Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Are the Majority of People Saved?

If everything that begins to exist must have a cause and the universe must have had a beginning because actual infinities are metaphysically impossible, where did God come from? The original formulation of the Cosmological Argument stated that everything that exists must have a cause, but modern apologists changed that to everything that begins to exist must have a cause. This provided them with a loophole to state that God is exempt from the first premise since he didn't actually have a beginning and therefore didn't need a cause to begin to exist.

Well, aside from the fact that this leads to all sort of mental wrangling whereby you have to claim that, in order to never have had a beginning, God must simultaneously be an immaterial being consisting of pure "mind" (whatever that means) existing outside of space and time and somehow be able to interact with space and time whenever he wants, it also ignores the second premise of the argument that claims that the universe must have had a beginning because an actual infinity is impossible. If that is actually true, then it would also apply to God. Claiming that God, being an infinite and eternal being, is the exception to the rule that actual infinities are impossible is just a case of special pleading and one would be equally justified claiming that the universe (or multiverse) is the exception to the rule and therefore there's no need for God. In other words, if the universe necessarily had a beginning then so did God, and no amount of making up claims out of whole cloth that God must be "timeless" can avoid that fact.

What is Bald is your failure to read the article and consider what it says about the problems with the Kalams cosmological argument.

You are not willing to consider the possibility of being wrong.

You yourself believe in something from nothing, that a God - whatever that is supposed to be - just spoke the Universe into existence from nothing..."let there be light, and there was light."

You believe in Magical Creation.

[img]https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1...22x11_white_wash_grande.png?v=1463376984[/img]

Belief? Hindus believe. Muslims believe. Jews believe. Christians believe. Buddhists believe.....

Hardly surprising that some believers jump onto the bandwagon and try to use this for their "therefore god" stance. The apologetics embarrassingly cling to their flawed versions of science and logic.

Nowadays many people, especially well-educated people, are well aware of all of the issues with the Bible…issues in terms of our culture’s view of the Bible…like a literal six day creation, no real geological evidence for a one-time catastrophic worldwide flood, and no archeological evidence for the exodus of the Hebrews.

So when somebody leverages the authority of “the Bible says” to many in our postmodern and secular society…in their minds, since they can discredit parts of it…they often discredit all of it. But the foundation of the Christian faith is not the Bible.

Since the Protestant Reformation and the concept of Sola Scriptura…when the reformer’s tried to rescue the church from the tradition driven and man-made doctrines that had been implemented over the previous 1200 years…many Christians unfortunately came to believe that the 66 books of the Bible were the only sufficient and infallible source for the faith of Christianity and its practice.

For the first 300 years of Christianity, the focus of the faith was centered on an event, not a book. The issue wasn’t the Bible, the issue was Jesus’ resurrection. Twenty seven different books (that we know of) were written about it back then…by eyewitnesses and those who knew eyewitnesses…and they were all written within the lifetimes of these people. The earliest Christians didn’t focus on the historical and scientific accuracy of the Old Testament, they focused on the event that launched the faith.

This singular event was described by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, James, and Paul…eyewitnesses and their contemporaries. Maybe the very thing that the earliest Christians focused on, their central focus…the very foundation of their faith, the very thing that empowered them to evangelize under the persecution that they endured, and their singular “living hope”…maybe that should be what we focus on, maybe that should be our central focus as well.

It’s certainly easier to defend a smaller part of scripture written by eyewitnesses and their contemporaries than it is to defend the entire Bible.

Antlers, I just wanted to pop in and point out that you consistently give the zealots a bad name.

😉

I'd be pleased if Mister Antlers would fill in some Sunday at our church.

Still have a house full of guests so I have not kept up… but I just popped in here and noticed your comment.

I take your comment as a true compliment directed toward mr antlers…. and a commendation. I agree.

I wouldn't pay too much attention to that library source - they substitute facts with magic.

Wabigoon,

Good morning sir!
Hope you and yours are well.
Here's a short video that I'd like your opinion on if you have time. It's 16 minutes or so.
Thank you for your prayers and have a great day.

HC

Happy Camper tells us that Billy Graham is in hell.

Happy Camper says wiping front to back is a sin.

NV rafer,
Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of hell?