Question

[jcr4runner]

You admit that you feel guilty when you transgress an internalized moral law from "within your own brain."

Isn't this sense of guilt inconvenient? Why can't you cast it off completely?

If you are just a highly evolved animal, then why bother with feeling guilty? Animals don't act guilty. They don't have criminal or moral laws. They don't have any morals or sense conscience except for the dictates of instinct.

Man on the other hand feels guilty whenever these codified laws are transgressed. Guilt is the product of an internalized moral law that we choose not to keep. For a religious person, these are the Laws of God.

But why would an atheist feel guilty about doing something he chooses to do? If God does not exist, then why feel guilty about breaking a moral law whenever you choose to do so? If we are evolving away from primitive religion, as you claim, then what good does a sense of guilt do for us?

Why is man incurably conscious of moral law and the guilt which comes from breaking this law?

[AMbomb]

You admit that you feel guilty when you transgress an internalized moral law from "within your own brain."

Isn't this sense of guilt inconvenient? Why can't you cast it off completely?

If you are just a highly evolved animal, then why bother with feeling guilty? Animals don't act guilty. They don't have criminal or moral laws. They don't have any morals or sense conscience except for the dictates of instinct.

Man on the other hand feels guilty whenever these codified laws are transgressed. Guilt is the product of an internalized moral law that we choose not to keep. For a religious person, these are the Laws of God.

But why would an atheist feel guilty about doing something he chooses to do? If God does not exist, then why feel guilty about breaking a moral law whenever you choose to do so? If we are evolving away from primitive religion, as you claim, then what good does a sense of guilt do for us?

Why is man incurably conscious of moral law and the guilt which comes from breaking this law?

You can't cast it off completely because the brain doesn't work that way. I don't need a book to tell me right from wrong. I use my brain to figure it out. Humans are different from animals because we have smarter brains. These enable us to develop sophisticated codes of ethics. However, a recent study showed that chimps do have a sense of fairness. Chimps given a task refused to work after their partners received a better tasting reward for the same job.

[jcr4runner]

Would you go as far as to say that animals feel guilt?

[AMbomb]

Would you go as far as to say that animals feel guilt?

Guilt or maybe shame. My dog used to get an ashamed look when she dug in the backyard.

[revrosado]

AMBomb.......
What is right? What is wrong?

[AMbomb]

AMBomb.......
What is right? What is wrong?

Whatever I think they are.

[revrosado]

AM You don't exist!

There is no proof that you really exist.

Provide us with dramatic proof that you do.

I am not trying to be funny nor silly. I really would like you to seriously engage the query.

[revrosado]

So AM - you really got through school with that thinking?

[AMbomb]

AM You don't exist!

There is no proof that you really exist.

Provide us with dramatic proof that you do.

I am not trying to be funny nor silly. I really would like you to seriously engage the query.

If I don't exist, who's posting these messages? :lol:

[revrosado]

According to the server - another computer posted your messages. There is no way for the server to prove that YOU posted or said anything...We can assume or presuppose, but that is all that is really proveable scientifically.

:lol:

[AMbomb]

According to the server - another computer posted your messages. There is no way for the server to prove that YOU posted or said anything...We can assume or presuppose, but that is all that is really proveable scientifically.

:lol:

You don't know who I am. From your point of view, I'm simply the poster of the messages. Therefore, the fact that messages have been posted is proof that I exist.

[revrosado]

Keep thinking about it...

Also not that you do not know any computer science...but in the cyber world you do not exist...only your computer terminal exists. it is assumed that a human operator is at the keyboard. But in the scientific cyber universe, you are a leap of faith. Only the terminal exists and only your computer communicates with other computers.

It is the same problem of God existing or not.....we are in this universe...He is pushing the buttons.................

I give courses - if you like, seek out and find what you seek.

Now or when you come to understand my language.

I wish the best for you AM.......truly.
Regards.

[AMbomb]

Keep thinking about it...

Also not that you do not know any computer science...but in the cyber world you do not exist...only your computer terminal exists. it is assumed that a human operator is at the keyboard. But in the scientific cyber universe, you are a leap of faith. Only the terminal exists and only your computer communicates with other computers.

It is the same problem of God existing or not.....we are in this universe...He is pushing the buttons.................

I give courses - if you like, seek out and find what you seek.

Now or when you come to understand my language.

I wish the best for you AM.......truly.
Regards.

The point is that something posted these messages. From your point of view, I am defined as that something. What I am beyond the poster of the messages doesn't matter. Whatever I am, I exist.

[jcr4runner]

The point is that something posted these messages. From your point of view, I am defined as that something. What I am beyond the poster of the messages doesn't matter. Whatever I am, I exist.

As Rev. Rosado wrote: "It is the same problem of God existing or not." You use the same classic argument for the existence of God to prove your own existence. Since science denies that the universe could come into existence by itself (First Law of Thermodynamics) and also denies that the universe could have existed prior to the time when the total amount of energy in the universe contained no entropy (Second Law of Thermodynamics) then something (or Someone) that transcends the natural universe must have created it. And since he universe is orderly, it is logical that this "something" had divine intelligence.

The point is that something with intelligence created the universe. From any point of view, God is defined and that something. God is the Creator of the universe. The universe did not create itself. We can argue over the names and attirbutes of the Creator God, but it is a proven fact that He exists.

[jcr4runner]

Atheism Hits a Brick Wall:
The First Law of Thermodynamics

By Chuck Missler (From his Book "The Creator Beyond Time and Space")

http://www.direct.ca/trinity/1law.html

The First Law of Thermodynamics asserts that matter or its energy equivalent can neither be created nor destroyed under natural circumstances.1 One of the logical outcomes of this law is that there is no new matter or energy appearing anywhere in the universe, nor is there any matter being annihilated. All matter and energy in the universe is conserved. Consequently, this law is often referred to as the Law of Conservation of Mass and Energy. Although matter can neither be created nor destroyed, it can be converted from one state to another, i.e. from a liquid to a gas, liquid to solid, solid to gas. The overwhelming experience of experimental physics confirms this First Law to be a fact. As we shall see, this law has enormous implications regarding the origin of matter in our universe.

Proton Decay
Protons are positively charged particles which reside in the nucleus of every atom. Each proton consists of a least three quarks. For decades it was assumed that protons were eternally stable. However, physicists now believe that quarks decay into antiquarks, pions and positive electrons, and electromagnetic radiation.2 This decay process occurs at a rate of only once per proton per 1032 years. Consequently, since this process is irreversible, all the atoms in the universe will eventually decay into irretrievable matter. Even though this process of decay will take an enormously long period of time, it is not infinite.

Cosmic Evolution and the First Law
Skeptics often scoff at the biblical creation account because it invokes a supernatural event for the origin of time, space, and matter. Yet, if we search the field of cosmology in the last one hundred years we find that the theories on the "natural" (as opposed to supernatural) origin of matter are few and far between. There are only two options for the origin of matter: it is either eternal or it appeared at a finite point in the past. With the elucidation of the First Law of Thermodynamics the implications of this debate, as we will see, have been clearly defined.

Faced with the evidence of a finite, expanding universe, cosmologists began to look for a way to salvage the existence of an eternal universe. In the 1940's Hermann Bondi, Thomas Gold and Fred Hoyle proposed a mechanism that would allow the expanding universe to still be infinitely old3,4 This model for the universe, called the "Steady State Model," asserts that as the universe expands, hydrogen atoms arise spontaneously from nothing in the deep recesses of space. The result is that the universe appears about the same (in a "steady state") in all ages.

In the last forty years this model for the universe has been discredited by a number of scientific discoveries. The first of these has to do with the age of the galaxies. If the universe is infinitely old then we should expect to find galaxies of all ages. However decades of observations reveal that all the visible galaxies in our universe are "middle aged." Secondly, there is no physical (natural) mechanism for the spontaneous origin of hydrogen atoms. In fact, hydrogen atoms have never been observed to appear spontaneously anywhere in the universe.5 Thirdly, Isaac Newton's Law of Inertia declares that a body at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. In the Steady State Model there is no mechanism to explain the motion of the galaxies.

The First Law of Thermodynamics is called a "law" because within the bounds of scientific observation it has been proven true beyond all reasonable doubt. In effect, the First Law states that you and I can neither create nor destroy matter. Therefore, it follows that if something which exists (you and I) cannot create matter, then something which doesn't exist cannot create it either!

Matter cannot create itself and, in the real world, cannot arise from nothing. Within the bounds of natural law all effects must have a cause.6 Because of this fact, the spontaneous appearance of hydrogen atoms out of nothing (ex nihilo creation) is a definite breach of the First Law of Thermodynamics which asserts that matter, under natural circumstances, can neither be created nor destroyed. Therefore, since it is not a natural event, it is by definition a supernatural event-a miracle! This is, we believe, a rather weak starting point for a materialistic scenario to begin.

To avoid this conclusion, a number of physicists have proposed that the laws of physics are different elsewhere in the universe.7 However, this assertion is not supported by even a shred of scientific evidence. Such appeals reveal the lengths that some will go to avoid a finite beginning for the universe.

Since matter is not eternal, we are left with only one option- it arose out of nothing at a finite point in the past! Ironically, the scientific materialist who argues that all matter in the universe arose out of nothing is in agreement with the biblical creationist. However, biblical creationists readily admit that the appearance of matter out of nothing was a miracle, performed by a "First Cause" that transcends the physical universe. The scientific materialist, who believes, as Carl Sagan does, that "the Cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be," is forced to conclude that the Cosmic egg arose from nothingness apart from any causal agent.

The atheist immediately protests, "If God made the universe then who made God?" The Bible indicates that God is an eternal, transcendent Spirit.8 Consequently, because time is itself a physical property of the universe which God created, then questions about God's origin are meaningless. This is because God existed before time and He is, therefore, not subject to time-bound concepts such as birth and death. He is outside of time!

Furthermore, because God always existed prior to the creation of the universe and the laws by which it is governed, He is not subject to them either. This means that God was never "young" nor is He aging as dictated by the Second Law. He is outside of our space-time domain and outside of the aging effects altogether.

At the beginning of the atheist's scenario, there is an equally difficult question. "Who or what made that ball of matter that exploded in the Big Bang?" The answer is that the Cosmic Egg made itself, which is impossible on the basis of natural law.

So at the beginning of each model of origins we have unanswerable questions. Atheists may then argue that they are equal starting points. But are they?

The creationist's model begins with an infinitely intelligent, omnipotent, transcendent Creator who used intelligent design, expertise or know-how to create everything from the sub-atomic particles to giant redwood trees. Was it a miracle? Absolutely!

"In the beginning (time), God created the heavens (space) and the earth (matter)" (Genesis 1:1).

The atheist's model begins with an even more impressive miracle - the appearance of all matter in the universe from nothing, by no one, and for no reason. A supernatural event. A miracle! However, the atheist does not believe in the outside or transcendent "First Cause" we call God. Therefore, the atheist has no "natural explanation" nor "supernatural explanation" for the origin of space-time and matter. Consequently, the atheistic scenario on the origin of the universe leaves us hanging in a totally dissatisfying position. He begins his model with a supernatural event. This supernatural event, however, is accomplished without a supernatural agent to perform it.