Debate of the Week: God Vs The Athiest

[Arucard]

"This has got to be one of the biggest debates in history. Is there a God? Did we evolve from monkeys? Did a baseball sized ball of matter explode into what we know today? Did everything just always exist? Does anything exist?"



Debate


Please note read all posts before replying to any debate

[Andrew.McGivery]

1. Here is an old article I wrote on the subject:

Well. It's probably one of the biggest debates on the face of the earth I personally love the debate and love to do research and find more and more ways to make atheists backslide. Not to be rude, but rather to be a soldier for God

So first things first. There are 4 basic possibilities of how the earth got here:

1. It was always here
2. It doesn't actually exist
3. The big bang
4. Creation

Now, I will talk about each one.

Always Here
This is one of those ones that was accepted widely for a while, but is very stupid these days. Most scientists don't even consider this anymore. Why? Well, theres this thing called the law of thermodynamics which basically states that the universe is winding down, things are running out of energy, and that it will eventually cease to exist. It also states that It is impossible for it to always have been here because if things are slowly winding down, there had to be a beginning where everything was winded up.

For example, think of a wind up doll with the key thing. It can't turn forever. It has to start winded up, and it slowly winds down until it stops because it runs out of momentum. The universe works the same way.

An atheist friend of mine tried to ague this one day, and i laughed pretty hard. I asked her to run from her house to mine without any breaks running as fast as she can. Thats like a 10km run at least. She said she couldn't because she'd get tired and run out of energy. And i said, the universe is running out of energy too. Point proven. However, she wouldn't give up and tried to tell me that the universe could take a break like she could. I then asked her what this break would look like, how i know it would happen, and how often it would take breaks. Lets just say she got frustrated and changed the topic.

Doesn't Actually Exist
You probably didn't even know this one existed. It is just as stupid as it sounds, and is as hard to explain as it is to understand. Basically it states that everything we see doesn't actually exist. Everything we see if just what our consciousness's make the world out to be. IT states that our imaginations create it and we see it through our consciousness. So basically, matter doesn't exist. Only consciousness. IT also states that when we are interacting with another person, we aren't interacting with their consciousness even though we both see the same thing. The two consciousness's just so happen to be seeing the same thing at the same time.

Theres so many problems with this one that i don't know where to start. Well, I can just cancel out the whole thing by saying this. In a debate between a creationist and an atheist, the creationist asked the atheist where the idea of God had come from. The atheist replied by saying that it had come by imagination. The creationist then quoted a famous philosopher named John Locke who said that the imagination can not create. All it can do is take things we have already seen and distort and mess with them. Don't believe it? Try to create something with your mind right now that doesn't have anything that you've seen before. You can't use a 973405 legged cow, because you've seen both legs, and a cow. you can't use anything on earth for that matter. Guess what. You can't. Therefore, It is impossible for a human mind to create something as advanced as the concept of God without experiencing something similar to a divine being previous to the imaginative thought.

Because of this fact, this whole theory is impossible because if we haven't seen the matter, we can't create the concept of it. Case closed.

The Big Bang
Where to start with this one? How about talking about the concept itself. So.Basically it says, nothing made something out of nothing which became something which exploded into something. So something was created by nothing. How dumb does that sound? Well. Thats what it says. Like I mentioned above, the concept of God can't be created by the human imagination, so I shouldn't have to go through this anyways. But. Lets do it anyways!

DNA. Probably one of the most complicated codes known to man. In a single human, there is enough DNA code to fill up books that would fill the grand canyon more than once! DNA makes up what a person is and no DNA is the same. Even each different animal has different sets of DNA. Think about it. There are over 6 billion people in the world. Would you be able to come up with a code that would be able to make over 6 billion completely different combinations? Then Why should I believe that something so complicated and intricately designed was an accident?

Think about a painting. The painting didn't paint itself. It was designed by a painter. A car was designed and made by a car manufacturer. A building was designed and made by builders. None of these happened by accident and they are so simple. Why should I believe that something amazingly complex like the universe happened by accident? IT is creation. It has a creator just like a painting has a painter.

One thing I've never understood about eh big bag is the fact that they say that the universe is still expanding. A few questions if I may. Where is it expanding to? If it is forever expanding, how did infinite matter fit into a ball of matter that size of a baseball? Wouldn't it have to be creating planets and stuff as it went along? But then, isn't it a law of science that matter can't be created or destroyed? How did the planet earth fit into this baseball sized piece of matter? How many questions do I need to ask before the big bang sounds ridiculous?

One common problem with the big bang theory, is the question Where did the matter come from? It couldn't have always been there, and it couldn't have created itself. Its matter. One might argue that the creationist theory has the same problem. Well, think of it this way. If I punched you in the face, you would get angry. the cause would be me punching you, the effect would be you getting angry. You being angry would probably cause you to punch me back. So then we have a chain where i punch you which causes you to get angry which causes you to punch me back. Now, if we go backwards in this chain to before i punched you, to before either of us even met, before anything all the way back to the beginning of the universe, there has to be an initial cause of the chain of causes and effects. There has to be an ultimate cause. Why does there have to be one? Well think of it like a bunch of dominoes where each domino is a cause and effect. The dominoes obviously weren't going around forever. A finger, or the first cause, caused them to start falling. In the case of the universe, the ultimate cause is God. So what happened at the beginning?

Creation
Genesis 1:1 says: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." That one verse gives us all the answers we need to know. In the beginning, God. Not in the beginning a ball of matter. God. One may ask how we know God didn't create the big bang. Because, Genesis tells us otherwise. It tells us he spoke everything thing into existence in 7 days. IT says nothing about an explosion and matter creating itself. Seven days in which on the seventh, he rested.

Everything around us shouts God's glory at us. Even the simplest things are magnificent. The human eye is God's proof. One eye has million of nerve endings that all work together to give you sight. Even the father of evolution said that suggesting that the eye happened by natural selection would be foolish. Everything about everything in intricately designed by a designer, not by accident. A car is designed with sprayers to wash the windshield. The human eye is designed with tear ducks to lubricate the eyes. How could someone be intellectual and tell me that the whole universe happened by accident? The orbit of the earth around the sun is so precise that if we were to go off .1 of an inch, we would either freeze to death or burn to death depending on if we got closer or farther away. And these perfect orbits happened by accident? Your house didn't happen by accident, why would the universe?

Well, that concludes my short article about Creation VS Atheism. I hope you liked it.

2.

I don't like the fact that their god is the only god, what makes them right? Because we have a book?
If god is so almighty and powerful why cant you accept that just MAYBE, god is god no matter what name you call him, no matter what way you worship him, that god is in your own self and the faith you have, in spite of your strengths and weaknesses, in your own self.

Simple. Same reason why 2+2 can only have one answer. Either my God is a fact, or your God is a fact. And what makes me right? I suppose, nothing really makes me right, except for the fact that I beleive I am right. But on the other hand, what makes YOU right? IN your head, the fact that you beleive you are right.

ps: I understand what you mean by annoying, stuff bibles down your throat, kind of religions.

[Andrew.McGivery]

I understand where your coming from, there's nothing that makes anyone right. But that doesn't mean that it's the same as math. Math will always have a right answer, but god isn't math. So by saying that god only has one answer is wrong because no one knows what god actually is, for sure. Just because you believe it doesn't make it right. So, in turn, there could be multiple gods or only one god or no god.

The concepts of "there is a God" or "there is no God" or even "there are multiple God's" all are what are called "definite statements", which basically means you are saying something is a fact, without any arguments. They also can only be true or false. Either there IS a God, or there isn't. There isn't any in between "half a god". It either is or isn't. If one is saying that it could be any of the above scenarios, then we aren't working with factual discussion anymore. Then we are just confused and don't know what we beleive.

When it comes down to it, either I am right or I am wrong. There can't be any in between. Why? Because I am stating "there is a God" as a definite statement, and therefore, there is no in between.

But what I don't understand is how people just believe because a bible verse tells them to? Genesis, okay.

Faith.

But God didn't write the bible.

Your right. It was written by men and woman blessed and touched by God.

And who created God? Did god just magically create himself or did another god create god to create us? That process is never ending.

There is a law called the Law of Causality, which states that everything has a cause, and that cause is an effect of another cause. as quoted from my article:

"If I punched you in the face, you would get angry. the cause would be me punching you, the effect would be you getting angry. You being angry would probably cause you to punch me back. So then we have a chain where i punch you which causes you to get angry which causes you to punch me back. Now, if we go backwards in this chain to before i punched you, to before either of us even met, before anything all the way back to the beginning of the universe, there has to be an initial cause of the chain of causes and effects. There has to be an ultimate cause."

That gives you a basic idea that every effect has a cause, which has a cause, which has a cause. Thomas Aquinas referred to each cause as a mover, and each effect as the moved. A mover moves a moved, and then that moved becomes a mover and moves another moved.

If we keep following back causes and effects, we either keep going backwards in time for infinity, or we get a start point. We can rule out the backwards for infinity idea via my article:

"Most scientists don't even consider this anymore. Why? Well, theres this thing called the law of thermodynamics which basically states that the universe is winding down, things are running out of energy, and that it will eventually cease to exist. It also states that It is impossible for it to always have been here because if things are slowly winding down, there had to be a beginning where everything was winded up.

For example, think of a wind up doll with the key thing. It can't turn forever. It has to start winded up, and it slowly winds down until it stops because it runs out of momentum. The universe works the same way.

An atheist friend of mine tried to ague this one day, and i laughed pretty hard. I asked her to run from her house to mine without any breaks running as fast as she can. Thats like a 10km run at least. She said she couldn't because she'd get tired and run out of energy. And i said, the universe is running out of energy too. Point proven. However, she wouldn't give up and tried to tell me that the universe could take a break like she could. I then asked her what this break would look like, how i know it would happen, and how often it would take breaks. Lets just say she got frustrated and changed the topic."

The law of causality also states that there must be a start point, an ultimate cause, an ultimate mover.

"Well think of it like a bunch of dominoes where each domino is a cause and effect. The dominoes obviously weren't going around forever. A finger, or the first cause, caused them to start falling."

There has to be a starting point, and something to start the chain of causes and effects. In the case of the universe, it is God.

I just think the universe and all this magnificent things we see around us are too much for the human mind to imagine, I mean think about forever. Can you think about forever? No, because forever is neverending. So, you can't imagine how stuff was put here, so someone invents god.

The concept of forever is the same as the concept of infinity. They don't seem to have any trouble wrapping their mind's around it in math problems. I don't see them making stuff up to try and wrap their minds around it. Then why all of a sudden are you saying that the concept of forever is a reason for "inventing God"?

About this part, if we just imagined it all, then how can you say that we cant imagine something out of nothing? For the people who believe that, then saying that the imagination cannot create could just be a concept. =/ I can't exactly word that the way I want to, but basically... if everything around us is just thought, then who's to say we didn't just imagine that we can't exactly imagine stuff without seeing it?

Because, simply put, imagination does not have the power to create. If we had the power to create with our imagination, the concept of learning would be pointless. We build up knowledge through learning, and use that knowledge of EXISTING things to imagine. A baby who hasn't experience much of the world can't imagine a concept like aliens, because the baby doesn't even know there is planets, or space, or even what EARTH is. Notice as we get older, the more experiences we get and the more we learn, and the more we can imagine? Notice philosophers aren't 16 or 17? Imagination is built off of learning and experience.