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How come the highest holiday season of our society is based on the birth of Christ.

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And why the next highest holidays are based on his death and resurrection, and on thanking him for a bountiful year.

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And why does American money bear the words "In God we trust"?

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Also, why the strong Christian outrage when Michael Newdow won the case to remove the words "under God" from the American Pledge of Allegiance?

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Originally Posted by rsmartin
People who self-identify as Christian ARE Christian. You don't get to decide whether or not they qualify because you aren't God.

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Originally Posted by etiainen
I'm not so sure - neither tradition, culture nor zeitgeist particularly make for a true individual discipleship.

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This means that even if a tradition may come from Christian roots, it doesn't make it a Christian tradition now.

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Something will only be Christian for as long as the hearts and minds of its propogators (sp?) are Christian.

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I think we live in a very very post-christian culture within the west. I'd say its much more humanistic or maybe paganistic, I wouldnt say its particularly Christian by any means - what ever it claims to be...

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slightly off-topic - where in Canada do you recommend for a young guy and some friends to chill, see Canada and generally have a cool time? Any thoughts?

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Originally Posted by harvey1

 
That would take more time than I have available. However, let me list a few compelling arguments:

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1. The universe is here either by some blind processes (atheism) or by some intentional acts to those processes (theism, deism, or pantheism depending on how we define "intention"). If the former, then there exist possible worlds where there could have been other blind processes (or algorithms) than the actual ones, or this is a necessary world. If this is a necessary world, then there exists a deist or pantheist God that brings order and structure as part of its underlying metaphysical nature. On the other hand, if there are possible worlds where a different ultimate reality with a different algorithm could have existed, then we ought to exist in an ultimate reality that was either simplest (i.e., requires the fewest lines of algorithmic code to describe that world) or the most typical (i.e., being a result obtained by a great many of these possible worlds). From the study of cellular automata we know both are not the case. There are many, many cellular automata that produce very dull worlds, and none of those worlds produce universes having any kind of sophisticated order as our own. Thus, we are justified in believing either that a theist God or pantheist God exists.

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2. The kalam argument. The universe had a beginning. The cause for its coming into existence is either personal (theism) or impersonal (pantheism or deism).

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3. The world is mathematical. This is either a result of random luck, or it is because there is a metaphysical order that exists. It's very unlikely that it is due to random luck given the amount of predictive successes of mathematical physics, therefore there exists a metaphysical order that exists. This metaphysical order is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient as can be demonstrated by a few quantum experiments. Hence, we are justified in identifying this metaphysical order as God (either theistic/pantheistic/deistic).

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4. Either the world is caused by blind processes (atheism) or by intentional acts to those processes (i.e., theism, deism, or pantheism).  If the former, and assuming the world is not necessary (see 1), then the ordering principles of nature is a brute fact. However, if it is a brute fact, then as the universe evolves it does so brute factly. However, if that's true, then there is no reason that there exist an innumerable number of opportunities to suddenly break from that stability, and evolve in a manner altogether different than its past by breaking whatever regularity was seen in previous epochs. Since the universe has not done so, we can be sure that we do not live in a brute fact world that is governed by "laws" that brute factly remain stable.  Thus, we have very good reason to believe in God.

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5. We have no reason to believe that our place in the universe is special with respect to consciousness. That is, it seems that the universe could support and evolve intelligent life for many billions of years to come. However, based on our knowledge of the universe, the earliest supernovas did not start seeding the universe with heavier elements until a few billion years had passed. Let's say that on average the universe were not seeded with enough heavy elements for life to exist until it was 3-5 billion years old. That means that life originated on Earth within 4-6 billion years of when it could possibly have done so (i.e., on average).  Hence, if we assume the universe is capable of evolving life for another 30 billion years (to be extremely conservative), that would mean that we are the firstborn of the universe. That is, the universe "child bearing" years are 3-5 billion years of age to 38-40 billion years of age. Life on earth was born when the universe was 8.5 billion years of age. Thus, of the 35-37 billion years the universe could have given birth to life, it did so here a few billion years into its child rearing years of life.  By the Copernican principle, we have reasons to reject this is as random luck. Therefore, there must exist a reason for why this is the case.

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The atheist answer is not very convincing. That is, there must exist a blind process for why this is so. Either we are just an extraordinarily odd phenomena, or there are possible worlds (i.e., not talking about a multiiverse) where the average age of those universes is about 8.5 billion years when life originates. However, both of these possibilities are unlikely. There is no reason to believe we are an extraordinary odd phenomena given the plentiful number of planets that are being discovered, and the processes for solar and planetary evolution appear to be stable processes that have been going on and will be going on for some time. As for the possible worlds where a 8.5 billion year age universe is when the typical universe has life originating throughout its child bearing years is not based on any observable phenomena. This would suggest that there is a natural phenomena that makes universes such as our own short lived. But, as we see, our universe has survived an additional 4.5 billion years since life originated on earth. So, there is no reason to believe that a blind process is responsible for our earth yielding life so very close to the time when our universe became a life bearing universe.

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Thus, the atheist view fails miserably to account for the special position that earth has in terms of bearing life. (Btw, while there could be extraterrestrial intelligence beyond our means to detect life, the lack thereof just increases the stakes of this argument to include intelligent life. Although, I specifically formulated this argument to not depend on those things which we cannot detect at the moment.)

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6. Either the universe is completely filled with blind causes (atheism), or it contains some intentional causes (theism, deism, pantheism). Atheists are being closed minded by rejecting the latter. To ask for evidence to support the latter, while having no evidence to accept the former (or at least, not willing to usually cite this evidence), is being extremely irresponsible in one's epistemic stance. Hence, even by the flip of a coin, the most one can be is an agnostic if they are unwilling to put up evidence to counter pantheism (which I cite since it can skirt the problem of evil -- which a lazy atheist will sometimes cite as their argument for the non-existence of God). Thus, unless atheists can provide an argument for their atheism, we are justified in believing in theism, pantheism, deism; or, in the worst case, we ought to settle for agnosticism.

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7. According to atheism, there is no intention associated with the universe (i.e., back to blind processes again). However, there is a lot of physical evidence that intention is inherent in the laws of physics (e.g., the double slit experiment, delayed choice experiment, the Zeno effect). Since we have no reason to think that intention is just  an epiphenomenon of bio-chemical brain processes, but is inherent in the laws of physics, we therefore are justified in believing in the existence of a objective intention in the universe (i.e., the existence of God on some level).

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8. The constants of physics strongly suggest that they are fine-tuned for the existence of life. This is well-documented in the annals of physics. In fact, there is now a program in cosmology called the top-down approach which is now using the fine-tuning nature of the constants as a means to select which string vacuum the world emerged from. That is, first we look for the culprit vacuums that could have given birth to a universe with these very unique constants, then we identify other theoretical predictions that the vacuums of interest (or under suspicion) can provide for us to look for. If we find those observables, then we know we've found the right string vacuum that our universe originated from. Given this clear endorsement of the fine-tuning of the physical constants, we are well within our rights to say that this universe is so extremely special that it ought to cause us to give up atheism for a more plausible cosmogony (i.e., theism, deism, or pantheism).

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9. This argument of the mind is a very compelling argument to give up a naturalist view of the mind. It goes like this. Darwinian adaptations require the adaptation to provide its host (or its species) an advantage such that they can have more babies.

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However, if the mental is such an adaptation, then mental processes of figuring things out and having the feel of being in control of one's faculties must be efficacious. However, according to physicalism, the mental is a supervenient process that in some way emerges from the physical neurons and other structures of the brain. In fact, every mental event emerges from the physical neurons and other structures of the brain -- even those mental events that are in response to physical urges (e.g., hunger, fear, sex, thirst, etc.). This being the case, the mental is a movie screen where the movie goer doesn't actually do anything -- cannot do anything since the movie goer is just an emergent phenomena of something else happening on the physical level.

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Therefore, naturalism is without an explanation for why a mental world has evolved at all since it offers no efficacious adaptation for these mental events to make possible. The only means for a Darwinist to accept this adaptation as effacious is if the mental has a downward causal influence on the physical form, but that means accepting some form of dualism of the mind. Again, this puts the mental in a new ontological category which must be anathama to atheism since the world contains intention as basic furniture of the world -- therefore favoring at least pantheism.  Hence, atheism is again the loser.

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10. This is one which I think most theists believe, but which for some unknown reason is ignored by most atheist thinkers. The world is certainly messy and such, but as any company that produces complex products can testify, the more complex the product the more that can go wrong with that product. So, even if there are a million working parts all working together in some complex fashion, even one non-working part (or a part that performs poorly), and that system will not be perfect. However, given the complexities of our world, we are much more justified in believing that our world is more like the product that is nearly perfect than a world that is run by blind processes. Now, of course natural selection and perhaps quantum vacuums, etc., have complicated this by giving us a process by which mount improbable can be climbed. I am not denying this. However, what would mount improbable actually look like if we take as our premise that the world is run by purely blind processes (i.e., if we overlook the arguments 1-9 above)?

Well, there's nothing required by mount improbable that consciousness be even possible, much less likely given our sudden emergence (afterall, in less than 15% of the age of the earth, life went from single celled organisms to space-faring organisms capable of harnassing the power of fundamental physics). There is nothing required by mount improbable that human beings literally have thousands of foods which they can eat and enjoy, great wines and beers to taste, wives and husbands and kids and families to enjoy, careers and hobbies to immerse themselves in, hundreds of potential trip destinations to enjoy, and just so many of the things that make life worth living. Now, this gets back to my point made in (1), but far beyond just having a functional algorithm that eeks out something that mount improbable succeeds at accomplishing (again, ignoring 1-9 arguments above), the world is just downright beautiful.

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Anyway, that's all I have time for.

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Originally Posted by harvey1

Philosophical reasoning as I showed in my 10 arguments. Of course, there's a lot more than that, but if you can't accept 10 arguments I very much doubt it's an issue of not having enough arguments to justify a belief in God.