# Creationist Attempts to Prove the Existence of God / Denial of Evolution \[merged threads\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 5, 2012, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationist-attempts-to-prove-the-existence-of-god-denial-of-evolution-merged-threads/611889 "2012-02-05T20:47:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationist-attempts-to-prove-the-existence-of-god-denial-of-evolution-merged-threads/611889/301 "2012-02-17T12:09:10Z")
> [@GEEPERS](#): > > Yet I have no doubt that you accept without question any scientific finding that goes against the Bible. Are you an expert in geology? Where did you get your degree? Geepers…Scientic finding can be seen and proven, it is not based on belief ,but fact, so all can see it, Just as the scientists proved the world was not flat,nor the earth the center of the universe. Science looks for truth,then when they find it then all people can see it, each religion has it’s beliefs, would you accept that an Angel of God dictated a book to Muhammad? Muslims do, but that would not be accepted by Christians, it is the same with Atheist and your explanations. One doesn’t need a degree in geology to understand what a geologist shows, any more than if you had to be a theologian to understand what they teach. You want your faith to be correct and so you believe as you do. Once faith is proven then it becomes fact, but you haven’t given any proof, just your faith, that is fine for you but others do not see it that way. They are not against you just that you haven’t given any proof. Proof can be seen by everyone, and doesn’t take faith to accept it! ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationist-attempts-to-prove-the-existence-of-god-denial-of-evolution-merged-threads/611889/302 "2012-02-17T12:30:07Z")
> [@GEEPERS](#): > > An atheist will deny facts if they support Christianity. Yet, I have no doubt you will accept without question any atheist commentary that goes against Christianity. Another problem is “facts” can always be distorted to meet any agenda. This is why we have conspiracy theorists. For example, people can distort facts to suggest that the moon landing never took place. It’s hard to prove anything so airtight that you can’t poke a hole of doubt into the fabric. > Just for fun, how about a little test. Proverbs 22:7 - The rich rules over the poor, > and the borrower is the slave of the lender. > I call that a fact. If people had just listen to this simple advice, our economy wouldn’t be in the toliet right now. Can you at least agree that this verse speaks the truth? Your fact can apply in some cases, but not all.That is not based on a Belief in God. The Atheists on this board as long as I have been on it do not take the word of someone else, they check to see if it is fact, That is why they don’t go on faith. If an elephant is in the room they want to see it,touch it, If only you could see it then they are not discriminating against you, they are asking to see it, if not, then it is logical to say maybe you are imagining it; a real elephant can be seen by any one who is not blind, but even a blind person could feel it and know it was there. Your word or belief is not proof. ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2012, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationist-attempts-to-prove-the-existence-of-god-denial-of-evolution-merged-threads/611889/303 "2012-02-20T11:25:25Z")
> [@KellyCriterion](#): > > If at any point someone wants to check in and explain how it’s already been proven that there are uncaused events, please do. Putting the words “quantum” and “foam” together to form “quantum foam” is not an explanation of how it’s already been proven that there are uncaused events, nor is asserting that quantum foam is an example of an uncaused event anything more than an unbacked assertion. > > So, who’s going to step in and explain to this layman how we know that uncaused events happen? Plenty of people up-thread claiming as such. > > In the meantime, I’ll continue to believe that _something_ caused the Big Bang, and that if _something_ caused space time and matter to exist, then said _something_ is, by absolute definition, spaceless, timeless and immaterial. If at any point you want to check in and explain your “something” in a coherent manner, then by all means do so - until then, you are substituting “incoherent magic” for “I don’t understand”. All of which has been explained to you. Your pretending otherwise is, frankly, bizarre. ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2012, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationist-attempts-to-prove-the-existence-of-god-denial-of-evolution-merged-threads/611889/304 "2012-02-20T11:28:02Z")
> [@KellyCriterion](#): > > Right, so as you’ve basically alluded to here, “unknown causes” and behaviour that “resembles randomness” is not evidence that such events are uncaused. All we can say is that such events have no known cause and or/resemble randomness. > > Hence, my original post from page 1 stands: > If people want to have faith, based on no evidence, that Big Bangs can happen without a cause, they’re obviously free to do so. > > I, personally, don’t have enough faith to believe such things. Actually, I gave a third option, which you ignored. Your “solution” fails since it was illogical and incoherent. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationist-attempts-to-prove-the-existence-of-god-denial-of-evolution-merged-threads/611889/305 "2012-02-21T12:38:17Z")
> [@Meatros](#): > > Actually, I gave a third option, which you ignored. > > Your “solution” fails since it was illogical and incoherent. I wonder why Kelly doesn’t apply the same thing to God,isn’t God uncaused? I am still waiting for some one to explain to me, why a being could exist somewhere, if there was no place to first exist! ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationist-attempts-to-prove-the-existence-of-god-denial-of-evolution-merged-threads/611889/306 "2012-02-22T01:46:45Z")
The “place” is a meta-place, outside of everywhere, and God created it at the same time he came into existence, which was always… I mean, really… You’re dealing with the kind of theology that coins such pleasantries as “The nature of God is a circle of which the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere.” (Yes, this was from Empedocles, a pre-Christian Greek, but this kind of Pythagorean mysticism seems to have been influential on some of the early Christians. Anyway, I’ve seen the quote repeated in many Christian publications.) ---
**Author:** ![KellyCriterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b3f665/32.png) [@KellyCriterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KellyCriterion)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationist-attempts-to-prove-the-existence-of-god-denial-of-evolution-merged-threads/611889/307 "2012-02-22T04:49:39Z")
> [@Meatros](#): > > If at any point you want to check in and explain your “something” in a coherent manner, then by all means do so - until then, you are substituting “incoherent magic” for “I don’t understand”. All of which has been explained to you. > > Your pretending otherwise is, frankly, bizarre. Why on earth do I need to explain “something” in what you deem a “coherent” manner? If _something_ caused space, time and matter, then _something_ is spaceless, timeless and immaterial. This is not only true by definition, it’s what you’d learn in the opening five minutes of a logic 101 class. Just because _you_ can’t grasp how something could be timeless, immaterial and spaceless _does not_ mean the fundamental rules of logic don’t apply anymore. Comprehende? ---
**Author:** ![KellyCriterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b3f665/32.png) [@KellyCriterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KellyCriterion)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationist-attempts-to-prove-the-existence-of-god-denial-of-evolution-merged-threads/611889/308 "2012-02-22T04:53:03Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > I wonder why Kelly doesn’t apply the same thing to God,isn’t God uncaused? I am still waiting for some one to explain to me, why a being could exist somewhere, if there was no place to first exist! I’ve actually never mentioned God, but if whatever the thing is that caused space, time and matter to come in to existence has itself always existed (ie, exists eternally), then _it_ couldn’t, by definition, have been caused. The simplest pieces of logic are often the best, ya know? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationist-attempts-to-prove-the-existence-of-god-denial-of-evolution-merged-threads/611889/309 "2012-02-22T05:09:18Z")
> [@KellyCriterion](#): > > Why on earth do I need to explain “something” in what you deem a “coherent” manner? If _something_ caused space, time and matter, then _something_ is spaceless, timeless and immaterial. This is not only true by definition, it’s what you’d learn in the opening five minutes of a logic 101 class. Just because _you_ can’t grasp how something could be timeless, immaterial and spaceless _does not_ mean the fundamental rules of logic don’t apply anymore. Comprehende? I don’t think this follows at all! There might simply be a “bigger” space, into which our space is embedded. This metaspace might be limited; you have in no way proven that it is limitless! You also don’t take into account the possibility that the event is “self caused.” This isn’t terribly satisfying to our common sense, but it isn’t logically vacant. You assert that it is true “by definition,” but this isn’t particularly satisfying to those of us who would like to know why. To begin with, who wrote the definition? It’s circular reasoning to say, “This is true because it follows from the axiom that defines it to be true.” ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationist-attempts-to-prove-the-existence-of-god-denial-of-evolution-merged-threads/611889/310 "2012-02-22T07:06:35Z")
> [@KellyCriterion](#): > > I’ve actually never mentioned God, but if whatever the thing is that caused space, time and matter to come in to existence has itself always existed (ie, exists eternally), then _it_ couldn’t, by definition, have been caused. > > The simplest pieces of logic are often the best, ya know? Then let’s use logic, shall we? Where might we find this definition that says that what caused our current space and time could not itself have been caused by something else, and could only be eternal? ---
**Author:** ![KellyCriterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b3f665/32.png) [@KellyCriterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KellyCriterion)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationist-attempts-to-prove-the-existence-of-god-denial-of-evolution-merged-threads/611889/311 "2012-02-22T07:40:00Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Then let’s use logic, shall we? Where might we find this definition that says that what caused our current space and time could not itself have been caused by something else, and could only be eternal? Have I disputed this possibility? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationist-attempts-to-prove-the-existence-of-god-denial-of-evolution-merged-threads/611889/312 "2012-02-22T07:45:00Z")
> [@KellyCriterion](#): > > Have I disputed this possibility? Have you ever provided a source for this definition? If not, will you now? ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationist-attempts-to-prove-the-existence-of-god-denial-of-evolution-merged-threads/611889/313 "2012-02-22T13:05:51Z")
> [@KellyCriterion](#): > > Why on earth do I need to explain “something” in what you deem a “coherent” manner? If _something_ caused space, time and matter, then _something_ is spaceless, timeless and immaterial. This is not only true by definition, it’s what you’d learn in the opening five minutes of a logic 101 class. Just because _you_ can’t grasp how something could be timeless, immaterial and spaceless _does not_ mean the fundamental rules of logic don’t apply anymore. Comprehende? You don’t have to do anything - but if you are seeking to be part of this **discussion** , then I think it’s a good thing to do, in order to explain your position. Instead you seem to be concerned with drive by ‘science is nonsense’ type posts. You can preach all you want, but to start getting snarky when people question your arguments is beyond the pale in a section of the forums called ‘Great Debates’. We’ve pointed out how your position is illogical and you keep repeating it, without really dealing with the criticism. It’s as though you think that repetition will make your position make sense. Take what you said above: Some **thing** ‘caused’ space and time. What do you mean by ‘something’? How can something cause space and time? As I pointed out before you are presupposing time exists in your argument (please see [this post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14745322#post14745322) or [this post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14745238&postcount=72), both which you ignored). You have to presuppose that time exists in order to argue that a timeless/spaceless immaterial entity caused time and space. It’s logically contradictory, as I, again, pointed out. So it’s not about ‘grasping’ something, it’s about you holding a self contradictory belief and then having the marbles to say such things as this: _“I, personally, don’t have enough faith to believe such things.”_ **Your** position is nonsense and as such, you shouldn’t cast stones towards other positions. You should work on making your position logically coherent. I’ve pointed this out to you repeatedly and you seem to think that by saying it’s apparent by logic 101 you are some how explaining it. I’ve taken several logic courses, you apparently have not. You seem to think that condescension can make up for a bad argument, it cannot. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationist-attempts-to-prove-the-existence-of-god-denial-of-evolution-merged-threads/611889/314 "2012-02-22T13:33:43Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > The “place” is a meta-place, outside of everywhere, and God created it at the same time he came into existence, which was always… > > I mean, really… You’re dealing with the kind of theology that coins such pleasantries as “The nature of God is a circle of which the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere.” > > (Yes, this was from Empedocles, a pre-Christian Greek, but this kind of Pythagorean mysticism seems to have been influential on some of the early Christians. Anyway, I’ve seen the quote repeated in many Christian publications.) Out side of every where is nowhere! So in that sense God would have to be existence,not’ a’ supreme being! ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationist-attempts-to-prove-the-existence-of-god-denial-of-evolution-merged-threads/611889/315 "2012-02-22T13:36:10Z")
“Spaceless, timeless and immaterial”-what the hell does this even mean? Let’s break it down. Spaceless-does not exist anywhere. Timeless-does not exist any time. Immaterial-there is no substance to it. I’m sorry, but you’ve just described the atheist position on the matter of God. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationist-attempts-to-prove-the-existence-of-god-denial-of-evolution-merged-threads/611889/316 "2012-02-22T13:36:51Z")
> [@KellyCriterion](#): > > I’ve actually never mentioned God, but if whatever the thing is that caused space, time and matter to come in to existence has itself always existed (ie, exists eternally), then _it_ couldn’t, by definition, have been caused. > > The simplest pieces of logic are often the best, ya know? It would then mean that Existence had always existed, and was not’ a’ being,but being! ---
**Author:** ![TripleFail](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@TripleFail](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TripleFail)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationist-attempts-to-prove-the-existence-of-god-denial-of-evolution-merged-threads/611889/317 "2012-02-22T13:55:55Z")
Just to clarify, the argument put forth is called the Kalām cosmological argument. > **[Kalam cosmological argument](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kal%C4%81m_cosmological_argument)** > > The Kalam cosmological argument is a modern formulation of the cosmological argument for the existence of God. It is named after the Kalam (medieval Islamic scholasticism) from which its key ideas originated. William Lane Craig was principally responsible for giving new life to the argument, due to his The Kalām Cosmological Argument (1979), among other writings. > The argument's key underpinning idea is the metaphysical impossibility of actual infinities and of a temporally past-infinite universe... "William Lane Craig has formulated the argument as follows:[20] 1. Whatever begins to exist must have an external cause. 2. The universe began to exist. 3. Therefore, the universe must have an external cause. This cause is the God of Classical Theism, and is a personal being, because He chose to create the universe." The idea that god is spaceless, timeless and immaterial is not reached by definition but concluded form the first premise saying the cause was “external” to our universe. ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationist-attempts-to-prove-the-existence-of-god-denial-of-evolution-merged-threads/611889/318 "2012-02-22T14:06:25Z")
> [@TripleFail](#): > > Just to clarify, the argument put forth is called the Kalām cosmological argument. > [Kalam cosmological argument - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kal%C4%81m_cosmological_argument) > "William Lane Craig has formulated the argument as follows:[20] > > 1. Whatever begins to exist must have an external cause. > 2. The universe began to exist. > 3. Therefore, the universe must have an external cause. > This cause is the God of Classical Theism, and is a personal being, because He chose to create the universe." > > The idea that god is spaceless, timeless and immaterial is not reached by definition but concluded form the first premise saying the cause was “external” to our universe. Craig’s argument is not sequential though, he attempts to say that, from eternity, God has been creating the universe or something like that. It also depends on presentism, **which should be argued for** (I believe he does in his published works). ---
**Author:** ![TripleFail](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@TripleFail](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TripleFail)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationist-attempts-to-prove-the-existence-of-god-denial-of-evolution-merged-threads/611889/319 "2012-02-22T14:19:59Z")
Oh, I am not trying trying to argue for Craig’s argument. In fact I think they whole idea is ridiculous but since Kelly is not forthcoming with any cite or clarification I thought I might progress the discussion further by providing where this argument originated from. Otherwise this thread is not fun to watch if it’s just bunch of people ganging up on someone defenseless, just tipping the scale a bit to balance things out. ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationist-attempts-to-prove-the-existence-of-god-denial-of-evolution-merged-threads/611889/320 "2012-02-22T14:31:33Z")
> [@TripleFail](#): > > Oh, I am not trying trying to argue for Craig’s argument. In fact I think they whole idea is ridiculous but since Kelly is not forthcoming with any cite or clarification I thought I might progress the discussion further by providing where this argument originated from. Otherwise this thread is not fun to watch if it’s just bunch of people ganging up on someone defenseless, just tipping the scale a bit to balance things out. Fair enough. I think earlier in the thread, Craig was mentioned. I might or might not have wade in with some criticisms of his view. Kelly’s argument is **similar** to Craigs, but it’s not the same. Craig formulates his argument in such a way as to prevent the sequential criticism that I’ve brought up. So he argues for a simultaneous creation. The following [from here](http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5839): > [@](#): > > 1. Yes, speaking of a moment “before” the moment of creation does imply time before time, which is incoherent on the Augustinian view I defend. But notice that I don’t use that word in your quotation from my interview with Lee. In my early work, I thought people would understand, once I explained my view, that the expression “before creation” is just a harmless façon de parler (manner of speaking), not to be taken literally. But in light of the confusion engendered by the phrase, I have since been very careful to avoid it, speaking rather of God’s existing without (or sans) creation or existing beyond, though not before, the Big Bang. One nice way of expressing God’s priority to creation is to say that God is causally but not temporally prior to the beginning of the universe. So Craig would, apparently, agree with my view. What does Craig say happened? > [@](#): > > 1. Obviously a man sitting “from eternity” doesn’t exist timelessly. But my thought experiment is meant to illustrate a point about freedom of the will. A person can exist changelessly and then freely execute a certain intention because free will doesn’t require any antecedent determining conditions. The very nature of free will is the absence of causal determinants. So a free choice has the appearance of a purely spontaneous event. The man can simply freely will to stand up. Thus, you can get a temporal effect from a changeless cause, if that cause is a free agent. Now in God’s case, God exists changelessly without the universe. Creation is a freely willed act of God that, when it occurs, brings time into being along with the universe. Thus, to say that “a finite time ago a Creator endowed with free will could have willed to bring the world into being at that moment” does not imply that there was time prior to that moment. Craig later tries to argue that some activities don’t require change and time. I think he’s largely mistaken and I think that his view of creation still falls victim to the error that he’s trying to avoid. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationist-attempts-to-prove-the-existence-of-god-denial-of-evolution-merged-threads/611889.md?page=15) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationist-attempts-to-prove-the-existence-of-god-denial-of-evolution-merged-threads/611889.md?page=17)