My Beliefs- GDR

What if the God that you believe in is the third cause? What if He believes in a second cause but even He doesn't know anything about the first cause?In other words, how are the concepts of "God" and "first cause" even related?

"Outside of time" (or outside of our time) is a convenient patch to slap on the holes in the idea of eternity. I don't think the authors of the Bible would have agreed with you. Their idea of eternity seems closer to our idea of deep time, though they had no conception of how deep "ordinary" time really is. They were most likely thinking of eternity in terms of thousands of years, not even millions or billions.

"Always" is itsef an expression of time. It simply means an unimaginable period of ime. As I have already mentioned, ancient people couldn't imagine millions or billions of years. Neither can we, really.I don't see any reason to think the Bible authors were using the idea of "always" any differently than we do.

The problem is that the word "eternal" and the concept of eternity were made up long after the Bible was written.Realistically, when somebody uses terms like "forever", he means that we don't know when it began and/or when it might end. You're reading too much into it.

That isn't belief in Christ; it's a cult of personality.Edited by ringo, : Capitalized "Faith" because she isn't as humble as I am.

Remember it was God who got Job into his trial.God has a point when he says that human wisdom tends to be short-sighted - but it's also a copout. It's like a parent saying, "You'll know better when you're my age." You may indeed be wiser when you're older but you won't necessarily agree with your parents when you're older. Their wisdom too may be flawed. That's what I'm saying. That part you're making up.

Some people need glasses and some don't. You can look at wearing glasses as a weakness or an enhancement (depending on whether the glasses are half empty ot half full).People who don't need glasses shouldn't look down on people who do need glasses - but it's okay to point out that they look dorky.

Maybe you need glasses to see my point.I deliberately avoided using crutches as an example. What about sweaters? Some people "need" a sweater to feel comfortable and some don't. Is the need for a sweater a disability? For some people, religion is a sweater. It could be an ugly sweater that their grandmother knitted but they're more comfortable with it than without.The need to look down on ugly sweaters could be seen as a disability too.

I'm glad you don't disagree because I was trying to explain why you wear glasses.

Shouldn't the pre-existence of a BIG intelligence be much less likely than the development of a little one?

That's a good argument against intelligent design. All sentient life can do is manipulate existing natural proceses.

Exactly. So you can't invoke the claim that a sentient being is required to do what we do in the lab.You actually seem to be talking about three levels, not two:

1. Natural things that can happen without manipulation.
2. Natural things that can happen only with intelligent manipulation.
3. Things that can only happen through God's manipulation, by circumventing natural laws if necessary.

You're palming the pea, sometimes putting #2 in with #1 and sometimes putting it in with #3.Edited by ringo, : Added zinger.

If the question is, "Does a car require a DVD player?" the default answer is, "No." You need a compelling reason to claim a requirement. You seem to be admitting that there is no compelling reason. Essentially, you're saying that your car "needs" a DVD player because you want one. It's a psychological phenomenon, a pretty common one. When we need "more time" to find a solution to an emergency, our brains often go into a more efficient mode in which we seem to have more time to figure it out. It might be interesting to examine how that evolved as a survival mechanism.Thinking of it as a suspension of natural law is, frankly, kinda bizarre.

Sure we can. Note the word "compelling". If we don't know of a reason, it can't be compelling. If you don't know there's a good reason to eat a pile of leaves, you don't feel compelled to do so.If there is no compelling reason to think intervention is required (for abiogenesis, evolution, etc.) then we are not compelled to think there is a requirement. Thinking rationally, we can not conclude that there is a requirement.(Your beliefs would probably go unchallenged here if you didn't constantly try to link them with rational thinking. )

Of course science doesn't claim to provide absolute answers and it certainly doesn't claim to prove negative propositions. Science produces the best answers available using human observations and human thought processes. The best answer we have is that stones roll downhill without an intelligent pusher and that molecules interact without an initelligent tinkerer. You're equivocating natural law with judicial law. They are not related. You have provided no reasons whatsoever for your beliefs. You always retreat to, "You can't absolutely prove that I'm wrong." That isn't rational thinking; it's wishful thinking.You may as well be saying that rolling stones are pushed by invisible Bigfeet and science can't prove otherwise.