Where would the universe get its power to be if it isn't an omnipotent being?

Why do you assume things need a 'power to be'? Suppose matter/energy just "is".

God does have the authority to create, however. God is not confined by space and time. God created space and time.

Our understanding of existance is likely confounded by our perceptions of both space and time. We live in a certain size world for a certain amount of time, so naturally our brains are wired to understand those scales for which they are useful; On the other hand, we don't seem to very good at understanding numbers, sizes, and times substantially greater or smaller than those in which we live. Sure, we can conceptualize them, but have you ever tried to picture in your mind a set of things? I'm sure you could picture 10 things without much problem, but how about 20 things? 50 things? 1000 things? The orders of magnitude our brains would need to be able to understand would need to be billions of times larger. Then we might have a sense for it.

Likewise, because of this there are many forces we are all but oblivous to; In one of his talks, Dawkins likens it to a fly being almost unaware of gravity but remarkably attunded to surface tension, since they can hang on verticle surfaces. We're trying to use a brain designed for a certain scale of world to understand one for which it was never ment to. This is more than likely the source of our problems.

An eternal, omnipotent being would have to exist and will other beings into existence as well–otherwise there would be nothing at all.

Unless matter/energy are capable of existing simply because they always have, in some sense or another. The laws of physics say they're just as eternal as anything you could imagine.

What is god made of, if he preexisted everything by an eternity in all directions? Nothingness?

Omnipotent because how could a non-omnipotent being have the authority to create? How could a partially powerfully being be eternal? And where would a partially powerful being get its power to create?

See above point. Perhaps we simply misunderstand causality, since we evolved in a world for which causality is different from an 'uncaused-causality'.

I cannot definitively prove to you that God exists. And you cannot definitely prove that God does not exist.

(Reminder: it's not my job to disprove your claim, it's your job to prove it. Same way you wouldn't have to disprove my magical elf, I would have to prove it)
With 100% certainity, I can't disprove anything; no one can. But I'm not asking for you to prove something with that same 100% because that's impossible; there's always a possibility, no matter how small, that we're incorrect. What I'm asking for is evidence that not only points towards a god(or multiple gods), but evidence that also specifically points towards a christian/muslim/jewish/roman/pagan/whatever conception of a god. Then this evidence is weighed against what we already know.

So what evidence do you have? What observable, or repeatable evidence do you have? Something that goes beyond (hopefully far beyond) the level of statisical significance. You believe with such certainty you could lead one into thinking your fantastic claims have fantastic evidence.

Argumentative reasoning about our existence and the existence of the universe leads me to recognize that God's presence is very reasonable, and at the same time there are no thorough, reasonable points that lead me to trust that an elf or other being could have always existed or had the authority to create–that's the base of the point.

Ok, if that's your base point, people explain to me how your hypothesis of god is superior to my hypothesis of magically, mysterious elves. For every argument you pit against my magic elves you must also pit against your god. This should be fun.
-My elves are magic, and can defy natural laws, and can will themselves into existance. It just doesn't make sense to you because they use their magic to do as they please.

The comparison does not relate to my point because one of my premises is that a blob of tissue cannot become a being of its own accord, much less a being as amazingly complex as we are.

You assert that life cannot form from non-living matter in any sense of the word, but as normal, that's not backed up by evidence. I'm not saying I have the evidence you're looking for there, as the farthest I go is into a possible idea about how DNA could have evolved. Point is I don't rule it out because we don't yet understand the process. Compared to what we knew 200 years ago to now, it's almost unthinkable. Who knows what discoveries the next 10, 20, 100 years may bring. I see you don't like the idea that the gaps in our knowledge are shrinking, because those gaps are where the possibility of god hides for you. By declaring it impossible you're unsuccessfully attempting to keep those gaps permenant, but that's not how it works.

An important recognition here is that there is no reasonable argument that beings as intricate as we are could just happen to come into existence.

The famous boeing-747 example! The example that says life is too complex to be able to just happen by chance (even though given the vast scale of the universe and the extremely small probability of life, chance may have a hand in it after all), and so must be explained by an infinitely vaster and more complex form of life that can just happen. It's bad reasoning, and always has been.

If you get to declare that god can just happen or just is, then I'll just do the same thing for matter and energy. I'll win that one though, because we can see matter and energy, yet not god for some strange reason.

How can you be so sure that the universe isn't that unmoved mover?

Where would the universe get its power to be if it isn't an omnipotent being? How and why would the universe desire to create? When you say "the universe" you are speaking of a physical reality in time--it has no authority to exist of itself or to put itself there. God does have the authority to create, however. God is not confined by space and time. God created space and time.

Your points about the magnitude of space and our smallness in comparison with all of creation is reinforcing to God's presence. With all of that magnitude of matter and seemingly endless space (in which most of what we know of it likely does not have the capacity for an earthly organism's survival), how could such amazingly intricate life exist on one particular, small planet?... Including human beings who have the ability to reason, speak, make decisions, be in relationship with one another, question, answer, feel, think, pray, and love. Without a creator, it is mind-boggling to think of a sound reason that human beings and all things of the earth just appeared by chance.

No, I cannot come up with a temporal being that can will its own existence--I was asking you for an example. An eternal, omnipotent being would have to exist and will other beings into existence as well--otherwise there would be nothing at all. Eternal and omnipotent would both have to be... If the being wasn't eternal than at some point it would have not existed and would have had to will iself into existence which is impossible. Omnipotent because how could a non-omnipotent being have the authority to create? How could a partially powerfully being be eternal? And where would a partially powerful being get its power to create?

So the magic elf idea is out, but the magic god idea gets to stay? Where's the justice in that? You have no more evidence for god then I do for magic elves. I think you're forgetting these magic elves work in strange and mysterious ways that we can't even being to understand.

I cannot definitively prove to you that God exists. And you cannot definitely prove that God does not exist. Argumentative reasoning about our existence and the existence of the universe leads me to recognize that God's presence is very reasonable, and at the same time there are no thorough, reasonable points that lead me to trust that an elf or other being could have always existed or had the authority to create--that's the base of the point.

Imagine you have a being that came into existance via a manner described in the first sentence vs a being that came into existance via a manner described in the second. How would you propose you have the ability to tell them apart?

The comparison does not relate to my point because one of my premises is that a blob of tissue cannot become a being of its own accord, much less a being as amazingly complex as we are. The question here is ultimately about how our complexities came to be. I find there to be no reasonable argument that organisms could exist without being created. An important recognition here is that there is no reasonable argument that beings as intricate as we are could just happen to come into existence.
Peace.

Female rodents, for example, will often spontaneously abort their pregnancies if they meet a new dominant male (the Bruce effect). Some birds, like chickens, eat their own eggs. Infanticide is quite common in the animal kingdom - among lions, among chimpanzees, among polar bears, among wolves, among gulls, among prairie dogs, and among many others. Other species, such as sea turtles, have reproductive strategies that assume vast losses of offspring. Your conclusions simply fail to accord with the facts.

That is exactly where my point is... without an eternal and omnipotent being that depends on nothing else for its existence there would still be nothing today. God is eternal and never had a beginning and is the cause of all else that exists–everything else is incapable of causing its own existence, just like you and me.

One question: if you're going to assume that god could always have existed, why not just assume the universe always existed? At least we can see the universe.
How can you be so sure that the universe isn't that unmoved mover?

I'll go back to the point I made earlier. Compared to the vast size of the earth, people make up little to none of it's mass; much of it's volume isn't hospitable to maintaining human life. Compared to this local solar system the earth is a speck. The solar system is a speck compared with the galaxy and so on and so on. So much of this universe we'll never see and would never support our life anyway. Parts of the universe are far, far older than the early we live on by amounts totalling billions of years. Are you really going to assume that all this was made just for us, and that some god that is going through great lengths to avoid revealing even that he exists, is watching all of the billions of people at once every moment of everyday. However, his holy book manages to get so much about this vast universe wrong and his creations are genetically/developmentally damaged more often than not. Something isn't adding up.

At best, if one were to follow that line of thought, that leaves you with a belief in god, or some creative force existing outside our understanding of causality, and that's where it stops. People can hold that belief all they want and I couldn't care less.

Can you give any reasonable evidence that a temporal being exists that can will its own existence and will other matter into existence?

Can you? (Evidence does not equal arm-chair philosophy)

An eternal and omnipotent Being is the only being that is not dependent and must exist if we or anything else exists.

Unless of course that first cause wasn't a being at all. I see no reason it has to be. Likewise, why does it have to be all-powerful? Why not just eternal; eternal works without the all-powerful clause in there.

Your statement about a creator elf, or anything of that sort that is not God, is most unreasonable.

So the magic elf idea is out, but the magic god idea gets to stay? Where's the justice in that? You have no more evidence for god then I do for magic elves. I think you're forgetting these magic elves work in strange and mysterious ways that we can't even being to understand.

There is so much more to our existence than being mutated tissue that happens to be able to communicate in intricate manners. We are created by God to love and to be loved.

Imagine you have a being that came into existance via a manner described in the first sentence vs a being that came into existance via a manner described in the second. How would you propose you have the ability to tell them apart?

Adam,

Do you think that we just happend by chance? What did we evolve from? Where did we come from?
Christians would say from God.
Nature suggests them same: The natural order of things are made for an end. If the end does not exist then life does not make sense.

Admittedly, I do not claim to understand the origins or life nor time. I'll also add this lack of knowledge doesn't bother me.

Now, you seem to assume this gap means god wins and must fill it. The argument you're presenting seems to be:
"Life can't just come from non-life, and existance can't just come from non-existance, and the only that thing happens to be able to exist without being created, well that happens to be god. checkmate."

If you get to declare that god could (and does) exist without being created, then I'm just going to say that the universe always existed, and life can naturally arise out of non-living matter.

Man, idle thought is easy to prove when I don't have to provide any evidence.

As for the natural order bit: Living things are indeed 'crafted' by natural selection towards an 'end'. That end is being able to reproduce the most successfully given a set of scarce resources. That crafting is the non-random survival of those beings better suited to do just that. Living things are fitted into the world, the world is not fitted around living things. By saying "just happened by chance", it shows you have little knowledge about what the theory of evolution actually says.
I've mentioned this before, but I will again; the parable of the puddle.
"One day, after a rain storm, a puddle awakens to find itself laying in a hole in the ground. 'This is splendid' thinks the puddle, 'the hole is just the right size to fit my body. It fits so perfectly that it couldn't have happened this way by chance. There must be some eternal hole creator who made this hole just for me'".

It must be nice to be able to just make up claims and present them as if you had any evidence for them. If anything, the fact that the vast majority of animals invest far less time and energy into their offspring than humans do shows that most species could get by just fine with an even higher rate of spontaneous abortion than humans.

When I wrote my post I was thinking of "March of the penguins" These animals work very hard to lay just one egg. Blue whales, travel thousands of miles to get to shallow water, almost starving themselves for months at a time, just to prepare their young for the journey home: a huge amount of time and energy.

I would recommend: Planet Earth: The Complete Collection (5-Disc Series) (2007) google it or rent in on netflix, an amazing documentary of life on this planet. This shows that no other animal aborts like humans do. If they did they would become extinct.

My point is that humans are so delicate, more then any other being, it is seem impossible for us to survive without God.

Oh, it's cute that you called us accidental slime, and then added that "christians don't think so". That totally makes it sound like you have the appeal to emotions thing down AND like it's some morally superior stance. An impressive display of bullshit if I do say so myself.

I'm sorry, I was not trying to hurt any feelings. Allow me to restate the question.

Do you think that we just happend by chance? What did we evolve from? Where did we come from?
Christians would say from God.
Nature suggests them same: The natural order of things are made for an end. If the end does not exist then life does not make sense.

No being can will itself into existence

If no being can will itself into existence, how do things come into existence?

How does a bird know how to make a nest, a bee to make honey? Everything on this planet is a receiver. Valleys would not be if water would not have made them, the water to make the valleys would not be without snow and ice. Man would not be here if two people did not meet and co-create. This can be said of all animals. Everything on the planet is a reciever, and even if you had an infinity of receivers it does not explain existence. Nothing can give itself something it does not have. I can not give you $100 dollars if I do not have it. No one can pick them self up by their own boot straps.

There must be a being who does not receive, but gives...this is what man means when he says God.

If a being was all powerful and eternal it wouldn't need to wish itself into existance because it would already exist by the very nature of being eternal.

That is exactly where my point is... without an eternal and omnipotent being that depends on nothing else for its existence there would still be nothing today. God is eternal and never had a beginning and is the cause of all else that exists--everything else is incapable of causing its own existence, just like you and me.

And what makes you think that a magic elf couldn't will itself into existance? Can you prove that an elf can't do such things?

Can you give any reasonable evidence that a temporal being exists that can will its own existence and will other matter into existence? An eternal and omnipotent Being is the only being that is not dependent and must exist if we or anything else exists. Your statement about a creator elf, or anything of that sort that is not God, is most unreasonable.
And once again, I have to go back to Adam's question"

is being born a grave misfortune? Do you see life as a "lottery winner" we've been lucky enough to win the lottery: cosmic slime-evolved into man. Christians believe life has a purpose: To know God. The grave misfortune is not having God.

As I mentioned before: without God it is quite illogical to assume that we just got here by chance and became beings capable of reason, with deep emotional capacity and complexities beyond match. There is so much more to our existence than being mutated tissue that happens to be able to communicate in intricate manners. We are created by God to love and to be loved.

No other animal on the planet aborts at this rate.

It must be nice to be able to just make up claims and present them as if you had any evidence for them. If anything, the fact that the vast majority of animals invest far less time and energy into their offspring than humans do shows that most species could get by just fine with an even higher rate of spontaneous abortion than humans.

As to our species having an excessively high spontaneous-abortion rate, I've searched for "spontaneous abortion" and "fetus resorption" and found a fair amount of stuff; the latter is essentially a sort of self-administered abortion. I've also found Hatching and Brooding Small Numbers of Chicks. "The success rate in hatching eggs is quite variable. ... Even commercial hatcheries having specialized equipment may not have more than an 80 percent success ratio."

A person has one egg fertilized, and chicken has many. Maybe not all the chicken are going to hatch, but (if I am not mistaken) every chicken has at least one egg hatch per mating season. That would be 100% of the Chicken that lay eggs get new chicks.

This can not be said about humans.

And I would also like to hear what you have to say about Arch's comment directed to you, or I guess anyone on this web board, I am interested to hear:

How can you reasonably explain a god, demon, elf, gnome, alien, etc, existing of itself and having the power to create other beings? If God is not "that than which nothing greater can be concevied", and doesn't exist of his own nature, then there would be nothing else in existence. No being can will itself into existence, unless that being be all powerful and eternal.

goyo,

I am with Arch

The very fact that new living zygotes, that develope into a man, is such a delicate process, can be used as a good reason that God created rather then man happened by blind chance.

You'd think if god designed it, 50% or so of zygotes wouldn't be aborted due to abnormal or fatal genetic/developmental mistakes. Would you by a car that only worked 50% of the time and call it's designer that intelligent? How many things around the house do you own and think highly of that work half the time?

If life is this fragile, that 50-75% are naturally aborted, but you still try and tell me that it is reasonable that life just spontaniously happened without God, is an impossibility; reason tells me so. No other animal on the planet aborts at this rate. If they did, they would become extinct. Infact, most animals need a near 100% birth rate, otherwise they would not survive. Why would it be different for man?

The point is, if we do abort at such a high rate, only God could sustain us.

How else is this explained? Are we just cosmic slime-evolved into man?

Christianity does not think so.

Outside of the fact that other animals don't have a 100% conception rate, you're logic is very far off.
Want to know something interesting? A fine way to reduce the risk of preeclampsia (the risk of which effects both mother and fetus) is swallowing. Of course, swallowing is just one of the ways, the overarching feature being that the more familiar with a male's semen the woman's body is, the less likely that body is to abort a fetus after conception. In other words, the more semen of yours you leave in a woman over time, the less likely she is to miscarry.

God works in mysterious ways, huh?

As a matter of fact, your reason that's telling you these things obviously isn't thinking about them too hard; In order to raise a child, incredible amounts of resources are needed. From conception to implantation to the woman's body supplying nutrition, to the birth process, and through breast feeding and postnatal care it's an incredible investment. Now, if animals like ourselves that invest so much into a new generation were not highly selective of who we choose to mate with (From a woman's perspective at least), we'd end up investing a lot in offspring, resources that could have been directed towards better offspring with a greater chance of surviving and passing on their genes.

Which explains the above fun fact about semen; the more familiar a woman's body is with the semen, the more likely it is she has found herself a committed partener, making it safer for her body to invest in the creation of an offspring that can be aptly cared for. Remember, in our ancestral environment (which you don't believe in)you couldn't just pop into a supermarket for food; resources were hard-won and not in abundance, and in the absence of a protecting and provisioning mate, a woman likely would not last very long while pregnant or caring for an infant, relative to those who had that mate.

Oh, it's cute that you called us accidental slime, and then added that "christians don't think so". That totally makes it sound like you have the appeal to emotions thing down AND like it's some morally superior stance. An impressive display of bullshit if I do say so myself.

Are you suggesting that animals are as valuable as humans?

That depends; important for what? We do depend on animals for our survival, and the vast ecosystem they create; without animals, insects, and plants all the people die too. So at some point, animals need to become as important as people, otherwise you just have people dying because of a lack of them.

Arch,

God sustains us from the very base of allowing our existence–if he did not will our existence we would not be here. And God's sustenance does not depend on our merits or our actions–it stems from the fact that God created us out of love... and he loves us so much that he gives us freedom of will–for without that love cannot exist.

Evidence of this?

Didn't think so.

How can you reasonably explain a god, demon, elf, gnome, alien, etc, existing of itself and having the power to create other beings? If God is not "that than which nothing greater can be concevied", and doesn't exist of his own nature, then there would be nothing else in existence. No being can will itself into existence, unless that being be all powerful and eternal.

If a being was all powerful and eternal it wouldn't need to wish itself into existance because it would already exist by the very nature of being eternal.

And what makes you think that a magic elf couldn't will itself into existance? Can you prove that an elf can't do such things? Now, I know you're probably thinking "but elves don't exist"; well you're wrong because elves exist and created everything, I'm 100% sure of it.

That's what your 'point' sounds like.

I have to ask the question: How does god sustain us?
And why does he sustain atheists? Why doesn't he let us die? We obviously break his most precious commandment, and the penalty for not worshipping him is death.
Specifically, how does he sustain us?

God sustains us from the very base of allowing our existence--if he did not will our existence we would not be here. And God's sustenance does not depend on our merits or our actions--it stems from the fact that God created us out of love... and he loves us so much that he gives us freedom of will--for without that love cannot exist.
lpetrich,

That tired old false dichotomy of "My religion's god or chance". Yes, a false dichotomy. Because there are numerous other possibilities, like other religions' gods, demons, elves, gnomes, space aliens, etc.

How can you reasonably explain a god, demon, elf, gnome, alien, etc, existing of itself and having the power to create other beings? If God is not "that than which nothing greater can be concevied", and doesn't exist of his own nature, then there would be nothing else in existence. No being can will itself into existence, unless that being be all powerful and eternal.
Peace.