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[TrakeM]

The more you talk about this issue, the more clear it is that the bible is just the word of primitive man. The more clear it becomes that the knowledge and perspective of the book is the knowledge and perspective of primitive man. Your god should have understood more than just caused by man vs magic. Your god should have known that there wasn't an Adam and Eve. Your god should have known that the things he was writing weren't true. Yet, your god inspires this book to be his one true word and has it as the basis of the whole religion and it's filled with errors that he would have known were errors whether it was intended to be a scientific text book or not. After all, if there was no Adam and Eve, then there is no fall. The whole thing is predicated on the idea that it's the word of god. Even if the book wasn't intended as a science book, if it was the word of god then surely it would be perfect. Surely this god would not write tons of inaccurate stuff in it. The whole thing is EXACTLY what you'd expect primitive man to write, not what you'd expect an all knowing all powerful god to write. God could have written something actually accurate, but yet he just chose not to because it wasn't primarily a book about science or because he didn't want to disagree with primitive man? I'm sorry, but an all knowing god would not include errors even on something that isn't his primary point. God inspired a book but didn't ensure that he inspiration would make the scientific accuracy correct? I'm sorry, but this doesn't make a lot of sense. It doesn't matter if it was intended as a scientific text book. If it was written by a perfect all knowing god then it should be perfect, not riddled with EXACTLY the kind of errors primitive man would write in a book.

The bible talks about the material world at times. When it does, it often gets it wrong. Surely this god wouldn't get it wrong in precisely the same way that primitive man who actually wrote it would? With every statement you show how the bible is exactly the kind of book that we'd expect to be written by primitive man. With every statement you show how it lines up exactly with the kind of world view and ideas that primitive man had rather than actual reality that god would have known was right instead of the kind of crap that's in the bible that lines up with the ideas of primitive man.

[jimwalton]

My list of evidences for the existence of God is in a different thread, but I'm going to bring it back here, since this subject is "Lack of evidence for God." I think maybe we tried to swallow too much in one bite and got lost in the process. Let's take each piece one at a time and digest them more thoroughly.

You have stated several times that I cannot verify that God objectively exists. (This thread was originally in "God/God is not fair by any definition of the word," a subject about hell. My first line of reasoning was a cosmological argument that went like this:

1. Whatever begins to exist is caused to exist by something else already in existence.
2. Then there has to be at least one being that is distinct from and pre-existing all beings that began to exist.
3. Therefore that first being is uncaused, and there is at least one first, uncaused being.

Your rebuttal was:

"Why should we conclude that this uncaused being isn't the big bang? No matter what you do you have to break your first statement. Saying that god exists breaks your first statement. Saying the big bang had no cause breaks your first statement. You can state that god exists outside of your material realm but then you have to change your first statement to "whatever that is material begins to exist is caused to exist by something else already in existence." If you want to do that, you still have the problem that you haven't shown that this spiritual realm exists or that it can have things that exist within it that are uncaused. You're just making up something with the properties that you need it to have and then assuming that it exists."

My claim is that nothing spontaneously generates on its own accord. If it had a beginning, it had a cause outside of itself. Can we agree that the universe had a beginning? (That's the first question.)

My proposal is that there is an uncaused being. Your proposal is that (if I understand you rightly) is, "Why couldn't the Big Bang just have happened on its own accord with no causal mechanism?" (Or, I presume, if there was a causal mechanism we have yet to discover it.)

Then you say, "Saying that god exists breaks your first statement." But I never said that God exists; all I contended is that there is something/someone that existed before the Big Bang with enough capability to have been the causal mechanism for the Bang. Eventually we have to get back to the place where something is eternal, whether matter, energy, the laws of physics, or a metaphysical being, or something.

We have to examine the logic for various alternatives:

1. The universe spontaneously generated. It was its own causal mechanism. To me this flies in the face of both logic and science. We know nothing like this, and science has shown us nothing like this.
2. There is no such thing as a first cause. The universe is an endless string of cause-and-effect. According to Kalam's cosmological argument, this is impossible. We cannot arrive at the present unless there was a beginning. Regardless of the logic of that, however, science tells us the universe had a beginning.
3. If the causal mechanism of the universe was not a thing (it was not matter, since science tells us the universe had a beginning and since it was a dimensionless singularity where all the laws of nature were non-existent), and since it was not, therefore, "scientific" (physics, chemistry, biology), then we have to wonder if the causal mechanism was a metaphysical being with the capability to motivate the Bang. This is not assuming a God; I have not already proven the existence of the spiritual realm, but it's bringing into the equation the only alternative to a material causal mechanism: an immaterial, metaphysical one.

Can we discuss this first, since possibly its controlled and contained enough that our discussion doesn't wander all over the galaxy?

[TrakeM]

Ok, so here we have a question, how did the universe begin? Where/how did it come to be? Sounds like a great question. You then propose a hypothesis, that some immaterial being created it. Ok, that's a hypothesis. Now comes the hard part: testing that hypothesis. Does that hypothesis make any testable predictions? Is that hypothesis falsifiable? The problem is that there is no way that I know of to test your hypothesis. Therefore, as best I can see, the question remains unanswered and the most honest answer that can be given to the question is simply, "I don't know". You can simply assert that it was something from a metaphysical spirit realm that no one can detect and isn't falsifiable but then you'd just be making an assertion that isn't founded on good scientific evidence. Until such time as you can come up with some prediction that your hypothesis makes, it seems your hypothesis remains not falsifiable and therefore not testable and therefore just a possibility for which there is no good evidence.

[jimwalton]

Great response. At this point I would guess that all possibilities are both unverifiable and unfalsifiable. So what we are seeking is what might be the most reasonable position. Given that the material world is non-existent in the non-dimensional singularity before the Big Bang, it's reasonable to assume that the causative mechanism of the Big Bang is, therefore, non-material. And given that the laws of nature, so to speak, are inoperative and also non-existent, as far as we know, it's reasonable to assume that the causative mechanism is outside of the natural world and not bound by or subject to its laws. It's at that point that I postulate a non-material, not-natural causative mechanism. Your conclusion of "I don't know" makes a certain amount of sense, but I can't make an assertion founded on good scientific evidence, because reason points me in a direction that is non-material, non-natural, and outside of the scope of scientific inquiry and evidence. Until such a time as a more reasonable hypothesis comes to the fore, inferring a non-material, non-natural, eternal, powerful causative mechanism is the most logical conclusion to the question at hand. It's not subject to scientific inquiry, but neither is any inquiry into a dimensionless singularity arrived at through mathematical reasoning combined with scientific observation that arrived at the theory of the Big Bang.

[TrakeM]

To say that "x" caused "y" is to say that "x" existed before "y" in chronological order. The big bang is literally the beginning of time. To say that god caused the big bang can't be correct because to say this would be to say that god existed before the big bang. There is no before the big bang. There can be no cause. The very concept of a cause flies right out the window right along with every law of physics you've ever known. This conversation is impossible to even have because we have no capacity to even conceive of any of this or have words to talk about it. Of course, you can still fall back on "god did it" but then as always I'd have to demand evidence. Why should I believe it? Furthermore, you say that this metaphysics exists with all of these properties. How do you know that this metaphysics exists? How did you measure these properties? I'm sorry, but I don't see the logic here, just lots of claims.

>Until such a time as a more reasonable hypothesis comes to the fore, inferring a non-material, non-natural, eternal, powerful causative mechanism is the most logical conclusion to the question at hand. It's not subject to scientific inquiry, but neither is any inquiry into a dimensionless singularity arrived at through mathematical reasoning combined with scientific observation that arrived at the theory of the Big Bang.
This, I think, is where you and I truly differ on an incredibly fundamental level. I say the most logical conclusion is that we don't know. That's it. We don't know. I'm sorry, but I don't think that making up an answer based on no evidence is as rational as the much more simple much more justifiable "I don't know". You don't have to claim to have an answer for everything. You can say "I don't know" and sometimes that's far more logical than any other option available.

[jimwalton]

> There can be no cause. The very concept of a cause flies right out the window right along with every law of physics you've ever known.

It sounds as if you are saying nothing caused the Big Bang.

May I ask a question at this point? What is your objective in this conversation? We have had dozens of exchanges at this point and obviously are not going to have a meeting of the minds. You see the world and evidence completely differently than I do, and we are both convinced that our perspective is based in reason, logic, and evidence. I presume we could continue for dozens of more conversations, but to what end? I guess that's what I would like to understand at this point—to what end?

Note: It's July, and I'm going to be away for a few days. I may not see your responses to these questions until the weekend, but don't think I've bailed on you.

[TrakeM]

>It sounds as if you are saying nothing caused the Big Bang.
If I sound vague on this issue, it's because I'm not a theoretical physicist. To be honest, I'm somewhat avoiding the whole issue because the whole conversation is so impossible because it's not even possible to imagine a universe without time. The whole conversation about the situation that lead to the big bang... well, that's not right. The cause of the... that's not right. The whole thing about the big bang being the beginning of time makes it impossible for me to even say what the topic of the conversation even IS, much less have a meaningful conversation about it. I'm sorry, but the whole thing becomes so completely bizzare I don't even know how to talk about it because everything that I can even think about much less talk about goes flying out the window right along with time and the laws of physics. I'd love to have the conversation with you, but I don't know how to do that because I can't even say what the conversation is about without saying something that doesn't mean anything because it's fundamentally based on the existence of time or some law of physics or some other thing that went flying out the window.

>What is your objective in this conversation?
I'd like to understand what ruler you are using to determine what is and isn't true. On the one hand you seam to be saying it's based on history, but then on the other hand you seem to want to accept claims that aren't verifiable based on historical information. I still don't understand why you think the bible is true or what measuring stick you are using to determine whether or not it's claims are true. I'd like to understand how you figure that the statement "the bible is concordant with science" has meaning given the way you have defined concordant with science.

[jimwalton]

My rulers for determining what is and isn't true in the biblical record is the same criteria we use for truth in other historical literary disciplines.

1. Intention: was it the stated or implied intention of the writers to accurately preserve history?
2. Ability: Even if they intended to reliably record history, were they able to do so? Were they qualified by experience, access to eyewitnesses, or reliable research to write truth?
3. Character: Is there evidence of dishonesty or immorality that taints either their ability or willingness to transmit history accurately?
4. Consistency: Are the accounts hopelessly contradictory or filled with unreasonable and unreconcilable discrepancies?
5. Bias: Did they have biases to skewed the material into untruth? (Bias doesn't necessarily mean inaccurate.)
6. Cover-Up: Were they trying to protect themselves or others by conveniently forgetting embarrassing or hard-to-explain details?
7. Corroboration: Can the people, events, cultural facts, religious details, etc. be verified from other sources?
8. Adverse Witness: Were others present who would have contradicted or corrected the accounts if those accounts were distorted or false?

[TrakeM]

From a historical perspective, the Bible is questionable at best. There exists no record from the time period in which Jesus supposedly existed referencing a Jesus. There is a consensus among scholars that have studied the bible that the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were likely not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. As for biases, there were plenty. The catholic church had plenty of bias when they came to the table to vote on which books were the word of god and which ones weren't. The oldest records of the gospels date back only to about 300 years after the time period Jesus supposedly existed in. Certainly we know that plenty of the accounts of the bible that relate to history simply aren't true. For an instance, there was no census of the sort that the bible references in the time period that Jesus supposedly existed in. Furthermore, there would have been records of someone like Jesus if there was a Jesus that lived up to what the Bible says of him. Yet, we find no such records dating back to the time period in which Jesus supposedly existed in. As for the claim of Moses witnessing a burning bush, that seems rather questionable at best in terms of historical evidence. Of course, if you claim that the history referenced in the book was correct, then you have the story of creation as that would be a historical event, not just a scientific one. Of course, the Bible is completely and hopelessly wrong when it comes to it's creation story. It seems to me that the bible fails rather hard when it comes to corroboration. The lack of documents dating back to the time period that Jesus supposedly existed in referencing a Jesus is a rather big hole. It seems to me that if we're going to go by these standards, wouldn't Islam be the better religion to pick? Certainly the evidence for the existence of Mohamed is rather solid. Of course, the evidence for him being an actual profit is rather thin, but then again the historical evidence from the time period that Jesus existed in for Jesus being a prophet is thin as well. It seems to me that the historical evidence here isn't enough to justify much confidence in the claims being made.

[jimwalton]

> From a historical perspective, the Bible is questionable at best.

I beg to differ, but there's no sense in speaking in generalities. We would have to address specifics to have a worthwhile discussion.

> There exists no record from the time period in which Jesus supposedly existed referencing a Jesus.

There is no reasonable doubt that Jesus existed as a man in history. He was a Galilean Jew who was born between 7 and 4 BC and died between AD 26-36. Most scholars hold that Jesus lived in Galilee and Judea, did not preach or study elsewhere, was called Christos in Greek, had a brother named James, and that he spoke Aramaic and may have also spoken Hebrew and possibly Greek. It is believed even from non-Christian sources that he had both Jewish and Gentile followers, and that Jewish leaders held unfavorable opinions of him. Although there are great differences (outside of the Gospels) trying to reconstruct the details of his life, the two events whose historicity is subject to “almost universal assent” are that he was baptized by John the Baptist and shortly afterwards was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect, Pontius Pilate. There is no evidence from antiquity that the existence of Jesus was ever denied by those who opposed Christianity. It is also widely agreed as implausible that Christians invented him. Today nearly all historians, whether Christian or not, accept that Jesus existed. The claim that Jesus was simply made up can be debunked at every turn. The total evidence is overpowering.
He is mentioned by Tacitus (regarded as a responsible Roman historian), Josephus, Thallus (in about AD 50), Suetonius, Ignatius, Pliny the Younger, Mara bar Sarapion, Lucian, and in the 4 Gospels. John Crossan, a skeptic who denies the authenticity of just about everything in the Gospels, says, "That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus...agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact."

> There is a consensus among scholars that have studied the bible that the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were likely not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.

There is no such consensus. I have studied this subject deeply, and would refer you to the "Bible" forum on the website where there are separate conversations about all four Gospels.

> As for biases, there were plenty.

Mike Licona says, "Of course they’re biased. They have an agenda. John is explicit about his bias. Every historian writes because they are interested in the subject. But bias doesn’t mean you’re wrong. If it were, then we can’t believe any Jewish historian who writes on the Holocaust, or any African-American writing about antebellum slavery. Too many elements of the gospels don’t come across as having been invented for the sake of bias (the disciples’ lack of faith, the testimony of women on resurrection, Jesus’ claiming his father had forsaken him, etc.). But elements in the gospels also show they are trying to report accurate history. Richard Dawkins has an objective, an agenda. Gerd Ludemann has an agenda. We don’t reject writings because the authors have an agenda, but because the arguments are insufficient. Even we as readers are biased."

> The catholic church had plenty of bias when they came to the table to vote on which books were the word of god and which ones weren't.

You misunderstand the canonization process and intent. The church voted to affirm which ones were uniformly and from the beginning recognized as authoritative, not to decide by committee.

> The oldest records of the gospels date back only to about 300 years after the time period Jesus supposedly existed in.

This is patently untrue. Clement of Rome quotes from the Gospels in about AD 95, 65 years after Jesus' death. We have a fragment of John (P52) from about AD 125. As far as Matthew, Papias (AD 125) mentions his writings, as do Pantaenus and Irenaeus in the 2nd century. Ignatius of Antioch (about AD 100) quotes Matthew, as does the Didache and Polykarp, along with others. There is a fragment of Mark from AD 100-150. Papias also mentions the existence of his Gospel, and Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria (end of 2nd c.) say they knew of Mark's Gospel. Luke is quoted by Ignatius and Clement of Rome (AD 100), as well as by Polykarp, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus, among others. There is so much more to add, but hopefully I've shown that you are incorrect about this statement of yours.

> For an instance, there was no census of the sort that the bible references in the time period that Jesus supposedly existed in.

This is a highly debated text. This "census" was a registration. Craig Keener says, "By AD 6 wide-scale censuses were taken every 14 years; before that time, periodic censuses seem to have occurred at less regular intervals. They were important for evaluating taxation. They were generally conducted locally, so all local governments in all regions probably did not simultaneously implement Caesar’s decree." Historically there's a reference to a registration of all Roman people in 2 BC (Res Gestae 35). Therefore, before this writing is when the registration must have happened. We have to consider how long it took (in a pre-telephone, mail system, computers world) to conduct such things.

Craig Blomberg writes, "We have no evidence that Rome issued empire-wide censuses. We also recognize, however, that we are lacking the vast majority of documentation from any culture in history, including Rome. We do know, however, that Rome periodically issued censuses over various portions of the empire. The Deeds of the Divine Augustus (paragraph 8, lines 2-4) confirms that Augustus himself ordered a census in 8 BC—a census that sounds empire-wide in scope (with 4 million citizens in an empire in which most people were not citizens. In a world without the ability to travel and communicate nearly as speedily as ours today, it would be expected that it might take such an endeavor years to unfold and come to both fruition and completion."

> then you have the story of creation as that would be a historical event, not just a scientific one. Of course, the Bible is completely and hopelessly wrong when it comes to it's creation story.

I'm pretty sure we've already had the discussion that I take Genesis 1-2 as an account of functional creation, not of material creation. Possibly it's not the Bible that is hopelessly wrong, but you are insisting on taking it differently than it was written to be taken.

> The lack of documents dating back to the time period that Jesus supposedly existed in referencing a Jesus is a rather big hole.

Already covered, but I could also mention the James Ossuary. An ossuary (bone burial box) has surfaced in Israel that may once have contained the bones of James, the brother of Jesus, who died in AD 62-63. An inscription scraped on one side of the ossuary reads, “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus” (see Mt. 13.55-56 et al. for a reference to James, the brother of Jesus). Scientists have dated the box to the era from 20 BC to AD 70. It has been studied in minute detail by epigraphists, professors, archaeologists, paleographers, historians, geochemists, and geologists and has been deemed to be authentic. While the three names were all common during that era (about a quarter of the population had one of those three names), a statistician has estimated that only 2 families from Jerusalem might fit the category of James, the son of Joseph, the brother of Jesus. Also, though it was common to mention the deceased and possibly even his father on a bone box, it was extremely unusual to mention a brother unless the brother was an important figure in society, giving the bone box strong probability that it mentions the person we know as Jesus of Nazareth.

So maybe the hole is not as large as you are assuming.