• Board 2: Intelligent Design January 27 - 10:39 am

MODERATOR'S NOTE: This is a conversation that began on the Wicca page. I moved the tail end of it here because it was getting too off-topic for that page.


He who must not be named... You mean the guy named in the first post on this page? :-)

I know him by reputation only- I can tell pretty well from the responses on this board. I used to be about like that, too. But that's no way to make a point, huh?


"But...outside the universe, where an all-powerful God would necessarily exist, time could easily extend both ways. " - Mark Morgan

Exactly what I was saying. Glad to clear that up.


" there's no way in logic that I can see to decide between the two options. Either everything has a creator or not everything does. If everything has a creator then any God you postulate has a creator. If not everything has a creator, then the universe could have been not-created"- Mark Morgan


And therein lies my point. Only an All-powerful being, someone that always has been/created himself can break the infinite number of must-have-been-createds.
Since something has been created (time, the universe, the watch I'm wearing, etc.) then the "Nothing has been created" option doesn't seem to work. That leaves "Everything was created." But that leads to infinite regression: Each creation leads to a new creator, which leads to another creator, etc., ad nauseum.
But an All-powerfull being that simply is, that is outside the laws of the universe and creation itself, is the end of that chain. a beginning that doesn't have (or need) a beginning itself. Logicaly, that is the only possiblity. Not just from a religious standpoint, but from a scientific one as well.


"The thing is that Zarm (and note, this is NOT A FLAME) has taken as axioms that there is no such thing as infinite time, and that the universe must have had a creator."- ScottN

As I stated above, I DO believe in infinite time... just not in the universe we currently reside in. And my whole point here is not to simply assume that the universe has a creator, but to explain WHY the universe must have had a creator. Still, I appreciate the Non-flame and civil response- why is it all the polite people end up at the religious boards (with the exception of HWWNBN, of course)? :-)


"How long the false vacuum existed is probably unknowable, and may not have meaning -- time may not have existed as we know it before our 4D space-time split off from the other dimensions. ... However, my personal belief is that {Hakadosh Baruch Hu} is the one who set up those Laws o'Physics (patent pending), and sat back to watch the show. I don't believe that He intervenes directly." - ScottN

Well, I dissagree with the "started it up and left it alone" theory, but I think that's a debate for a different time.

But in essence, you're agreeing with the basic principle- no matter how many natural causes there may have been, there has to be something else at the beginning. Or am I interpreting that wrong?

BTW- While I get the basic idea, who or what is {Hakadosh Baruch Hu}?



"But beyond that. MJ tells me it doesn't matter to Wiccans if their individual beliefs clash. Like I was saying, it's an intensely personal religion. There's no central dogma (or central authority) that I know about. " - Mark Morgan.

Interesting. I think that perhaps that's why Christians are alot more interested in getting the facts straight and spreading them to others.If Wicca is right, the details aren't important, and whatever you believe works. If Christianity is right, then believing in the right thing (The one true God) literally a matter of Life and Death.
Is that something you would agree with? After all, a few days hardly qualifies me as an expert on Wicca. :-)


Fianlly, sorry about dropping out over the weekend. Lost the internet for a while. Once again, if you're still awake at the end of my ultra-long post, i'd love to hear what you think.

But in essence, you're agreeing with the basic principle- no matter how many natural causes there may have been, there has to be something else at the beginning. Or am I interpreting that wrong?

BTW- While I get the basic idea, who or what is {Hakadosh Baruch Hu?}

Yes and no. Those are my own personal beliefs. However, there is no empirical evidence for it, and I am willing to separate my belief from known facts.

Hakadosh Baruch Hu should have been italicized (darn typos). It's a Hebrew phrase literally translated as "The Holy One, blessed be He". There's a whole discussion on RM (I think in the Jewish Faith board) about writing and/or typeing His name.

And therein lies my point. Only an All-powerful being, someone that always has been/created himself can break the infinite number of must-have-been-createds.

Actually, logically speaking, there is no pressing need to break the chain. Although it is not something we are comfortabe with trying to immagine, that in itself does not mean that it is impossible.

Since something has been created (time, the universe, the watch I'm wearing, etc.) then the "Nothing has been created" option doesn't seem to work.

Again, nothing in logic insists that the universe was created in the cosmological sense you mean. Even the creation of the present universe from the Cosmic Egg in the Big Bang does not, since the Egg which was to become the universe existed.

And my whole point here is not to simply assume that the universe has a creator, but to explain WHY the universe must have had a creator.

But, unless there is no logical alternative to the existence of X,, you can't prove why X without first assuming that X. And you can't logically eliminate the alternatives.

BTW- my beliefs are closer to yours than to the others who have responded to your posts this week, but like Scott, I can recognize the limitations on the ability to "prove" those beliefs.

For Johnny come lately's,

The he who shall not be named referenced above is P_e_t_e_r.

Oh, without getting into the Theological debate let me say "Yes, if God didn't exist we would have to invent him." Besides the glib and snide, "Isn't that how it happened?" there is basic human nature.

Humans always try to explain the unknown. No matter what religion you adhere to that must explain at least some of the others. (Kobalds turned the nickel into cobalt it didn't just hasppen to be there; the devil made the milk sour not little creatures your eyes can not see ["little demons, OK, medeval dude?"]; Odin allowed an honorable victory against all odds not the general who decided on troop placement; the wrath of God caused this plague and the only solution is to pray to Him after we move all these rats; etc.)

Wow. To start off with, thanks for the "Ultra-lobotimized" version. If anyobdy's confused, the first part of this debate resides on the 9th board under "Wiccan Religion."

TomM, I disagree. The chain does need to break. otherwise, we'd be dealing with an infinite number of causes. That would lead to infinite reverse time, which is problematic considering there's a here and now.

As was established earlier, it's impossible for "Nothing to have been created," because here we are, here the galaxies is, and here time exists.

But postulating that "everything has been created" is flawed, too. If each created thing had another creator, Infinitly, then there would simply be no way for us to get to "now."

That is where God, as a creator that has no creation, comes in. The chain starts, time starts forward, (as it were, even if time didn't exist yet. Confused? So am I. But what I think I mean is that there is a beginning cause, thus all other causes can occur, thus leading to here.)

I'm getting dizzy...

So, to conclude... Blue Berry, I agree that humans have always tried to explain the unknown with Myths and Fables. But that doesn't mean that any explanation for anything beyond our knowledge can't be true. Isn't it possible that those medeval dudes tried to ascribe milk souring from the devil, that Vikings ascribed their victories to Odin, that the rats in the town were sttributed to a plague, all because these people (with large imaginations) were inspired by the account of God's works? And therefore, doesn't isn't still possible that just because they based their theories on that account, that doesn't make the origional account itself untrue?

Just because there are knockoffs of the Pet Rock in every novelty store doesn't mean that the origional Pet Rock was a knock-off. It just means that some individuals said "Hey, this worked once, why not apply it to our current situation."

I don't know if that makes any sense or not...

But that's my WLP (Weekly Long Post) for today.

That would lead to infinite reverse time, which is problematic considering there's a here and now.

Why would that be problematic?

Wow. To start off with, thanks for the "Ultra-lobotimized" version. If anyobdy's confused, the first part of this debate resides on the 9th board under "Wiccan Religion."

Assuming that "Ultra-lobotomized" refers to the fact that I only moved yesterday's posts and not all of them, it was a judgment call. The thread had started out on topic concerning Wicca, and I had allowed the off-topic rambling partly because I was hoping it would get back on topic and partly because I was too lazy to create this new topic. I had, however, added a moderator's note to the first post that I moved, and included a link to the Wicca page with the rest of the debate.

TomM, I disagree. The chain does need to break. otherwise, we'd be dealing with an infinite number of causes. That would lead to infinite reverse time, which is problematic considering there's a here and now.

Again, it is difficult and uncomfortable to try to imagine such concepts, but there is nothing logically impossible about them.

As was established earlier, it's impossible for "Nothing to have been created," because here we are, here the galaxies is, and here time exists.

But if there is anything ("God") that exists but that was not created, then the mere fact that something exists (the Universe) can not lead to the conclusion that it must have been created.

Again my beliefs are similar to yours, but I recognize that simple logic is inadequate to prove them. That is why it is called "Faith."

Faith is believin' what you know ain't so.

Alrighty then. Let's introduce some fun jargon into this jeep that we are eating, shall we?

First I'd like to note that Tom M is right: just because something exists does not guarantee it was created. As I said before, there are roughly three possiblities here:

Possibility one: Everything was created, ad infinitum.

Zarm, your real problem here is that you don't see how there could be causality right now, but a non-causal precursor to the universe. Causality is defined (roughly) as the idea that something happens after something else. It is related to the three "arrows of time", one of which is the idea that humans cannot travel into our subjective past. (Another arrow of time is the increase in entropy---entropy increases along its arrow of time. Can't unbreak an egg; if you have two gasses in a box separated by a wall, break the wall and the two gasses will never divvy up into their original sections on their own, even for an instant. I don't remember what the third arrow is.)

Anyway. Causality is a product of the existence of the universe. Causality was created by the big bang. There was no "before" the big bang because "before" did not have any meaning until spacetime came into being, and that was after the big bang.

There's going to be a lot of that idea in this post. It's important: everything we think we now about time, space, reality itself, all of it did not exist during the cosmegg and none of it--none--applies to outside the universe.

We cannot predict what it is like outside the universe. Causality might or might not apply. There might or might not be a space or a time.

So. Your statement that there must have been something 'create' time because there is a time now is not quite correct, as before time is meaningless.

Possiblity Two: Some things were created, but at least one thing was not.

Note that I didn't say the first thing not-created was God. Also, a lot of things could have been not-created.

Possibility Three: Nothing was created, everything just is.

Hawking uses very scary-smart logic to argue for this in A Brief History of Time. I'd imagine he has the math to back it up. Although if you count humans as "creators" then Hawking's arguing for the second choice, above.

What else is important? Ah. Your original argument was not for the existence of God, but for the idea that if there is a creator, there must be at some point just one who is more powerful than everything so it could create everything. Therefore, polytheism is impossible because there must be a higher power that created all these lesser powers.

Why does this higher power have to be a God? Couldn't it just be a...higher-order universe. A universe outside our universe, a non-sentient one that itself transcends space and time and because of its nature doesn't have to be created, but does itself "create" gods that then create our universe?

Man. These long posts are why I got my own website in the first place. I'll be back in a moment with some angels and needles and Tomas Aquinas.

So, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Or to put it the way that it was originally, how many can dance on the end of a needle? Or to put it the way it really was originally, "Can angels occupy the same space"?

Which brings us to Tomas Aquinas and Summa Theologica. I haven't read Aquinas (but I have beaten Final Fantasy: Tactics; you make your priorities, I make mine). But I have read some things about it, and much of Aquinas is tortured attempts to answer Deep Meaningful Questions with pure theological logic. Today, we call that Religious Musings. Especially now with the Pit to keep the flames down to a dull roar.

All hail the Pit!

But I digress. My point is that despite all of Aquinas's efforts, what we're all doing with these discussions is trying to play Aquinas. Is there one God or many? Is there time outside of time or not? What happened before time? What happens after it? Can God make a rock so heavy He can't lift it?

How many angels can dance on the end of a needle?

I dunno.

You dunno.

No, neither do you.

This will drive you crazy, and we get back to my basic philosophy and why I'm an atheist, and what kind of Christian I was (and what kind of Buddhist I was). We can debate all we want (and I enjoy it and we should continue to do so) but I don't personally believe there is any point in ever declaring that I--or you, or you, or even you (yes, you, now sit back down or it's three demerits)--that you have the ultimate, undeniable, logic is irrefutable argument. Phil tried running (and over-controlling) a Deep Philosophical Discussion called "Eating a Jeep" because even just understanding the issues is like eating a jeep, one part at a time.

For me, the issues fall into two, neat categories. One of these things is things we can test empirically (about halfway down that page). While we can never know the absolute answer to empirical questions, we can at least come to a consensus. Why? Because if I say "I have created cold fusion" you can try to do the same things I did and see if I'm full of it. We have a mechanism for easily telling a good idea from a bad one.

The other category is things that are strictly philosophical. There is no way to test whether we are right or wrong. How many angels can fit on the end of a pin? Despite all Aquinas's hard work, philsophers still disagree on that one and there's just no way to ever know. Believe one way, believe another, there's just no way to know for sure.

I think what you've run into, Zarm, is trying to fit things from the first category into the second. We can't know what happens outside the universe and while we can try to guess and speculate, in the end we just can't know. Much like we just can't foce logic to tell us if there is one God, many gods, or none of the above.

In the end you just, I think, have to decide for whatever reasons you decide such things and go from there. When I talk about axioms, that's what I'm talking about: things that you just agree to be your base worldview and then you go from there. Me, I stick with non-supernatural axioms. My wife has a lot of supernatural axioms. You pays your money and you takes your chances.

Now I'm going to bed!

Anybody still awake after all that, kudos for you! You can have my back on night patrol any time.

Zarm,

Yes, the myths might be true or even closer to the truth than we think. The little demons that turn milk sour are called bacteria, etc. The danger lies in the acceptance of the fables as the truth so we need not look farther. (Don't take my word on people clinging to what they "know" is true. Ask Galileo.) [Zarm, I don't know you. I try to use "" like it actual means --"I'm smiling when I say that."-- But some people don't get understand and think I'm picking a fight. I don't know if you are one of the many who will take offense at the Galileo bit and claim I use to many "". If so read the post again. I'm agreeing with you.]

Of course, that is not the debate topic. (Gee, TomM, i never wander off topic. Can you make another board for me to wander off topic on?)

Mark Morgan,

If you are on night patrol, can I awake you with a quip? Oh, BTW 10 angels unless the are fat. Angels can occupy the same space only if it serves the writer's purpose that they do. All this is explained in any Monty Python movie if you get stoned before seeing it.

It would be nice if we could prove the existance of God by science and reasoning.However the main
problem is that if we could then God wouldn't be
truelly God since once God is made proveable like
a mathematical theorem then he can't be as
Sovereign as he is supposed to be,now can he?

Einstein said it best:

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind".

And when humanity prooves god exists he will bring about his own destruction by prooving black is white and getting killed at a zebra crossing.

I thought the Babelfish had already proved that God exists, and therefore, since God wants to rely on faith only, not proof, he ipso facto doesn't exist?