The Existence of God

Con claims his eternal universe idea is backed up by evidence, unlike my God. However, briefly after he admits, "there are multiple studies that [...] dismiss it." Here is the "evidence" Con talks about: "Throughout the universe, particles and antiparticles spontaneously form and quickly annihilate each other without violating the law of energy conservation. [...] If this admittedly speculative hypothesis is correct, then the answer to the ultimate question is that the universe is the ultimate free lunch! It came from nothing, and its total energy is zero" http://www.astrosociety.org... This source isn't even about an eternal universe. It attempts to prove the universe could come from nothing. The source its self describes the hypothesis as speculative, or without firm evidence. It also has a gross misuse of the term "nothing". The quantum vacuum has energy, it fluctuates, it can cause the expansion of the universe to accelerate; we can describe it, calculate, predict and falsify its properties. The Quantum vacuum is not "nothing". "We thought it would be interesting to write about a radically new scientific idea with far-reaching implications at a time when it is first emerging and before it is proven." http://www.physics.princeton.edu... Again, you site from a website that clearly says there is no proof of an eternal universe. And your third link doesn't even work, but it probably isn't any better than these two other sources you used. You also didn't say anything about the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin Theorem which shows that a universe characterized by cosmic expansion can not be eternal in the past, but must have an absolute beginning. The Kalam argument does not assert that something needs to have a cause to exist. It asserts that everything with a beginning has a cause. Evidence shows the universe had a beginning; therefore, it must have a cause. And that cause is God. And the universe’s fine tuning shows the universe must have had an intelligent mind as its cause. The Bible passages I used in my previous round were not evidence that the Bible is from God. But, "surely a book that claims to be from God, that explains both the meaning of world conditions and the purpose of life, and that shows how our problems will be solved (and the most widely read and distributed book in history, as would be expected from the book of God) is worthy of consideration". The Bible prophecies give us more conviction that it is, indeed, from God. Polytheistic religions believe unnecessarily in many Gods, so Occam's Razor eliminates Hinduism and Shinto as possibilities. In addition, Hinduism says religions are different paths to God, although it does not give evidence that God agrees with this. Something Hinduism, Islam, and apostate Christianity have in common is that they have been responsible for the deaths of millions that do not share their beliefs and even of their own brothers and sisters in faith but from other countries in wars: "In her was found the blood of prophets and of holy ones and of all those who have been slaughtered on the earth.” (Revelation 18:24)". God does not like the attrocities of false religion which is why he warns us, “Get out of her, my people, if you do not want to share with her in her sins, and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues.” (Revelation 18:4, 5). Are Jehovah's Witnesses any different? Yes. http://www.jw.org... And Islam believes in Quran because they think the Bible was changed although they can't give any valid evidence supporting their claim, and they ignore plenty of evidence that shows otherwise. There is no book as well attested as the Bible with its thousands of ancient manuscripts in the original language that show the Bible has been the same in almost 2,000 years of copying! They also claim their Quran was perfectly preserved by Allah despite the many hadith (sayings and acts of the prophet himself and his followers) showing this is simply not true. Is an eternal multiverse a good explanation of cosmic fine tuning? 1. An eternal multiverse would not disprove God. 2. There is no evidence for an eternal multiverse. 3. There is overwhelming evidence that the universe had a beginning. 4. Many reason that if there are enough universes, anything is possible. Simply by having an infinite ammount of universes, however, you couldn’t be sure that you’d get one that was right for life. Consider the infinite collection of even numbers. You will never find a number with the property of oddness in that list. Clearly, having an infinite collection does not mean you got everything you might want. (BEGINNING OF QUOTE) Note that neither the multiverse nor the "God hypothesis" is testable. However, the "God hypothesis" is much simpler. The naturalistic explanation requires the presence of a complicated, unproved super universe that has the capacity to randomly spew out an infinite number of universes with different laws of physics. How does this hypothetical super universe know how to do this? Why would it even want to do this? Ultimately, why should there be any universe at all? None of these questions are logically explained by naturalism. Only an intelligent Being would be motivated and expectedto produce any kind of universe such as what we see. If we use Occam's razor, which states that one should use the simplest logical explanation for any phenomenon, we would eliminate the super universe/multi-universe explanation in favor of the simpler God-designed universe model. The evidence for design in the universe and biology is so strong that Antony Flew, a long-time proponent of atheism, renounced his atheism in 2004 and now believes that the existence of a Creator is required to explain the universe and life in it. (END OF QUOTE) http://www.godandscience.org... Re-visiting Prophecies Isaiah perhaps did not give an exact date. However, for your "USA will crumble" prophecy to be anything like Isaiah's prophecy, you would also have to give a specific name of the conqueror, and specific details about how this person would conquer USA. Isaiah did more than this. He predicted the destruction and eternal desolation of the city, (many have tried to rebuild it, but it is still ruins today) and he even predicted the most powerful city in the world would be destroyed without a fight. Vague? No. Unlikely? Very. But it fulfilled because it was a prophecy from God. Ezekiel 28:24 is not symbolic, but it is not a failed prophecy either. (BEGINNING OF QUOTE) The pronouncements, the visions, and the promises that Jehovah gave to Ezekiel were all faithfully related to the Jews in exile. While many scoffed at and ridiculed the prophet, some did believe. These benefited greatly. They were strengthened by the promises of restoration. Unlike other nations taken into captivity, they preserved their national identity, and Jehovah restored a remnant, as he foretold, in 537 B.C.E. (Ezek. 28:25, 26; 39:21-28; Ezra 2:1; 3:1) They rebuilt the house of Jehovah and renewed true worship there. (END OF QUOTE) ("All Scripture Is Inspired of God and Beneficial" 1990)Rather than a failed prophecy, it is a prophecy about the restoration of Israel that fulfilled in a time that the Israelites were still God's people. I do not cherry pick what is symbolic or not. I simply consider the context. Lack of Bible knowledge is not evidence against it."Lack of knowledge is not a knowledge of God."(BEGINNING OF QUOTE) "God of the gaps" refers to the perception that all arguments for the existence of God are the result of gaps in our scientific knowledge. [...] Many skeptics believe that all arguments for the existence of God fall into the God of the gaps variety. According to this premise, one would expect these arguments to become fewer in number as scientists make more discoveries and learn more about our world. In reality, evidence continues to accumulate suggesting that the universe was designed by an intelligent agent. The evidence suggesting that the universe and its physical laws were designed continues to accumulate at a rapid rate. Although we are not certain about the degree to which the earth and solar systemare specially designed, evidence to-date suggests that earth-like planets are rare in the universe. Ten years ago, it was thought that neo-Darwinian evolution had eliminated all suggestion that living organisms were designed by an intelligent agent. However, recent studies in molecular biology and genetics have eliminated much of the supposed evidence that life exhibits numerous examples of poor design, including the presence of "junk DNA" (which does not exist) and pseudogenes. New genetic evidence suggests that mammalian DNA is optimally coded to reduce DNA size through overlapping transcripts. This encoding presents special problems to current Darwinian evolutionary models, since these mechanisms would be unable to produce these kinds of sequences through mutation and natural selection. Origin of life studies continue to run into problems with uncooperative chemistry, and planetary science discoveries about the nature of early earth environments. Replicator-first models fail to establish mechanisms to produce even the basic chemical building blocks for an "RNA World", including a failure to produce homochiral sugars and amino acids. Beyond these problems, the assembly of rudimentary biological membranes under early earth environments is virtually impossible. (END OF QUOTE) http://www.godandscience.org...Ignorance of knowledge is not a knowledge against God.Thank you. I eagerly await Con's response.