GETTING SUCKED IN? Ask the right questions to get the right answers.

by Terry 145 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Terry

  Why are you so interested in Christians? Isn't the thought that the universe appeared out of nothing just as interesting?

  Out of Nothing?

  Are we talking St.Augustine here?

  Pre-Enlightenment thinking, Perry.

  The Universe has always existed.

  You won't accept that. But, having God be an always existing "person" is thinkable.

  Perry, oh Perry....what am I going to do with you?

  I'm interested in people---not CHRISTIANS per se.

  Why do people want to wall themselves off into little conclaves of pretend-purity?

  That fascinates me.
• 

  Perry

  Are we talking St.Augustine here?

  Pre-Enlightenment thinking, Perry.

  Really? Richard Dawkins holds the science chair at Oxford and is the world's formost atheist. He says:

  "The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved out of literally nothing, is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice. " - Richard Dawkins

  The Universe has always existed. You won't accept that.

  I guess that Dawkins forgot to tell the scientists and you about the "New Light".

  Here are some quotes from university websites by scientists who believe that the universe had a beginning:

  • "The conclusion of this lecture is that the universe has not existed forever. Rather, the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago." Stephen Hawking The Beginning of Time
  • "Scientists generally agree that "the Big Bang" birthed the universe about 15 billion years ago." Tom Parisi, Northern Illinois University
  • "As a result of the Big Bang (the tremendous explosion which marked the beginning of our Universe), the universe is expanding and most of the galaxies within it are moving away from each other." CalTech
  • "The Big Bang model of the universe's birth is the most widely accepted model that has ever been conceived for the scientific origin of everything." Stuart Robbins, Case Western Reserve University
  • "Many once believed that the universe had no beginning or end and was truly infinite. Through the inception of the Big Bang theory, however, no longer could the universe be considered infinite. The universe was forced to take on the properties of a finite phenomenon, possessing a history and a beginning." Chris LaRocco and Blair Rothstein, University of Michigan
  • "The scientific evidence is now overwhelming that the Universe began with a "Big Bang" ~15 billion (15,000,000,000 or 15E9) years ago." "The Big Bang theory is the most widely accepted theory of the creation of the Universe." Dr. van der Pluijm, University of Michigan
  • "The present location and velocities of galaxies are a result of a primordial blast known as the BIG BANG. It marked: THE BEGINNING OF THE UNIVERSE! THE BEGINNING OF TIME!" Terry Herter, Cornell University
  • "That radiation is residual heat from the Big Bang, the event that sparked the beginning of the universe some 13 billion years ago." Craig Hogan, University of Washington
  • "Most scientists agree that the universe began some 12 to 20 billion years ago in what has come to be known as the Big Bang (a term coined by the English astrophysicist Fred Hoyle in 1950." University of Illinois
  • "The universe cannot be infinitely large or infinitely old (it evolves in time)." Nilakshi Veerabathina, Georgia State University ()
  • "The universe had a beginning. There was once nothing and now there is something." Janna Levin, Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge University
  • "Today scientists generally believe the universe was created in a violent explosion called the Big Bang." Susan Terebey, Department of Physics and Astronomy, California State University Los Angeles
  • "Evidence suggests that our universe began as an incredibly hot and dense region referred to as a singularity." Stephen T. Abedon, Ohio State University
  • "A large body of astrophysical observations now clearly points to a beginning for our universe about 15 billion years ago in a cataclysmic outpouring of elementary particles. There is, in fact, no evidence that any of the particles of matter with which we are now familiar existed before this great event." Louis J. Clavelli, Ph.D., Professor of Physics, University of Alabama
  • "Now, after decades of observing and thinking, we have come to answer confidently the question of the origin of our universe... with what is known as the "big bang"." Yuki D. Takahashi, Caltech
  • "The theory is the conceptual and the calculational tool used by particle physicists to describe the structure of the hadrons and the beginning of the universe." Keh-Fei Liu, University of Kentucky.
  • "The three-part lecture series includes: "How the Universe Began," "The Dark Side of the Universe: Dark Matter and Dark Energy" and "Cosmic Inflation: The Dynamite Behind the Big Bang?" (Lectures by Michael S. Turner, Bruce V. and Diana M. Rauner at Penn State University)
  • "Travel back in time to the beginning of the Universe: The Big Bang" Douglas Miller, University of Arizona
  • "Beginning of the Universe 20.0 billion yr ago" Charly Mallery, University of Miami
  • "At the beginning the universe was extremely hot and dense (more about this later) and as it expanded it cooled." Syracuse University
  • "THE UNIVERSE AND ALL OF SPACE ARE EXPANDING FROM A BIG BANG BEGINNING" Center for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago
  • "Gamow realized that at a point a few minutes after its beginning, the universe would behave as a giant nuclear reactor." Valparaiso University, Department of Physics and Astronomy
  • "I'll also include what the time is since the creation of the Universe, and an estimate of the temperature of the Universe at each point." Siobahn M. Morgan, University of Northern Iowa.
  • "The Universe is thought to have formed between 6-20 billion years ago (Ga) as a result of the "Big Bang" Kevin P. Hefferan, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
  • "The dominant idea of Cosmology is that the Universe had a beginning." Adam Frank, University of Rochester Department of Physics & Astronomy
  • "The hot dense phase is generally regarded as the beginning of the universe, and the time since the beginning is, by definition, the age of the universe." Harrison B. Prosper, Florida State University
  • "One of the major hypotheses on which modern cosmology is based is that the Universe originated in an explosion called the Big Bang, in which all energy (and matter) that exists today was created." Eric S. Rowland, UC Santa Cruz
  • "Together with Roger Penrose, I developed a new set of mathematical techniques, for dealing with this and similar problems. We showed that if General Relativity was correct, any reasonable model of the universe must start with a singularity. This would mean that science could predict that the universe must have had a beginning, but that it could not predict how the universe should begin: for that one would have to appeal to God." Stephen W. Hawking "Origin of the Universe" lecture

  Why do people want to wall themselves off into little conclaves of pretend-purity?

  Mmmm, Christianity states that we are not pure. You must be thinking about Humanism or something ;-0
• 

  Terry

  Asking the right questions leads to getting the right answers.

  Avoiding getting sucked in to irresolvable debates requires asking the right questions.

  For me, asking "Who says....?" Is an appeal to Authority which is a logical Fallacy.

  There are things we know, things we think we know and things we wish we knew.

  What IS is.

  What is not is not.

  That's it.

  That's all there is.
• 

  Perry

  So when are you going to answer my questions?
• 

  Terry

  Have you abandoned this thread? You still haven't answered my questions.Are you going to continue to ignore my questions on a new thread now?

  Count my replies and ask again if I've abandoned the thread!

  You've ignored my rebuttals to each of your replies. If anybody has abandoned the discussion it isn't old Ter.

  Example:

  Perry says:

  Please answer the questions in bold in the logic below:

  If a theif stands before a judge and his relative stands up on his behalf and asks the Judge for mercy stating that he will pay the offended party 10 times the amount stolen if he will release the thief into his custody.... the Judge is NOW faced with TWO POSSIBLE REMEDIES.

  (1) He can accept the payment. In that case, the offended party pockets the cash and ALL go home satisfied.

  (2) He can reject the offer & pass prison sentence. In this case only the offended party goes home somewhat satisfied.

  In either case, Justice is served no? It is the Judges' call.

  Now, Terry's rebuttal (as yet unanswered)

  Definitions of judicial discretion:

  • Judicial discretion is the power of the judiciary to make some legal decisions according to their discretion. ...
    

    Chief Justice John Marshall wrote the following on this subject:

    Judicial power, as contradistinguished from the power of the laws, has no existence.

  • Courts are the mere instruments of the law, and can will nothing.

  • When they are said to exercise a discretion, it is a mere legal discretion, a discretion to be exercised in discerning the course prescribed by law; and, when that is discerned, it is the duty of the court to follow it. Judicial power is never exercised for the purpose of giving effect to the will of the judge, always for the purpose of giving effect to the will of the legislature; or, in other words, to the will of the law . [1]

  You see, it begins and ends with THE LAW because JUSTICE under law is getting what you deserve and not getting what you don't deserve.

  GRACE is getting what you don't deserve and it destroys the basis of Justice.

  God invented the Law as an extension of HIS VALUES. To nullify His Values is to destroy the very basis of His righteous (see the word "right"?)dealings with man in PUNISHING him for his actions and holding him accountable.

  GRACE means: you are not accountable.

  All the humans punished by God according to His Law vs all the humans held not accountable=Contradiction. Error. Inconsistency. Illogic.

  Either God is righteous BECAUSE His standard is unchanging or He is a chimera of the imagination willed into being by the imagination of men who shape His character according to their own values.

  Which is it, Perry?

  Here is the typical Perry non-response:

  This is just gibberish.

  Terry, these are all just red herrings. I have answered all your questions. I have asked you several times to answer my questions with a plain yes or no opinion. And you refuse to do so. This is cowardly. Here they are again. Please stop running from me and answer the questions in bold below....from you personally.... not what someone has told you to think.
• 

  Terry

  Each branch of Christianity has INVENTED its own doctrine of Grace:

  • Prevenient grace, an Methodist Christian theological concept
  • Irresistible grace, a Calvinistic Christian theological concept
  • Actual grace, a Catholic theological concept.
  • Sola gratia - "grace alone"

  Isn't that rather embarassing?