"In the end there must have been a creator"

Well you aren't likely to get an answer from someone who hasn't posted here in nearly 3 years. So if you didn't want answers from anyone else. what was the point in posting ?

Well it's easy to see who has too much time on their hands Message 20

Just to comment on a few issues.Firstly Solomon's idea of a worldview conflates Sire's definition with the definitions offered by Phillips and Brown and Walsh and Middleton - even though they are quite different.I also note Solomon's four issues aren't very well explained:I'm not sure what the second means and the examples only confuse the issue.The third fails to consider the possibility that we may not know which view is right (in which case tolerance may be appropriate even though one view must be wrong) or the possiblity that the differences might be unimportant.The fourth, while not quite as bad as the third also fails to consider that it deals with a whole spectrum of issues. Labelling a provisional belief held with strong evidence the same was as a belief strongly held in spite of the evidence is all too easily used as an excuse to equate the two.When dealing with the six questions Solomon fails to actually answer the first. And is there any basis other than his worldview's assumptions to consider any of his other answers true ? This is especially worrying in his view of morality - the more so when his opposition to tolerance is taken into account.Finally his view of naturalism includes far too much that is not really part of naturalism. Perhaps because he needs naturalism to be a worldview, when it is not.

You've pretty much got my objection right. We should allow that beliefs that contradict ours may be correct (unless we have a very strong case - and one that we have critically examined to be sure that it really IS strong). And we certainly should allow that others may be reasonable in holding beliefs contradictory to ours unless we have good reason to believe otherwise (and a personal experience that we have had and they have not cannot be such a reason !).The issue of giving offence is more contextual - I don't see how a forum like this could exist without allowing the expression of views that some would consider offensive. But those in positions of political power should be very careful of using those positions to promote their beliefs or to denigrate the beliefs of others.But to go back to other things Solomon said, how would you really answer the question of "Why is there something rather than nothing". Is there any answer that is better than "there is" ? Even the assertion that God necessarily exists - while obviously better than Solomon's non-answer - is no better unless it can explain why that should be so (there is no logical necessity for God to exist and I see no other form of necessity that could sensibly be argued for, bringing it all back to a simple assertion).

"The Bible says so" is not an explanation. At most it is an attempt to back up the assertion with an authority accepted by the beleiver.There are two issues here. How did Solomon fail to notice that he hadn't answered the question (or that his answer if taken seriosuly implies that God is nothing). And if no satisfactory answer is possible how can we possibly use answering that particuar question as a valid crietrion for comparing worldviews ?

The question I am referring to is "Why is there something other than nothing".However I do have to point out that if the Bible states that something is the case it is certainly NOT an explanation of WHY it should be the case. At best it constitutes a reason for beleivers to accept that it is the case.As for mathematics assuming you are referrign to a continuous space the number of points on the line 0-1 equals the number of real numbers between 0 and 1 which is uncountably infinite (i.e. greater than the countably infinite number of integers - this is proven by Cantor's Diagonal argument).I'll assume for the sake of argument that we can sensibly set up a mapping on positions on God onto the points of that line. As to the question of an absolute answer I eould say tat there would be - however your choice of analogy suggests that we might not be able to know it, since knowing exactly where on the line a point falls by measurement requires infinite resolution which is not pratcically possible. And I'd argue that any attempt at actual "measurement" has an error margin of +/- 1 (I don't argue that we can't come ot a conclusion - but I argue against certainty).

But as I have pointed out NOBODY has an adequate answer to "why there is something rather than nothing". I agree that if God exists then God must be counted as "something" and that is why I reject Solomon's attempt at an answer (since it can only work if God is nothing).