He did because he was a man and nothing more. And it was his last act as a man.Originally Posted by libernaut
He did because he was a man and nothing more. And it was his last act as a man.
where is laidback person? its nice to talk with him.
He is long gone to rest.
I finished reading William Lane Craig's and Quentin Smith's Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology where Craig took the theist side and Smith the atheist side in a debate on whether the Big Bang could be used as evidence for the existence of a God.
I think Craig won the debate, but you'll have to read it for yourself.
What Craig shows, as I see it, is that the empirical evidence from science for the origin of the universe (space, time, matter, energy, quantum vacuum fluctuations, etc) 13+ billion years ago is empirical evidence for the existence of something else, outside the universe, that made a choice and that is why the universe is here today. You can call that something else God.
So my answer to the original question in this post is that no one really needs to believe in a God on a basic level. God's basic existence is made necessary by the empirical results of modern science. Belief is more appropriately applied to the various accounts of how God relates to us that individual religions provide.
A choice made outside reality? Nope, I can't think of anything.
I've heard Craig's arguments. I would grant Stephen Hawking's opinion a tad more weight when he states in his most recent book that God is not needed in order to explain the origin of the universe. Perhaps him and Craig should have a debate on cosmology.
Its hard to take Craig seriously when he asserts Christ's resurrection as objective historical fact and then uses that for one of his 5 main arguments for God's existence. I'm referring to his debate with Hitchens.
And in that debate he makes this grand leap from the universe being created to it being created by a personal God. He said it could only have been created from beyond time and space and that the only thing from beyond time and space which could have done it is a mind. Mind is beyond time and space now?
Most of his arguments rely on science and yet he is not a scientist. The world's most renowned cosmologist disagrees with him and yet he does not humbly defer. Something wrong there.
By the sounds of it, Craig is perhaps having an argument with himself more to the point.
Seems to me that there are some folks that need to start a "Why I don't believe in God" thread.
Les Miserables,
Volume 1, Fifth Book, Chapter 3
Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.
Perhaps some folks should have more faith in their fellow man.
Within the debate with Smith, Christianity does not arise. The results don't need it. All they need is that the universe had a beginning. And the results only show that something made a choice. That a choice was made is what makes it personal for Craig. As far as I'm concerned, I just need the idea of choice.
Although this was not directly discussed in the debate, I have no problem seeing consciousness as something generally beyond time and space. It would actually help explain near-death and shared-death experiences. If by mind you mean the brain, that would certainly be within space, but the brain is not consciousness.
It doesn't matter that Craig is not a scientist. When Hawking makes pronouncements on God's existence or not he is not acting as a scientist but as a metaphysician, which is more in Craig's field than his own. It is Hawking who should humbly defer. Hawking does come up in the debate. Smith tries to base his atheism on various pronouncements Hawking has made. I think Smith failed to make his point.
I don't have any religious affiliation that I am trying to justify with this, although I find a watered down, generic Hinduism attractive.
Hawking says in his book that the coming into being of the universe was an inevitability due to the working of physical laws.
I just don't like Craig. C.S. Lewis's apologetic works came off as much more persuasive to me. Craig acts like he has water-tight, bullet-proof, absolutely irrefutable arguments for God's existence. He's cocky about it and then frankly disingenuous when he claims that science supports his views when it quite simply does not. In the two hour of the debate I watched he acted more like a scientist than a philosopher, throwing around facts and figures and conclusions like he was a cosmologist and biologist rather than a theologian and philosopher.
He is lucid though. And one heck of a speaker/debater. It could be said that he "beat" Hitchens.
Last edited by Darcy88; 09-06-2011 at 01:16 AM.
one point Hitchens made in the debate is that, as far as we've come scientifically, we still do not know everything. In that mystery there is room for faith, if one is so inclined.
Last edited by Darcy88; 09-06-2011 at 01:16 AM.
The only room for faith is in a dunny to flush it when needs be.
If there's a God then he is a bowler of ill aim: He let loose the ball and Kerplunk! - straight into the gutter.
Foundation for a new deism?
That sounded much cleverer in my head.
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