Oh boy, not that nonsense again. Basically, I argued that there were specific rules for a qualification of a savior. Rick asked a different question, which was about if a person could “accept” Christ as having been a historical figure. Well, what did he expect when using the words “Accept a savior”? Penis ensued. Anyway, I will not bring up that can of worms by linking to it. However, I will put down the list. Rather then search the old thread, I am stealing it from jewsforjudaism.org
As ** jayjay** has said, nothing about coming back from the dead.
Basically it all boils down to the concept/theory of a “Prime Mover” brought to us first by Aristotle (The first noteworthy enough to be mentioned in the chronicles of history of course, as there were predecessors to him more then likely.)
Everything that “is”, has a cause, a primary mover. There was a loud crashing noise in the forest, but what caused the noise? A tree fell, but what caused the tree to fall? A bolt of lightening, but what caused the lightening? Static friction in the atmosphere, but what cause the friction? Hot and cold clashes, but what causes the clash? Heat updrafts, cold clouds of moisture etc etc etc, (Not sure if I have that scenario right, but you get my drift) and on and on and on, we could go, till we come to the first thing that caused. . . . which would have to be uncaused itself. Some label Him the Higher Power, God, Father, Christ, Allah, Beleil, Thor and a host of other gods and wage war over who knows God best.
Now you have the other side, in which, you start with NOTHING. Now lets get this Big Bang going. . . . you have nothing whatsoever, not even space, time or existence, and now?
Logically speaking, to me, it’s much more conceivable to believe that the First Energy to come into existence became knowledgeable and created all the wonders and mysteries of the vast universe then to think it all “poof” appeared. I don’t even believe that, but a timeless being of infinity warps others minds, especially those that can’t even fathom that the first energy became the mightiest force.
So I offer you this opportunity to ornate your ideology in the matter and look forward to your elaborations, less the insults, rudeness and semantics.
Quantum-level events such as atomic decay don’t seem to have a cause - they just happen. If that bothers you you’re in good company - Einstein didn’t like it much either.
Personally I don’t see any great difference between an uncaused knowledgable First Energy that then shapes the Universe, and an uncaused Universe. A knowledgeable First Energy is a complicated entity, and seeing as It’s just come into existence, what does It have knowledge of? If It already has notions of space and time and matter and stars and planets and life and Man in Its mind, that seems just as unlikely to me as “it all “poof” appeared”.
Our observations suggest the initial state of the universe was relatively uncomplicated, without any signs of a guiding hand. Everything appears to have freewheeled from the very first instant. For a long time the only element in existence was hydrogen. This gaseous hydrogen had to clump under gravity to form stars, the stars had to burn a while to form heavier elements from the hydrogen, big stars had to explode as supernovae to form heavier elements than iron. Only then could rocky planets such as our own form, and squishy bags of fused star-stuff such as ourselves. The apparently simple initial state of the Universe seems more credible to me than a knowledgeable First Energy that had everything worked out in advance.
Maybe both these ideas are a bit limited. In a previous discussion, a poster suggested that the Universe is God. I have no problem with that - the Uncaused First Thing can be both God and the Universe. The development of complexity within the Universe can be one and the same with God’s developing knowledge, rather than Him coming into existence with knowledge already present. It’s a neat idea. However, it doesn’t mesh very well with Christianity or Hinduism or any of the other human-centric religions we’ve come up with.
Not directly. You have to draw the inference. There are two major issues on which Hawking has changed his mind: the one you’ve referenced and have found cites on, and the one about no-boundry conditions — whether entropy decreases in the Big Crunch and in the formation of black holes. “I thought at first that the no boundary condition did indeed imply that disorder would decrease in the contracting phase. I realized that I had made a mistake: the no boundary condition implied that disorder would in fact continue to increase during the contraction. The thermodynamic and psychological arrows of time would not reverse when the universe begins to contract or inside black holes” — Hawking. Together, these two taken as premises — the retention of information and subsequent leakage from black holes, and the increase of disorder in the formation of black holes — implies that singularities, by their strict definition, do not (and cannot) exist.
“Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay.” — Psalms 16:10
“Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.” — Daniel 12:2
My point, obviously, was that looking at history at a distance can be useful if:
the historian has an unbiased eye
there is significant new evidence to factor in, and
said evidence is valid.
Unfortunately, most of the evidence presented has been heresay gathered at most times by people who had a stake in the matter, which casts heavy doubt on its validity.
It all depends on who wrote the account, and why, for example. Most accounts of Kennedy’s assassination in the public record today are highly inaccuruate, and time has done nothing to filter out the half-truths and outright lies that surround accounts of this event.
In my experience, this is a driveby posting from someone who knows little or nothing about the facts.
There are many things wrong with the ‘logic’ above, but until the original poster returns it doesn’t seem worth discussing them all.
A couple of examples:
eye-witness reports are not very accurate (and a court case on just such evidence will not succeed)
yes, of course the Universe fits within certain limits. I wouldn’t be typing this otherwise.
It doesn’t say “holy one,” it says chaciyd, which means “faithful,” “devout,” “kind,” “godly,” “pious,” "saint.’ It doesn’t mean “holy” in the sense of spiriual perfection and Psalm 16 is not Messianic.
Both of your quoted verses refer only to the ancient Jewish belief in a resurrection of the dead - ALL the dead- on jdgement day. There is nothing Messianic in either verse and there are no OT expectations that the Messiah will die before fulfilling the prophecies.
The problems with this line of reasoning are more numerous than the eight points that make it up. But most significant in my mind:
There’s no reason to think something can’t come from nothing or that everything has to have a cause. Quantum mechanics has in fact shown this to be untrue. Furthermore, if a “cause” is an event that occured at an earlier time than some other event, and directly precipitated that second event, then it doesn’t even make sense to talk about the cause of the universe’s existence. As you yourself noted, there was no time before the universe, so it couldn’t have a cause. (And I’m saying that as someone who believes in God . . . but as a being who exists in parallel to the universe and enables the universe’s existence through his existence, not as a “cause” in the usual, temporal sense. And I don’t think for a second God’s existence is required by logic.)
Just because God could create Jesus in the womb and resurrect him from death doesn’t mean he would, and furthermore all the “eye witness accounts” of Jesus’s resurrection are suspect. First of all, we don’t have eye witnesses, we have two-thousand year old documents that may or may not have been written by eye witnesses. Second, even eye witnesses may be mistaken or lying. Here, the details of the story make “mistaken” less likely, but it could certainly be argued that early Christians, disheartened at the death of their Messiah, had a clear incentive to lie. I’m not saying that’s what happened, but it’s certainly possible. And further more, there are numerous other religions that make claims of things that God could have done, with the support of “eye witnesses” of this sort. Unless you’re willing to proclaim all of these religions true as well, you must admit that at least some of these people, whether deliberately or not, simply weren’t telling the truth.
Again, I’m not saying Christianity couldn’t be true (I think it’s possible that it is, although I don’t personally believe it to be.) But I see absolutely nothing to suggest that belief in Christianity (or any other religion, or atheism for that matter) follows from deductive logic.
By the way, Liberal, am I correctly understanding that you aren’t actually arguing in favor of the line of reasoning in the OP, but just objecting to specific criticisms of it?
Hawking draws no such inference: singularities are still the only future within the event horizon, and he makes no categorical claim about the size of the universe within the Planck epoch, but still considers that it contains a singularity:
Citation. The bet was only about information and entropy (which relates more to the event horizon than to the centre of the collapsed star inside it).
Please stop saying that Hawking doesn’t believe in singularities any more.
Wait a minute. Are you saying that the Messiah will do the set of things that Scott stole and not one other thing? The OT doesn’t say he’ll smile, does it? So if he smiles, is he disqualified?
Plus, I submit that your translation is shortsighted and biased. Psalm 145:17 uses the same word, directly in reference to God: “The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works.” There is no reason to assume that this represents a sudden change in gears from the Psalm 16 verse.
Finally, the antecedants in all so-called Messianic verses are vague and open to interpretation. Once again, you are digging into a particular interpretation out of many possible ones and presenting it as definitive.