05.03.06.1286
[size=150]Time does not exist.[/size]
There is no finite or infinite… there just is.
Alas, you have always existed, just not always in the form you are manifested in now.
I ask you: What is thought, rational or otherwise, without a means of producing it?
When you have answered that question, you will begin to understand.
brady, the idea of a creator doesn’t solve the mystery of how something came from nothing, it defers it. This is Iacchus’s point. In fact, if anything if makes the issue more complicated, and needlessly so.
The human mind is incapable of comprehending the Universe in itself because we put everything into 3D space and through time. These modes of thinking - which, like Newtonian mechanics, work fine in our day-to-day lives - break down as they approach their extremes, and leave us with unfathomable paradoxes. As sagesound says: “time does not exist” (we know this from relativity too, as it happens) - so we shouldn’t led it lead us on wild goose chases.
I believe your argument is called the cosmological argument and it has been shown to be flawed. At the moment im not realy in the mood for listing.
And what if it were possible to stand outside of time and space? Isn’t this in effect what happens by means of our observation of it? Certainly the observer and that which is being observed is not one and the same is it? Indeed, this is the very thing which gives rise to our notion of “objectivity.” So, could it be that we’re speaking of a fifth dimension here, hence a continuum – which, gave rise to the first four dimensions – called consciousness? If so, then I see plenty of possibilities for a Creator.
Time and space aren’t things that we observe, they’re the things that make observation possible. They’re subjective, and don’t belong to that which is objectified in-itself, hence my saying that we’re incapable of knowing the latter accurately and fully.
I don’t get your bit about a fifth dimension and the subsequent increased liklihood of a creator…
What is knowledge then, but the accounting (hence observation) of those things that exist within time and space?
And by “subjectivity” you seem to suggest we have somehow alienated ourselves from reality. This is not possible. There is nothing about us which is not an incorporated aspect of this “objective reality.” And, by virtue of the fact that we are aware, we become increasingly objective to it, regardless of what we experience. Objectivity is bound up in sentience in other words.
I’m saying that if God exists outside time and space, which He must, then it must entail at least one other dimension which existed prior to the creation of time and space. And being the intelligent, sentient Creator that He is, the very objective reality itself, it follows that these characteristics should originate from within this dimension as well … and of course extend itself into (by means of influx) the dimensions of time and space.
I’m happy to agree with this.
Of course, we all sprung from the “one” reality (in quotes because singularity is only possible in comparison with plurality, and these things are meaningless to the Universe in-itself), and even though in consciousness we perceive it in an inherently distorted way, we’re by no means “separate” from it. If spatial extension was a property of the Universe in-itself, then the old paradox of where-does-it-end would appear and drive us all mad!
To be honest with you, I can’t argue against this idea, but what I can say is that, having applied Ockham’s razor, my money’s on there being no such entity.
…good points by all and they are well taken. This is what I love about philosophical discussion, the minute you think you are right about something someone out thinks you.
This is the response of a true philosopher 
Not always, someone always has a defence or an attack… but theyre not always correct. There is no correct in much of philosophy.
I have in fact stood in the spirit, and know that this other dimension exists. Albeit many will attempt to debate with me, and suggest that it was merely a dream … which, is fair enough. I can’t ask people to accept something which they haven’t experienced for themselves. I do know where I would be putting my money though. 
I, like you, was a religious person at the beginning of my college experience. However, I can remember as a child that some of the views and opinions presented to me by various religious figures were very problematic.
First of all, the stories in the bible never seemed real. There was too much magic and fantasy present in the stories.
Then I went to college.
The argument that you’re talking about is called the uncausable cause (I think). It is flawed and as people mentioned earlier in this post, it merely defers the question about initial cause and makes the problem more complex.
Why is a god necessary to have created the universe? What created God? Any answer you give about God not needing a creator can also be applied to the universe, and actually that is more rational than the god created the universe idea.
Brady, you claim not to be endorsing any religion, but there seems to be a lot of religious background in your conclusions. Calling what you’ve sought to prove a “being” is to give the conclusion somewhat of a monotheistic slant. Really, all you’ve proven (assuming that your argument is sound and so proves anything) is that something existed forever (a “something” so vague as to leave the possibility that it was the universe itself). There is no reason to give whatever has existed any characteristic besides the essential.
Iacchus, I think you should read into neuroscience and psychology before you claim the spirit as the cause of your vision. I had a dream the other night that I was on mars and talking to Dr. Seuss about Metal Gear Solid. What spirit’s presence was I in? Dreams happen all the time, their a fact of human mental existence. It just seems too convenient to interpret a dream as a message from some deity. It doesn’t make any sense at all, frankly. To be blunt, a critical mind would not be so ready to accept such an outlandish claim on such scant evidence.
Indeed, what would humans possess, without their mental faculties? It’s all mental … And, when that mental aspect departs – from the body – it was like we were never here. 
Don’t over work the cosmological argument, brady. It can be successful, if you don’ jump the gun and try to use it to prove the existence of a theistic-type God. What the cosmological argument can argue for quite well is the idea that there is something supernatural behind the existence of the Universe.
And of course the evidence is not of “this world” which, is why science can’t put its finger on it.
And yet our “physical” universe seems to be wholly bound upon cause-and-effect. That which spawned it, however (that which is Eternal), need not necessarily be … albeit cause-and-effect would be one of its outcroppings, in order to express its purpose and utility.
The cosmological argument does not prove the existence of something supernatural. The idea of the supernatural is not well formed. If something “supernatural” created the universe, how is that thing not simply nature? Why is it non-natural?
What the cosmological argument does is poses a problem for the idea of cause, and possibly even for the idea of time itself. It is a good intuition pump for serious metaphysical doubt, but it doesn’t actually tell us that much about the origins of the universe.
you are thinking about the big bang, and the origin of atoms with far too much narrow-mindedness, as if you just got out of science class in grade nine when they did the ‘introduction to big bang theory’ hand-out.
research metaphysics, athieism, Darwinism (evolution), general and special relativity, Einstiens views on God, and merely the nature of our universe and then get back to all of us.
because what you just said sounded like the usual idiotic ramblings of a theist (and a very ignorant theist at that).
i will let you know something however, because eventually, when you actually start to think about the universe and athieism you will realize there must be something that is eternal, because like you said, something does not come from nothing.
Energy, which is essentially particles, (i.e atoms) are eternal. The reactions within these could cause the big-bang, just out of their configurative nature. Our universe is unlikely to be the first of its kind, just out of studying the science of black and white holes in space.
Spinoza contends that nature is God. Nature being the reason for which all things occur and how they occur, though, like determinism (the nonexistance of free will), this nature is almost unfathomable. but this is a different argument all together.
my point is for you to get educated in the area of intellectual athieism and not the athieism of friends that go “well prove it”.
Yes, and this sounds like the usual arrogant empty statements of an atheist. If Brady is so beneath you, perhaps there’s other folks you ought to be tackling?
Dealing with the chronological issues are only the weaker have of the cosmological argument, anyways. Even if the universe [i]were [/i]temporally eternal, which I doubt, that still doesn't address what it exists intead of nothing at all. The cosmological argument applies equally to this- That nothing at all should exist is apparently a logical possibility. So then, why do all these contingent things exist at all? You could argue that God is the temporally eternal thing that brought about the finite universe, or you could argue that God is the necessary Being that brought about the contingent universe.
Also, you still have the question of infinite regress to deal with- saying that there have been an infinite chain of universes before this one is probably incoherent, saying that there have been [i]some[/i] universes before this one just pushes the problem back.