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Athiests.. How do you explain the beginning of time?

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neckarb said:
Define "actual existence" the idea of God being "real" presupposes a definition of real, for me philosophical arguments can prove that something is real, and so are valid scientifically.



Agreed.



I'm not arguing about what the definition of God isn't I'm simply saying that with the current commonly accepted definition God doesn't exist, and unless that definition gets redifined, which is possible it's going to stay that way.
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At this point you're completely bypassing what we were talking about. This is simply explained by understanding the difference between scientific theory and philosophical theory. You're using the latter.
 
darkswordsman17 said:
At this point you're completely bypassing what we were talking about. This is simply explained by understanding the difference between scientific theory and philosophical theory. You're using the latter.
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By discussing God, or things that are pure theory, we can only use philosophy, science doesn't really have any answers without empirical evidence....

I love philosophy.
 
neckarb said:
By discussing God, or things that are pure theory, we can only use philosophy, science doesn't really have any answers without empirical evidence....

I love philosophy.
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Yeah but you can't intermix the two, you can't use natural law or occurances or even mathematical constants to prove philosophy either so you got a bit lost somewhere in there.
 
JohnOfSheffield said:
Yeah but you can't intermix the two, you can't use natural law or occurances or even mathematical constants to prove philosophy either so you got a bit lost somewhere in there.
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Well the thing is when you want to argue philosophy you tend to do it by extending on from scientific "fact" i.e. you can use observations made by scientists and infer philosophic conclusions.
 
Danwar said:
how is a huge and heavy rock incoherent? you're only talking about size and weight of an object.
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We're not talking about a rock that is just really, really heavy. We're talking about a rock with an amount of weight that is nonsensical. God cannot create a rock that weighs purple for the same reason he cannot create a rock he is unable to lift.

you must use proper logic to try and tear down a logical argument.
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It wasn't a logical argument to begin with.
 
neckarb said:
Well the thing is when you want to argue philosophy you tend to do it by extending on from scientific "fact" i.e. you can use observations made by scientists and infer philosophic conclusions.
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Yeah, i was unclear, what i mean is that you cannot refer back to that for evidence of your philosophical ideas.
 
My philosophy is that I cannot. The pragmatist will realize that not everyone (himself included) is intelligent enough to decipher all the mysteries of life and the universe. Claiming that you can is like saying you know how to to do calculus in kindergarten.

My issue with theists is the idea that they can rationalize their theory and rational behind the very ideologies that they are trying to prove. You can't solve a math equation such as y=x^2 by plugging in x=sqrt(y) and saying y=y, therefore it must be true. But Christians will often say 'so and so' is true because of the bible. Muslims will say doing 'this or that' is fine since god wills it. This is the inconsistency (or rather redundancy) that just doesn't make sense to me. Religion should be able to be reinforced by third party facts and discoveries, not by its own products.
 
leonlee said:
My philosophy is that I cannot. The pragmatist will realize that not everyone (himself included) is intelligent enough to decipher all the mysteries of life and the universe. Claiming that you can is like saying you know how to to do calculus in kindergarten.

My issue with theists is the idea that they can rationalize their theory and rational behind the very ideologies that they are trying to prove. You can't solve a math equation such as y=x^2 by plugging in x=sqrt(y) and saying y=y, therefore it must be true. But Christians will often say 'so and so' is true because of the bible. Muslims will say doing 'this or that' is fine since god wills it. This is the inconsistency (or rather redundancy) that just doesn't make sense to me. Religion should be able to be reinforced by third party facts and discoveries, not by its own products.
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Your problem is lack of knowledge, not lack of intelligence, if you had the knowledge you'd know that our universe did start at some point (we have enough evidence to conclude it did) and since time is unique to this universe it must have started with it.

Thus, time had a beginning, but since you need time to use terms like beginning, there cannot have been time before it.

This is logical and follows the universal laws of this universe, all you need to understand it is knowledge.

Philosophy might help you in other ways to find things meaningful to you but it in no way helps you understand the beginning of the universe and timespace and how it was not present before the Big Bang, for that you need to study the science.
 
JohnOfSheffield said:
Your problem is lack of knowledge, not lack of intelligence, if you had the knowledge you'd know that our universe did start at some point (we have enough evidence to conclude it did) and since time is unique to this universe it must have started with it.

Thus, time had a beginning, but since you need time to use terms like beginning, there cannot have been time before it.

This is logical and follows the universal laws of this universe, all you need to understand it is knowledge.

Philosophy might help you in other ways to find things meaningful to you but it in no way helps you understand the beginning of the universe and timespace and how it was not present before the Big Bang, for that you need to study the science.
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That is a very logical inference, I hadn't considered that time was specific to this universe. :hmm:
 
I'm asking my dog now where the toaster came from. She is having a hard time answering. Same as with us and the beginning of time.
 
JohnOfSheffield said:
It's as incoherent as a square circle, you are just thinking about it as creating and THEN lifting to make the excuse in your brain that it's not incoherent from the get go, the truth is that if it's just like creating a square circle, it cannot be too heavy even before the attempt to lift it.

It's the same argument as creating a square circle.

And you can't disprove God, you can disprove claims made about god but god is in itself a concept that is unfalsifiable, it's just like the celestial teapot...
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If there's a Celestial Teapot, then how do you explain Coffee? Game, Set, Match.

:awe:
 
this world came into being the moment I was born and will cease to exist the moment I pass.

in other words, as an atheist, I DON'T CARE.
 
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