@Abge: Do you dispute that time is one of the dimensions of the universe?
Do you dispute that the fact that God existed before the universe is a given (in other word, do you dispute my logic)? Do you dispute that there is a cause and an effect in creation? Tell me what exactly you are disputing, and I will show you sources.

@Abgemacht: You do realize that I admitted that was a weak argument.

Anyway, I have to go somewhere. I'll be back in about 10 minutes.

@CM

Yes, I dispute that Time is a dimension. It is not equivalent to length, depth, and height.

Yes, I dispute that God existing before the universe is a fact. There is now evidence of this.

No, I don't dispute that there is cause and effect in creation.

"if the universe were was created on its own, the overwhelming odds are that it would not support life."
Source?
Life sprouted up on Earth within the first billion years (between 4.5 and 3.5 billion years ago). Earth has at least another billion years ahead of it where it will still be able to support life as we know it. Being that Earth-like planets are expected to be pretty common (more or less Earth sized, more or less this distance from their star), life should be pretty darn common. Not in every solar system, but probably on every Earth sized planet with liquid water that is at least a billion years old. Roll the chemical dice enough (and hold the dice that are favorable) and eventually you get a Yahtzee. 5 billion years is a long time.

Life is pretty darn near inevitable (under favorable conditions) from my viewpoint. I really really look forward to NASA or ESA sending a probe under the ice of Europa and putting this "life is rare" view to rest. For those who don't know, Europa, a moon of Jupiter, has a liquid water ocean - which at that distance from the sun requires that there is volcanic activity... think deep oceanic hydrothermal vents... and the associated life - as we see on Earth.

Okay, I still have time before I have to leave, so, @Abge: "Yes, I dispute that Time is a dimension. It is not equivalent to length, depth, and height." http://www.jimloy.com/physics/4 .htm

"Yes, I dispute that God existing before the universe is a fact." What part of my logic do you dispute?

"I couldn't think of a good argument"
That admission right there rescues you from me viewing you as a troll (for what it's worth). I appreciate it.
Hey - we can't always think of good arguments... nice to admit it.

By the way - where does this idea that Moses wrote Genesis come from? I'm pretty sure I've never heard that one before.

http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=35298
this threads getting all the attention, so I'll post in this one.

I'm not sure that website is too legit, but let's move on.

"What part of my logic do you dispute?"
You claimed that it was a fact that God existed before the universe. I dispute this. I can't be any clearer.

@CM- creation of universe from nothing goes against the laws of physics, whether a spirit brought about the creation or not.

The simplest possibility clearly is the one where we do not add excess parts that are not necessary. Either way we look at it, we have something from nothing. Why use God, is he's just a conscience how does he create things, why do you suppose he is simple

Occam's Razor, nice as it is, doesn't really save the "God did it" view. Just because all the unknowns are swept up into a single unknown (magic man in the sky) doesn't make that explanation any more likely. Occam's Razor applies (as I understand it) to situations where you have alternate possible explanations... as no one really has a possible explanation with any real explanatory value (one that explains the universe without violating what we already think we know) for the beginning of the universe then I'm not sure that anyone can say that one theoretical scenario is more likely than the other. It would be like debating whether a cherry cream pie on Mars is more or less likely than a baker's dozen of donuts. Neither case makes any sense within our current very limited understanding of the question. ...and the complete lack of evidence doesn't help much. Personally, I do think that adding God complicates the picture... but then I also don't think that there had to be a beginning to the universe... if there is no beginning it not only satisfies the whole conservation of mass and energy problem but it also means there's no need for a creator if there was no creation act. Simple. ...but, I readily admit, not at all provable... just like the other theories.

the Big Bang though does seem to suggest a beginning no?

@Dexter:""if the universe were was created on its own, the overwhelming odds are that it would not support life." Source?"
READ A FUCKING PHYSICS BOOK! I apologize for that outburst but seriously, if you read something like A Brief History of Time, and you will realize that there are numerous statistics about a universe that if they were different, life would be impossible, such as the strength of The strong nuclear force, the strength of the weak nuclear force, the strength of gravity, the strength of the electromagnetic force, the number of dimensions, and many more.

@Dave: But God can violate the laws of physics, as he created them.

http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=35300
This thread gets too much attention.

@dexter: I've always read that Moses wrote Genesis (and all the othher first 5 books of the Old Testament)

@CM
"@Dexter:""if the universe were was created on its own, the overwhelming odds are that it would not support life." Source?""

This is actually completely true, and one the the best arguments for an intelligent creator that wants to promote life.
I've heard from numerous, un biased, sources, that the chances of the fundamental forces produces conditions in which life is remotely possible are about 1 in 10*10 with 135 zeros behind it. Surely a creator is needed to fine tune the figures...?
The only other solution seems to be infinite universes.

@Dexter: When I yelled at you, I thought you still considered me a troll, so I'd like to apologize again for that outburst (I already did in the post). But it did get my frustration out somewhat, so it worked.

@dave bishop, the big bang (actually a bit after the big bang) is as far back as the experts have been able to deduce what was going on... but that doesn't mean we've found the beginning. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. That is the fallacy of Argument from Ignorance. ...just as the fact that astronomers prior to Edwin Hubble viewed the universe as "steady state" doesn't mean that it was. Once evidence was found of the doppler shift, the whole picture changed. Until we have a model that explains all observations (including problems like conservation of energy/matter and entropy) we can't say that we're very close. ...and having a model certainly doesn't mean we're done either... (as previous scientific advances in knowledge have shown us).

@Conservative Man, yes, *if* the universe was different. What evidence do we have that there would be any reason for the universe to be different. Perhaps there are some very good mathematical reasons for the universe to be exactly the way it is. 2+2=4, for example, I would posit would always always be true... and you would never find a universe where it wasn't true. Why wouldn't that also be true of e^(iπ)=-1? And e=mc^2? Perhaps these things are equally inevitable (and perhaps self-evident to a sufficiently brilliant being). And, besides, if you follow the Copenhagen model and the logical extension of that, Hugh Evert's "many worlds" interpretation then we simply inhabit one of the infinite possible universes... and you could well have numerous universes, vast tracts of universes, that are lifeless because they don't have the right combination of laws... but given that in that model every possibility exists somewhere, then the existence of a universe such as ours becomes pretty much a given. Make sense?

@Conservative Man, :-)

@Dexter: Why couldn't the universe be different.? Why couldn't a different universe have 2+2=5? The fact is, pretty much every leading physicist believes that the universe could be different from what it is now. Read A Brief History of Tome to see what I'm talking about.

Oh, and I don't believe the many worlds theory because of Occam's Razor; one universe is much simpler than infinite.

@Abge: "You claimed that it was a fact that God existed before the universe. I dispute this. I can't be any clearer." That wasn't part of my logic. My logic was what showed that that is true. What part of THAT do you dispute? (Are you disputing that my conclusion does not follow from my logic?)

@dave bishop, ah - well we both identify the infinite universes model as a possibility. I would wonder how exactly someone comes up with the crazy calculation about the likelihood of life? Each time I've seen something like that it's been an Intelligent Design advocate that assumes that each roll of the dice one needs to create "a 747 from a junk yard" in a single step (which surely *would* produce a ridiculous number like that). What I don't get is why ID proponents believe that it had to be in a single step. Indeed, we already know that evolution does *not* do that... one does not suddenly jump from phylum to phylum, for example (such as from fish to amphibian)... it takes numerous incremental changes over numerous generations. It is understood, of course, that we know very little about the beginning of life on Earth, but just because we don't understand it yet doesn't mean that it's so unlikely. Development of the eye, for example, has already suffered the fate of being adequately explained... it no longer needs a miracle or an outside conscious designer to happen... it can happen incrementally with each incremental change having advantage over the previous form. Another thought before you (possibly) bring it up - there is no need for us to assume that first life on Earth had to be anything like current single celled life... after all, the single celled life has had about 4 billion years to improve... I doubt very much that it was anything like, or anything even close to as sophisticated as, what exists now. There are some very interesting theories being worked out on how early life developed... but we are admittedly pretty far from understanding enough to say we have it explained.

"Why couldn't a different universe have 2+2=5?"
Because that equation is a tautology. It is true by definition. 2 + 2 is another way of saying 4.

@Spyman: Why couldn't math be different in another universe.

"I've heard from numerous, un biased, sources, that the chances of the fundamental forces produces conditions in which life is remotely possible are about 1 in 10*10 with 135 zeros behind it. Surely a creator is needed to fine tune the figures...?"

Please supply said sources. You could turn the entire observable universe into a gigantic computer, and I don't think you could calculate the permutations of fundamental forces that would produce life. I'm not even sure what it would mean to say the "chances of fundamental forces"... I mean, given what bounds for the fundamental constants?

Let's say this universe's permittivity of free space constant was slightly different than it is. Bam. No life, presumably? Nobody to talk about creator's fine tuning or anything. The fact is that you could only ever talk about fine tuning in a universe in which you existed, and so apparently had the conditions required for your existence. More importantly, is that these conditions did not arise to fit us, rather we arose to fit them. You're like a puddle who looks at the hole that it's in and says, "Wow, check out how snugly this hole fits me, it must have been handcrafted just for me!" Do you remember the time before you were born? Do you remember the places you've never been? Whenever you check to see if you're alive, are you ever not alive? You have an extremely small sample size compared to just the size and age of our observable universe, let alone what may exist beyond it. I would have thought we'd have learned something from Copernicus.

Conservative Man, you're completely misunderstanding the physics and you're interpreting it your own way as if it would be the only possible interpretation. I've said it before, and you've completely ignored it. It was said again here, and you gave a complete bullshit sophist answer. Yes, you're right that time *need* not exist outside our universe, but in fact, it might not be a dimension, it is just that our most current mathematical models of physics do very well when they assume it to be such. However, though you use the former fact to say that God need not have had his own cause, as cause and effect may only be meaningful phenomena within a time dimension that need not exist outside our universe, you completely fail to see that then our universe itself need not have a cause in any classic sense. If you say God is the cause, and the universe is the effect, that presumes the existence of cause and effect *outside* of the universe, which is exactly contrary to your premise.

You say you can't see the loopholes that you're slipping through... and then you say, well Moses might have made a typo. Can you not see that you're clearly picking and choosing the exact parts of the Bible that support you and ignoring the ones that go against you? You say the Gospels are all correct, but that Moses might not be. I mean, you use the Bible to support your point of view, but when others try to be fair and use Bible passages (despite not even believing in the authority of the Bible) to reach common ground and show you where your point of view is not supported by the Bible, you completely reinterpret the passages so that they mean something completely different from what is plain to see, or you dismiss it out of hand. If you actually read this entire post, please mention so in your reply, so that I at least know you're reading my posts.

@Conservative Man, Occams Razor... hmm... might as well posit that I am God and the entire universe is something I'm dreaming. ...or if you prefer, that you are God and everything else is your dream. That would be simple. It would only require one thing, God. Wouldn't even need a universe for that model. The fact that this model I just imagined is "simpler" than yours does not make it more likely, does it?

@Chrisp: As I've said twice, I know that the Moses typo argument is weak, but when you factor in that the rest of the Bible is correct, it seems like a more reasonable argument. (Is it better to disregard something that is 99% correct or just assume there was a typo?)