In this case, "proving" (word games) the alternative is more "reasonable" (word games again) is "impossible" (word games from me this time). The metaphysical alternatives are epistemologically equivalent a priori unless you postulate otherwise from faith.

The only "reason" ( :) ) you do NOT consider your God explanation for the universe to come into being "a mysterious, incomprehensible, illogical, and implausible cause" is that you chose to believe so in your arrogance and dogmatic inflexibility.

You have exactly as much proof and evidence as me, ergo zero and infinite respectively. And well, with this mix of ad hominem and repetition of my core position I'm off for good this time.

That is not word games, but how logic works. You don't have to take my word for it, you can take a logic class and see for yourself.

Again, if a universe can come into being through a mysterious, incomprehensible, illogical, and implausible cause, then why can't anything and everything else? If there is no reason why it can't and no reason why it doesn't, then your universe is radically different from the one we live in, and preference should be given to a universe that aligns with the casual relationships we see. It is logically consistent for something with a beginning to have a cause and logically contradictory for something to come from non-being, so the alternatives aren't close to being epistemologically equivalent. This has not about faith, but about logic.

The standard way in logic to prove a negative is to show that it is illogical. You've already called it illogical, so it disproves itself. This has absolutely nothing to do with arrogance or dogmatic inflexibility and everything to do with the basics of logic. This is the same approach that atheists take when they try to say that there is a logical contradiction between an all-good and all-powerful God and the existence of suffering. If they can show that to necessarily be illogical, then they have disproved the Christian God. So I have good reasons to think that if God exists, then He would necessarily be consistent with logic.

Ummm...I'll admit to repeating a few thing that you've ignored, but I haven't used an ad homminem. I do sincerely hope that you'll find a logic class to take or a few books on logic to read.

Sorry for the late reply, didn't have much time yesterday. As I admitted to Soyeong the recurring image of The Three Marys in various sources seems to stem from later interpretions (for instance from the catholic church). Who those Mary are varies in the different interpretations. But since it's always "The Three" I'm convinced it's the threefold goddess that keeps creeping into the story. For the setup I gave (Magdalene, Mother Mary, Salome) - that btw. is the catholic version and maybe the oldest - it should be pretty obvious that Magdalene is the virgin, Mother is Mother which leaves Salome as Death - Salome is also the one that goes into the tomb to tend to Jesus' body (alive or not).

Yes, I'm impressed by all the intelligent posts here from both sides. Most discussions involving religion end up in poo flinging but not this thread.

Just an afterthought:

If you're dealing with history, reading between the lines if one of the most important skills you can attain. This and cross-checking the sources.
The authors after all were just humans. They had a limited world view, bias, were on someone's payroll. There are (mis-)interpretations, misunderstandings, propaganda and outright lies. Take for instance the writings of Tacitus. That guy was a great author of his time but his writings about the non-Roman world were full hate mongering and playing the fears of his audience. He would have written the Celts had WMDs, if he had known the term. With authors like that you have to read between the lines and try so separate fact from fiction.
You have to try to grasp the intention of the author and what the world looked for him. Whether and where his experiences are first hand and or hearsay. Dissecting details like the use of certain words and phrases is part of the process (with inherent danger of over-interpretation).
And this is just the easy part, when you access to the "original".
When it comes to translations you have to be aware that the translators may have made errors or deliberately changed the text for their own purposes. And when compilations of texts (like the Bible, both Testaments) are created there are people in between that make the selection based on their own agenda what's "canonical" and what is left out.
History, when it doesn't come down to dating archeological find, is by no means an exact science. It's more like detective work. You gather clues and pieces, try to understand the motivations of the protagonist, try to assert the reliability of witnesses' accounts, try to eleminate options. From there you create a story, an interpretation (or multiple interpretations) what might have happened. This interpretations will change according to new evidence.

Take for instance Troy. Before Schliemann most scholars would havve agreed that the city was part of a fictional tale about gods and heroes and nothing more. Now most scholars agree that Schliemann found the city of Troy (Ilion) and that it really existed and that there was a war that the Greek tribes won. We don't know much else, because the primary literary source (the Ilias) is basically a work of fiction.

Or take the ancient Egyptians. Most people thought (some think this still today) that they were basically primitive bunch of people that abused thousands of slaves to build impressive pyramids. Today we know that they knew electricity (though we're not sure what they used it for) and could perform brain surgery on people (and at least some of them survived it).

The mistake religious people always make is that their take their sources far too serious because they want them to be the truth. At the same time they are too quick to dismiss contradicting evidence as "biased" and therefore completely worthless. That's also wrong because even a text that is obviously full of lies tells you something about the author and the time and has its own value.

Edit: grammar and spelling

Agreed...Both sides are presenting their side with considerable knowledge which makes for open-ended advanced learning. No need to choose a side, just absorb.

Haven't you noticed? If you read between the lines it's speculation. If it's not you doing it then it's interpreting the evidence according to context and revealing the truth about the universe. :)

Don't worry, you just misunderstood again and missed the pronoun. I referred to MY repeating of the core position and MY ad hominem rethoric. Not that you are innocent of rethoric of course. :)

Since I felt obliged to reassure you, let me take the opportunity to go way back to where we started.

You know that my belief about accidental emergence of the universe is illogical, insufficient and irrational. As per all you have argued so far, since my belief had a beginning - I trust you will not say my belief is accidental or eternal - it must have had a cause.
What can you prove about the properties of the cause of my belief? Why must it be logical, sufficient and rational? "Where" does illogicality come from?

I know I can't prove you are wrong - as I've said all along. But I see 3 options for you to answer my metaphysical question - assuming of course you won't say it comes from nothing - or from Satan ;) :
A: you offer some "logical" argument that avoids the contradiction I am trying to trap you with as regards the nature of belief, and therefore you provide me an equally valid and "logical" argument that avoids the contradiction you are trying to trap me with as regards the nature of the universe.
B: you see the contradiction inherent in extending your postulates outside of their tautological space, and hopefully break yourself free of your dogmatism, realising that neither of us can define reality, only believe in interpretations of it and of course experience it in limited ways.
C: the one you will take - some form of "logical" argument adding some new meta-axis to the space we are discussing, wherefore you will postulate this meta-something is TRUE for you, but FALSE for me a priori. I can expect some form of: the universe/God/reality is logical, therefore the cause of any belief, like mine, is logical. Ergo: Illogical from Logical = TRUE, but Logical (something) from Illogical (nothing) = FALSE. The meta-axis in my example being just the direction of the causal relation obviously. You will of course believe this TRUE/FALSE value is proven and obvious.

I don't think I left you any room for misunderstanding with this post, so don't think I'll feel obliged to post again.

It was intelectually stimulating, have fun.

Yeah :-)

Everbody wants to reveal The Truth(TM) about the universe, but in the end we all but speculate. Some people just don't want to admit that (most of the time, to themselves). This includes atheists and believers and even myself sometimes (though I try to avoid it). I have strong opinions about some things that are based on personal experiences and years of research, but in the end this doesn't mean holding The Truth (TM).

I have very much to agree with monkeydelarge. For a discussion delving deep into religious matters - where many people tend to lose their temper very easily since spirtuality/belief in whatever form is a deeply personal thing and for some the foundation of their life - and then in the internet where extremists, radicals, trolls and maniacs are on the loose - this discussion is unbelievably civil and friendly (excluding slip-ups that were very few).

I really want to thank all the participants, regardless of the "camp". Kudos to you all.

Have a nice weekend, I'm off for some serious PnP RPG (as soon as the kids are in bed).

Sorry, my my mistake. Logically, if a belief had a beginning, then is has a cause, but that does not mean all beliefs are logical. I would love for you to tell me what caused your belief, but I can only guess that you misinterpreted evidence to indicate that something illogical was true. You used reason to form your belief, so your belief is rational, and you wouldn't have formed that belief if you didn't think it was logical and had sufficient reason to form it. However, I can't see a single logical or rational reason to form your belief, so your refusal to tell me what it is leads me to doubt whether you actually have a reason or a belief that it is true.

To say that it is possible for something to come from nothing is just a self-contradictory and illogical as saying that it is possible for there to be square circles. You could accuse me of playing word games by defining squares and circles in ways that are contradictory to suit my needs and accuse me of being arrogant and dogmatic for refusing to allow that square circles exist, but the bottom line is that illogical things simply don't exist. You could still claim that they exist and if you actually did believe it, then logically some evidence must have indicated to you that it was true, but I see no logical or rational reason to form that belief, so I think you would need to woefully misinterpret the evidence in order to come to that conclusion. Note that I'm not saying that you have argued for square circles, so this isn't a straw man, but if you did, it would be equally self-contradictory and illogical.

Simply put, there are laws for how logic works and my argument meets their standard while yours do not. This is not an a priori acceptance of my argument and rejection of your objection, but simply comparing your objection to the standard and seeing that it does not comply. If you objected to the premise that Socrates was a man because it's possible he was actually square circle and I hadn't disproved that possibility, then it would be just as much nonsense. The "illogicality" comes from your objection being self-contradictory, whereas my argument is not.

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If it takes a finite amount of time for a universe to experience heat death, our universe is eternal and has an infinite past, and there is no God/cause of the present state of the universe, then it is inexplicable why it has not already reached heat death.

I invite you to be this concise in future.

That was an interesting debate between William Lane Craig and Sean Carroll.

Matthew - it's 'Mary Magdalene and the other Mary' (who may not be Salome) - but there are 2 there and the same 2 the next day when they find the open tomb.
John only mentions one Mary at the open tomb - Mary Magdalene (he doesn't mention the women at the burial)
Luke only mentions "The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee" going to the tomb for the burial. When visiting the open tomb, he mentions the women again and later specifies "Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them "
Mark is the only one who mentions Salome by name when visiting the tomb but mentions: "Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid." for the burial - only 2 and not Salome.

Looking at all these - Mary Magdalene was the only one significant enough to be mentioned every time. In most cases there were a few women mentioned. Mark is the only one to name Salome and only for the empty tomb, not specifically (though she may also have been there - but not alone or as one of 3) for the burial.

I just think that the use of the '3' is only because that's a significant number in the culture (3, 7 and 40 get mentioned a lot). They mention 'many' women and then name 2 or 3 specifically.

So I think it looks more like trying to fit a legend to the facts rather than the account having been written to fit the legend. no worries - we've all got other stuff that needs doing too - the beauty of a forum is that you can come back to a reply later :) (I'm often replying from work and need to rush things a bit too so I don't always express myself correctly or understand fully what another has written - that's why I'm glad people are willing to clarify their points for the most part)

Sorry, if i interrupt, but there are square circles, and quite lots of them. You just have to add another dimension and they're called cylinders.

What I want to say is that if we hit dead end trying to explain something, maybe or frame of reference just is not sufficient. We are beings that live in a linear time and a three-dimensional space. Science says, there are probably more than three spatial dimension (last thing I read someone said ten), and the nature of time is still pretty mysterious. Is it really linear or is it just our perception? Is it possible to have more than one temporal dimension?

I can imagine four-dimensional space, and if in trance, sometimes five-dimensional simple objects (like a cube). But in normal life we are limited to our senses as they are and our brain is tuned in to that 3+1 reality. Since there is probably more to it than we can perceive, it's pretty difficult to even image how it may have begun - if it has. Douglas Adams said, reaching higher dimensions is easy, just go perpendicular from reality ;-).
So we simply don't know if there ever was nothing and if there ever was a starting point or if time is running in circles on a whole different plane unreachable for us.

This thread should be called 'Herpes'. It gets severe but not enough to kill you, and then it gets minor but not so much that it ever completely goes away.

I'd rather compare it to smoking. One should stay away but some people simply can't quit. It's sometimes mildly enjoyable, sometimes it stinks and in the end it wastes a lot of time without any benefits (except maybe, getting your mind off the thing you should be doing, which can be a good thing, just like with smoking).