God bless you, Conner. I can't tell you how much I appreciate the prayers.

***** Read Aquinas. Particularly his 5 ways. He fleshes out this cosmological argument to it's fullest. To provide you with a brief answer, there is no reason to be stumped. Briefly, they are misunderstanding the argument. They assume God is another link in the chain of causality, which doesn't match up with how Catholics understand and define God. There must exist a cause outside of the chain in order for the chain to begin at all. They aren't realizing that if there is no Prime Mover (God) and no Eternal Actual then there would be no Potential or Actual. In other words, a Prime Mover, existing outside of the chain of causality must exist. This Prime Mover can not be another link in the chain or otherwise nothing would exist. You would simply have an infinite chain of potentials with no Actuals to actualize the potentials. Ergo, nothing would exist. Again, revisit Aquinas. Read his 5 ways and then read them again and again. People who often criticize the argument don't fully understand it or misrepresent the argument on polemical grounds.

+Daniel Formella Read Leibniz. His argument states merely that everything that BEGAN must have an explanation. God never began, therefore he does not need an explanation. Even the atheist philosopher Michael Ruse accepts this.

the

+Bill Cummings i caught that...thanks.

educated people like myself

Amen.

God bless you.

Our culture is anti-religion/spirituality in general...Especially Christianity!

I HAVE 1 important question: the mame of the cat. Priest who formulated the "Big Bang" thing they all use; and a silly one: ( I know, Morris West write " good" & " Bad" about the Church ; and Why ( I think!): Should I read " The last confesión"? Oh, en español! Me lo regalaron como una " maravilla"! Lo es? Me gustaron Mucho " las Sandalias", etc.

it's amazing when you think about it how much good the catholic church has done for the world. sure you have scandals like the pedo problem and stuff like the spanish inqusition, but it would be hard to imagine a world without the influences on the arts, sciences, and humanities the catholic church had.

absolutely right!! Further, Galileo was also driven by professional pride and fear that a Dutch competitor (whose name escapes me) would beat him to the official punch, and take all the credit. His Daughter, an Abbas, scolded him sharply for that.

How about this - atheists and evolutionists won't accept that comets (even when presented with evidence ) only last for thousands of years because if they did it proves there big bang theory is baloney, so they've invented the Oort cloud. Now with all the space telescopes that can focus on galaxies millions of light years away WHY CANT they see this mysterious Oort Cloud? They can't see it because it's baloney.

+Michael Montague The church apologized for treating Galileo unfairly, not for being anti-scientific.

Well I can see that you are no legal expert and a poorer historian, you are simply. He got in trouble not for claiming the heliocentric system Coppernicus claimed that, some philosphers and scientist claimed that, even some members of the church were partial to the the heliocentric system and even argued for it. The problem with Galileo is that he claimed that the Bible taught that the Earth moved, that is what he got in trouble for.

Michael Montague Because the Bible was the source of common law, to reinterpret the Bible would be to relativise the law and that could lead to anarchy. Also, Galileo did not even go trough peer review process, he did not approach the bodies that dealt with the consistency of biblical hermenautics that would honestly review his claims. He just claimed it as a fact regardless of the state. However, even today if you reinterpret the law the way you see fit and give to people false ideas about your legal systems in most countries you still end up in jail. Also the fact that the Bible was written in the Bronze age makes little difference if something is right or wrong it is right or wrong regardless of the time in which it is being said. 2+2 is equally 4 today and then. Modern science in the way we know it now, with consistent monitoring, experiments was founded by benedictine priests in the 13th century. Also the Inquisition existed long into the 18th century during the age of enlightenment. People were still censured by the scientific community, people were still censored by the state. In fact the first people that jumped on Galileo were not church officials but scientists and philosophers that held to the Aristotelian view. You seem to have a very uneducated, naive view of history.

You're welcome son

+Hrvat Hrvatinčić ...But you're not....

Not really, I just disagree.

And yet none of their theology gave rise to the discoveries that they made. In fact a case can be made that their discoveries on occasion changed their theology.

@@Balstrome1 except, it did. Perhaps you didn't watch the Video, but it is their Theology, that the World has Order, that let them delve deeper into the Physical World, expecting Orderly Laws. And behold, we now have the Scientific Theory. And to your statement that the Theologians changed their Theology because of Science, which ones? I know only one, that is Giodarno Bruno, whose Theology was so shaken by Science. Other than that, I have not known any other Religious man whom was shaken because of Science. Anyways, God Bless you, and take care of yourself, and others, as much as you can. God Bless you.

" Even though I am a nonbeliever, I don't agree with the atheist extremists." And even though I'm a believer, I don't agree at all with those who ignorantly and cruelly harsh the Word of God instead of sharing it with meekness and humility. The most Jesus would do, for example, was gently chide His disciples by saying things like in Matthew 8:26 "And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of LITTLE FAITH? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm."

^this

+Jeff Lewis and some people have so much faith in the belief of nothing. thats an illusion as well.

+RyanCotaDotCom Faith is the belief in something in the absence of evidence.

Jeff, Begin to ask yourself what more evidence does man need. The creators already shared with us all the evidence.

He also says to keep your wonder more like that of children. I have never heard a child ask for evidence when discovering a flower, awestruck. God is awesome, you chose. Its cool, he gave you choice. But please don't tell people its an illusion, that is not a true statement.

+RyanCotaDotCom Do you believe that our ancestors were Adam and Eve?

And, Manuel, a book filled with half-truths, ill founded anecdotes, and an agenda to sell. Caveat emptor.

@@naturalismforever3469 what is filled with half-truths?

+Michael Montague Nothing you said contradicts my point that Galileo was an utterly dogmatic, ill-tempered, ungrateful jackass. Galileo did not "criticize himself" as you say scientists do (and I find that to be the case with most scientists). On the contrary, Galileo believed that he had a special destiny to make *all* discoveries in astronomy, to such an extent that no one else *could* make any discoveries whatever. Explain to me how Galileo's vicious personal attacks on Kepler for his "heresy" of elliptical orbits is a model of scientific behavior? It seems likely, given his temper, that Galileo would have at least desired the deaths of his enemies, had he the power to effect them-but if restrained from this, it would have been by his Christian piety (which did little enough to restrain him in other areas). Now, as I recall, Marxists claim that Marxism is a science, and they are well-known for advocating the murder of their enemies. Marxism is of course entirely atheistical and naturalistic. I shall await the appearance of the Scotsman shortly. My considered opinion is that scientists would happily advocate the murder of their enemies at any time they possessed the social power to do so. This is an excellent reason for not allowing scientists a great deal of social or political power. I refer you to the history of Lysenkoism in Soviet Russia as a case in point: "More than 3,000 mainstream biologists were sent to prison or fired or *executed* as a part of this campaign instigated by Lysenko to suppress his *scientific opponents*." All the evidence indicates, when scientist have the power to have their enemies killed, killed they will be. This surprises me not in the least, although you naturally think yourself morally superior to such things. I also imagine you are not particularly any better or worse a human being than the men of the 10th, or 13th, or 16th centuries. You also seem deeply confused by the very different terms "execution" and "murder." Thomas argues that it is not unjust for the state to punish heretics with death. States do specify crime and the punishments for these, and the state in Thomas' day considered heresy a capital crime. To execute a criminal for a committed crime, whatever else it is, is not "murder."

+Eve Keneinan Ah, the typical supernaturalist! So you judge someone who disagrees with the ridiculous "authority" of the Roman church to be worthy of "execution," just as Thomas did? And you think that because a great scientist is "ill-tempered" and persistent that he should be put on trial, threatened with torture, his publications burned, and then he, himself, be put under house arrest for the remainder of his life? And, with no verifiable evidence whatever, you make the bold assertion that scientists would murder just as supernaturalists have done, and continue to do today (think ISIS)? WOW! You are the PERFECT supernaturalist!

Hey Eve: One big difference. The enemies outside the Roman church didn't threaten him with torture, force him to recant, ban his publications, and put him under house arrest for the remainder of his days. Now you may consider that trivial. I don't.

Read the comments. We are.

+cucuchoonis E sorry i should have specified. i meant atheists like richard dawkins or laurence krauss in a monitored debate where they can cross examine each other and present both cases over the course of 3 hours. i'd like to see that. i said "courage" because people like dawkins have refused to debate him in the past. my bad

+cucuchoonis E your version of an argument is ignorance

Don't forget that Copernicus' model of the solar system was incorrect.

Lamêtre proposed the big bang theory and Mendel is the father of modern genetics..both are priests. Catholicism isn't anti religion

cfG21 That fits what I explained above. Catholicism can't be anti-religion, because it is a religion.

Master Explorer You say correlation doesn't imply causation but fail to clarify any causation or correlation of what brought Europe out of the Middle Ages.

Eric Von B The biggest factor was the blending with the Arabic culture which was then more intellectually, and scientifically advanced. This first started in today's Toledo, Spain. Then Europe was re-introduced to ancient Greek philosophy. And last but not least, universities started to being build. In there various works were translated from Arabic to Hebrew, Greek, Latin, etc, and vice versa. So basically, the crusades sparked this cultural blend, but I wouldn't base Renaissance on that fact alone. These are just some of the reasons. It might seem far fetched but one might underestimate the power of accumulative cognition, and the advancements it can create through cultural blending.

That position assumes too much. We can continue to say it happened despite the church, yet where were the university's? Where are the scientific community's? What were these founders reasons for becoming scientists? Precisely because of the church, and God. Galileo himself said "mathematics is the alphabet which God wrote the universe" study those men and women, and you tell me they did what they did for a reason despite their faith.

@Gerald Patterson Don't listen to Gerald - he is some kind of troll I think or something like that.

For the moment, bracket the word "God" if you want. I'm arguing that a non-contingent source of the contingent universe must exist. We can start there.