God

[Night Spawn]

Yeah, I'm unusually verbose.  Sorry about that.

Your reply is in no rush at all.  I'm sure both of us need a rest from this discussion... I do anyway.

Later.

[Blake]

“My confusion shown in this reply could stem from the fact that I define “came from nothing” as “an effect which arises uncaused from, no space, no time, no matter, etc”. Do you disagree with this definition? If not, then can you give one in the following post.”

I agree with your definition, except for the cause part.

”This is what confused me in your last post - your typing of "I brought it up as a example of how something can happen without a cause". But if your first quote is correct, then "we have never seen anything come from nothing in our universe". I'm sure I'm mis-interpreting your intentions here, because I don't think you'd make such a contradiction (you can correct me in the following post)...”

I intended to show that things can happen uncaused in our universe, not that something can come from nothing in our universe. As we can probably agree, we don’t see something coming from nothing in our universe ever, caused or not.

“All of the articles I’ve read online concerning this don’t put it that way - I.e. “without a cause”. They describe it as spontaneous, which is defined as something which is caused. If this is a spontaneous (caused) event, then how does it help you?”

Words have many definitions. Look at the physics. There is no event that causes the electron to fall. It just happens randomly.

“Your first sentence reads “I’m not trying to prove anything with that argument”, then you move on to what you’re trying to prove - how something can happen without a cause is reasonable. You’re giving observations, which take place in our universe, which, as you said, “prove nothing”. Okay, then, I’ll grant during this paragraph that it proves nothing. Now you’re entire point is moot like mine (like I typed earlier).”

Let me restate my intentions. That argument proves nothing about whatever is beyond our universe, but it does prove that in our universe, something happen without cause. I brought it up as a side note, to make it easier to wrap ones mind around the idea of the big bang happening uncaused. That was all I intended to do.

“I digress that you’ve shown that. Let’s be fair here: what you’re attempting to show is something which discounts science as a whole. As Tarmac noted, Philosopher of science Bernulf Kanitscheider would complain, it is "in head–on collision with the most successful ontological commitment that was a guiding line of research since Epicurus and Lucretius," namely, that out of nothing nothing comes, which Kanitscheider calls "a metaphysical hypothesis which has proved so fruitful in every corner of science that we are surely well–advised to try as hard as we can to eschew processes of absolute origin."

All I am saying is that we can assume nothing about anything beyond our universe. Laws that are common sense here are not necessarily followed there.

�

[Night Spawn]

Now, it's your turn to be patient with my reply.  I'll give one as soon as I can.

[Blake]

No problem. Take your time.

[mole]

you know sex with animals was considered perfectly normal before christianity began its repression?

[Lord Lanair]

No, I'm pretty sure it's always been considered perverse.    

[mole]

nope! the greeks and romans did it and saw no problem with it, they even drew it!    

[GandalfTheOld]

Yes, why are the Bible and Members of the Christian Church so hippocritical?

and to throw a flaming torch at everyone, i present to you realizing-weeks-too-late-that-this-thread-existed-or-rather-that-this-forum-still-existed post and a quote and a reply concerning one:

Current Christian Church.  Which do you mean? Roman Catholic? Methodist? Protestant? Or some other denominations that vaguely stemmed from Roman Catholic?

In any case, the only true Christians as I see it are the First Century Christians and those that try to follow their footsteps. (And when I mean that, I mean the first generation of Christians, in the first century CE.)
Anything later, and any Christians afterwards have been well infused by pagan ideas and thoughts, namely Norse, Greek, Babylonian, Roman, etc(don't take my word for it, look it up. I'm working off my memory right now)... Why else would Christmas coinside with the Sun God's pagan holiday? Why else would there be all these holidays (Jesus commanded only one event to be commemorated, and nothing else.) and saints (deification of normal humans, almost to the same status as God.  That's breaking one of the Ten Commandments.)?

Only after a century or two after Jesus died did the "Christians" extensively intermingled with the Greek theologians, and from there(and other modes of exchange of ideas) they borrowed/added hell, immortal soul, trinity, etc. into their beliefs.

The God, and the beliefs that current main-stream "Christians" believe aren't in fact what the First Century Christians believed.  I'd have mentioned more, but I think I've already repeated enough what I've mentioned before in a thread of mine in the Temple of Callignosity... Besides, it's getting long, too.

[Lord Lanair]

I'd suggest that the Orthodox are closest to the "original" Christians, since they keep almost all of the old traditions and practices of the church (and the Catholics stemmed from them, so they can be considered the current church too).  

As to saints:  THEY ARE NOT RAISED TO THE SAME STANDARD AS GOD.  No one in Christianity reaches that plateau.  The saints are mearly individuals who lead exemplary and holy lives, and who serve as good role models for how we should act.  They are not special in any other way.  

The "original" Church believed in the trinity, heaven/hell, and the immortal soul- in fact, Jesus taught that all of those existed.  And yes, while mingling the early Christian-Jewish religon (since it was based predominantly on Judaism) and the pagans existed, has it in any way detrimentally affected the Church?  

Ok, mine's getting long too!   LOL  

[GandalfTheOld]

As to saints:  THEY ARE NOT RAISED TO THE SAME STANDARD AS GOD.  No one in Christianity reaches that plateau.  The saints are mearly individuals who lead exemplary and holy lives, and who serve as good role models for how we should act.  They are not special in any other way. 

The "original" Church believed in the trinity, heaven/hell, and the immortal soul- in fact, Jesus taught that all of those existed.  And yes, while mingling the early Christian-Jewish religon (since it was based predominantly on Judaism) and the pagans existed, has it in any way detrimentally affected the Church? 

hrrm... alright, I apologize for my misconception that the saints were deified.
But that still doesn't change the fact that there are idols of them all around.
Whatever happened to the Ten Commandments, "Thou shalt not create images of any kind"? and this applies not just to the saints, but also to all the crosses, statues, etc...

enlighten me, where on earth did Jesus teach the existence of trinity, hell, and the immortal soul?  in all the years that i've been reading the bible itself, not once have i come across a passage that remotely acknowledges such a thing.

"detrimented the Church"? no, if that means making the faith compromised from the original teachings by Jesus just to have more people into the Church.
Jesus' teachings, which were based upon previous books in the Bible, should be the sole source of faith as the name "Christian" implies.

Previous rant concerning the three topics trinity, hell, and the immortal soul can be found here. If you're too lazy to read through the 5th and 6th page (minus the random posts i stuck in there), i'll be copy-pasting entire sections of it here

[Night Spawn]

Concluding Post on Kalam

This will be my concluding post concerning the Kalam Cosmological Argument.  Since it's the concluding post, it may become quite lengthy.  My apologies.


Out of nothing, nothing comes

But the law of cause and effect breaks down when the effect is the creation of the law of cause and effect itself (the beginning of the universe), so that argument falls apart.

It matters not.  Even if I grant you such an untenable, unjustified, and over-complex position, you’re still backed into a corner.  If the law of cause and effect began to exist at the Big Bang, then we can still use it to determine that the universe itself did have a cause.  It doesn’t matter at all whether it exists after the Big Bang or before the Big Bang.  What matters is that we can use this law to determine the universe as having a cause.
If the law began to exist, then we can use the law to judge itself.  According to the law of cause and effect, if it had a beginning, even the law itself had a cause for it’s existence.

One thing we can be certain of, though, is that we can’t assume that the laws that govern our universe are followed outside it.

I never said the law is to be used outside of our universe; though I do find it debatable (read above).

I intended to show that things can happen uncaused in our universe, not that something can come from nothing in our universe. As we can probably agree, we don’t see something coming from nothing in our universe ever, caused or not.

If something came into existence uncaused, then what did it come from?  There is no cause to it’s existence, so all that’s left is popping into existence from nothing.  The absence of everything leaves nothing.

Words have many definitions. Look at the physics. There is no event that causes the electron to fall. It just happens randomly.

But there is no definition to “spontaneous” at all which agrees with you - that spontaneous means “uncaused”.  The only challenge you offer to my definition is “words have many definitions”, which isn’t a direct reply to something which values a more direct approach.  I gave a definition, which not only a physics professor gave me, but a definition that an atheistic physicist even agrees with.  

1.  You’re yet to provide a definition which agrees with you, besides something which remains unjustified.
2.   You skipped over my physicist friend’s response.  He said even if no cause is found, it doesn’t entail no cause exists - one just hasn‘t presently been observed.  Scientists don’t blindly assume.  

One EXAMPLE, not one piece of evidence. Let’s say I tell you that all apples are red, and you then show me a green apple. By showing me a green apple, you prove me wrong. That is exactly the argument I am using, except I am disproving the statement “all events are caused” by showing you an event that isn’t caused. The event is an example, not a piece of evidence. Similarly, Hovind would be perfectly correct to say that one piece of evidence for a young Earth disproves the statement “all evidence shows that the Earth is old.” Do you see the difference now?

If you’re example isn’t to be considered as demonstrable evidence/proof, then we can just go ahead and discard it, no?

You’re jumping to the conclusion, though.  I still disagree that you’ve given any example which is true.  All the scientists I know (even my atheist friend) disagrees with you.  I’m not using an argument from authority; though such arguments can be used, I believe.

Hovind is far from correct.  Even if he were to produce one evidence for a young earth, he, being an honest scientist, still has to respond to other available evidence.  He can’t just take that evidence, leap over opposing demonstrable evidence, then raise his hands in triumph.  Every scientist (even Darwin) had to disprove opposing evidence before positing their belief as tentatively true.


Serial Killer Defense

I was thinking about such a response and realized a serial killer can use it.  Imagine a situation in which David Berkowitz (Son of Sam) actually did kill his victims, but claimed that some human similar to him came into existence uncaused, killed the victims, then ran off into the moonlight.

The only difference between yours and David’s claim is the degree of complexity, but that matters not.  David can use the basics of your response as his defense and in your eyes be truly innocent.  

Seeing that I didn’t think of this earlier, I’ll respond to some expected replies.

1.  What of fingerprint evidence and such?  Remember that David posited another something like him coming into existence uncaused.  Fingerprints matching David’s is expected.

2.  The situation is way to complex to be parallel.  The situation is complex, but I’m not attacking the complexity of yours, so you shouldn’t attack the complexity of David’s.  Attack the complexity of David’s, then the complexity of yours values response also.  
All that I’m doing in this example is using the reasoning you’re using, then imaginatively placing it in David’s hands for defense.

God Created Something From Nothing?

I’m enjoying this part of the discussion.  In my opinion, this is the strongpoint of the discussion for you.  As Rocky Marciano would say, though, “you’ve hurt me, but I’m still standing”.  So, I think my response is still very much valid.  You type in opposition:

You’re missing the point here. What I am saying is that you are going in circles when you say that God can create the universe by thinking about it because he can do things like that.

How is it circular, though?  Your summation of my position is a strawman at best.  I’m just saying I find it at the very least plausible for God to speak His thoughts into reality granted His omnipotence.  As an example, I gave human consciousness.  All I have to do is think of a purple rabbit and the image of a purple rabbit appears in my mind… and I’m not even omnipotent (nowhere near it).  Now, imagine an omnipotent God doing this.  I see no reason why He can’t consciously choose which thoughts He wants to make reality and which He doesn’t.  

Imagine if no human alive had the power to just think of a purple rabbit and get an image of it in their mind.  Just thinking about a human being able to do this would lead to intense skepticism, because those humans would be limited to not having that ability.  In the same sense, just as those humans wouldn’t have the ability to do that, nor do we have the ability to do that which God does.  This is a very reasonable argument, which still values a response.

we never understand the how the universe came to be, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a scientific explanation.

It’s not that scientists don’t understand, but that, if they claim to understand that is a philosophical, not scientific discussion.  Any scientist will agree with me.  


Proving and Disproving God’s Existence

I am not trying to disprove the existence of God, because that is impossible. I am only trying to show you that you can’t prove the existence of God either.

I can prove the existence of God, deductively, depending on the person.  A friend of mine, Strawman, does it all the time at MxPx’s forum.  I do find it possible to prove God’s existence in an epistemological fashion - I.e. that God’s existence is more probable in light of proof X.  
God’s existence has 20 supposed proofs for it, while you have no arguments against His existence.  So, you see, you may disagree with my proofs, but at least I do have proofs to debate/discuss.  You have no proof of God’s non-existence.  

I’m glad you brought this up, though.  You said you can’t disprove God’s existence, but this is what atheism is - the belief that God does not exist.  It isn’t the belief “God’s existence is unlikely”; though some negative atheists would digress.  If you say God’s existence is unlikely, then there still remains the possibility of God’s existence being likely; therefore, moving you into something more along the lines of agnosticism (someone not knowing for sure).

you can’t prove the existence of God

Even if I had no evidences for God’s existence, it would still be likely for God to exist.  To say otherwise is a logical fallacy.


CONCLUSION

In conclusion to the Kalam Argument, I see it as coming out unscathed; though you may disagree.  You attacked premise 1 with one example, which remains unjustified, highly speculative, and unscientific.  It’s very unusual for one of my atheist friends to agree with me, but one does here… and that one happens to be a physicist.  Not only him, but every physicist I e-mailed agreed that you’re misinterpreting the example (I gave one of them as example).

To support my conclusion to the Kalam, I believe I used the Anthropic Principle, showed opposing beliefs as demonstrably fallacious, then I used the “inference to best explanation”.
You may respond to them now, but we’ve already discussed the third for a bit and I went in-depth in proving the God hypothesis as a better explanation than those in opposition.  I’ve also went in-depth in showing opposing beliefs as demonstrably fallacious.  Therefore, I find the God hypothesis, according to the Kalam Cosmological Argument, as very likely to be correct.


If you want we can delve into some other arguments?  Perhaps the Teleological argument or JP Holding’s “Impossible Faith” argument I gave?  If you don’t have the time, then I understand.

-Spawn

[Night Spawn]

GandalfTheOld,

Good day.  I have a response to this:

where on earth did Jesus teach the existence of trinity, hell, and the immortal soul?

Why does it just have to be Jesus teaching it?  You do realize Jesus didn't write one single word in the New Testament, right?  Therefore, if we aren't to acknowledge what other books have to say (i.e. Paul), then we aren't to acknowledge the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.  I don't think you'll go so far, though, because that would stop the discussion.  

With that in mind, I'll delve into scripture from both the Old Testament and New Testament...

1.  Genesis 1:26-27
(26) "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness..."
(27) "So God created man in his own image..."

  An anti-Trinitarian cannot deny the fact that in verse 26 God states "in our image... after our likeness...".  What kind of response would they have?  The only one would be, "but in verse 27 it states, "in his own image...".  Yet, they only answered a question with a circular question, for it leads back to, what about the "our"?  Their response is circular reasoning and it's best and is, therefore, not a rational position to hold.
  What about the Trinitarian position?  We can easily answer that in verse 26 God is stressing to show us that He is made up of other parts; hence, why he states "our...", yet those parts make up "him"; hence, "hist own image...".  

2.  Mathew 27:46
"At about three o'clock Jesus cried out with a loud shout, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why did you abandon me?"

  Let's take this in the anti-Trinitarian point-of-view, which states that God is one and only one with nothing making up that one (if you believe the opposite of that, then you're a Trinitarian).
So, taking it the anti-Trinitarian way, Jesus is stating:

"Jesus cried out with a loud shout... Myself, Myself, why did I abandon myself"?

  How can anti-Trinitarians hold such a contradicting view.  This is calling Jesus a lunatic -- he shouts out to himself and then asks himself questions?  Surely, anyone reading this must concede that Jesus was demonstrably shouting out to someone else.

  However, I know of only [one] comeback to this point -- that it was the human part of Jesus that was crying out.  But this is just absurd.  Points to consider:

1.   What is this "human" self?  Did Christ invade a human body and take it over?  I was under the impression that Christ was "himself" and grew up as "himself" (wholly human with divine attributes), therefore, crossing out this comeback with "his human part...".
2.  They may as well state that Jesus was confused over his own body and couldn't contain it (yet, he performed miraculous deeds)... whatever this "human self" is?

3.  John 14
(1) "...Jesus told them.  "Believe in God and believe also in me."
(2) "There are many rooms in my Father's house..."
(6) "Jesus answered... I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one goes to the Father except through me."
(7) "Now that you have known me," he said to them, "you will know my Father also, and from now on you do know him and you have seen him."
(9-10) Jesus answered... "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father... I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me"

  Jesus has shown an obvious degree of separation, yet completeness between himself and the Father.  Jesus states, "I am in the Father and the Father is in me", so this agrees with the Trinitarian position 100%; unless, you dare hold the position that God is holding upon false personalities for no reason at all.  
  Jesus also puts it forth that no one goes to the Father except through him.  What anti-Trinitarians hold is that Jesus was stating, "no one goes to me except through me".  This is basically stating that no one is to go to Christ; except, if they go through Christ.  The question "huh?" can't help, but be asked.  Keep in mind:

1.  Why did Christ not just state that; why state "father"?
2.  The statement "no one goes to me except through me" makes no sense, for, if you go through him, then you are still [in a sense] going to him.  How can you go to without going through or towards?
3.  Why would God create fake personalities that don't exist?
4.  It makes much more sense with the literal reading -- "no one goes to the father except through me".

  But, this is just two of the many scriptures -- what about verse 1 above?  According to anti-Trinitarians, Christ is stating, "Believe in me and believe also in me."  But that's an obvious contradiction and makes no sense to be said.  The original statement is the one that makes sense and it agrees with the Trinitarian position.

  Other questions are:
1.  Why say, in verse 2, "my Father's house...", if, according to the anti-Trinitarian belief, there is no reason to say "Father", but there is only reason to say "... many rooms in my house..." < if their belief is true, Christ would have stated that, but He shows a degree of separation between himself and the Father --

2.  The confusion still reigns when reading verse (7).  If anti-Trinitarians are right, Jesus would have said, "Now that you have known me, you will know me also, and from now on you do know me and have seen me".  Surely, such a contradicting statement needn't be held... so why hold it?  The four points above are valid on this, because I don't think I need to go any further.

I'll get into the other subjects after this one.

Ciao,

Spawn

[Lord Lanair]

My post, sans direct quotes, about the images:

The commandment states that people are not to make any graven image, with the assumption that if they did, they would then worship it.  Since I'm Orthodox, I don't know why statues are around (the Church disapproves of them), but icons, crosses, etc are not in violation.  These things are venerated by the faithful, who acknowledge that they should not be worshipped as God himself, but rather as reminders of how to lead a holy life.  

-Notice how in the Orthodox Church there is never an icon of God himself, but the ones there depict Biblical stories and happenings.

-Whoever worships a cross is totally off the deep end, seeing as it is only a physical representation of the extreme humility of Christ... another thing people should aspire to.

/Sorry, but it's late and I'm tired.  I'll get back to you too, when my thoughts are more together.    

[Guest]

"It matters not. Even if I grant you such an untenable, unjustified, and over-complex position, you’re still backed into a corner. If the law of cause and effect began to exist at the Big Bang, then we can still use it to determine that the universe itself did have a cause. It doesn’t matter at all whether it exists after the Big Bang or before the Big Bang. What matters is that we can use this law to determine the universe as having a cause.
If the law began to exist, then we can use the law to judge itself. According to the law of cause and effect, if it had a beginning, even the law itself had a cause for it’s existence."

But the big bang started with a singularity, at which all laws of physics break down. That prevents us from using what we observe in the universe now to infer anything about what came "before" the big bang. There is a speech posted on Stephen Hawking's website where he mentions that, in fact. I'll cite it if I can track it down.

"I never said the law is to be used outside of our universe; though I do find it debatable (read above)."

In that case you can't say that the big bang needs a cause. The laws of cause and effect existed only after the big bang.

"If something came into existence uncaused, then what did it come from? There is no cause to it’s existence, so all that’s left is popping into existence from nothing. The absence of everything leaves nothing."

If something comes into from nothing with a cause, what is the difference? It's still something coming from nothing.

"But there is no definition to “spontaneous” at all which agrees with you - that spontaneous means “uncaused”. The only challenge you offer to my definition is “words have many definitions”, which isn’t a direct reply to something which values a more direct approach. I gave a definition, which not only a physics professor gave me, but a definition that an atheistic physicist even agrees with. "

One definition is no external cause. That doesn't mean that a cause is necessary, and in the case of an electron, there isn't one, so far as we know.

"You skipped over my physicist friend’s response. He said even if no cause is found, it doesn’t entail no cause exists - one just hasn‘t presently been observed. Scientists don’t blindly assume."

I did indeed respond to that. I said that practically nothing in science is 100% certain. We can only go by what the evidence strongly suggests. Regardless, if that doesn't satisfy you, the same logic can be turned the other way. No matter how many caused events we see, we can't assume that every event has a cause, because it may be that we just haven't seen an uncaused event yet, or we think we no of a cause but we are wrong.

"If you’re example isn’t to be considered as demonstrable evidence/proof, then we can just go ahead and discard it, no?

You’re jumping to the conclusion, though. I still disagree that you’ve given any example which is true. All the scientists I know (even my atheist friend) disagrees with you. I’m not using an argument from authority; though such arguments can be used, I believe."

I'm not using that example as part of my argument, remember? I was trying to show that not all events in our universe are caused. That's just a simple matter of the laws of logic. One thing that happens uncaused disproves the statement "everything has  a cause." In science, the term proof is used rather loosely, since few things can really be proved with 100% certainty. If you don't like the term "proof", I'll say that I have shown that the evidence strongly suggests that de-excitation can happen uncaused, and thus not all events in our universe are caused. Either way, it is not part of my argument, as I have said before.

"Hovind is far from correct. Even if he were to produce one evidence for a young earth, he, being an honest scientist, still has to respond to other available evidence. He can’t just take that evidence, leap over opposing demonstrable evidence, then raise his hands in triumph. Every scientist (even Darwin) had to disprove opposing evidence before positing their belief as tentatively true."

No one here is saying Hovind is correct, or defending his argument. However, it is true that if he found a piece of evidence suggesting a young Earth, he would prove the statement "some evidence suggests the Earth is young," or "not all evidence suggests the Earth is old." That is a long way from proving that the Earth is young, though.

On the serial killer argument,
You're talking about a situation in which the laws of physics hold, and the laws of physics say that an intelligent thinking human being can't spring into existence from nothing, caused or not. At a singularity the laws of physics break down, so the circumstances are different.

"How is it circular, though? Your summation of my position is a strawman at best. I’m just saying I find it at the very least plausible for God to speak His thoughts into reality granted His omnipotence. As an example, I gave human consciousness. All I have to do is think of a purple rabbit and the image of a purple rabbit appears in my mind… and I’m not even omnipotent (nowhere near it). Now, imagine an omnipotent God doing this. I see no reason why He can’t consciously choose which thoughts He wants to make reality and which He doesn’t."

I could make any number of other claims about how the universe came to be that aren't any less valid, simply because there is no science that can explain them. Suppose we're really in a giant marble like in Men in Black? There's no science to explain how that is remotely possible. Hawking has shown that there is a high probability that a universe like ours could come into existence uncaused, which is not proof by any means, but it adds a much higher degree of validity to that explanation.

"Imagine if no human alive had the power to just think of a purple rabbit and get an image of it in their mind. Just thinking about a human being able to do this would lead to intense skepticism, because those humans would be limited to not having that ability. In the same sense, just as those humans wouldn’t have the ability to do that, nor do we have the ability to do that which God does. This is a very reasonable argument, which still values a response."

Creating an image in one's mind is a long, long way from creating a purple rabbit. Among other things, it violates the law that in our universe, matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed. That is not a problem at the big bang, where the laws of physics break down. Regardless, a lot of things happen in our universe that humans are not capable of. For example, light from nearby stars makes it to Earth in a few years, but humans certainly can't. I'm not claiming that I can disprove that God could create the universe by thinking about it, because that would contradict my claim that we can't assume the laws of physics in our universe hold outside it. I just don't give that explanation much merit because no one has been able to come up with any science behind it.

"It’s not that scientists don’t understand, but that, if they claim to understand that is a philosophical, not scientific discussion. Any scientist will agree with me. "

You're missing the point. There is a scientific explanation for the properties of the higly pressurized hydrogen deep inside Jupiter, but we really don't know much about it because we can't replicate the conditions. The same applies to the beginning of the universe.

"Even if I had no evidences for God’s existence, it would still be likely for God to exist. To say otherwise is a logical fallacy."

As long as there are equal or better explanations out there, you can't call it likely, just possible.

"In conclusion to the Kalam Argument, I see it as coming out unscathed; though you may disagree. You attacked premise 1 with one example, which remains unjustified, highly speculative, and unscientific. It’s very unusual for one of my atheist friends to agree with me, but one does here… and that one happens to be a physicist. Not only him, but every physicist I e-mailed agreed that you’re misinterpreting the example (I gave one of them as example)."

My attack on premise one is that we can't assume our laws of physics hold outside out universe, not de-excitation.

"To support my conclusion to the Kalam, I believe I used the Anthropic Principle, showed opposing beliefs as demonstrably fallacious, then I used the “inference to best explanation”.
You may respond to them now, but we’ve already discussed the third for a bit and I went in-depth in proving the God hypothesis as a better explanation than those in opposition. I’ve also went in-depth in showing opposing beliefs as demonstrably fallacious. Therefore, I find the God hypothesis, according to the Kalam Cosmological Argument, as very likely to be correct."

I think it's quite a bit of a stretch to say that either of us has proved anything.

"If you want we can delve into some other arguments? Perhaps the Teleological argument or JP Holding’s “Impossible Faith” argument I gave? If you don’t have the time, then I understand.'"

I'm crunched at the moment, but in a week or so I'll probably have some time to get into the Teleological argument.
 

[Blake]

That last post was me, if you didn't guess.
-Blake