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Author Topic: Time doesn't exist  (Read 53269 times)

CrossEyed7

  • i can make this whatever i want; you're not my dad
« Reply #90 on: April 28, 2010, 01:05:25 AM »
You could empirically prove a resurrection if it happened right in front of you right now. Guy's dead and then he's alive. Simple observation. What you probably couldn't do, if the resurrection was actually done by God or whatever, is explain how it happened naturalistically, without appealing to a supernatural cause. But to infer that that means miracles are invalid is to assume that only the natural world exists -- an assertion you can't possibly prove scientifically, yet ironically the one on which your entire worldview is built.

If you're referring to the specific resurrection of Jesus, that can't be proved today through pure physical science, seeing as it was allegedly about two thousand years ago and pretty much any relevant physical evidence would be long gone by now, but circumstantial evidence from a number of other disciplines is enough for many well-respected scientists and intellectuals to at least consider it not a wholly unreasonable possibility, and certainly any scientist with any integrity would object to your bald categorical assertion, currently backed up by absolutely no evidence, that Christianity cannot possibly be true. At best, you can say it is unscientific -- but what does that mean?

To say that science disproves Christianity, while perhaps somewhat accurate, is at best misleading and dishonest. Science cannot deal with the supernatural -- it is designed to assume that only the natural exists. When you say "Science disproves Christianity," it sounds to the untrained ear like you are saying that it can be conclusively proven that Christianity is false. In reality, all you can really be saying is that the supernatural cannot fit into a system designed specifically not to let it fit in. Until you can give good reason, outside of science, to believe that the supernatural does not exist, you're merely pointing out the difference between two mindsets, unable to actually say that one is better than the other.

As a side note -- one that's still mostly a personal notion, not fully developed into a complete thought -- who says the natural can't be supernatural? I was watching a show on the History Channel or something a while ago that suggested that the parting of the Red Sea wasn't a magical lifting of the water into walls on either side, but rather a volcano that happened to erupt in just the right place at just the right time to create a landbridge which would last just long enough for all the Israelites to cross. Wouldn't that be even more amazing? For an omnipotent deity, just lifting up the water right there would be nothing, but if instead He set the tectonic plates in motion however many thousands or millions or billions of years ago just right so that a perfectly-sized volcano would be formed at the exact minute it was needed, all of it planned out long beforehand, maybe that's an even greater display of power and wisdom. Why should God have to always work against the very system He created in order to work miracles?

Not that any of that has anything to do with time, of course.
"Oh man, I wish being a part of a Mario fan community was the most embarrassing thing about my life." - Super-Jesse

« Reply #91 on: April 28, 2010, 03:39:55 AM »
CE7 is right: you can't disprove the supernatural because it is by definition stuff that somehow magically exists in spite of the normal rules of reality. But why the HECK would you believe in it in the first place?

Choice A) There was a volcano, because some tectonic plates moved

Choice B) There was a volcano, because some tectonic plates moved BECAUSE A MYSTERIOUS BEING SET IT IN MOTION A BILLION YEARS AGO.

Why the flying dukar would you pick B as the reason for the volcano? It's just the same as what we actually know, except with some un-provable, un-dis-provable stuff slapped on.

I guess you'd choose the strange choice B if you already believed in religion and needed to defend it. Why would you already believe in a religion? Well, a couple possibilities:

 - Thousands of years ago, when man had no means to understand basically anything about how the world actually worked or was formed or what those lights in the sky were, people just made reasons up and believed them. Okay, fine for them, whatever. Problem is: they kept writing it down and teaching it to their kids and when we did eventually figure out what the heck was going on, people refused to stop believing the old bunk explanations!

 - There is no "meaning" to life; it just arbitrarily happens. People can't stand believing this, so they make up mystical validations for their existance. Or far more likely, accept pre-made mystical validations made up long ago. Feels so good!

 - It totally sucks to die. You don't get to experience anything ever again. People can't stand believing this, so they make up mystical afterlives to look forward to. Or far more likely, accept pre-made mystical afterlives made up long ago to look forward to. Feels so good!

Turtlekid1

  • Tortuga
« Reply #92 on: April 28, 2010, 06:20:09 AM »
You missed one.

-There is just no way that something can come from nothing.  There's no getting around that.  So when a guy heard a voice from the sky (although who knows where God actually speaks from) calling him by name, he thinks "Well this would explain a lot.  Better write it down so future generations aren't as confused as I am."  Factor in a few (and by "a few" I mean "a lot") miracles that in many cases, were witnessed by a lot of people and recorded (not just made up out of the blue, recorded as history; look at the tone of the Bible compared to fictional works of the day; it's written as a historical account, not a work of fiction), the most famous example of which would be the resurrection of Jesus.  Do you think these witnesses were lying?  Do you think they were stupid (I love how you think that because the people in ancient times had less scientific knowledge, they were any less smart)?  Do you honestly think that the apostles - every single one of them, eventually - would have given their lives and deaths to defend a lie?
"It'll say life is sacred and so is death
but death is life and so we move on"

« Reply #93 on: April 28, 2010, 07:16:59 AM »
-There is just no way that something can come from nothing.   

Don't Christians believe that? That, in essence, god took nothing and made something?
Luigison: Question everything!
Me: Why?

Turtlekid1

  • Tortuga
« Reply #94 on: April 28, 2010, 09:02:29 AM »
The implication being that it came from God, not nothing.  Perhaps I should have phrased it: "Nothing cannot become something of its own accord."
"It'll say life is sacred and so is death
but death is life and so we move on"

Chupperson Weird

  • Not interested.
« Reply #95 on: April 28, 2010, 10:28:45 AM »
There's still the problem of where God came from.
There are other problems too, like a crowd's willingness to believe stuff in a fit of hysteria (which is what supernatural things get explained as a lot)
Turtlekid, what fictional works of the day? The Bible is one of the very few written documents surviving at all from the era 4000-2000 years ago and like the only other ones are religious texts too.
Lizard Dude doesn't really seem to take into account the theory that I think best explains the origin of a lot of religions, which is that it was at the time a sort of "science" - people had no clue what caused weather, natural disasters, etc. and they tried to correlate natural occurrences with the things they did, and tried to work out a system to make the natural world do what they wanted, so they'd sacrifice some stuff and people for good weather, crops, etc. In hopes that whatever they thought was controlling the weather and earthquakes and floods would do what they wanted. The system just got more complex and then after a while it became more of a social system/means of controlling people instead of a pseudoscientific attempt to govern the natural world.
That was a joke.

Turtlekid1

  • Tortuga
« Reply #96 on: April 28, 2010, 10:39:55 AM »
There's still the problem of where God came from.
Why does God need to come from somewhere if he's infinite, as is suggested by Christian doctrine?  Also, the Cause of all things cannot have a cause, or He's not the Cause of all things.

Turtlekid, what fictional works of the day? The Bible is one of the very few written documents surviving at all from the era 4000-2000 years ago and like the only other ones are religious texts too.
The Epic of Gilgamesh, for one (although that might well be based partly in truth, from my limited understanding of it).  In any case, my original point was that the attention to detail does not indicate that the Bible is a work of fiction.  What fictional work would bother to include all those statistics and numbers and specifics?
"It'll say life is sacred and so is death
but death is life and so we move on"

Chupperson Weird

  • Not interested.
« Reply #97 on: April 28, 2010, 01:05:56 PM »
The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Book of Genesis may well have come from the same story, even. Also Gilgamesh is way older than the Bible. (So I'm not counting it as "of the day".)
Also: Statistics? Anyway, I don't know what fiction you read that doesn't have details. Maybe fanfiction or something has polluted your mind.
That was a joke.

« Reply #98 on: April 28, 2010, 02:36:37 PM »
In reality, all you can really be saying is that the supernatural cannot fit into a system designed specifically not to let it fit in.


Lewis approves.

If God could be proven through science, He would be disproven: Since science's reach is limited to that within the universe, God would thus be merely a temporal being, subject to the laws of our reality. No such temporal entity could possibly be the God of Creation if it dwells within Creation, rendering any "scientific" approach to the question of God useless.
YYur  waYur n beYur you Yur plusYur instYur an Yur Yur whaYur

« Reply #99 on: April 28, 2010, 03:18:23 PM »
Weegee, with that logic we can "prove" just about anything. Pink unicorns, talking gelatin, flying monkeys, etc.

Why doesn't God communicate with us directly? The Bible contradicts itself and is highly confusing. In Leviticus, it asks us to stone gays. Just saying.
« Last Edit: April 28, 2010, 03:47:33 PM by PaperLuigi »
Luigison: Question everything!
Me: Why?

Hacker Pikachu 25

  • Technicolor nightmare
« Reply #100 on: April 28, 2010, 04:18:10 PM »
Time obviously exists, because without time, then literally nothing would happen. We'd all still be babies, some of us not even that.
Klonoa is the best game I've played YET!!!

« Reply #101 on: April 28, 2010, 04:31:58 PM »
Weegee, with that logic we can "prove" just about anything. Pink unicorns, talking gelatin, flying monkeys, etc.

No. Those would all fall within the realm of the tangible, observable world. In contrast, God must transcend His own creation in order to fulfill the role He has.
YYur  waYur n beYur you Yur plusYur instYur an Yur Yur whaYur

« Reply #102 on: April 28, 2010, 05:28:23 PM »
Well, what if a pink unicorn created the universe? What if Allah created the universe? What if the Hindu god created the universe? What if Buddha created the universe? Which god is the right god?
Luigison: Question everything!
Me: Why?

Chupperson Weird

  • Not interested.
« Reply #103 on: April 28, 2010, 05:35:58 PM »
(research Buddhism please)
That was a joke.

« Reply #104 on: April 28, 2010, 05:59:09 PM »
You religious people will find something....

YYur  waYur n beYur you Yur plusYur instYur an Yur Yur whaYur

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