Do you believe in god?

[costargh]

But its "logically flawed" to assume that something does not have a starting point.

Actually, it isn't any more logically flawed than assuming that something does have a starting point. I think we all need to understand that brendan is just defending the middle-ground here. He is not making a claim for the non-existence of God, instead he is just defending neutrality from illogical claims.

It is more logically flawed if you can not produce one example of something that has existed without having a starting point when I can produce millions of examples of things that have existed due to having a starting point in time and space.

[ninwa]

Well, according to religion, God existed without a starting point.

[BA22]

no you can't costa

There is one unexplained existence in the universe and that is hydrogen, the rest follows on from that

[costargh]

But I do believe that a higher being had to have been responsible for the creator of life. (ie. a being that is not bound by the belief that 'someone had to have created everything' because then someone could just argue "who made God".

I posted that on page 25.
In religious terms, it is simply the belief that God has always existed

http://www.christiancourier.com/articles/read/who_made_god
Read that if you wish. Maybe skip the scriptures part, read the logic part however and make sure to note the part about "something must be either material or non material in nature"

I don't personally share the same view, just some other persons view

[brendan]

the universe must have begun somewhere.

I can produce millions of examples of things that have exist due to having a starting point in time and space.

Go ahead. Produce those "millions of examples".

[costargh]

Would a dozen suffice?

[brendan]

Well you can do a million, so do a million.

[costargh]

Oh Brendan I would prefer not to. No need to try and find a loophole in my argument because the point still stands that if you cannot produce one example of something that existed without ever being created then your argument is more logically flawed than mine.

Side note: What came first? The chicken or the egg? =P

[Collin Li]

Evolutionists would say the egg.

[costargh]

Lol maybe we can make the "What came first; The Chicken or the Egg" part a separate topic? =P

[sheepz]

Oh no, not legal studies! =.=

Example of supernatural stuff: (by the way, I'm a Christian if you haven't figured it out so these relate to Christianity)
One of my relatives' heart stopped when he was in the hospital. The staff pronounced him dead after 4 minutes. (I think that's the standard time then you're dead? Can't remember the exact time.) He woke up after 10 minutes (again, not sure of the time but I'm pretty sure it was more than double of the normal time) though and lived for quite a few years more. He said that when he 'died', God took him up to heaven and showed him around, but said that my relative hasn't finish his purpose in Earth yet and there was more to do and therefore sent him back.

Lol the 'chicken or egg' would have no ending... and even more repetitive than this one, I would think.

[brendan]

Oh Brendan I would prefer not to. No need to try and find a loophole in my argument because the point still stands that if you cannot produce one example of something that existed without ever being created then your argument is more logically flawed than mine.

In fact your post above is the flawed one on two counts:
1. I never made any claim to the affect that you allege. You attribute to me an argument I NEVER made.
2. Your argument asserts that your premise is true because it has not been proven false i.e. regarding the lack of evidence for one view as constituting evidence or proof that another view is true. Like i said, that reasoning (or lack thereof) has a hole big enough for me to drive a truck through - not having evidence for a particular proposition is not proof that an alternative proposition is instead the case.

[ninwa]

So .... his heart started again of its own accord? With no assistance whatsoever?

[Collin Li]

Oh Brendan I would prefer not to. No need to try and find a loophole in my argument because the point still stands that if you cannot produce one example of something that existed without ever being created then your argument is more logically flawed than mine.

In fact your post above is the flawed one on two counts:
1. I never made any claim to the affect that you allege. You attribute to me an argument I NEVER made.
2. Your argument asserts that your premise is true because it has not been proven false i.e. regarding the lack of evidence for one view as constituting evidence or proof that another view is true. Like i said, that reasoning (or lack thereof) has a hole big enough for me to drive a truck through - not having evidence for a particular proposition is not proof that an alternative proposition is instead the case.

I would like to congratulate brendan for making his points more user-friendly. The typical brendan would have replaced points 1 & 2 with:

1. Straw-man
2. Argument from ignorance

These are the names of the logical fallacies you have committed.

[Mao]

theory of eevolution: living things evolve through natural selection

natural selection in a nutshell (sorry, i havent really studied this, but read a bit about it, might make a few mistakes, or be very vague):

lets say there's a type of fish without eyes
that type of fish has a predator, *bigger fish*
one day, through tiny genetic mutations caused by reproduction (it always happen, tiny little bit, but always happen), a slightly mutant blind fish is born with cells capable of sensing light
that mutant fish has a better chance of surviving, as it can detect the predator, hence its offsprings are more likely to survive, etc etc, eventually, the mutant fish's population will increase, the original fish will die out/bred out, and there, evolution happened, mutant fish somewhat have eyes now!

in other words, nature select the fittest.

applying that to our current argument, the reason why we're so complicated, with all the intricate mechanism, is through tiny iteration of tiny mutations from the first single-cell organism. we're only one in a <insert very large number> of possibilities, but the reason why we have survived instead of all the others is because we are the *fittest*, the best product, and naturally we were *selected* to be THE race...

=D i feel special