Woah...cosmic...
The perfect way to end a thread, not that it will happen of course :(

I think I'll rejoice instead by playing some master of magic before I turn in for the night. Come to think of it I should try 666 for background music :) (mood music is the only underwhelming part of the game - well and a couple of tacky unit portraits)

I've got a feeling we might have bored the thread to death. Knock on wood.

Later.

Jesus was God and the beginning, so he never became God. Fertility of the land or sexual fertility had nothing to do with his ministry. He was not sacrificed because of poor crops, but he laid down his life for the sins of the world. Furthermore, the reason why the Jewish leadership was they thought he had spoken blasphemy.

The context of "eat my flesh, drink my blood" once again has nothing to do with crops. Jesus's resurrection was not a cyclic rebirth. He once again did not become God and that was not the purpose of his death. It was unheard of for a god to die a humiliating death. Descriptions of the impregnation definitely involve sex, which is not that case with Mary. Furthermore, Jesus was not considered to be one god out of many who had died and resurrected in this manner.

I have no idea how any of this relates to Jesus. Mary was the most common female name in 1st century Palestine and there were more than three people names Mary in the New Testament. Do you have a source for these claims?

I read the articles, I just didn't agree with them. For instance, if Jesus had been drugged, then he wouldn't have been able to push up in order to breathe, and he would have died. You also don't go from the severe bleeding caused by the crown of thorns, being scourged recognition, and and crucified to walking around three days later. Romans were also held accountable by their government if the victim survived their execution. The first article also had a number of speculate statements that involve reading between the lines. The second article cites The Crucifixion by personal friend of Jesus for the survival Jesus, which is questionable at best. The swoon theory is simply not considered credible by most of modern academia.

As the first article you linked states, the Koran claims that Jesus wasn't crucified. I've also watched debates on the topic, which is where I got the catch 22 from. I think it's a pretty big dilemma for Muslims because one way or the other, both claims can't be correct.

I can see you didn't read the article.

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/nowayjose.php

On the being wrong thing, I see it's just an abstract assertion, but ok, thanks for pointing out.

A bit more of argument by design I see - the watchmaker thing you used upper somewhere (it was you right?). Socrates and the watch are objects much more analogue to you than the whole universe / creation. This is precisely what I see as your fallacy, you take properties which you see as true to yourself and your existence, and you extrapolate them too far.

Like the plausibility. Your insistence that reality must be plausible, or likely, or justifiable, or logical, or whatever word you would prefer is again a way to define me as wrong, an implicit premise I disagree with, as in fact I have no problem with saying reality is implausible, or illogical, or any other word you prefer. I mean, what the heck could accidental creation mean if not that?

But notice I don't say anywhere reality must be consistently illogical - all the time, everywhere, etc... Your law of non contradiction is a strawman. The same you ualready used. I don't say nothing is something. I say something can come from nothing in some mysterious, incomprehensible, illogical, implausible way. Neither of them (nothing and something) is the other at any point. And most definitively I am not asserting they are the other here and now.

So again, why do you insist I propose some kind of comprehensive theory of existence? If you can't disprove my counter example, then I have invalidated your premise about creation and your assertion of proof is false (until further notice). This is not complicated logic. So please, don't invert the onus of proof and keep the objections coming. The argument by design is for sure a meatier objection than the strawman about today and forever versus the creation itself.

Dude, I already went down it, keep up. No - because by Soyeong's argument, the God in question must be possible. Yours isn't by your own argument.
If you want to now accept that God can do logically impossible things, then welcome back ;)
Does it look like a good movie though? Or is it 'only worth seeing in 3D'? (haven't seen any trailers here yet).

I'd use the phrase 'supposed to be' better. God was asking them to lead a simple life in faith to Him and to keep His teachings. (As Jesus later explained to them, they took it too far in some ways and paid only lip-service in others).

As to your analysis of the Genesis story and expulsion from paradise - interesting read btw - couldn't the similarities across cultures simply point to a common beginning, rather than just being copied from each other's made up ideas? The symbolism seems strong, but as I've said before about Genesis, taking it all literally doesn't work either. Your interpretation fits the story, but there's no way to know whether it's accurate (or is there?)
The use of 'apple' to represent the fruit of the tree of knowledge isn't from the original text (AFAIK) so I suspect that's a correlation that came later as the story was heard by other culture's whom already had the apple symbolism.
(Kindly correct me if there's a source that says otherwise - I'm always learning).

That would assume that God intervenes in Physics experiments (and/or my A-level exams). Why would He want to confuse something that we could find useful?
I'd suggest that God intervening doesn't even need Him to break His laws of physics - just have a few things come together at once. That which atheists call coincidence, we might call a miracle. It's impossible to tell. Again - keeping the universe going is only one aspect of Him, one thing He does. That's not what most of us believe He is for. So yeah, we prefer to believe He is loving and interested. It's hard to show those who don't believe though.
Nay - your interventions are never boring :)

There are so many beliefs out there that can't all be true at the same time that it would be silly to think I happened to have the one set of beliefs that are all correct while everyone else has made errors in the formation of their beliefs. I don't know which beliefs I'm wrong about, so it is a bit abstract, but I'm confident that they are there, especially because I have a history of correcting wrong beliefs.

I have not said much about Intelligent Design other than I think it is reasonable for someone to intuitively see that the universe was designed in the same way that they can intuitively see that an object of unknown origin is designed. The point in bring up the Socrates argument was to point out claiming that it's possible that he could have been an alien wasn't a sufficient objection to the argument that he was mortal.

If reality is illogical, then it is inexplicable why anything and everything doesn't pop into and out of existence uncaused. This does not fit with our experience of reality at all and you have not given a single reason to think that it does. Conversely, the experience of everyone on the planet fits perfect with a logical reality and we have every reason to think that to be the case. For some reason you want to insist that these two views are on equal footing, but when we have every reason to believe one and no reason to believe the other is even possible, then there is only one view that can be rationally held.

The argument can be verbosely amended. Nothing does not have the potential to be something that is mysteriously, incomprehensibly, illogically, and implausibly caused because something with the potential to be mysteriously, incomprehensibly, illogically, and implausibly caused is already something. To say that something came from nothing is to say that it came from something that has the potential to be mysteriously, incomprehensibly, illogically, and implausibly caused, which violates the law of noncontradiction.

You counter example is a walking, talking, logical contradiction that disproves itself, but even if it were possible, this goes back to what I was saying about Socrates. It's just like saying if you can't disprove that Socrates was an alien, then I have invalidated the premise that he was a man and your assertion of proof that Socrates was a mortal is false (until further notice). Logic simply does not work that way. If I wanted to challenge the premise that Socrates was a man, then I would need to show that it was more reasonable to think that he was an alien instead. Simply suggesting the possibility that he was an alien does not in itself give sufficient reason to call into question whether he was a man. We have good reasons to think he was a man and poor reasons to think he was an alien, so the most plausible premise stands and it serves to prove that Socrates was mortal.

Maybe I'm getting tired, but I've read this sentence three times and I can't make sense of it.

I have to agree with Soyeong here - you even use the term "she must have been death's symbol" rather than "she was" without anything to connect her to it.
This suggests to me that you're just fitting the facts to your interpretation.
(and there's also some confusion between the Gospels as to how many were present and what their names were. Pretty much only 2 of the Marys are sure, another (Salome) might not have been called Mary at all, and there were more than 3 Marys mentioned altogether (at least 4 at the crucifixion and more elsewhere in the Bible).

I screwed up the quote. To Trollum:

Actually it looks really cool but then it was a trailer and those always look good, plus I'm a nut for disaster movies. I see shit getting torn up, blown up, ravaged, flooded and I'm there.

Like the butterfly effect. It surely is too complex to calculate and to exclude that only the laws of physics are at work, although in principle they would be sufficient to explain all the coincidences. So God as a man of subtleties. A big miracle like a million dollar materializing in front of me now are probably out of question. I would say it still limits quite a bit what God can do and how close he can be, how much love and care he can show.

That is YOUR belief. In my View Jesus was a mortal man who was integral part in an re-enactment of an old tradition of human sacrifice.

Individual dying and rising gods were never "one of many" for their followers but they are singular symbols of a cyclic natural event of death an renewal. Don't you agree that Jesus' death was there to renew the bond between the god and the people?
The thing is, since you are a Christian, you elevate Jesus as something special. If you could take a step back and would read about the literally hundreds of myths and fairytales of deities and heroes of old you coudn't unsee the similarities and repetitions over the ages.

As for a humiliating death: Baldr (god of light) was killed with a lowly mistletoe. Adonis (The Lord) was killed by a boar, which was humiliating since he was supposed to be a great hunter. Osiris was castrated (and killed) by Set. Eshmun castrated himself and died from it. Dionysos/Bacchus was torn to pieces by women, as was Orpheus, who was (kind of stoned) first.

If fact if you compare Dionysos and Jesus, while details surely differ, their life and miracles are very similar.

Mary's virginhood: Some people think "Annunciation" really means impregnation. That would mean that Gabriel was the father of Jesus. I wouldn't bet on this. Luke was written at earliest 60 CE. Matthew was written between 70 and 100 CE. So it's hearsay either way.

Had to refresh my memories on this one, and you are right. There are several Marys mentioned in the Bible. The images of the Three Maries are came up later, the Catholic church named the ones I gave. But there are different versions from i.e. French and Irish sources that name different Marys as The Three. Interesting that the image of exactly three women crept in through the backdoor of the story independently of time and place ;-)

Well, for me "the swoon theory" is at least more likely than an all-powerful god making himself known in a pretty remote place when there is a whole planet already settled by his subjects and then depending on hearsay to spread the message.

Since I'm no muslim, I really don't care. I guess the Islam has its own share of inconsistencies and fallacies. But if I ever get into a religious discussion with a muslim, I will bring this up ;-)

That article is pretty long. Can you point me to were it contradicts me? If you mean the part were it quotes Wilken I can just say, that Wilken makes the same mistake that people make that "hate America". He says "the Romans" and means the Roman establishment. The elite was of course very happy with their gods and convinced of their superiority, since they profited from the (still) ongoing success of the empire. Below the surface Rome was a melting pot of cultures and religions. Just like anytime in history the powerful and rich became increasingly seperate from the masses. The rich getting richer and the poor poorer. The new religion spread among the poor and uneducated for several reasons:
1) The Romans, as a polytheistic culture and integrative "live and let live" culture were per se more open to "new gods" than more closed societies. It was not uncommon to "switch gods" when they felt let down by their current ones. The educated Romans often complained that the common people would follow every new religious trend (just like in our world every new pop star or fashion trend is "the greatest thing ever" for some people).
2) The Roman rituals, while surely held with a lot of effort and glamor, had grown old become increasingly empty (like the church rituals for the Sunday-Christians today). The personal relationship to the gods got lost for the simple man. See the rise of the Mithras/Sol Invictus cult, that also replaced the old pantheon with great success.
3) The Roman empire already was on it's way to decline into decadence of the elite and the impoverishment of the masses while foreign enemies got stronger. The stronger the feeling of impending doom became among the people, the more successful the christian religion with its "promise" of impending apocalypse became.
4) Just like your article says: Christians were anti-establishment, rebels. And they came at the right time to turn into a political movement that gathered considerable momentum.

One thing from the article I can't agree with: On the contrary, the Romans were (even for today's standards) very tolerant to other religions. They knew that suppressing other people's belief would cause unrest. Normal citizens were required to bring sacrifices to the Roman temples. But since the montheistic god of the Jews wouldn't tolerate that, Jews were allowed to pay a tax directly to the administration instead. Apart from that, everyone was free to practice the religion he chose if there was no crime like murder etc involved and it didn't disturb the peace.

I see two related misunderstandings in your reply, so yes, I think you were more tired than usual.
Then again neither of us is being as careful with language as we should... See at bottom for my exposition on what I think you missed.

Time for a recap?
You say you proved god exists via a form of the cosmological argument. I proposed two alternatives that would invalidate your premises: accidental or eternal existence without god. We are now focused on your dismissals of accidental existence alternative.

Here's why your new dismissals, verbose or terse, are again not satisfying me.

For one you are defining sufficiency, like you did plausibility, and like you did logicality, in a tautological way that serves your premise. My objection is an objection, but not a "sufficient" objection. Sure...
Then you are defining reality, "real experience", in a way that serves your premise. Your experience justifies the universe as causal, but my experience does not justify it as accidental. And since you spoke for everyone, logically I am not a human. Cute...
The next one is tricky. Make a scheme with one axis having nothing / something and an orthogonal axis with potential to exist Yes / No and you will see that you are missing / conflating one of the quarters. You ignore the possible logical set for nothing with potential to exist, instead conflating it into something with potential to exist. Or put another way, you define "nothing" in a way that guarantees your premise.
Finally you define contradiction and necessity in a way that serves your premise. Well...

Do you notice the pattern? :)

Our Universe includes reality, surrealism, plausibility, improbability, sufficiency, excess, logicality, irrationality, necessity, liberty, proof, paradox, reason, dogma, experience, belief, etc, etc...
IF our universe began, there is or was something else. Not to beg the question I'll call it Verse instead of nothing and instead of God.
Either the verse shares properties with the universe or not. Either the Verse caused the Universe or not. These causation and similarity axis compose the whole possibility space defined by themselves.
Since the universe by definition is everything that is, we can't say anything concrete about the Verse except that it is something else, or nothing else. The qualifying terms are meaningless in this context.

Yet you propose a particular Verse and a particular Universe. You think they are kind of opposite in causality - one was caused, the other not, in fact you think one was caused by the other. You also think you know how similar they are: both are logical, plausible, necessary, proven... And you actually believe you proved this. :)

Just take the leap. Ignore the dogma, and ask yourself honestly: what if? Explore the whole potential space on its own terms. You cannot look on the face of God. You cannot comprehend nothing. You cannot make the verse an unique verse (universe). All words to imply I win, you lose. How reductionist…

Anyone can play with the words mate, or be played by them. This is metaphysical mystical masturbation. You need to ignore the wordsl and really go into the abstract space and find your own truths. Or not. Although I have prodded you into it, at the end your choice what to believe and what to do is worthy of respect. If only you would display real tolerance and respect of those that chose differently than you.

PS: You misunderstood THE argument by design for intelligent design, although the concepts are very close. What I refer to is the argument that like a watch implies a watchmaker, the universe in its complexity and intricacy requires a designer. I offered a traditional critique that this argument makes a fallacy of conflating unlike things. And I see that I said analogue when I meant analogous. Oops... So in the end I was just saying that at least the argument by design is more substantial and satisfying than the strawman you presented in the other earlier reply, where you argued against a position I do not expose - that being that everything is always arbitrary.

Yes and I thought I'd tell you why that is a bad idea.

Then you did not get Seyongs "Logic".

I LOVE this thread. Please don't let it end. Intellectual. interesting and fascinating. I'm a huge fan !!!

As with all arguments in logic, the only way to invalidate a premise is to show that its negation is more reasonable. Your refusal to do this is the same as your refusal to invalidate my premises. Your alternatives are worthless because you can't even show that they are possible. With the Socrates example, at least it's logically possible for him to have been an alien, but without showing it to be more reasonable than the premise that he was a man, it still fails to invalidated it.

Plausibility is gained by supporting your premise with evidence. Your objection is not sufficient because you have refused to give any reason to think that it is more reasonable than my premise.

I highly doubt that your experience justifies that reality is accidental and your refusal to provide an example only serves to justify my doubt. I would be delighted if you would prove my doubts wrong.

Nothing has no actuality or potentiality by definition because nothing with the potential to exist is something. I'm telling you what "nothing" means to philosophers, so I'm not making up definitions to suit my premises. "Nothing" means non-being, so it does not exist, and there can not exist nothing with the potential to exist because it would first need to exist in order to have that potential.

Just putting something on an axis does not mean any of the four outcomes are possible or that they are all equally reasonable.

The universe is everything that exists in time and space.

We should believe what is the most reasonable.

I'm sorry, even if I wanted to, it's not actually possible for me to embrace illogicality. Humans can make mistakes in reasoning and think something is logical when it's not, but we can't intentionally be illogical. I'm not trying to win a debate with you; I'm trying to help you see reason.

If you wish to prod me in that direction, then provide a single reason to think it's possible. I'd love to be able to tolerate and respect that, but it is logically contradictory, so I'm not actually capable or doing that. If you had a different opinion of politics or some other controversial subject, then I'd be perfectly capable of tolerating and respecting that, but I can't respect a view that is impossible to be true.

In what way are they unlike things? If a universe can come into being through a mysterious, incomprehensible, illogical, and implausible cause, then why can't anything and everything else?