I don't think a God would need a Creator. Just because things in the natural, tangible world have a beginning does not mean the One who created them needs to have a beginning.
I can conceed that it's probably true that a 'God' by your definition doesn't need a creator, the problem is this leaves us knowing nothing. This possibility is no more likely then there being a mechanism we don't yet understand that created the universe, that perhaps our relative (i.e. known) universe is one of many universes that are cyclical yet have no ultimate beginning or end etc etc etc I can go on ad infinitum.
What does it matter that you can say a magical being could have done it? It's definately possible but at the same time I worry when you start to envoke supreme beings that can bend all the rules we think we've got established, you might as well not have an argument at all.
I have not read all 278 pages of this argument- I tend to stay away from online arguments about God because after 1000s of years of arguing man is no closer to conclusively proving whether or not God exists (and in what form) so I doubt its going to happen on an internet forum.
There's been very strong arguments against the existance of a god for thousands of years... The only reason it isn't commonly accepted knowledge (imo) is because people are yet to accept these arguments and are willing to apply a burden of proof to this question which they do not to any other question in their life just to protect their hopes.
One thing we must realise is that God can not necessarily be proven or disproven in a science lab. We can hail the glory of science but it lacks the capacity to prove or disprove God.
Nothing can be proven or disproven with the certainty which you are asking for with God. In medicine, if we look at a solution under a microscope and find no evidence of quality X - That does not mean it's not there, just that we don't know if it is.
Take this example;
Say we want to disprove the santa myth, one way to do this might be to prove reindeer can't fly. We set up an experiment, we push 10,000 reindeer off the top of a building and none of them fly. Well if we accept an animal that can fly when pushed from a building would fly, then it appears reindeer can't fly. How many more experiments do we need to do (in your opinion) to provisionally prove there is no such thing as flying reindeer?
I am weary of people who say they can prove/disprove God's existence but I am not weary of people who say "on the basis of my philosophical view on life, weighing up everything I see, and choosing to take into account my personal experiences, I choose to believe in the existance/nonexistance of God."
I am weary of people who are willing to place an unbelievable burden of proof to protect a fantasy they hold so dear, but are unwilling to place that same burden of proof in situations where it is of no benefit to them to do so. I believe on the lack of evidence that there is no God, just as I believe on the lack of evidence that there is no tooth fairy etc. This isn't conclusive proof by any means, but at the very least I'm consistent in my logic.
This does not mean faith is something less than science, something wishy washy people just want to believe for no good reason. Many people have come to faith decisions after agonising over it for years (not just emotionally agonising, but studying history, archeology, philosophy, etc.).
Definately, but I think you'd find (especially in contemporary times) most such people have a faith so disconnected from your own that they'd seem akin to atheists to you.
Also, as great as science is, we have to realise its limits. For one thing, our scientific beliefs tend to change of the years as we find more evidence for or against things.
That is a STRENGTH of science, I don't think the best way to describe it is as a limit and I also feel you are overstating how big the deviations in scientific belief have been. Do you really feel that something which is not willing to learn from its mistakes is greater than that which is?
We should hold on to scientific claims tentatively, assuming that they are "true" until we can find sufficient reason to believe otherwise. But in a sense, even in this, we are operating in a low-level of faith- choosing to accept that something is true, even though it might not be, and we cannot conclusively prove it one way or the other.
Yes, it is a faith (if you want to stretch the term so much in this context), it is a faith in the best evidence we have at the moment and I am fairly sure you live your everyday life by its principles.
