In fact do you know what randallord?

The statement that the universe came about by itself is stupider than saying a computer can assemble itself or an airplane comes about by itself.

I accecpt this statement.

What? I don't accept the idea that God exists but you want ME to prove he had a beginning? What are you smoking?

I don't assume he had a beginnig. I don't assume he exists.
You are the one that said that all things have a beginning and a few sentences later said that God had no beginning. I'm just asking you how is it possible for God to exist with no beginning. If you give me that baloney that "he always existed" non-answer, then what prevents a natural cause to the big bang like the string theory?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1270726.stm

Beginning schmaginning you still dodged the question. You said all things must have a creator because a Boeing 747 had a creator, so WHAT CREATED ALLAH?

Picture me holding up a little stuffed animal, and in a sing-song kiddie voice, saying, "Look at the little doggie! Look at the little doggie!"

When do parents do this to children? When they want to divert them from something else! This is what you do, Alma.

So, Alma. Let's go back to the real question. Can you defend your logic.

I have demonstrated the fallacy in your logic. I will do it again.

1) If creations exist, then there is a creator.

Since we can see clearly that some things are created by man, we know this to be true. So we move to step 2...

2) If some things are created, then a creator made some things.

We can't say more than this, because there are things we can't prove are created.

3) If some things are created, then all things are created.

This last step simply does not follow. There is no logical system in the world that will allow you to make that jump.

Would you please refute my position with the language of logic? Prove to me with an equation how you can make the jump in step 3.

I have no answer so that's "good", as in, you win the argument? What? You apparently didn't read the string theory article or you didn't understand it. Given your history so far, I'd say that both are probable.

I thought you were the one that got upset for me "jumping to conclusions" about including evolution in this discussion. I showed you how they were similar in this case but later confined myself to cosmology due to your protest and now you conclude I can't explain it!

I'll take up that argument at a later time as I suspect you'd use it to jump around the issue as you frequently do.

Here's the non-answer I predicted was coming! Hmm, does that make me a prophet?

I have difficulty imagining things that are not proven to be real, especially if they exist outside the universe, but by that definition, that makes it unreal as the universe is everything that is real.

And you've just proven how you're logic fails. The exact same thing is true of the Universe. We have evidence that 747's are created, we don't have the same of a god, and you need to stop implying that the rules of creation are the same amongst both, so as to stop looking ignorant.

Good job, you're mind is not completely gone, although it is completely brainwashed.

It's you who believes in dogmatic ideas, I reject them. You really need to work on your projection problem.

Alma,
Here's another article I like you to digest before you stick you foot in you mouth again:

http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/smith_18_2.html

Big Bang Cosmology and Atheism
Why the Big Bang is No Help to Theists
by Quentin Smith

The following article is from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 18, Number 2.

Since the mid-1960s, scientifically informed theists have been ecstatic because of Big Bang cosmology. Theists believe that the best scientific evidence that God exists is the evidence that the universe began to exist in an explosion about 15 billion years ago, an explosion called the Big Bang. Theists think it obvious that the universe could not have begun to exist uncaused. They argue that the most reasonable hypothesis is that the cause of the universe is God. This theory hinges on the assumption that it is obviously true that whatever begins to exist has a cause.

The most recent statement of this theist theory is in William Lane Craig's 1994 book Reasonable Faith.[1] In it Craig states his argument like this:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.[2]

In a very interesting quote from this book he discusses the first premise and mentions me as one of the perverse atheists who deny the obviousness of this assumption:

The first step is so intuitively obvious that I think scarcely anyone could sincerely believe it to be false. I therefore think it somewhat unwise to argue in favor of it, for any proof of the principle is likely to be less obvious than the principle itself. And as Aristotle remarked, one ought not to try to prove the obvious via the less obvious. The old axiom that "out of nothing, nothing comes" remains as obvious today as ever. When I first wrote The Kalam Cosmological Argument, I remarked that I found it an attractive feature of this argument that it allows the atheist a way of escape: he can always deny the first premise and assert the universe sprang into existence uncaused out of nothing. I figured that few would take this option, since I believed they would thereby expose themselves as persons interested only in academic refutation of the argument and not in really discovering the truth about the universe. To my surprise, however, atheists seem to be increasingly taking this route. For example, Quentin Smith, commenting that philosophers are too often adversely affected by Heidegger's dread of "the nothing," concludes that "the most reasonable belief is that we came from nothing, by nothing, and for nothing" - a nice ending to a sort of Gettysburg address of atheism, perhaps.[3]

A Baseless Assumption

I'm going to criticize this argument from scientific cosmology, which is the most popular argument that scientifically informed theists and philosophers are now using to argue that God exists.

Let's consider the first premise of the argument, that whatever has a beginning to its existence must have a cause. What reason is there to believe this causal principle is true? It's not self-evident; something is self-evident if and only if everyone who understands it automatically believes it. But many people, including leading theists such as Richard Swinburne, understand this principle very well but think it is false. Many philosophers, scientists, and indeed the majority of graduate and undergraduate students I've had in my classes think this principle is false. This principle is not self-evident, nor can this principle be deduced from any self-evident proposition. Therefore, there's no reason to think it's true. It is either false or it has the status of a statement that we do not know is true or false. At the very least, it is clear that we do not know that it is true.

Now suppose the theist retreats to a weaker version of this principle and says, "Whatever has a beginning to its existence has a cause." Now, this does not say that whatever has a beginning to its existence must have a cause; it allows that it is possible that some things begin to exist without a cause. So we don't need to consider it as a self-evident, necessary truth. Rather, according to the theists, we can consider it to be an empirical generalization based on observation.

But there is a decisive problem with this line of thinking. There is absolutely no evidence that it is true. All of the observations we have are of changes in things - of something changing from one state to another. Things move, come to a rest, get larger, get smaller, combine with other things, divide in half, and so on. But we have no observation of things coming into existence. For example, we have no observations of people coming into existence. Here again, you merely have a change of things. An egg cell and a sperm cell change their state by combining. The combination divides, enlarges, and eventually evolves into an adult human being. Therefore, I conclude that we have no evidence at all that the empirical version of Craig's statement, "Whatever begins to exist has a `cause'," is true. All of the causes we are aware of are changes in pre-existing materials. In Craig's and other theists' causal principle, "cause" means something entirely different: it means creating material from nothingness. It is pure speculation that such a strange sort of causation is even possible, let alone even supported in our observations in our daily lives.
An Uncaused Universe

But the more important point is this: not only is there no evidence for the theist's causal assumption, there's evidence against it. The claim that the beginning of our universe has a cause conflicts with current scientific theory. The scientific theory is called the Wave Function of the Universe. It has been developed in the past 15 years or so by Stephen Hawking, Andre Vilenkin, Alex Linde, and many others. Their theory is that there is a scientific law of nature called the Wave Function of the Universe that implies that it is highly probable that a universe with our characteristics will come into existence without a cause. Hawking's theory is based on assigning numbers to all possible universes. All of the numbers cancel out except for a universe with features that our universe possesses, such as containing intelligent organisms. This remaining universe has a very high probability - near 100% - of coming into existence uncaused.

Hawking's theory is confirmed by observational evidence. The theory predicts that our universe has evenly distributed matter on a large scale - that is, on the level of super-clusters of galaxies. It predicts that the expansion rate of our universe - our universe has been expanding ever since the Big Bang - would be almost exactly between the rate of the universe expanding forever and the rate where it expands and then collapses. It also predicts the very early area of rapid expansion near the beginning of the universe called "inflation." Hawking's theory exactly predicted what the COBE satellite discovered about the irregularities of the background radiation in the universe.[4]

So scientific theory that is confirmed by observational evidence tells us that the universe began without being caused. If you want to be a rational person and accept the results of rational inquiry into nature, then you must accept the fact that God did not cause the universe to exist. The universe exists uncaused, in accordance with the Wave Function law.

Now Stephen Hawking's theory dissolves any worries about how the universe could begin to exist uncaused. He supposes that there is a timeless space, a four-dimensional hypersphere, near the beginning of the universe. It is smaller than the nucleus of an atom. It is smaller than 10-33 centimeters in radius. Since it was timeless, it no more needs a cause than the timeless god of theism. This timeless hypersphere is connected to our expanding universe. Our universe begins smaller than an atom and explodes in a Big Bang, and here we are today in a universe that is still expanding.

Is it nonetheless possible that God could have caused this universe? No. For the Wave Function of the Universe implies that there is a 95% probability that the universe came into existence uncaused. If God created the universe, he would contradict this scientific law in two ways. First, the scientific law says that the universe would come into existence because of its natural, mathematical properties, not because of any supernatural forces. Second, the scientific law says that the probability is only 95% that the universe would come into existence. But if God created the universe, the probability would be 100% that it would come into existence because God is allpowerful. If God wills the universe to come into existence, his will is guaranteed to be 100% effective.

So contemporary scientific cosmology is not only not supported by any theistic theory, it is actually logically inconsistent with theism.

Notes

1. William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1994)
2. Ibid., p. 92
3. Ibid.
4. Confirmation of Hawking's theory is consistent with this theory being a reasonable proposal for the form that an (as yet) undeveloped theory of quantum gravity will take, as Hawking himself emphasizes. See Chapter 12, William Lane Craig and Quentin Smith, Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).

Alma,
You have sinned.
You have listened to the infidel's lies.
Ray Comfort presented his versions of the '747' argument in a video on his website long ago to turn people to following jesus instead of Muhammad.

Are you abandoning islam?

Of course, the now infamous 'banana argument' has been conceded by him on the Hellbound Allleee show where he was educated in agricultural science and informed that the banana was a man-made alteration by cross-breeding two different plants. Ooooops. Guess it wasn't designed by 'god' after all to fit your (or ray's) hands and mouths.

His wisdom and witness is imparted in a way you seem unable to per-see-ve. You are leaving out a very important attribute of what is going on that you seem to be totally unaware of?

Trying to measure spiritual matter by earthly concepts, is like comparing apples to oranges...but with more serious interests and objections, and repercussions.

You would have to be able to understand my sig, to be able to comprehend what I veiw (with what I truly believe to be a great deal of authority) to be the true knowledge, regardless of one's preferences, or misconceived precepts. And to trade those personal perceptions, for those of someone like Dr. Dick Dawkins, is....well...kind of like De Javue...you know, like I have heard about guys like this, you, know?

ALMALHAMAH,
Here's a video that explains your Boeing 747 question:

http://www.rationalresponders.com/the_blind_watchmaker

So do you believe before the Big Bang Matter Time and Space existed?

Yes or No.

The fact is that because of the Big Bang- Matter, Time, and Space all came about.

the initial state of the universe before it was a dense gassous state, but you do not know where this gasseous state came from.

Still there is no scientific explanation for this.

Alma seems to be convinced that if he only says something enough times, it will be true...

I can't help thinking of looking into the mirror and saying "Candyman" three times.

Anyway, buzz over to the YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED thread. I've posted a lengthy scholarly paper refuting some Quran-Science claims. It's cold hard math, and I'm curious if Alma can come up with some counter-math of his own.

Let's take a vote...

How many say Alma will:

1) Quote someone who says the Quran predicts science.

2) Tell us that he's given us the names of scientists who say it's true

3) Quote the Quran

4) Point us in the direction of a web page with no scientific research

or

5) Tell us something about how nasty hell is going to be.

6) Talks about how faith is enough.

He has done 1, 3, and 4. If he does something new it'll probably be 2 before 5 or 6. Although if he does do 5 or 6 I think that probably means he has nothing left to say or can't counter our argument.

Here's something for you to consider....

Quoting: Oswald Chambers

Faith in active opposition to common sense is mistaken enthusiasm and narrow-mindedness, and common sense in opposition to faith demonstrates a mistaken reliance on reason as the basis for truth. The life of faith brings the two of these into the proper relationship. Common sense and faith are as different from each other as the natural life is from the spiritual, and as impulsiveness is from inspiration.

Nothing that Jesus Christ ever said is common sense, but is revelation sense, and is complete, where as common sense falls short. Yet faith must be tested and tried before it becomes real in your life. “We know that all things work together for good . . . “ (Romans 8:28) so that no matter what happens, the transforming power of God’s providence transforms perfect faith into reality. Faith always works in a personal way, because the purpose of God is to see that perfect faith is made real in His children.

For every detail of common sense in life, there is a truth God has revealed by which we can prove in our practical experience what we believe God to be. Faith is a tremendously active principle that always puts Jesus Christ first. The life of faith says, “Lord you have said it, it appears to be irrational, but I’m going to step out boldly, trusting in Your Word” (for example, see Matthew 6:33). Turning intellectual faith into our personal possession is always a fight, not just sometimes. God brings us into particular circumstances to educate our faith, because the nature of faith is to make the object of our faith very real to us.

Until we know Jesus, God is merely a concept, and we can't have faith in Him. But once we hear Jesus say “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9) we immediately have something that is real, and our faith is limitless. Faith is the entire person in the right relationship with God through the power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

Oswald Chambers, “My Utmost for His Highest” (Oct. 30),

Matter, time and space always existed.

The universe did not have a beginning; the bigbang was merely a change.

Time is nothing but a measurement, just like temperature. Temperature measures molecular activity; time measures the movement of matter through space.
Space is simply the absence of matter.
The only thing that these measurements apply to is matter/energy. Matter and energy are of the same "stuff"; they are merely in a different form. One can be the other. Burn a log in the fire place - log becomes heat and smoke, i.e. energy and gas (another form of matter).

Yes, matter-energy should have existed before the BB - why shouldn't it have? Have you a scientific basis for your answer?

Think hard before you answer this, because I WILL respond in depth.