Time and Energy Have no Beginning From a Biblical and/or Scientific Viewpoint

He begins with the assumption that "Everything you can think of has a cause. " Well, I can think about God, so what is his cause? Obvious, God is a being I can think of that has no cause. I can also think about darkness, which is simply the absence of light, but darkness has no cause. It was simply there with God in the beginning, uncaused. Further, love and wisdom could not have been created by God, otherwise there was a time when God was not loving and was not wise. If he always possessed these attributes, then these characteristics must be as eternal as he is. This means there was no beginning of knowledge, for God always knew. There was no beginning to power, or else God was once powerless, and therefore, its not true that anything we can think of has a cause or beginning. There was no cause for any of the things I just mentioned; they always were, eternal with God and uncaused. Pro emphasizes his point, saying, "Pick anything, and trace the causes back continuously and you return to that religious/scientific battleground, The Big Bang. " So does God"s wisdom originate with the Big Bang? Did darkness originate with the Big Bang? If so, then was there light in existence before the Big Bang? Con brings speculative ideas into the discussion about a black hole slowing a watch is somehow slowing time; no it isn"t, its slowing the watch. The watch isn"t time itself, because if the watch slows to a complete stop, we could ask the question: HOW MUCH TIME HAS PASSED since the clock stopped? And if the watch comes out of the black hole and begins to tick again, we could argue that some amount of time had to lapse between the watch stopping and starting again, otherwise, you"d have to deny that the watched stopped at all. This would be like saying that just because you couldn"t observe the fact that the watch stopped, that therefore it didn"t stop, which is philosophically fallacious. This shows that time is not simply the passing of events, for if all events stop, a certain amount of time still passing since the stopping of the events. We are accustomed to having periods of time between events, just as there is a period between each tick on the clock. If all events in the universe stopped, that freezing of events would simply be another event. And time lapses between that event to show how long the universe of events has been stopped, just as one could ask how long water was frozen into ice. So Con is wrong in simply equating time with events. So while there may be no events going on in the black hole, time is still passing. But Con goes on to contradict the very point he is making. He says, "If all the matter/energy in the universe was CONDENSED inside the black hole BEFORE the big bang, then no time was passing. " This proves again that energy was not created, because if existed in condensed form, it merely changed its form at the Big Bang. Something which does not exist cannot be CONDENSED INSIDE anything! That"s like saying Santa Clause or Bigfoot were condensed in the black hole, no, they didn"t exist period. Also notice he was forced to say this condensing phase occurred BEFORE the Big Bang, which again shows the existence of time prior to the Big Bang. The Big Bang is an event, and event only occur IN TIME, therefore time existed prior to the Big Bang. Con says Stephen Hawking shares his view, but so what? What does this prove? I could name folks just as intelligent and distinguished as Hawkings who agree with atheists that God doesn"t exist, does that make them right? Many intelligent folks believe in all kinds of strange things, but does it make them right? No. Such appeals to authority prove nothing. Con says, "that god is an all powerful being who created matter/energy AND THEN used the big bang as a way of creating time. " So his theory involves God creating time AFTER he created matter and energy, which proves time already existed anyway because without time there can be no "before" and "after. " This is the language of time. I never said that "time and energy were made before god," because I don"t believe God was made, he always existed, just like time; and time is just as much an attribute of God as his wisdom, knowledge, power and love. Now, let me list some points for Con to ponder: 1)Energy cannot be created or destroyed, and that is a known fact of science, therefore, God didn"t create energy. 2)If God created energy, with what did he create it? The Bible describes God as being powerful, and power is energy, thus, God always had energy as one of his attributes, thus, energy always exited. Isaiah 40:26 says that God used "power" to create the stars, and what is power if not energy? All matter is energy in condensed form as proven from the explosion of the atom bomb. So the point is that if God create energy, he himself was powerless, having no energy with which to create anything in the first place. Energy is thus an eternal component of God. 3)Because we, and all other created things, are finite, we can only experience time in a linear way, since we have a beginning. But God does not have a beginning, so he exists in the past, present, and future simultaneously. Now if the future does not yet exist, I would like Con to tell us how does God know the future? Does he make an educated guess based on current circumstances? Does he look into a crystal ball? Or is he there? If the future already exists, the Big Bang certainly didn"t create it. 4)The Bible itself speaks of time being in existence before the Big Bang. Psalm 90:2 says that God existed from eternity to eternity, which all scholars know means the eternal past and eternal future, but what is "eternity" if not time? Thus time was always there. 5)Since events only occur IN TIME, then to postulate such a contradictory idea as BEFORE time existed would also be to say that God was incapable of doing anything before the Big Bang occurred. There could be no fellowship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Nor could God even think, for even thoughts are events which occur in time. He couldn"t even create for that matter, for this too is another action. A God outside time would not just be timeless, but also immobile. I therefore propose that linear time doesn"t exist, but is simply the way finite beings who live linear lives experience time which by nature is eternal. Just as we experience the sun rising and setting when in fact it"s the earth that goes around the sun and not the sun that goes over and under the earth. Genesis 1 says God created the heavens and the earth, not time and energy. Its possible to have time and energy but no matter. In fact, God used previously existing energy to create the matter " the heavens and earth " of Genesis 1. So energy, the power God used to form all the matter in the universe, existed before God created the universe at the Big Bang. If God didn't have this energy, he would be powerless to create anything. Isaiah 40:26 shows he used "power" to make the stars. The stars are condensed forms of power (energy) just like all other physical things. Genesis 1 doesn"t discuss time or its creation, so where does Con find TIME being created in Genesis 1? Nice try on my opponent's part, but you will need to try it again. I have enjoyed this debate so far and look forward to your rebuttals. Thus, my arguments have not been refuted. Over to Con.