Discussing the "God" question.

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
1

The “God” question

“The World”/Cosmos/Universe exists.

If “The World” exists, if it may be said to “be”, then
it either a) had a beginning, or b) always existed (in one form or another).

If a., then it has/had a source.

If b., then it has always been.

However, b. does not automatically bar a “God”.
“The World” may have b. “within” God.

We “know” by virtue of “our” existence and by the structure of “The world” that “The world” tends toward order/organization, life, and intelligence. By “tends toward” I mean that by virtue of there being some semblance of order/organization, life, and intelligence in “The World” we can say that “The world” has “produced” these things rather than not “produced” them. It may not have “produced” them, but for any number of reasons, it did.

These existing elements (order/organization, life, and intelligence) are questions requiring an answer. Their “being” requires an explanation. Why are they rather than not?

Here we are prodded into deciding for ourselves whether or not it is more reasonable to believe that a) “The World” (including its order/organization, life, and intelligence) is an accident, or a product of some direction or design.

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Um. do you have a question? Or a point? What are we to discuss? A and B?

I will agree with you though. If non-religious scientific theories want to argue that the universe never came by these options they’d need to argue the universe is illogical or beyond our understanding, but this isn’t how they argue, it would only contradict what they stand for.

The field is for both teams.

Some people are very satisified with the thought of the great randomness and luck that we are, but as many would reply, it’s not luck in something infinite, it’s only a matter of time. However this is a very broad statement and it skates on thin ice.

I, no offense. Find no reason in discussing these two options if that was what you were wanting. Accident? Design? Who knows, I’m not sure how much productive debating can come from this. I only see them the same, one was controlled, one wasn’t. It would be discussing only the existence of God, that is all we would debate. And as many of us now know on here, that’s hard starting point. Maybe if we went with certain ideas that would lead to the existence of a or b, or God or No god.

3

The actual “God” question:

Did the universe have a beginning or has it always been? How does your answer to this question affect your amswer to the “God” question? Where does your worldview fit into the positions in the original post and how do you defend it philosophically?

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Life, intelligence, and organisation, are all man-made terms, that in actuality mean nothing to the universe.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that our world tends to be organized because we have defined what organization is, not because it is actually so from a universal standpoint. Everything just “is,” and every stitch of our reality is our interpretation of what “is.”

5

Well Science is leaning toward the belief that the universe had a beginning, a start. I believe something always existed, but whether it was the universe or not, who knows, this isn’t philosophical, this is empirical intelligence we are unaware of.

6

Well said, I concur.

7

By addressing the question from such a direction don’t you risk appearing as though you are avoiding it? You are raising an issue of semantics, which doesnt apply here. We are not discussing what terms such as organization, life, and intelligence “mean” to the universe; their meanings are known well enough to us. Semantics aside there is indeed organization, life, and intelligence in “The World” is there not? If so, is it reasonable to believe that “they” and the “world” they are a part of are accidents, products of random chance? Such a position seems as untenable as calling ever natural occurance (even if seemingly supernatural) an “act of God” and leaving it at that. Such behavior doesnt seem very “scientific”, wouldnt you agree?

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The philosophical pursuit is contained in the question of whether or not one believes that the universe is guided in its processes consciously or unconsciously.

9

You can believe yes, but you can’t argue it. There’s nothing to argue here. There’s only opinions. I believe this, or that. I’m a theist, I’m an atheist, I’m agnostic, I don’t care, etc. Nothing productive I feel is going to come from talking about this topic. I have nothing further to say, because this itself is not even productive.

10

Of course its not very scientific. Faith is not scientific. I think that there are definite limits to what our human minds can comprehend. So what lies beyond that? God? One must make a leap of faith to come to that conclusion. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but it’s a true thing. One can come up with ‘proofs’ for God all day, but at the end of the day it’s down to faith.

We look at the incredible miracle of life and how well it all seems to work out, and we in our limited experience cannot conceive of something like that just happening without some driving force. Because as humans, we organize things to work well. What says the universe has to work in the same way? We are ultimately limited by our humanity.

11

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I believe there is an infinite source of all things from which all things proceeded. This infinite source has both the (+) and (-). Then they have sex, they marry and divorce and remarry. Adhesion/cohesion. The moment there is motion, time began. Then they create matter which in turn create states of matter: solid (earth) gas (air) liquid (sea or other body of water) and fire (heat). Then the infinite source tested if living things can exist in this environment, the simple plants were created, simple animals from simplex to complex.

Then the infinite source wants to have a “child” of his own and created man in his image(has both + and -). Because infinite source is supernatural, man is also considered supernatural until he wanted to be boss of the earthly world. So he was given an earthly woman.

And we all belong to the earth. We can re-ascend to this infinite source, but we must work hard. There are many paths to this one and narrow path to this source.

That is if we desire to be one with the source. ASK, and you will receive, Seek and you will find, Knock and the door will be opened…to those who will and desire to know the Infinite Source.

12

This does not address the fact that natural laws that govern the universe have organization without our help, so why and how can we understand this? Why does this organization that existed before us not equate to some master reference of some kind?

You miss much that is obvious to the most casual observer.

13

So many liberal thiests have now agreed that the existence of the God of classical thiesm doesn’t even merit a second thought as an explanation of the existence of the universe, therefore they use an unanswerable question, literally beyond human comprehension, to justify their assumption that there is/was an ‘intelligent designer’.

It reminds me of Flew’s analogy of the gardener; how far will they go to save their faith? One might argue that if these thiests were born before advanced astronomy or aircraft development they would have assumed that God’s kingdom was in the clouds or outside of our atmosphere. Now that humanity has moved on they’re explaining God’s apparent lack of presence by assuming that this intelligent being is transcendent (in other words, not there) or even that it was a creator that died before our time. If you really do come to such assumptions then you’re thiests, but if you’re arguing about only the possibilities of intelligent design then you are agnostics and nothing more.

14

This is where your argument breaks down. Just because the universe has a beginning, doesn’t mean it has a source. If it does have a source, then by the same reasoning that source must also have a source, or if we say arbitrarily that the source need not have had a source, then we may say just as arbitrarily that the universe doesn’t need one, either.

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So something comes from nothing?

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Yes that would be the belief.

I and used to hold the belief as well that its’ just as reasonable as God created nothing into something. However I find this more resonable now because God just created something, he didn’t take nothing, because nothing is no thing. But I don’t see how no thing can create something. Because if it’s truly no thing, he doesn’t have the qualities to create now does it?

Thus I can only conclude in all attempts that something has always been there, but yet I still know very little like everyone else.

17

The people that have trouble with the idea that the universe may have come from ‘nothing’ never seem to have a problem with god having done so.

If the answer is ‘god has always been’, why not just apply occams razor and say ‘the universe has always been’?

Either way, god is logically unnecessary.

18

I think we can see much proof to a time line of creation in all things known, which leads to sources logically. The next step is ultimate source. I think the idea that the universe was always here is still a form of Absolute and not far from the idea of God, all you need to do is add intelligence, but still this doesn’t clear up the evidence of this time line. Now try and see what most others see in all that they observe, and that’s Purpose, put the two together and the logical path is Design.

From this point the thought turned into organized religions mixed with controlling dogma and folklore and out right lie. All of this is done for the masses who are too lazy to have an opinion of their own and choose to follow that which makes them feel superior, far too easy for the strong and manipulative who want to be God themselves. Don’t let religion blind you of the possibilities that much evidence points toward, it isn’t worth it.

BTW, this has nothing to do with any theism or bible or any dogmatic belief system, this is pure logic and following the path. Not saying its so, only that the evidence points there from the POV of many, so don’t dismiss it without full examination from your personal (objective) point of view.

19

The ‘proof’ is in ‘all things known’?
Huh?

What time line? Are you saying steady state theory is similar to creationism?

I really think you should stop using the word ‘logical’ until you demonstrate an understanding of its definition. Just an opinion!
As for ‘purpose’, well, purpose is something we create in our minds.

The idea of the god you admonish came from this lie. Why accept that part and reject the rest?

It still remains that adding ‘god’ is extranious when atempting to explain the universe.

20

Why pretend you don’t understand this provable time line to creation? You know what I mean, there is much evidence of how old something is, accurate or not the evidence shows something’s to be relatively older then other things, does this not denote a time line for creation? Will this not logically lead you back to ultimate sources?

Do you really wish to dispute the idea of age? That would be funny!

No, not at all, any creation theory includes change and constant expansion as far as I know; steady state theory is full of holes and completely illogical IMO. This question makes me think you don’t know what steady state theory is. My assertion is clearly all about ultimate beginnings, which is in direct opposition to SST.

Then show me the logical fallacy of these connected ideas, that should be simple enough, just saying its not logical is pure childish contradiction and evidence of no ability to understand on your part. Same with Purpose, I can show many examples of Purpose that should lead to the question of ultimate origin of this idea, that is unless you can show evidence of anything coming from nothing. Can you?

The problem is yours, I have much to back what I say, so far all you have done is contradict with no support.

My idea of God came from my heart after much observation and scrutiny and proving through cause and affect and everything I can tell you about Gods personality is perfectly in line with any logic you care to use with no plot holes or contradictions, care to test that?

Can your ideas of life and its meaning and origins hold up to that? If so, lets hear it, as I would truly be interested.

No it doesn’t, nothing can explain Purpose or the obvious evidence to an Absolute that must have always existed for anything to be created, logically speaking. Regardless of your POV, if your being objective then you should (like most) see the overwhelming evidence that points to an Absolute that was most probably intelligent. If you cant I suggest you haven’t thought very deep about it, most stop at some point and say, “that’s just the way it is”, or “it cannot be known”, if you fall into either of these camps then you have nothing to refute what I say other then showing me the logic errors I have made which you haven’t done yet.

So get busy thinking or finding my errors cuz contradiction aint gonna cut it.