativism: you end up very often with self-contradicting statements, which cannot logically be true. Consider e.g. a statement I once heard from a liberal activist: “Since there are no absolute moral values, you ought to tolerate the relative moral values of other cultures”. What sounds so nice is a logical flaw: The first part of the sentence presumes that no absolute moral values exist. In the second part, you “ought” to do something, namely tolerate other moral values. But this is already a moral value itself! If the request “You ought to tolerate” is not an absolute moral value (according to the premise of the sentence), it must be a relative one. But then its opposite must be tolerated too! Imagine a culture which does not tolerate the moral values of other cultures (such a culture can easily be found). According to the second part of the sentence you ought to tolerate this intolerance, which is a direct contradiction to the statement. And if “ought to” is not a moral absolute, why should I “ought”? So the self-contradiction here is the demand to tolerate, which is an implicit presumed absolute and at the same time the statement says that there are no moral absolutes.

To avoid such self-contradictions, you only can assume that there are absolute moral values! This is the only logically consistent way. Otherwise you never could use words like “it is better if…” or “you should…” etc. accurately, because if moral values are relative then these words can only express personal opinions and can not be imposed on other people. An atheist recently said to me that there could be no “good” God because of all the evil in the world. But since my atheistic friend does not believe in moral absolutes, why is something really evil at all? It may be my friend’s opinion that certain things he thinks are evil, but without an absolute reference point, why should God consider these things as evil, too? Why impose my own standards on God? Again, the admittance of the existence of evil in the world implies that there is an absolute measure for it. Some object that a statement like “You are beautiful” is only relatively true since this is a matter of opinion. But this is not so, because if two people would agree what the meaning of the word “beautiful” is, e.g. with the help of a long list which defines this word, they surely would also agree about what is beautiful. So this “relativism” is only lack of agreement concerning semantics. They simply don’t mean the same thing when talking about “beautiful” things. Last but not least, there are logical inconsistencies with moral relativism like these: Moral relativists proclaim that they are inclusive and non-partisan. This of course is also a selfcontradictory statement because they exclude the party of moral objectivists.

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Isaiah 55:9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

greywolf90

so because you think absolute truth exists, you can automatically assume that morals are absolute? morals do not exist outside of our minds. they are oppinions, and oppinions do not equal absolute truth. as for your argument that "there is no absolute truth" being an absolute statement and therefore, self contradicting; this is failed logic. the statement itself is an oppinion, and does not exist as an absolute truth. i could say that "there is no god" and this would be an absolute statement, but this does not make it an absolute truth. so "there is no absolute truth" is not absolute and does not contradict itself because it is not truth. truth is relative because we do not know anything outside of our own experience. everything we think we know, but have not experienced, is only our belief. it is the combination of our knowledge and our beliefs which difine our personal truths.

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"for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."- Hamlet

greywolf90

to be clearer, i am not arguing that absolute truth does not exist, i was refering to personal truth. theists say there is a god, atheists say there is not a god. both are absolute statements and both are true for the people who say them, but of course they cannot both be right. the agnostic says they don't know. this is true and not contradicting. there are absolute truths, but we do not know what these truths are (i.e. my knowledge vs. beliefs argument).

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"for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."- Hamlet

Lanya

I assume a 'true' doubter (the kind you seem to be talking about, anyway) would have no answer.

That is, (s)he wouldn't respond with "No, it's not an absolute truth," "I don't know," or "I don't know whether I know." (S)he just wouldn't have a response. Not one (s)he'd commit to, anyway.

But that's just my take on the subject.

By the way, have you ever read Sextus Empiricus's "Outlines of Pyrrhonism?" It provides a lot of pro-skepticism arguments you might be interested in wrestling with.

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Please take each statement of mine as an assumption only. I don't mean to state anything as a truth.

GX

Morality is subjective and ever changing. You cannot however say that God is unchanging and his standards are unchanging. How do you know what they are and if he has any? Because the bible tells you so? Give me a break! That is merely your opinion (and a flawed one at that) based on some words you've read. Dont try to pass that crap off as the authoritative truth. IMHO God is Love and not bound by "morality"--a human construct which is nothing more than subjective ideas about how things are and how things should be based on what you believe about God and about life. Nothing more, nothing less.

Morals tend to spiral downward with each generation, huh? So I guess slavery, burning witches at the stake, sending women into the wilderness and to their death with a scarlet letter for sexual immorality, genocide of the american indian population because of their religion, the spanish inquisition etc. were examples of "high morals" of the good ole days, eh?

Absolute

Placing morality into the category of that which is not absolute because of the fact that some people may have different "morals" isn't logical either. Lets take math, which is absolute, or at least an example of it, such as the famous 2+2. Imagine I had grown up in a place where I was taught 2+2=5 all of my life, would this negate the fact that 2+2=4? Of course not. Where you grow up can have an impact on how you are, but to say that it effects the absolution of something doesn't make any sense. I could grow up being taught a lie (i.e 2+2=5), believing the lie, or grow up being taught the truth (i.e 2+2=4), believing the truth, and it wouldn't effect what is a lie or what is the truth on the basis that I was grown up being taught it. Any such philosephy otherwise would be as easily applied by an ignorant person to the fact that 2+2=4. I could simply say that 2+2=5 to me personally, and that I don't have any concern for what math (the authoirty in this case) says about it. Which may be personally gratifying, but has no truth to it. I could however, simply change the properties (the "idea") of 2 and then say that it is simply a misunderstanding of your personal belief about the number 2 that causes you to come to the conclusion that 2+2=4, but that would just be the typical way of thinking yourself into stupidity, taking away the absolution of something by changing the formula for which the correct answer is received, making it impossible to receive any correct answer, and therefore negating the correct altogether. It is as the Proverbs says, "A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions." (Proverbs 18:2)

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Isaiah 55:9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."