Posted on 04/13/2005 4:03:42 PM PDT by Lorianne
I'm reminded of that old joke, the punchline of which involves God saying to the scientist who challenged Him: "No, no! Get your own dirt!"
Thanks for reminding me of that one. It's a classic. :-)
Do you think it is possible the universe always existed and therefore never had a beginning.? I understand our belief that every thing has to have a beginning, but in the case of the universe it might have always existed. I know that its hard to comprehend.
So to explain the beginning of life etc. many people say God is the creator. When asked where did God come from the answer is He always existed.
Amazing we can believe something we haven't seen always existed, but can't say the universe which we live in, always existed in some form. - Tom
Listen, I'm just a dumb truck driver, but this is silly. Since in your scheme, "is" requires "concept" and therefore " God in the beginning" couldn't "be", it would also be true that since no conceptualizer made concepts at the time, there "was" no evolution before the appearance of humans, or at least conceptualizing chimpanzees.
I understand our belief that every thing has to have a beginning, but in the case of the universe it might have always existed.
Even the "Big Bang" or "String Theory" explain a "beginning" which had a first cause.
Consider this, let's say that "Big Bang" is accurate, and you have all the matter in the universe crammed into an infintestimal, which then explodes and begins expanding very rapidly. Obviously prior to explosion the infintesimal was stable. How did it become unstable and explode without a cause?
Also, consider this, matter and space in the idea you suggest has no intelligence, reason, logic, morality, ethics which it could pass on to you. Matter is simply reactive, programmed to behave in certain ways under certain conditions. Without the Creator God, you would have no real intelligence, reason, logic, morality or ethics, for nature itself can't pass that on to you by way of evolution.
I know that its hard to comprehend.
That's not the point. It simply doesn't come close to reality.
So to explain the beginning of life etc. many people say God is the creator. When asked where did God come from the answer is He always existed.
See my statement on the Law of First Cause and it's extrapolation to infinity whereas you have to reach an uncaused first cause. I know it's hard to comprehend infinity, but give it a try.
Amazing we can believe something we haven't seen always existed, but can't say the universe which we live in, always existed in some form.
Not really. Do you believe there are "black holes"? Have you ever seen one?
Do you believe there is "wind"? Have you ever seen the wind?
Do you believe in "gravity"? Have you ever seen "gravity"?
I guess a wink is as good as a nod....to a blind horse.[grin]
I want to go to the phrase "In the beginning, God..." or "In the beginning was the Word..". In this area we got to humble ourselves to the fact that on Creation Day when the 'beginning' showed up (late as usual), the Boss was already hard at work.
Hey, that can't be-- the beginning is supposed to be the beginning, with nothing before it, right? Like, how could anything exist before anything was? What I wanted to say in my post was that nothing came before the beginning-- as far as we're concerned. Apparently the Boss has been able to do just fine without the solar system, or time, or even existence itself.
Unless I'm wrong.
Since you seem to be having trouble with my post and imply a supernatural being was involved in the creation of the unuverse, answer me this . When did God(Gods) have His (their) beginning. How did God get started? - Tom
and imply a supernatural being was involved in the creation of the unuverse
I didn't imply any such thing, if you read carefully, you will see that I state categorically that God created the universe.
, answer me this . When did God(Gods) have His (their) beginning. How did God get started? - Tom
That has been answered two times already.
ARe you having a hard time understanding what is meant by "uncaused first cause"?
It goes like this:
In the beginning was nothing.
Then it exploded.
In the beginning was nothing. Then it exploded.
LOL. --and we hear people saying that atheists do not have faith in the unknowable!
It takes a whole lot more faith to be an atheist than a Christian. I don't have as much faith to believe there isn't a God as they do.
, answer me this . When did God(Gods) have His (their) beginning. How did God get started? - Tom
That has been answered two times already.
ARe you having a hard time understanding what is meant by "uncaused first cause"?
Yes I am having trouble with uncaused first cause. I believe in the possibility the universe always existed and never had a beginning,so causes are not a factor.
You believe the universe was created by a supernatural being who always existed and therefore never had a beginning.
If you can believe that something like a God always existed why can't you believe in the possibility that the universe may have always existed? - Tom
Obviously.
I believe in the possibility the universe always existed and never had a beginning,so causes are not a factor.
Why do you believe that?
If you can believe that something like a God always existed why can't you believe in the possibility that the universe may have always existed? - Tom
I think I've already answered that one.
That really says it in a nutshell. Steven Hawkins in "Space and Time" said we don't need a creator to explain why the universe is so finely adjusted to have matter (let's not even begin to try and explain life yet). He said all we need is an infinite number of naturally occurring random universes and we (obviously) happen to be in the one that can support us.
I'm with you-- it takes a lot less work to believe in a Creator. Then again, maybe other people have more faith than we do.
IMHO it has always been a problem of logic....if you're in the box..just how exactly do you determine the outside dimensions and properties?
Logic is a useful tool for finding truth but it doesn't always work everywhere- especially when it goes into this arena. There's a lot of other neat truth tools that we all use every day (senses, tradition, intuition, pragmatism, etc.) but (like you) I personally have never had much use for the first-cause 'proof'. Carl Sagan put it well when he we suggested that if all we want it is a first cause, then we can just save ourselves a step and say the 'universe' itself is the first cause.
The problem that I see with time and space is that the concepts are significant only if something is happening. It gets worse considering the fact that both are relative. [big word alert-- small words available only upon request] If our observations are correct, that the course of time slows asymptotically back to the big bang, then we could argue that before the big bang time went backwards (?!).
I think I'm going to need more than one cup of coffee this morning before I can think about cause and effect with a reverse time flow.
Dang, you beat me to it (re my post right after yours).
I think addressing the problem is beyond the range and scope of my mental abilities. But I am not going to jump to the conclusion of a supernatural being creating the universe. Actually if I was prone to that type of thinking, I would expect several supernatural beings to be involved and not just one.
I am having a problem right now deciding when I head out on the briny at 5 AM in the dark into that cold easterly wind , whether I should get greedy and make a try for the haddock on the north shoals in 100 feet of water or go directly to the east and fish 240 feet of water where I know the haddock are located.
If I get on them in the shallower water I will get twice as many fish in the boat in the same period of time as fishing the deeper water. I think I can get that problem resolved before daybreak. But supernatural beings and the origin of the universe still stumps me. - tom
We're together on that one, that's for sure. Being or beings --totally meaningless also when considering realities outside time and space.
My workday is wrapping up here now and I just had a day full of the same kind of chaotic uncertainties that you've had. You with haddock and me with picking stocks. I suppose it's what my Psych 1A prof called a "double avoidance conflict' --choosing between two things that are difficult. I wake up, ponder the artificial qualities of the cosmos, give up and pick out stocks to buy on line.
OTOH, after a day like today I'm ready to consider that cosmology may be the simpler problem.
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