True, and a statement cannot be made about this either way. I think that was my point. Can't ask why he waited so long to reveal himself, if you don't know whether or not he did wait so long.
You didn't mention my comment about why God waited all that time to send a redeemer to mankind? And if God sent us important truths earlier in mans history, why did he not protect them and allow later peoples to discover them and use them? We have cave drawings from thousands of years ago, but God couldn't save ancient texts he inspired? There is no way of knowing, but there is also no reason for me to believe it.
No, I think universal truths could be evidence that they originated from the same source... but carried and spread out, being added to or taken away from.
Truth could also be learned as per what works and what does not work; though few civilizations actually follow the golden rule, or turning the other cheek (not repaying wrong with wrong), even though their spiritual leaders might understand these things.
Go to any corner of the globe and you'll have a moral obligation not to murder or steal, and to do good to others. All cultures have similar rules to follow, but their spiritual beliefs are usually quite different. One may ask you to pray 5 times a day, facing a certain direction. Another will tell you to perform a sacred dance for the crops to grow (as NC said earlier). Why is there variation in one but not in the other, if the two are tied, and are supposedly from the same source? If there is only one moral truth, then shouldn't there be only one spiritual truth as well? Unless God has said ''worship me however you want''. But what's your evidence of this?
No, purgatory is a detail or interpretation about the spiritual. So it is not a new idea. The spiritual had already been conceived in order for someone to attempt to define it... such as in purgatory, or nirvana, or heaven - whomever's version. It is this original conception of the spiritual that I am speaking of, with no other spiritual thing or knowledge to build it upon. A completely new concept.
It's still a supernatural concept which came from purely human imagination. Just like those different ideas of heaven. They can't all be right, can they? If all religions stem from a single source, then the further back in time one goes, there should be a visible trail that leads back to the original, ultimately correct view. So what about the Egyptian view of the afterlife? It came well before the Christian adaptation of heaven, but it's still completely wrong. Unless God wants to keep us in the dark about the real afterlife and so has made a motley crew of ideas to confuse us, there's no reason for all these different views. Completely nonsensical.
Yes, that is a simple statement. But then why would Krauss laugh that theologians state, see, life did not come from nothing? It is the same thing that he is saying. It was conflicting. Hence my confusion.
Because the theologian's view is 'God is the something'. In actuality Krauss is merely saying, on a scientific level, nothing cannot exist.
I actually did assume this... I thought it was what science had discovered. So then, eternal God or eternal universe was on equal footing. Something was eternal, and this concept could not be used to help prove or disprove anything. But science no longer states this, has decided that this was a mistake, at least as pertains to this universe. Instead, the universe now had a beginning, a cause. Even if there are multiple universes, one after another, that leads back to a cause for the first one. Because that seems to be how the physical world runs... a beginning and an end.
Just apply Occam's Razor to your thinking, that's all I'm asking. Does one perform less mental gymnastics contemplating an eternal universe, or an eternal omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent creator? Yes space and time began at the Big Bang, our universe had a beginning and will end at some point (by eternal I was referring to the possibility of universe cycles; Big Bang/Big Crunch/Big Bang etc). It's quite possible there will only ever be one universe and this is it. God is still MIA though. And just because on earth, causality works in such a way, does not mean the same laws apply to the universe. But, in my opinion there isn't enough known to state anything of the above with certainty, and i'm not an astrophysicist so I can't have a real discussion with you about it.
You're not providing any evidence to make me think God had to be the first cause, if a first cause was needed at all.
The last part was something you mentioned a couple of pages back. Someone said there are scientific inaccuracies in religious texts, and you argued against that point. I wanted to see examples.