Lincoln98: You claimed that: "No one created God. He is eternal; He has no beginning and has no end" is a truthful statement.
I then pointed out that if it were in any way valid to claim that your god has always existed, then it would be equally valid to claim that the universe has always existed (and that such a claim has the advantage of being simpler).
It gives your claim not one iota of support that you chose not to make a different claim. What matters is the claim that you did, in fact, make, and I have pointed out to you that there is (at least) one other claim that is equally valid.
If you are going to say "No one created God. He is eternal; He has no beginning and has no end", and claim that to be truthful, then you need to support your claim. It is a mere tautology to say that your claim is true because any other claim would be a lie.
_______________________
You seem to conflate the application of reason with dishonesty, but the implied slur leaves me unmoved:
You may charge me with murder or want of sense
(We are all of us weak at times):
But the slightest approach to a false pretence
Was never among my crimes!
(From ‘The Hunting of the Snark’ by Lewis Carroll)
Your profile says that you are quite young, so perhaps you will accept a word of advice from me… avoid the temptation to engage in ad hominem attacks. Such tactics merely weaken your position.
In like vein, it does not help to depict yourself as a victim of imagined injustice. I have not supposed either hypocrisy or self-contradiction on your part, nor have I accused you of either, nor have I accused you of not being able to explain the origin of your god (that being irrelevant to our discussion).
_______________________
“... you ascribe the universe to creation”. You are mistaken.
“We know how perfectly set up the universe is…”. Perfectly set up for what? Perfectly set up by what?
“... your acknowledgement of it is that it is just a random event…”. I really cannot see where I have either suggested or even discussed that proposition.
Perhaps you will allow a final piece of advice? Putting words into someone’s mouth does not in any way advance your position. While I am always more than happy to discuss what I have said, I have no interest in discussing what you wish I had said.
_______________________
“the probability of something occurring equals one, with the chance of either of 2 events occurring equalling 0.5”
Probability lies between (note: between) 0 and 1. If the probability of an event occurring equals either 0 or 1, then probability no longer applies.
For two events to share a 0.5 probability, they need to be mutually exclusive, and the circumstances surrounding each event need to be identical.
For example, I love playing tennis (Wimbledon starts next month… yay!), If I played against Maria Sharapova, one of us would win (mutually exclusive), but nobody would give me a 50% chance of winning.
One further example: It is autumn here, and a cold front will arrive on Friday morning. At 3 o’clock on Friday afternoon it will either be raining, or it will not be raining (mutually exclusive events). It dos not follow that there is a 50% probability of rain at 3 o’clock on Friday.
I have said all this because you seem to be trying to make some or other point about probability… although I’m not sure what point you are trying to make. Perhaps you could clarify that for me?
You seem to be saying that our universe exhibits perfection… but I am not sure how you are arriving at that position. Perfection against which criteria? What would an imperfect universe look like? If another universe were different, then why would we assume that our universe is the measure of perfection? Why not assume that of the other (different) universe?
Further, you seem to be saying that the universe occurred spontaneously, but again I am not sure how you are arriving at that position. After all, we began this discussion with the observation that if it were in any way valid to claim that your god has always existed, then it would be equally valid to claim that the universe has always existed, and there would seem to be no need to postulate spontaneity for something that had always existed (indeed, it would be incoherent to do so)
The observation that “If it were in any way valid to claim that your god has always existed, then it would be equally valid to claim that the universe has always existed” carries with it no suggestion of pantheism. The two propositions are not mutually exclusive, and in any event the characteristics of one need not be conferred onto the other.
