Re: HOPE but not faith

Bob Casanova <[email protected]> wrote:
> in sci.skeptic, posted by Sylvia Else <[email protected]>:
> >On 10-Apr-23 2:02 am, Skeeter wrote:
> >> In article <[email protected]>,
> >> [email protected] says...
> >>> Skeeter wrote:
> >>>> [email protected] says...
> >>>>> Skeeter wrote:
> >>>>>> [email protected] says...
> >>>>>>> Skeeter wrote:
> >>>>>>>> In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] says...
> >>>>>>>>> On 08-Apr-23 2:52 pm, Michael McLean wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>> Everything is the consequence of something.  No thing can create itself.
> >>>>>>>>>>    It needs a cause.  Thus eternal God or nothing would be here. No thing
> >>>>>>>>>> can "be" before it is in order to bring itself into "being."
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> So, God can be eternal, but nothing else can, because.....?
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Sylvia.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> He created it?
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Could God create an eternal universe if he wanted to?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> It wouldn't be eternal if it was created.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> So you mean no, God isn't powerful enough to create an
> >>>>> eternal universe.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Twist it around as usual.
> >>>
> >>> You said it, not me.
> >>>
> >>>>   If it was created it cannot be eternal.
> >>>
> >>> Of course it can.  Any omnipotent god can create
> >>> something that lasts forever.  If he can't, he's not
> >>> omnipotent and he needs to go back to god school.
> >> 
> >> If it was created it had a beginning.
> >
> >You mean God cannot create an eternal universe that had no beginning?
> >
> He's using the first dictionary definition of "eternal",
> which implies "always existed and always will" and ignoring
> the second, which does not:
> 
> From the OED:
> 
> "1.without beginning or end; lasting forever; always
> existing (opposed to temporal): eternal life.
> 
> 2.perpetual; ceaseless; endless: eternal quarreling;eternal
> chatter."
> 
> IOW, word games.

Eternal means simply "having infinite duration".

That could be from time=minus infinity to plus infinity,
minus infinity to now, or now to infinity.  And beyond.
All infinite, all eternal.

(Time probably began with the big bang, so t=-infinity
would be fictitious anyway.)

In the context of religion, xtians are fond of prattling
about eternal life.

	"14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
	 wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted
	 up:
	 15 That whosoever believeth in him should not
	 perish, but have eternal life.
	 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his
	 only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him
	 should not perish, but have everlasting life."
	 John 3

Does that imply that humans have already lived an
infinite time?  Unscriptural as hell!  No, the bible
plainly says life can have a beginning and still be
eternal.  The hellbound antichrists are selling heresy.