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Hank Rearden wrote:

user wrote:

Is it so impossible that the world just IS?

Is anything just IS?  Everything that I observe in this universe has a cause.
[snip]

Ack, argument from first cause? Really?

If your argument is that the creator is the cause of the universe and that that creator just is and is its own cause, then why not stop one step before that and say that the universe just is and is its own cause?

user wrote:

I'm saying their beliefs are wrong and I'm giving my reasons why I think this is so.

That's not telling others what they should think. It's expressing what I think.

I wasnt saying you were like bossing anyone around, and its obvious that you are posting what you think and not random ideas. But there is a reason you are expressing those ideas, right? Strong reasons even because you are arguing for them. I think those reasons definitely have "shoulds" etc as motive because you argue with purpose and conviction, not just as asides or by the ways or just to say them.

user wrote:

I don't know, but I think invisible supernatural intelligences are extremely unlikely as a cause. Especially the strange things we have come up with. A belief in creator gods is just giving a human intelligence to natural objects.

For example, if we want something to happen, we have to build it. So, it's only natural that we suppose the same thing to occur to create the world. The thing is, our building materials are the substance of this world, and when we build something we have to maintain it or else it will eventually break down back into those worldly substances.

Meanwhile, the natural world chugs merrily along in its cycles, with nary a hand required to maintain it. Is it so impossible that the world just IS?

Well, one way I like to think about it is that if I suppose that the natural world is a product of divine creation, then there truly is no distinction between "supernatural" and natural. The natural itself is supernatural because the category of "natural" was established by a "supernatural" event.

I've always found that when it comes to creation, both scientific and religious explanations are pretty much the same.

The idea of God creating Himself sounds rather bizarre to me, not to mention seriously counter-intuitive ... but as an explanation it's no worse than a Big Bang just sort of popping everything into existence.

"Supernatural?"

Sounds like a cop-out to me.

ShnickyShnack wrote:

I've always found that when it comes to creation, both scientific and religious explanations are pretty much the same.

The idea of God creating Himself sounds rather bizarre to me, not to mention seriously counter-intuitive ... but as an explanation it's no worse than a Big Bang just sort of popping everything into existence.

Dont get me wrong; I dont mean that the way it might sound.

What I mean is who is God without anyone else? Do not all beings shape one another in their relationships with one another? The idea that God would allow another being to make a choice that would cause God to be upset or hurt as portrayed in the Bible means that God allows himself to be affected by his creation. Right? That is just common sense. If he creates a son for himself, isnt he also making himself a father? Thats just common sense. If he makes creation, he makes himself the Creator. If he creates being in a certain relationship, he is at the same time creating that relationship as well as the beings. In that sense then, that relationship of God to everyone else are the results of what God authored, and therefore, he will have created what a "god" even is. I dont think its all that bizarre to say God has then created himself. Not in the sense that he totally brought himself to Being, but in that he created that sort of identity by creating others as subject to him.

resedit wrote:

The category of natural was created by a supernatural event - but natural events are events that occur within the natural parameters of the natural world without interference from the supernatural creator.

I computer program is written to push data around. It is given rules for how that is to be done. Once it is running can operate and push data around without any intervention from the programmer according to the parameters of its design.

Now the programmer can choose to interfere and do things with the data that are outside the parameters of the program. Those actions can not be explained by the parameters of the program. They are outside those parameters.

God set up a natural world and parameters for how it is to operate. We try to discover those parameters through science. Super natural event are the events that are not the result of those parameters.

Now we have not discovered all those parameters, and sometimes what we perceive as super natural may not be.

Taking your analogy further, God does not have to be all powerful, all knowing or all present.  A creator is not necessarily God.

Duke Nukem has an extremely limited and extremely incorrect view of the world.  And he's not interacting with the Creator, but a twelve year old kid with those cheat codes you hint are part of the supernatural world.

We're still in Plato's cave (to throw an allegory into the mix).  We don't understand even a small fraction of how anything really is.  And that leads to the big flaw with your analogy in that it  assumes that we (as a group) agree that there are supernatural events around us - forgetting that we have to define what is supernatural.  I'm sure user doesn't equate lack of knowledge (how did the universe come to be) with supernatural cause.

StaticAge wrote:

ShnickyShnack wrote:

It started with God creating the universe. God was there first. It wasn't some kind of mutual creation society, it was a one-man show (so to speak).

Unfortunately the Bible doesn't say where God came from.

Thats what I am talking about- the origin of God. Notice too in that account that God speaks to others ("Let us…"). The heavens were there before the earth, and there were heavenly beings with God. Like I said, maybe the easiest way to say it would be to think about the very first creation- God's son. God has absolute power. But in that first act of creation, he not only defines a second being- a son, but defines himself as father. As the absolute sole being defining everything I think it is important to note the  (for lack of a better word) "baggage" that comes with such an event, because he could have construed that creation differently if he wanted to, right? Not only is he creating that which is outside himself but he is simultaneously crafting the way he is present to his creation. And I dont mean its mutual- the creation doesnt create God. But the way God has shaped his creation shapes himself.

Another way to see it: suppose an artist creates art. What is it that defines his role- the art, the act of making the art, or both? And does not the way the art is made reflect on how that person as artist is seen? Does he not create his reputation and own image by such art?

Do you see where I'm going? I'm not being blasphemous, I swear. I think about this kind of stuff- absolute freedom and power, absolute love, absolute justice, infinity compared to finity, beginning of beginnings, origin of origin, before before, God of gods... Its just speculation, and I am not saying anything contradicting the Bible record- as you noted it doesnt really comment on this.

You seem to be struggling with metaphors, using an indirect approach. But I haven't seen an answer to the question: who created God? And the "others?" Was there another God before them, like in Tolkien's universe ("in the beginning there was Eru the One ...")?

It seems as though you're defining the act of creation as some sort of self-actuating act, but you're going from nothingness to something without an explanation, at least not one I can grasp.

And don't get me wrong, I'm not taking sides here, just expressing my belief that when it comes to describing the very beginning of all there is, both Christianity and science are inadequate -- and indeed are very similar. Regardless, one is left asking, "well what was there before?" To which the answer comes, "there was no before."

Cosmologists sometimes talk about the notion that a universe collapses in on itself in a big crunch, and that staggering compression of mass, energy and gravity react into a big bang, creating a new universe. Yet that process, too, had to start somewhere.

The problem with all these questions are that they make the severe assumption that the way we percieve time and space with our senses is an accurate overview of how they really are.  But we know this is not true of matter, why should we assume it of temporal causality?  Again, it's an attempt to anthropomorphize the universe, just as we do with God.

Metacell wrote:

The problem with all these questions are that they make the severe assumption that the way we percieve time and space with our senses is an accurate overview of how they really are.  But we know this is not true of matter, why should we assume it of temporal causality?  Again, it's an attempt to anthropomorphize the universe, just as we do with God.

If you saw any of the threads I've had with mo'ron on AI or absolute truth, I can play devil's advocate on the ideas of what reality is etc.

But the funny thing is with supposing God, the "anthropomorphism" comes back around in a circular but somewhat satisfying way- we sense time etc is such a way because that is how we are supposed to sense it by providence. We can rely on reality and the way we perceive it based on... well, faith.

Yeah, we'll never know which caveman invented god anyway.

user wrote:

Yeah, we'll never know which caveman invented god anyway.

I do, but Adam doesn't want me to tell.

StaticAge wrote:

Metacell wrote:

The problem with all these questions are that they make the severe assumption that the way we percieve time and space with our senses is an accurate overview of how they really are.  But we know this is not true of matter, why should we assume it of temporal causality?  Again, it's an attempt to anthropomorphize the universe, just as we do with God.

If you saw any of the threads I've had with mo'ron on AI or absolute truth, I can play devil's advocate on the ideas of what reality is etc.

But the funny thing is with supposing God, the "anthropomorphism" comes back around in a circular but somewhat satisfying way- we sense time etc is such a way because that is how we are supposed to sense it by providence. We can rely on reality and the way we perceive it based on... well, faith.

The problem with that is that we already know most of our perceptions are incorrect, and we are basically given just enough information to survive and tell our story.  We also know there are a great many beings around us who do not percieve as we do.

We percieve the sky to be blue.  But it is not blue.  It is clear.

Last edited by Metacell (2007-06-24 10:56 pm)

StaticAge wrote:

In my speculation, God always was, at least in an abstract way, infinitely. But became God concretely only by the creation of that which was not God.

That view is somewhat similar to Scott Adam's view in God's Debris (or were you the one that originally linked this...).

I would like to point out though, just in case it need pointing out, that the existence of god in this manner has no bearing on the atheist/theist debate or science/religion because it does nothing to advocate or detract from an interventionist god, which is really the core of those issues. Whether we should do things one way or the other because of the perceived will of some great diving intelligence that's interested.

Last edited by mo' ron (2007-06-25 12:10 am)