Proof of the existence of God

The second argument for a cosmic creation that theologians and Christian apologists have been using for decades now is that the universe, and time itself, began with a singularity identified with the big bang. This singularity is a point in space-time of unlimited density. This claim is based on a theorem derived from Einstein's general relativity and published by Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose in 1970, which concluded that the universe began with a singularity.

Over 20 years ago now, Hawking and Penrose admitted that there was no singularity because their calculation, while not wrong as far as it went, had not taken into account quantum mechanics. See page 50 of Hawking's 1988 bestseller A Brief History of Time. I do not know of a single working cosmologist today who says the universe began with a singularity.

Some Christian authors and debaters also refer to other more recent calculations claiming these require the universe to have a beginning. To give the shortest possible rebuttal, I will just quote the Cal Tech cosmologist Sean Carroll, who wrote me in an email: "No result derived on the basis of classical general relativity can be used to derive anything truly fundamental, since classical general relativity isn't right. You need to quantize gravity."

So the universe need not have had a beginning.

Victor Stenger, Physicist.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-stenger/did-the-universe-come-fro_b_739909.html
 
The Kalam Cosmological argument's first premise is "Everything that came into existence has a cause".

This premise is assumed to be true without any justification other than everyday experience. As physicist Victor Stenger has pointed out, that is the type of experience that tells us the world is flat. He notes that quantum-level physical events are observed to have no evident cause. For example, when an atom emits a photon, the photon comes into existence without a cause.

It has been argued in rebuttal to this that even quantum events are caused, but in some kind of "non-predetermined manner". But accepting this argument means admitting that the Original Cause of the universe itself could be a "non-predetermined" or accidental or spontaneous one. This destroys the case for a predetermined creation by God.
 
Jan Ardena said:
I'll take it you're not going to respond straight-forwardly.
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Are you having problems answering the question I asked, or understanding its relevance? And do you expect every question you raise to be given a straight-forward answer?
True to whom?
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Objectively true.
Black box?
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Yes. A black box.
Do you have any experience of something that is has no beginning or end? No?
Then you can't imagine it. All you can do is say ''infinity'', but as you have no experience of it, you cannot summon up a picture of it within your mind. Hence, no imagination.
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Yet you claim that God, being "the original cause" must be eternal / atemporal etc. Do you have any experience of something that is such? No?
Then you can't imagine it. All you can do is say "God", but as you have no experience of it, you cannot summon up a picture of it within your mind. Hence, no imagination.
As already said, it works both ways, Jan. If you want to argue that it is not possible to imagine that which you have no experience with then you can not claim to be able to imagine God, other than through the same black-box approach. You are simply being hypocritical.
All you can understand of the eternal is something that is eternal has no beginning or end. Mere words. You cannot imagine it.
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Ditto for you and God. Now, please stop being hypocritical.
Like what?
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A universe that has always been.
''Original Cause'' doesn't necessarily mean bringing things (ex-nihilo) into being, it means it is the cause of all causes. That being said, it causes matter/energy to act according to it's laws.
God = Original cause/creator. God is necessary (using your own certainty)
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"Cause of all causes"? So what if the universe was caused by an inadvertent fart by some ex-universe being, but that being was itself caused? Which would be the "cause of all causes"? The fart? The being that farted? The being that caused the being?
I'm just wondering at what point you declare "God" rather than just another link in the causal chain?
The only thing that causes matter/energy to act according to it's laws is the universe itself. Are you claiming the universe to be God?

And where have you shown that God is necessary? And what do you mean by "using your own certainty"?
Oh, right, you'll invoke the BVG which is only applicable to universes where there is, on average, positive inflation during its life. It says nothing about other possible universes. It also says nothing about the nature of any beginning, of any cause for any beginning, nor is actual proof that even our universe had one (as it is dependent upon the premises they use and the models upon which their arguments are based).
As far as we know, the universe came into being. All notions of an eternal universe are dead in the water. What we have are people desperately trying to create a successful model of an eternal universe, so that they can validate their atheism.
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You are merely projecting the desperation, Jan. Atheists need no such eternal universe. Only those wishing to disprove the existence of God might require that, and most atheists are not of that variety.
We may as well end this discussion, because we both know you cannot produce an explanation of a world where it is a fact that God does not exist. And I'm getting bored now.
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I have provided the explanation many times: an eternal universe suffices.
Oh, but no doubt you'll interject that our universe appears to have a beginning... so what! Or are you saying that God is merely the cause of our universe, rather than the "cause of all causes"? So that there may be a God sitting next to him creating his own universe over which he would be considered by some to be God?
If so, then God is not really "original cause" but just "the direct cause" - which is somewhat of a different proposition.
Furthermore, if there is a possibility that a (not necessarily ours, but any) universe can exist without a cause, then God is not necessary. And an eternal universe fits that description.
Next you'll roll out the BVG again, failing to address that that theorem only addresses those universes that have, on average, been expanding during their history.
So maybe you should end this, Jan, because you cherry-pick which questions you respond to, and hand-wave away many others without actual explanation, not to mention the overt hypocrisy in your stance.
So you're saying there is evidence that the universe didn't have a beginning?
Please disclose.
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I'm not saying that at all. Do you or do you not believe that the universe had a beginning?
IOW you just tell yourself that it happens, and voila, it happens. Hardly imagination.
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More hand-waving, Jan.
So please tell me how you imagine God. And no black-box approach, Jan. You don't seem to like it for the imagining of the eternal, so please no hypocrisy.
"All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning."
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So you are saying that God is merely the direct cause of our universe, rather than any "original cause" (as was previously THE definition)???
 
Sarkus said:
So you are saying that God is merely the direct cause of our universe, rather than any "original cause" (as was previously THE definition)???
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This is a good point.
If one universe needed a beginning (such as, per the BVG, one with a net positive inflation over its history) and another did not (such as a universe perhaps with zero inflation) then is the cause of one necessarily the "original cause"?
Or just "our original cause"?
But if the cause of our universe (if we had one) itself had a cause, then is it correct to say that the cause of our universe itself is actually the "original cause"?

Thus whether or not our universe had a beginning is actually irrelevant to the proof of God, unless there is a way of proving that whatever caused our universe is the absolute "original cause".

Thus we have dealt with the (ir)relevance of the BVG to this discussion.
The BVG makes no claim, proof or otherwise, of what the direct cause of our universe might be.
It thus can have nothing to say on what the "Original cause" might be.
 
Sarkus said:
Yet you claim that God, being "the original cause" must be eternal / atemporal etc. Do you have any experience of something that is such? No?
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I've made no such claim.

Sarkus said:
As already said, it works both ways, Jan. If you want to argue that it is not possible to imagine that which you have no experience with then you can not claim to be able to imagine God, other than through the same black-box approach. You are simply being hypocritical.
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It doesn't work both ways.
I can imagine something coming into being, because I have experience of something coming into being.
To imagine something as the original cause, is not impossible.
You have no experience, whatsoever, of the infinite, and as such you are unable to imagine it.

Sarkus said:
Ditto for you and God. Now, please stop being hypocritical.
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God = definition, definition defines God as Original Cause/Creator.
That is not hard to imagine. You can imagine it also.

Sarkus said:
A universe that has always been.
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Stop lying. You are incapable of imagining it. You are simply asserting it, without knowing what it is you are asserting.
Mere words!

Sarkus said:
You are merely projecting the desperation, Jan. Atheists need no such eternal universe. Only those wishing to disprove the existence of God might require that, and most atheists are not of that variety.
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LOL! This is amusing.

Bye-Bye Sarkus
jan.
 
The original cause is a nonsensical concept. If the universe began, that means it's beginning was also the beginning of time. Without time there is no causality.
 
spidergoat said:
The second argument for a cosmic creation that theologians and Christian apologists have been using for decades now is that the universe, and time itself, began with a singularity identified with the big bang. This singularity is a point in space-time of unlimited density. This claim is based on a theorem derived from Einstein's general relativity and published by Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose in 1970, which concluded that the universe began with a singularity.

Over 20 years ago now, Hawking and Penrose admitted that there was no singularity because their calculation, while not wrong as far as it went, had not taken into account quantum mechanics. See page 50 of Hawking's 1988 bestseller A Brief History of Time. I do not know of a single working cosmologist today who says the universe began with a singularity.

Some Christian authors and debaters also refer to other more recent calculations claiming these require the universe to have a beginning. To give the shortest possible rebuttal, I will just quote the Cal Tech cosmologist Sean Carroll, who wrote me in an email: "No result derived on the basis of classical general relativity can be used to derive anything truly fundamental, since classical general relativity isn't right. You need to quantize gravity."

So the universe need not have had a beginning.

Victor Stenger, Physicist.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-stenger/did-the-universe-come-fro_b_739909.html
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The question is not does the universe have a beginning, the question is "What is a beginning?". Just becuase time and space has a beginning that does not mean that nothing came "beside" it. There are many beginnings but they must first be defined in the proper context of evolution.

You see time has a beginning but space does not, and its also just another feature of the gravitational field this is what's evolving the gravitational field.
 
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James R said:
The Kalam Cosmological argument's first premise is "Everything that came into existence has a cause".

This premise is assumed to be true without any justification other than everyday experience. As physicist Victor Stenger has pointed out, that is the type of experience that tells us the world is flat. He notes that quantum-level physical events are observed to have no evident cause. For example, when an atom emits a photon, the photon comes into existence without a cause.

It has been argued in rebuttal to this that even quantum events are caused, but in some kind of "non-predetermined manner". But accepting this argument means admitting that the Original Cause of the universe itself could be a "non-predetermined" or accidental or spontaneous one. This destroys the case for a predetermined creation by God.
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Have you ever stopped to think that the random fluctuations could be some sort of pre written code to build reality as we know it?
 
If everyone is talking about the same thing but is giving a different name and definition of a prime cause, it comes down to the definitions and if the properties of this causalty match the evidence.

God is an undefined being and has no other peoperty than being prime cause. How can that proposition be logically defended? I say it exist and therefore it exists?
 
spidergoat said:
The original cause is a nonsensical concept. If the universe began, that means it's beginning was also the beginning of time. Without time there is no causality.
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Context context spider, before the beginning of time is an indirect concept to the creation of spacetime, but even still causuality can take the form of evolution. You call it random I call it creation it's all about perspective of position observations are made from.

Evolution is always the alpha cause, creation is the effect but evolution is in no way random to the creator it only appears so to the created because the created remains in a state of incompleteness -1.
 
There is something very complex going on here if you don't hold all the parts together at the same time you may miss the determined picture.
 
Jan Ardena said:
I've made no such claim.
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You have implicitly said as much: if God is not eternal/atemporal then it must have a beginning - which means it must have a cause. Thus God would not be the "original cause" even of himself.
But I forget: you are apparently incapable of understanding the implications of what you type, but rather seem to think that if you haven't typed it out explicitly then you haven't claimed it.
It doesn't work both ways.
I can imagine something coming into being, because I have experience of something coming into being.
To imagine something as the original cause, is not impossible.
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You are not imagining God - you are imagining something that God does - i.e. the OUTPUT of the black-box that is God.
So you have answered my question: no, you are unable to imagine God other than as a black-box, which you seem to want to disallow those who can imagine eternity/infinity from doing.
You have no experience, whatsoever, of the infinite, and as such you are unable to imagine it.
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We have plenty of experience within mathematics, thanks.
As for practical experience, we have as much as you do of God. Not the outputs of the black-box that you call God, but of God.
God = definition, definition defines God as Original Cause/Creator.
That is not hard to imagine. You can imagine it also.
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Similarly...
Eternal = definition, definition defines eternal as having no beginning or end.
That is not hard to imagine. You can imagine it also.
Stop lying. You are incapable of imagining it. You are simply asserting it, without knowing what it is you are asserting.
Mere words!
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Enough with the obnoxious crap, Jan. I know full well what it is I'm asserting: I can imagine eternity / infinity, just as much as you can imagine God. Your continuing dismissal is nothing but a demonstration of how low you have stooped. You are pathetic.
LOL! This is amusing.
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I'm glad you find it amusing: it's always good to laugh at your own weaknesses when someone else makes you aware of them - stops you from taking yourself too seriously.
Bye-Bye Sarkus
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Goodbye, Jan. Do feel free to come back when you've dropped the obnoxious and hypocritical attitude.
 
spidergoat said:
The original cause is a nonsensical concept. If the universe began, that means it's beginning was also the beginning of time. Without time there is no causality.
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There is no evidence that time did not exist pre-BB. Any perception of change seems to require the equivalent of time - the comparison of one moment to another describes the change. All science can say is that T=0 is a barrier - we can know what happens at T>0, but at T=0 and thus before we can have no knowledge.
It might well be that time within our universe is merely a local-time, but exists (from when it started) in a larger time-zone, so to speak. I'm not sure we can say for sure, though, as everything we look to explain it is likely based on our current conceptions of time.

Maybe the theoretical scientists can model possible pre-BB scenarios without a function of "time"? I don't know. But my thinking is that if you have change then you must have something that can be understood/perceived as time. So if our universe came about as a result of a change in the background (for want of a better word) then that background must surely include time, or the equivalent thereof?
 
Write4U,

If everyone is talking about the same thing but is giving a different name and definition of a prime cause, it comes down to the definitions and if the properties of this causalty match the evidence.
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We're not talking about the same thing. The original cause/creator, is the origin of all causes and creations. The prime cause could be any cause, at any time.

God is an undefined being and has no other peoperty than being prime cause. How can that proposition be logically defended? I say it exist and therefore it exists?
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God is not undefined. He/It is defined as above, and can be logically explained in the KCA.

JAN.
 
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