by logansrun 41 Replies latest jw friends
Six:
As I've expressed a few times recently, I wonder whether many of the biblical accounts may be an expression of the subjective experiences of the writers.
In an attempt to understand what is going on around them, they attributed every nuance of life to be the direct hand of God.
Of course, the scenario above could be interpreted to have us in the role of lab rats.
If that's the case and the mad scientist takes a personal interest at all, I'm glad I'm not in Dallas right now
Bradley:
It is difficult if not impossible for us to imagine something existing without being caused. Yet as you pointed out, that is exactly what someone must believe regardless if they are an antheist or not.
If God can exist without cause than certainly basic forms of matter and energy can exist without cause. I lean towards the much simpler solution.... that the elementary components of matter/energy have always been instead of the infinitely complex.
Am I completely comfortable with this? No. I still cannot grasp something that exists without cause.
LT:
Of course, the scenario above could be interpreted to have us in the role of lab rats.
That's what scares me about the book of Job. A fight broke out between the Creator and one of his disobedient sons, and Job was the lab rat???? Couldn't the story of Job be the microcosm (sp? and right word to use?) for the explanation of the condition of the human race? Maybe it's all about or all between superhuman creatures and we humans are caught in the middle?
Okay, now that I'm not posting at 1:30 am, I can be serious. I do think that Bradley has a good point.
I was having a discussion with a friend about the fact that I'm leaning towards some mixture of deism and agnosticism. (Agdeism?) As I expressed to her, I felt that Christianity had logical contradictions, whereas deism, agnosticism, and atheism have unanswered questions.
For example, Christianity presents with the question of how can a loving God permit suffering? That is a paradox... a contradiction.
Deism presents us with the question: Is God actually loving? We don't know.
I'll take the latter over the former any day.
To me : we just don't know man ... but still we are here (is it absurd or what?)
Cognito, ergo sum... Deo volante
I think you're putting Descartes before the horse, Little Toe...
Hey Bradley,
Sorry to say, it appears you are banging your head against the wall trying to figure out a big mystery or two. I found myself once in your shoes as well, but I got a little help from my friends at the time (some of my college professors and other students) and worked out a fairly reasonable way to go about solving this problem you describe in your post.
Let?s start by using an analogy of playing detective but instead of working with a birth, you are working with a death, a murder victim. Your job is to find out who committed the crime without doing any investigation in the past, in other words: you are limited to using evidence that only occurs in the future. This would clearly put you at a disadvantage, but given a little creativity and thought you would gather information that you could exploit to give you clues as to who did the crime. I think you can use the same approach to solving the dual problems you described, namely why does our universe exist and is there something even more incredibly complex and evolved, essentially a super being, who is a universe creator.
What does cosmology tell us about how the universe formed? The most amazing thing ever discovered (IMHO) is the fact that it is rather a simple process for a universe to come into being. The earliest phases of the Big Bang had conditions so extreme that the only thing we know for sure is that we don?t know enough physics to explain everything that happened. We do know however the history of the universe about 1 second after it was created, and we generally understand the causational process by which our universe then (squeezed together smaller than a single atom) developed into what we see today. But before that one second mark, there appear to be only 3 cosmic numbers needed to make a universe like ours. The first number specifies the average density of all matter (both Dark matter and regular matter) and is called Omega. The second thing needed is the ratio of different types of matter and the last is the amplitude of primordial ?ripples? that evolve into galaxies, clusters, and superclusters. If the mix of numbers isn?t right, the end result is a universe far different than our own, and many in which life would be impossible.
The clue, that only a few variables are needed to create a habitable universe from a Big Bang, lends tremendous support for the causative model of a universe where no intelligence is needed to make it happen. The implications of this model are interesting in that it lends credibility to the multiverse theory. It may be that there is so many universes created by Big Bangs, that they are as common as individual atoms are in our universe. We at least know this is not impossible. A finite, but extremely large number of autonomous universes would still be more probable than the existence of a God, just on the basis of causative process and the impossibility of any such God to evolve.
Why couldn?t God evolve? Think for a moment, if there was no universe, no nothing, for an infinite time (presumably before God created them) how is it possible for any form of thought to exist? Any form of information to exist? There is no language, No images of anything. No means to employ any type of sensory input. Such conditions would drive any living thing (presuming it somehow had the ability to make thoughts beforehand) insane. God is a Zero Sum Game. Not possible to causatively evolve independently of a universe.
Does the impossibility of an all-knowing, all-powerful God existing, clash with everything else we know about cosmology? Consider the death of our universe. We know that atoms are not forever. We understand the cosmic life cycle. The average lifetime of an atom exceeds the present age of our universe by more than 20 powers of ten. Given enough time though all the atoms in our universe will dissolve away, leaving only electrons and neutrinos. Everything will evaporate. Does this FACT, go well with the hypothesis of an everlasting Almighty Creator, who supposedly created the universe to seed it with life and have everyone worship him? It seems pretty ridiculous when put in that light.
To me, there is no paradox and the only absurdity is the God meme.
Skipper
Skipper:
Your last paragraph - "Does the idea of an all-knowing, all-powerful God..." sums up quite well the basic idea of Process Theology developed by the philosopher, Alfred Whitehead. Basically, this form of theology conceives of "God" as NOT being transcendent in regard to creation, but rather inherent or integral with creation. That is to say that God is part and parcel of an ever-evolving creation, rather than an entity above and beyond creation.
This concept goes a long way in explaining the so-called "problem" of evil. As soon as God ceases to be viewed as being the transcendent, head honcho in charge of everything, then all "responsibility" is for the existence of evil in the world is lifted off God's huge shoulders. Thus, the ancient paradoxical conundrum that has always plagued theologians - "How can an omnipotent God also be all-Good if such a God permits the existence of evil?" - is resolved in that such a question erroneously presupposes a transcendent, omnipotent Entity.
As Whitehead thought, the notion of process theology fits in quite nicely with most scientific paradigms, be they biological or cosmological. That is to say that most of what we see as reality is in a constant state of flux and evolution (Actually this idea can be traced back to the Greek pre-Socratic philospher, Heraclitus); so why should God be exempt from the process.
In regard to the idea of the universe requiring some absolute beginning, some point of origin, that is typically Western thought. Western thought is linear. However, in Eastern thought, no such problem exists. The universe is conceived as having no beginning, and no end. The universe is simply an eternal cycle of creation and de-creation.
Sorry, I addressed my previous posting to "Skipper," whereas I intended to address it to "MIndchild." It is Mindchild's last full paragraph that I was responding to. Sorry, again.
