Just in response to:

“1. On the matter of God being outside the Universe and Time – it’s a christian presupposition, in the same way that most athiests presuppose there is no God. There is no evidence for or against but the foundation (or starting point) of theory.”

My initial point still stands:

Does it make any sense to say that something exists (or is being) outside space and time? When we apply the word “exists” to something, don’t we mean that we can observe it or its effects in space and time? Have we ever observed anything outside space and time? This argument always seems to be caught in the quicksand of contradiction.

Also on your presuppositional comment, there are atheists who have a belief that there is no god. However, that is going beyond the definition & is what is considered “strong” atheism. See Wikipedia amongst others for more on atheism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_and_strong_atheism

The definition of atheist/atheism is simply those without a belief in a god (not necessarily a belief that there definitely is no god/s).

I dont have a presupposition that the hindu god Ganesh doesnt exist – I just havent seen evidence for him/it. The same way I dont have a presupposition that aliens dont exist. I havent seen any evidence for them as yet.

That presuppositional claim about “most atheists” is just a theistic endeavour to not provide evidence for a being that theists positively claim to exist(apparently outside the universe yet whom still manages to sneek back in our universe & in our time whether in the form of the holy spirit to Mary or supposedly as his son Jesus or Krishna or Ram or Zeus etc etc).

Like if I said before I am still open to reason / evidence based persuasion.

You may not pick it up clearly at UCT. Normal Frequency is 100.4fm but it’s shared with another station. You can audiostream at http://www.vocfm.co.za

Tony

Two quick notes:
1. On the matter of God being outside the Universe and Time – it’s a christian presupposition, in the same way that most athiests presuppose there is no God. There is no evidence for or against but the foundation (or starting point) of theory.

2. I will be interviewing Errol Naidoo on my radio show on Monday morning. If you have any questions you’d like me to ask him, please drop me a message. We’ll be discussing the balance between freedom of speech/press and Religious Freedoms and Rights.

Tony

Lance Marchetti
stand4truth@minister.com
Cell:073-8233388

“The question I would like to pose: If, by chance, science found some formidable proof FOR the existence of God, how open would athiests be to accept this proof? And what would the consequences of such a belief be?”

If there were any evidence I would certainly accept it.

But even if evidence for a deity were somehow found (say there was some evidence for a type of intelligent agent for the big bang) There would still be quite a lot of work and a long way off for people saying oh yes, this initial cause was my god, the god of the bible – the one born in a manger with 3 wisemen following his star or the god of the quran / gita etc etc.

I am truly fascinated at this – how do you KNOW this?

I have often heard this theological assertion and am fascinated this can be asserted over and over again as if there is any evidence for this. Do you perhaps have any evidence for this?

Since we are part of nature/ the universe, how could we ever get outside of it to see that there is anything on the other side? It is common for religious apologists to talk about things “outside nature” or “the supernatural,” but they always seem to fall short in presenting any evidence that anything “supernatural” exists. By inventing a category called “supernatural” and relegating hypothetical things to it, they apparently hope to protect those things from the requirement of evidence.

Mind you, scientists sometimes on the face of it, do something similar thing in the pursuit of investigation (for eg. calling something “dark matter” / “higgs particle” but you will notice using these labels in science is 1 of the 1st steps in the scientific process (not to mention the fact that these scientific labels can be falsified by observation & evidence like the LHC will or will not do for the Higgs particle) – However, for religion these labels are the end . Ie God is supernatural and he is outside the universe and time and thats that.

By responding that a God, being “outside of the universe/nature” and therefore “outside of space and time,” could have designed and activated (say evolution) itself at the moment of his creation of the universe. it seems that you fail to consider all the consequences of inventing a realm or a being “outside of nature.” One important feature of nature is its orderliness. If God were “outside of nature,” wouldn’t he be “outside of orderliness”? If so, then this would preclude him from having all the wonderful behavioral tendencies, such as perfect goodness, which are often ascribed to him. What EXACTLY does God being “outside of space and time.” mean?

Does it make any sense to say that something exists outside space and time? When we apply the word “exists” to something, don’t we mean that we can observe it or its effects in space and time? Have we ever observed anything outside space and time? This argument always seems to be caught in the quicksand of contradiction.

Even if one entertains for a moment the odd notion that God could exist “outside time,” this seems to lead to a conclusion that he couldn’t do anything, including the particularly spectacular act attributed to him, i.e. creating the universe.

Time is the measure of change. If there is no time, there is no change. If there is no change, there is no action. If there is no action, there is no creation. If God were to exist outside of time, it could be argued that he/she would be impotent to do anything at all!

Although like always I am open to reason / evidence based persuasion.