<p>kyle david, i hate to repeat myself but...
Again, we cannot ask the question, who created God? if God truly did create the universe as many people assume, then wouldnt that make him bigger than the universe; bigger than our conception of creation; bigger than our concept of procreation?</p>
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About Stephen Hawking's calculations: well then we're very lucky it worked out.
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<p>You will believe it was all coincidence after that? Alas, the facts made no difference then! If anything, for me, his research rules out random chance being the reason we're all here.</p>
<p>Everything has a beginning. That is simple logic.</p>
<p>Without any intent to offend, I'll add that it amazes me that Christians so often say that everything has a creator -- it's only logical -- and they refuse to believe otherwise; at the same time, they have no problem believing that God was always there.</p>
<p>getup01: what your saying is irrelevant to my question; if everything has a creator, so must God. True, he would be "bigger than the universe," but he too exists, so he too must have a creator. Here's a nice proof:</p>
<ol>
<li>Everything that exists needs a creator.</li>
<li>Nothing transcends logic.</li>
<li>God exists.</li>
<li>Therefore, God has a creator.</li>
</ol>
<p>I love the fact that some Christians are so confident! sometimes to the point of cockiness
Although its kind of annnoying, I love how they are optimistic of the future and who created them</p>
<p>ok, kyle david, so we can disprove some of Christianity's ideas, but we cannot disprove God based on Christianity's ideas.</p>
<p>roxxy, stephen hawkings also said that there could be an unlimited number of universes and if so, there is the statstical chance that the constants worked out.</p>
<p>roxxy: what is your source on what you quoted about Stephen Hawking, etc.?</p>
<p>getup01: of course we can't disprove God, nor can we prove it. But default is not to believe in God; atheism is the default thought. Take for example hippos with spotted wings. Do you know they exist? Do you know that they don't exist? If you don't know either, what compels you to believe in their existence? There are myriad other things which nobody believes in, simply because that's default.</p>
<p>My source? The people mentioned -- Hawking, Davies. Just do a simple Google search.</p>
<p>^^ I cannot do your work for you. You must cite your claims. (I don't know what you searched, what you quoted, etc.) I'm asking you to cite what you quoted; it seems as though it's from one source that gathered quotes from Hawking, Davies, etc.</p>
<p>I'd just like to say that I'm very proud of the direction this thread is going in. While I don't think we'll ever get to a consensus, everyone has remained polite and nice. :)</p>
<p>getup01: true, but we can't prove something that isn't there isn't there. so we atheists are in a bit of a fix. but then again take a look at church of the flying spaghetti monster... we also can't prove he's not there!</p>
<p>haha kyledavid, I read your post after I posted mine: nice thoughts. Anyways, agreed WindCloudUltra : )</p>
<p>Lee Strobel, a journalist, interviewed Dr. Bill Craig. He listed a few facts he said were "gathered by scientists -- both Christians and non-Christians." I found them in his book, The Case for Faith.</p>
<p>You can't possibly be comparing hippos with spotted wings (which, by the way, do exist) to God. There isn't any evidence that would compel anyone to believe in hippos with spotted wings. Although the evidence that proves the existance of God isn't always concrete, at least there's something. For Christians, there's the Bible, and tons of people who claim that God works in their lives. The solidity of this evidence can obviously be debated, but you can't say that believing in something that you just imagined is comparable to believing in God.</p>
<p>well, there are people who have been saved like 999999999 times in a row every time they prayed to God. Thats why they believe in god so confidently.
Then they're are myths like Hercules && Xena and all the greek gods and goddesses that twist people's minds in the view of God</p>
<p>rockermcr, you're wrong. There is just as much proof for hippos with spotted wings as there is for god. The bible doesn't prove anything: it is a man made creation which was put together over 100 years after jesus' death. A group of men voted on what to put in it and what to leave out... I'd hardly call that proof of god. It is not uncommon for people to claim God works in their lives, but usually there is a reasonable explination for the phenomenon they observe/ experience.</p>
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was put together over 100 years after Jesus' death. A group of men voted on what to put in it and what to leave out...
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<p>Source?? 10char</p>
<p>I know this from my humanities class at school and the fact that I read so much about religion but I'll find you a source</p>
<p>But there is proof; there's all kinds of evidence: oral testimony, written testimony, and physical testimony.</p>
<p>If that's the logic you're going by, and how can you prove Abraham Lincoln ever existed? The same way -- interviewing people who've met him, looking at primary source documents (letters he wrote, etc.), newspaper articles about him.</p>
<p>But isn't that exactly what the Bible is?</p>
<p>Just because you can't prove something scientifically, it doesn't mean it's either true or untrue. The scientific method doesn't work on Abraham Lincoln. We have to use historical evidence.</p>
<p>roxxy: I'm assuming here, but I'm pretty sure that the facts were cherry-picked for that book. It happens only too often. I'm sure there are extenuating circumstances to what you quoted.</p>
<p>rockermcr: That's precisely my point. That's the logic behind it. There are myriad things that don't have any support for existence. The default is to not believe in them. Nothing says they don't exist; nothing says they do. We cannot prove either. However, the probability that they're true is very low. In the case of God, there is no empirical evidence for His existence. While there isn't empirical evidence for his non-existence, there is empirical proof for other explanations for the world/life. Ever heard of the Invisible Pink Unicorn? The whole "doctrine" is a mirror of the logic of this argument.</p>