Chap wrote:thews wrote:If something cannot come from nothing,
How do you know that? In fact it appears that your hypothetical may be empirically falsifiable. Have you heard of
vacuum energy?
To the OP, the question was whether or not belief was enough. My point is that belief (leap of faith) is required for both the Atheist and Theist. True *nothing* doesn't exist, nor does it have properties. LDS Apologists hinge a lot of what they can't explain on future discoveries; like some sort of evidence being found in a Mayan excavation. I find the same arguments from Atheists when they use new scientific discoveries they claim will eventually come up with a theory that explains how the universe could be created. Dr. Wilson's post is a good example:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=21791 When you use data to supposedly make the claim that *nothing* can become something based upon observed properties, the properties are something. Again, true *nothing* doesn't exist, so the foundation for any argument that explains how matter was created from nothing has to have some starting point where something happens... to something that already existed. This is an exercise in futility in my opinion and is impossible to theorize, as its foundation is finite. If you wish to place faith that some
future theory will adequately explain this, then maybe a Nephite coin will reveal Mormonism was really true as well.
Again to the OP, I find the Agnostic perspective the most theoretically correct stance to this argument. The argument accepts one simply can't know either way, which is honest and avoids belief in something that can't/hasn't yet been proven.
Chap wrote:thews wrote:one must just accept matter always existed,
I am not sure how that follows, even if it is true that "something cannot come from nothing". But that is not important.
It's very important and requires that what is possible is acknowledged. If you claim *something* can come from *nothing* based on properties of the *nothing*, then *nothing* is *something*. If you claim to have an infinite thought process which can understand this, I would disagree.
Chap wrote:thews wrote:and, based on that foundation, both you and the matter that surrounds you are a result of random occurrences.
And that (if true) would be worrying how? Are you perhaps imagining something like this:
"Hey honey! I've been reading a science book, and it says that you and the matter that surrounds you are a result of random occurrences. So I'm going to shoot you, rape our daughter, then go out and sell crack to schoolkids!"
But maybe you are one of those dangerous people who would do that kind of thing if you didn't believe in a deity who created you with a purpose in mind - if so, please go on believing.
You missed the point entirely and had to result in a failed attempt at sarcastic humor. The point is very simple... if we are a result of random chance occurrences, the fact that we can process our own thought is also random. If you wish to believe that *nothing* did *something* to create the universe, and as a result
random chemicals mixed together to eventually produce us and everything that supports life, I can't prove you wrong, but it is based on
belief, which was the question asked. If it's enough for you, then the end result is yes.