Joshs, please don't be a cheerleader for somebody else unless you look good in a short skirt.

And you have displayed just silly notions of God, not anything profound.

If God created a world equal to himself, he would have to create himself.

A doorknob is perfect if it opens a door.

And God is perfect if he created a universe that works very well for the pinnacle of it, the human being, to live and to grow and to learn and to become great and to fail and to be free and to do so much else.

And God did, so he is.

Bartricks, God is the necessary being for the physical universe, and us, to exist. You have put the cart before the horse. I didn't say that God is mandated by the principle. You're confused.

Wayfarer, thanks for the welcome.

The only thing I have to say to you, because you're certainly heading in the right direction, is coming to know the absolute truth about our existence is absolutely knowable. Most persons believe that everyone is simply opinionated because most persons don't sacrifice enough in the pursuit of absolute truth.

And it takes great sacrifice.

For just as we cannot see two sides of a coin at the same time, we cannot see absolute truth and our opinions at the same time.

In a word, God will not interrupt us when we are speaking to ourselves.

180, a multi-universe is illogical.

There cannot be an infinite line of finite things.

A philosophy forum should be populated, at least, mostly with people who studied philosophy well enough to reason out basic logical problems.

How can a universe becoming another universe and another universe and so on be a logical explanation for the beginning of the first universe?

Only an omnipotent infinite being can be the logical beginning of a finite universe.

Materialists are very guilty of throwing a bunch of crap against the wall and then pointing to it as if it's something other than a bunch of crap.

Tom, you just labeled me a newbie, crank, and dogmatist.

And you refuse to ponder a metaphysical principle, but only speak about your time spent in this groupthink.

There are no crowds of wisdom, only a single wise person.

180, human beings are the spokespersons for reality. There are no others.

Knowledge is the adventure of a lifetime when we seek it through talent, humility, sacrifice, experience, and so much more that the gift of our humanity has provided us.

I have found that a skeptic likes to look up into outer space because he has never discovered the greatness right where he stands, within himself.

Your ignorance of your own greatness will keep you from the knowledge of who you actually are until you breathe your last breath in this body and this knowledge is revealed to you in the next instant.

T Clark, show me where you have discussed this principle before.

And philosophical debate is only a fight to someone looking for a comfy pillow to rest his empty head upon.

praxis, if this is philosophy forum, and you're on it, then why do you not have an understanding that an infinite line of finite things is illogical.

An omnipotent God is not finite and therefore the only thing that could exist infinitely.

Your confidence in yourself must be very popular with everyone but the ladies.

dimo, your post is the epitome of an opinion, just like your placing science (math, the second degree of abstraction, actually) at the top of the intellectual chain is an opinion.

It is indeed a principle. But, more importantly, to understand it takes years of disciplined thinking, beginning with a line by line understanding of Aristotle's Metaphysics, then progressing from the simple metaphysical principles he discovers to greater ones.

And science does nothing but support the principle. Show me a scientific discovery where a scientist combines things and creates a totally different and greater thing. An ice cube is not it.

Garrett, your trust in your thinking is scary.

F4, your thinking that evolution is a down up order is an absurdity.

You have concluded this because the parameters of science that have been drawn by philosophically inept scientists only allows you to think in this way.

The thinking of evolution as a top down order is supported by every failure of scientists to move past theory to proof where evolution is evolved.

A scientist going into a lab and creating a living being from the physical elements is and will always be an absurdity.

MU, you are wandering into purpose.

The metaphysical principle I provided you is a journey into existence.

God's omnipotent existence would be the power behind the existence of evolution within the physical universe.

God's divine mind would be the "why", not the "how"?

And every skeptic I have ever met refuses to understand the simple fact that, for example, a living being is "greater" than a rock.

When I tell a skeptic that a mother holding her dying child is a greater reality than the death of a star, that skeptic cannot for the life of him agree. It's truly dumbfounding.

Now ...

Using the example of life evolving from the elements, the metaphysical principle I provided can be thought upon like this:

Taking physical elements and adding to them a lesser thing, such as light, to create a living being would be an absurdity.

Taking physical elements and adding to them an equal thing, such as other elements, to create a living being would be an impossibility.

Taking physical elements and adding to them a greater thing, such as a living being, to create a living being would be a redundancy.

But taking physical elements and adding to them a greater thing than a living being, such as an omnipotent being, to create a living being would be a metaphysical possibility.

Hello, javi, mucho gusto.

Religious bible thumpers and skeptic textbook thumpers have the same problem -- they never stop reading, put down their books, and experience.

AWA, you're not going to attack me with a list of undergraduate logical fallacies, are you?

Anyway ...

Sometimes the way we "feel" is our own doing and not someone else's.

Mwww, but have you heard this simple principle before?

No scientific discovery has shown to us that, for example, a combination of the elements created the first ancient bacteria. Or that living tissue created thought.

To take the existence of life and thought as simply evolving from a primordial soup of the elements is not scientific, but just a materialist's only conclusion within the parameters that materialist has erected.

The dismissal of this principle under the auspices of what it sounds like is not a philosophical accomplishment.

Tom, you labeled my post according to your ideas about Catholic apologists, and then told me to look up your and other's arguments against these Catholic apologists.

What you didn't do is ponder the simple metaphysical principle that I provided. In other words, you already have all the answers and don't expect to find any new ones when it comes to any mention of God.

Speak about the metaphysical principle after you have given it some thought.

I have no appetite to engage a Skeptic apologist riding along a rail, if that is who you are.