# Evidence of a Creator **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 17, 2010, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307 "2010-01-17T12:15:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![raindog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@raindog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raindog)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/181 "2010-01-20T17:33:23Z")
> [@Keweenaw](#): > > I’m far from a scholar on this, but just from memory I believe the one of the themes of Job was something like ‘bad things happen to good people, because gods workings are beyond man’s understanding’. > > Simplistic, but generally in line with what tomndebb posted. > > Whether or not it’s a good interpretation, I guess is up for debate, just preferably not in this thread since it’s off topic. I do think it is a common interpretation however, and not something tomndebb came up with to just to mess with you. > > [Here is a better google link.](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS291US303&q=%2B%22book+of+job%22+%22beyond+man's%22+understanding+comprehension&aq=f&aql=&aqi=&oq=) **tomndebb** is incorrect, and with all due respect I don’t believe your memory is accurate either. In any event, this issue now isn’t so much whether this is true or not, but whether **tomndebb** is willing to make his point. It doesn’t appear he will. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t something worthwhile to discuss or even debate. But even your hyperlink is a google search page. So I don’t believe tomndebb is ‘messing with me.’ I just think he’s mistaken. ---
**Author:** ![Silverstreak\_Wonder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Silverstreak\_Wonder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silverstreak_Wonder)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/182 "2010-01-20T17:55:33Z")
Good job Raindog, I agree with you totally, they just don’t like it here if you won’t just “accept” everything, and asking him to justify his point is only for those on one side of the debate question. Had a discussion developed, a backup plan would be to close that discussion fast as off topic, before that other side would have lost it. You did a fine job of pointing out just how hard it is to debate here and you made excellent posts. I checked my many sources and also find no such definition anywhere, but somewhere there is probably one atheist writer somewhere that did and the idea is we are just to accept it as fact since someone sometime might have said it. Certainly not a good debate point to prove something in GD and I am glad you asked for that proof. ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/183 "2010-01-20T18:06:48Z")
:rolleyes: It’s a hijack. Just take it to a new thread, which is what is done with hijacks. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/184 "2010-01-20T18:11:28Z")
How does the book of Job prove the existence of a creator? It’s not clear to me the significance of the victory you are claiming. ---
**Author:** ![Silverstreak\_Wonder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Silverstreak\_Wonder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silverstreak_Wonder)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/185 "2010-01-20T18:16:32Z")
Bryan, It doesn’t, that is why no one on the pro-creator side brought it up, the other side did. The victory involved no support for an argument that was made by the other side, not anything else. In other words the statement about Job was successfully found unjustified and now we can return to the main discussion again. ---
**Author:** ![raindog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@raindog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raindog)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/186 "2010-01-20T18:19:28Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > How does the book of Job prove the existence of a creator? It’s not clear to me the significance of the victory you are claiming. Actually, the discussion is digressing. (to the point of hijack, unfortunately) The discussion started with **mswas** who mentioned that the Christian/ Judeo God (apparently from the POV of the adherents) ‘incomprehensible.’ tomndebb crashed the party (which I’m fine with) with some bold proclamations that he has since gotten cold feet over. So…while it may have had some relevance it is now more of a hijack than not. You’re off the hook Tom. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/187 "2010-01-20T18:19:57Z")
> [@raindog](#): > > In any event, this issue now isn’t so much whether this is true or not, but whether **tomndebb** is willing to make his point. That cannot _possibly_ be the issue, both because he alread _said_ that it would be a waste of time to derail this thread further, and more importantly because **tomndebb** ’s willingness to waste time on you is irrelevent to everything in the universe except your own ego. > [@Silverstreak\_Wonder](#): > > Good job Raindog, I agree with you totally, they just don’t like it here if you won’t just “accept” everything, and asking him to justify his point is only for those on one side of the debate question. Had a discussion developed, a backup plan would be to close that discussion fast as off topic, before that other side would have lost it. You did a fine job of pointing out just how hard it is to debate here and you made excellent posts. > > I checked my many sources and also find no such definition anywhere, but somewhere there is probably one atheist writer somewhere that did and the idea is we are just to accept it as fact since someone sometime might have said it. Certainly not a good debate point to prove something in GD and I am glad you asked for that proof. What _are_ you going on about? ---
**Author:** ![raindog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@raindog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raindog)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/188 "2010-01-20T18:36:00Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > That cannot _possibly_ be the issue, both because he alread _said_ that it would be a waste of time to derail this thread further, and more importantly because **tomndebb** ’s willingness to waste time on you is irrelevent to everything in the universe except your own ego. The only reason I’m not in 100% agreement is that **tomndebb** started the derailment. There are a few people here that I have so little in common with that I don’t engage them at all. There nothing wrong with that. (and I think theres at least one prominent poster who apparently feels the same way about me.) If **tomndebb** thinks engaging me is a waste of his time then I’m cool with that. But it’s not cool to [conveniently] find a discussion a waste of time only after he started the interchange, and after he was asked to back his claim. ---
**Author:** ![YoureBeingABinkyBoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e0b2c6/32.png) [@YoureBeingABinkyBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YoureBeingABinkyBoo)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/189 "2010-01-20T19:17:04Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I see your point, but the one attribute I think a Creator God might necessarily have is will. I see the “natural forces” argument as pointing to things that exist with no cause. If you go back to the very beginning and are the tiniest step away from “nothing”, you’d just have the Creator God at the moment before he created. Now we might not have been the focus of his creation, we might be the detritus fro his creating something else in another universe, but in between nothing and creation there would, I think, have to be the will to create something. Couldn’t we be just the byproduct of the actions of a creator? Like a fart? When I fart, usually, there is no design or will, so to speak. It just happens as the natural result of my bodily functions. Whatever created our reality, could have put as little “thought, will, and intent” into it as a fart. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/190 "2010-01-20T19:22:58Z")
Well, assuming Job was a digression, I eagerly await the discussion’s return to something resembling the original point: What religion, if any, is increasing our knowledge of the origins and purpose (if any) of the unverse, and how so? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/191 "2010-01-20T19:36:50Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, assuming Job was a digression, I eagerly await the discussion’s return to something resembling the original point: > > What religion, if any, is increasing our knowledge of the origins and purpose (if any) of the unverse, and how so? I believe that Pastafarianism is making great strides on this front. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/192 "2010-01-20T19:39:19Z")
Well, that may explain the existence of carbs, but what about proteins? ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/193 "2010-01-20T19:41:35Z")
> [@KellyCriterion](#): > > What is the origin of anything? Don’t know, don’t know if there is an origin. I don’t personally think there is one. > [@KellyCriterion](#): > > What was there in the beginning? How did “stuff” begin? Well, to answer this question, we know that the answer falls within one of two deliberately very broad categories: > > 1. Something has always existed, and it was from this something that everything that is here now, came to be. The language you use here seems to presuppose the A series of time. There are actually (at least) two options regarding your first category. There is the A series going on eternally and the B series. I subscribe to the B series, as it makes the most sense to me and seems to jive with the theory of relativity better then the A series. > [@KellyCriterion](#): > > 1. Something came in to existence from nothing (that’s a literal “nothing”. No thing. A lot of people (some atheists, especially) seem to have a lot of trouble understanding what is meant by “nothing”. To them, “nothing” can mean anything from quantum foam, zero energy entities with energy potential, singularities, all sorts of somethings that aren’t nothing. Please understand that by _nothing_, I am talking about what rocks dream of). How do we know that the prior state of the universe was not quantum foam? > [@KellyCriterion](#): > > Now, I would argue that option 1 is more probable, because it requires one less thing to occur (something coming in to existence from a literal nothing). Both require something to exist, but option 2 requires one additional event - the coming in to existence of something from a literal nothing. I disagree with this. With the B series of time, there is no ‘occurance’, per say. > [@KellyCriterion](#): > > Not only is there a serious question mark over whether something coming in to existence from nothing is even possible, the fact that option 2 requires this additional event renders it more improbable than option 1. I’m not sure why you think it’s more improbable, but okay. > [@KellyCriterion](#): > > So if something has existed “forever”, what is this “something” made of? Surely not _matter_, because matter is bound by time. Remember, time is simply a measure of change. Actually time, IMO, doesn’t really exist. What we perceive as time is actually an illusion. I digress though, the cosmos exists eternally, past, present, and future - ie, the B theory of time, all at once. > [@KellyCriterion](#): > > If something is changing from one state to another, you have time. The wiggle of an atom, or the movement of a sub-atomic particle is _change_, and change = time. Although the Big Bang is already very strong evidence that time began some 14 billion years ago, there’s another way to think of it that also offers very strong evidence to suggest time must have a beginning. Namely, as each second ticks by, the amount of “time” that has lapsed increases by one second. Infinity can not be increased, nor added to, because infinity is not a quantity. Hence, the amount of time that has lapsed so far, however huge that amount is, must be finite. You are begging the question to the A theory. In order to argue this, I would ask that you make sense of the theory of relativity and simulatenous relativity. That notion is difficult for the A theory, since the A theory posits a definitive ‘present’ and no existent past (or future). > [@KellyCriterion](#): > > So, _something_, has existed forever (or more accurately, exists eternally), is immaterial, is not bound by time, and led to the origin of other things. This begs the question, as I demonstrated above. > [@KellyCriterion](#): > > While not proof of a Creator, I would be interested to know why some people would claim it isn’t at least _evidence_ of one, given how often atheists like to make the claim of “there is not one single shred of evidence that a god, or gods, exist”. It’s not proof of a creator or even suggestive of a creator - even if the A theory is correct! IF nothing at one point ‘existed’ and something arose from nothing, then it seems to me to be logically incoherent to say that this something had to have a cause. How do you cause something’s existence from nothing? Is it two scoops of nothing equals something? Three scoops? In order to cause something, in any sense recognizable, an outside force has to act upon something within time and space. If you take time, space, and the _something_ to act upon away, then you are left with incoherent gibberish. In short, the cosmological argument, even if some of the premises were correct, is not evidence of god at all. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/194 "2010-01-20T19:45:55Z")
> [@YoureBeingABinkyBoo](#): > > Couldn’t we be just the byproduct of the actions of a creator? Like a fart? When I fart, usually, there is no design or will, so to speak. It just happens as the natural result of my bodily functions. Whatever created our reality, could have put as little “thought, will, and intent” into it as a fart. Well, there’s Philipp Mainländer, who kinda was to pessimism what the Cookie Monster is to cookies, and according to whom, since all being should aspire to non-being, the creation of the universe was god’s suicide; since ultimately, all processes in the universe will cease, so will god’s existence. Being of the rather consequent sort, he later hanged himself; standing on a pile of copies of his main work, the _Philosophy of Redemption_. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/195 "2010-01-20T19:51:49Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, that may explain the existence of carbs, but what about proteins? A closer, in-depth investigation of the doctrines and stricture suggest the existence of divine meatballs (two of them, specifically), which can be argued as being either the origin or inspiration for earthly protiens. It should be noted that there is some doubt about this theory, due to the fact that the Creator was drunk at the time of creation, and in His stupor may not have realized that the protiens he was inventing had a divine equivalent at all. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/196 "2010-01-20T22:38:10Z")
> [@KellyCriterion](#): > > … [either] … 1. Something has always existed, and it was from this something that everything that is here now, came to be. > … [or] … 2. Something came in to existence from nothing … Your question and phrasing presupposes that Time has an absolute nature. I think many philosophers and physicists would disagree. I’m reading a very interesting book right now: _The Goldilocks Enigma_ by Paul Davies. He addresses this question at length and quotes St. Augustine: > [@](#): > > … [Augustine’s] considered answer to what God was doing before creating the universe was that “the world was made with time and not in time.” Augustine’s God is a being who transcends time, a being located outside time altogether, and responsible for creating time as well as space and matter. … _There were no earlier moments_. … Plato said much the same thing [about Time’s nature, not God’s] (I quote Augustine’s position to show the timeless view to be “friendly” even to theologians. Will this be twisted to use against atheists also arguing against absolute time? 😛 ) ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/197 "2010-01-20T23:13:27Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Your question and phrasing presupposes that Time has an absolute nature. I think many philosophers and physicists would disagree. > > I’m reading a very interesting book right now: _The Goldilocks Enigma_ by Paul Davies. He addresses this question at length and quotes St. Augustine: > (I quote Augustine’s position to show the timeless view to be “friendly” even to theologians. Will this be twisted to use against atheists also arguing against absolute time? 😛 ) As an atheist, I don’t think timelessness/transcending time/being outside time gives the theists what they think it does - to wit, I don’t think it gives them _anything_. My reasons for thinking this are twofold: 1. Actions require time, even when God does them. Doesn’t have to be _our_ timeline, but it requires _some_ form of time. Since God is occasionally described as not being completely static, motionless, impotent, and inactive, that means that he _is_ in a timeline, within which he carries out his actions. And within _that_ timeline, the first causes problem remains unsolved, and in fact the problem is exactly the same as if God simply preceded things in our own timeline. 2. Timelessness isn’t the great big enigma that people think it is; it’s just reflective of a contained sub-universe. For example, I am timeless with respect to the Harry Potter universe. I can look at all points in time inside the books in any order I like, just by turning pages, or I can look at multiple points simlutaneously by spreading the books out and looking at several at once. There are numerous other parallels to the religious theories - the harry potter universe has a definite start point (page 1), though that’s not the start of time in _my_ universe; the Harry Potter universe was also created at some specific time within our universe, though that and everything else about our universe is completely unknown to the people within the HP universe. Also Rawlings is definitely the creator god of the HP universe, having demonstrated the ability to craft and control the events within, being essentially omnipotent and omniscient about the HP universe. (But not omnibenevolent, obviously, because evil happens in the HP universe, despite/because of her ministrations.) Observing the analogy, one realizes that being ‘outside’ of a timeline/universe or even being the creater of a timeline/universe doesn’t allow you to dodge the question of where the creator came from. It’s certainly no excuse to hide behind enigmatic obfuscation; because the concept isn’t actually enigmatic or confusing at all. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/198 "2010-01-20T23:19:08Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > A closer, in-depth investigation of the doctrines and stricture suggest the existence of divine meatballs (two of them, specifically), which can be argued as being either the origin or inspiration for earthly protiens. > > It should be noted that there is some doubt about this theory, due to the fact that the Creator was drunk at the time of creation, and in His stupor may not have realized that the protiens he was inventing had a divine equivalent at all. This well supported, since, as the old song has it: \* One meatball, One meatball, You get no universe with one meatball \* ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/199 "2010-01-21T08:48:02Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > As an atheist, I don’t think timelessness/transcending time/being outside time gives the theists what they think it does - to wit, I don’t think it gives them _anything_… > 2) Timelessness isn’t the great big enigma that people think it is; it’s just reflective of a contained sub-universe. For example, I am timeless with respect to the Harry Potter universe. I agree. And the Harry Potter example may be useful. Much human intuition doesn’t apply in the “big physics” picture. Many accept that space might be non-Euclidean with no boundaries, why not time as well? If anything, timelessness may tend to support atheism, rather than theism. My disclaimer was just in response to hypothetical readers who might see atheists agreeing with St. Augustine and utter a thoughtless “Aha! Gotcha!” By the way, in quoting Davies’ book, I should have mentioned that in the same paragraph where Plato supports the non-absoluteness of time, Davies goes on to say that Einstein gave the concept a precise testable mathematical basis. I recommend Davies’ book for those interested in cosmology. Although I’ve just started it and haven’t even come to the “interesting” parts, I’ve already learned much (and I _have_ read several other “modern physics for the layman” type books). ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/200 "2010-01-21T10:43:46Z")
> [@raindog](#): > > I think we’d agree that an \*effort \*to understand God (and, for that matter, anyone you wish to have a close relationship with) is necessary part of knowing him. Actually, I would disagree. Rather, I would say that an effort _is_ required, but it need not be made by both partners, or even either of them. Evangelism in particular is predicated on the idea that effort on the part of a person or persons to foster a relationship between two other people is workable. > [@](#): > > These texts (and there are hundreds and hundreds of others, both in the OT and NT) show not just a desire by the Jews to understand God via their written word (said to be given directly by God to their prophets) and through their [God appointed] leaders, but to have an _intimate_ understanding; to have this understanding impressed in their hearts. > > These weren’t ‘Sunday Jews.’ When they say that you should have these words on your heart when you’re walking, or lying down, or on the road or, or, or…they’re making a case for having these **teachings** central to every day life. I think there’s a difference between an actual intimate understanding, and rote learning, yet both could be covered under your words here (and of your quote). I don’t think it’s reasonable to argue that having such a history, even knowing it very well, necessarily gives you an intimate view with those details (and with God). There’s a difference, as the saying goes, between knowledge and wisdom. Their understanding included the times he delivered them, when he loved them, when he taught them, when he punished them, when he counseled them, when he admonished them, when he appealed to them. > [@](#): > > At any rate, this cloudy, oblique, obtuse, detached, confusing God that is so popular at SDMB/GD is not the God the Jews or Christian Jews would have perceived. But the problem is that that is not the only option suggested for a potentially unclear God, so I think your approach to this somewhat misses the middle. I would certainly say that there are some details or some positions that God takes that believers are extremely convinced of, and may find quite clear. But on the same front as your disavowal of the totally unclear God, I would say that i’ve never met or talked to a believer who considered themselves to understand God in all his facets in complete clarity. And I would tend to say that that God, who is so popular on the boards, is most likely somewhere between the two as an accusation rather than the more extreme version you’ve suggested. I think you may be letting your disdain for the boards get the better of you. 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307.md?page=9)