I actually did research.
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HeelyJoe: God cannot contradict Himself, but that doesn't mean He isn't All-Powerful. Ever heard of a Mystery?
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Face: This might not be in order of how you said it. To start it off, I believe that Jesus rose not because nobody can find His bones, but because
a. The Bible says so
b. There is historical evidence for the Bible (if you argue this, more on that later)
c. The Church says so
d. Jesus said the Church has ultimate authority
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I didn't read the Descartes link, but from what I know about Descartes, he was Christian but tried to teach that logic had nothing to do with your faith which led many away because they wanted logic, so their faith had to go. The Church holds (and thus I hold) that with proper logic you'll find the truth in the faith.
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"Many religions have came and went" means to me, at least, that God has been guiding His Church from Creation to Now.
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Biochemistry holds that dead matter turning to live matter without guidance is almost impossible. Read "Darwin's Black Box". And even now, we can't make a living being, so the guidance must have been either Divine or some other creature, and the second doesn't make any sense.
You do the math.
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Another good proof of God which has nothing to do with the Bible (since that's what you want) is Miracles. Even if you don't believe documented ones, there are ones still around, like dead saints whose bodies have not corrupted. Go see one for yourself.
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Quoted from "Beginning Apologetics 4", answering the "laws of physics" thing,
<h1>The Need for a First Cause</h1>
Everyone with the use of reason can quickly understand that everything in the material universe is explained by a previous cause. Nothing begins to exist without a cause. Nothing can cause its own existence. Every material object is the end product of a long chain of causes. If we go back far enough, we end up asking the ultimate questions: why does matter exist at all? Where does it come from?
Just like every other material object in the universe, matter itself needs a previous cause to explain its existence. Since nothing can cause itself*, why does matter exist? The only answer is that some power outside the material universe created matter to begin with. That power must be <i>spirit</i>, because it is outside the material universe. That power must be <i>infinite</i> to create something out of absolutely nothing. The gap between nothing and something, between non-being and actual existence, is infinite. It takes an infinite power to bridge that infinite gap. Only God has infinite power!
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(footnote)
Nothing in the universe has ever been observed to cause its own existence, to make itself exist when it didn't exist before. Nothing just "pops" itself into existence.
Would the argument change if matter <i>always</i> existed? No. Matter would still need a cause to explain its existence. Remember, nothing can make itself, nothing can give itself existence. Even if matter were eternal, there would have to be a co-eternal, infinite power that caused matter to exist. This co-eternal power wouldn't be prior in time, but would be prior in <i>casuality</i>, since it gave matter its eternal existence. At this point the skeptic usually asks: "If nothing can make itself, then who made God?" The answer is, of course, no one made God. God always existed. He alone is the First Cause, the Uncaused Cause on which all other causes depend. You can't have an infinite series of causes without eventually arriving at the First Cause, the cause with no prior cause. You can't have an infinitely tall building without a bottom floor, or an infinitely long train of uphill-moving boxcars without an engine. Eventually you must come to the independent thing on which all the other things depend, the hook on which the whole chain of causes hangs. Everything else depends on the First Cause, but the First Cause doesn't depend on anything. It simply <i>is</i> and always was.
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There's more on "The Need for and Intelligent Designer", but this post is long enough already. I await your replies.
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