God created the universe? Please clarify what you mean by that, 'cause it makes no sense at all to me.
Offline
If anyone is tell us that God caused the universe to exist, they ought to be able to tell us the difference between an existing universe and a nonexisting one - and how we are to determine if we are in one or the other.
Snoopy flies around in the sky on his dog house, types funny letters, and talks to birds. Is Snoopy real? When Snoopy says he's real, how would Charlie Brown go about convincing Snoopy that he's wrong?
That may sound silly, but its not. It highlights a problem with the idea that, by whatever means, "the universe came to be." The problem with "the universe came to be" is that nobody knows what such a statement even means. It's just empty words.
God caused the universe? Can you clarify what you are claiming God did? Did it involve him considering a bunch of possible worlds and deciding to sprinkle magic pixie dust on the one he liked best? (If you say he used his magical God voice rather than pixie dust, that's fine - it doesn't affect the point I'm attempting to make - I am using pixie dust as a placeholder for whatever it is you want to say God did to make this universe exist.) Is it possible for God to have considered the inifinity of possibly worlds and then sprinkled magic pixie dust on just TWO of them? Or, in your view, are "real" universes limited to just one - even if God would have wanted more? If they are not limited to just one, would a god be malicious if she sprinkled magic pixie dust on ALL of them? I mean, some of those other possible universes are unimaginably horrible, and the inhabitants suffer without any hope of salvation. (For god to include salvation in the world would be a different possibilty, here we are looking at the possiblity of him not offering salvation.) Or was God like Santa Clause holding a naughty and nice list and sprinkling magic pixie dust only on the good possible worlds, so bunch of good worlds truly exist and a bunch of bad worlds don't?
Can if God found a possible world he liked exceptionally well, could he create it more that once so that he has many of it? Would that world be even more real than a world that was only created once?
Now consider just one of those possible worlds. Can we imagine the possibility of having that world not be picked - of not having God sprinkle his pixie dust on it? Can we imagine it being picked, having God's pixie dust sprinkled on it? Now how many possibilities have we considering here, one or two? Is a possible world with existence the same or different from an identical possible world without existence? If these are two different possiblities, could God be powerful enough to make both of these possiblities real at the same time? Does adding existence to a possible world do anything to change that world at all? If it doesn't, than what significance does the pixie dust have for the inhabitants of that world?
Lets also consider if God also had antipixiedust, that makes worlds instantly cease to exist. Is it possible for any world to have antipixiedust sprinked on it? How could a world with antipixiedust on it exist? If such a world can't exist, isn't that exactly the same thing as saying that it's not possible to have antipixiedust sprinkled on worlds? If god can't have antipixiedust or anything like it (since remember its just a placeholder for whatever means god might use to make a world not exist), maybe worlds exist that God is powerless to eliminate? What if our God is just a creation in a metauniverse created by a bigger supergod with a twisted sense of humor, and the supergod is creating universes our God can't get rid of just to annoy him?
If this is all too crazy for you to think about, take consolation in the fact that it's just a game played with empty words - e.g. with words that are poorly defined. It's a meaningless word game designed to confuse people or influence them emotionally. But realize that also includes WHAT YOU SAID. I am just extrapolating from what the "God created the universe" people started, and I am doing it solely for the point of illustrating how the statement lacks any firm foundation. What you said about God creating the universe is not even right or wrong - it's nonsensical from the start. It doesn't stand up to any significant philosophical analysis.
Now if you say the Peanuts universe came to be because Charles Schulz created it - I'd counter that what you really meant to say is that Schultz caused the fictional Peanuts universe to be part of our universe, using our physical ink and paper. If you are saying that we should believe in God because God made our universe part of his universe, how do we confirm that? Is there a way for us to look outside our universe to verify that it really is inside his? A claim one can't confirm can't form the basis of a persuasive argument.
How do the characters in a really awesome novel know if they are in last years New York times bestseller or if instead they are trapped in a story noone will ever think to write? How do they tell? If the characters in the story can't tell the difference, what makes you think we have any advantage over them? Maybe the unwritten story has no author and our uncreated universe has no creator?
- Login to post comments
Dude, seriously there's like 2 theist on this forum, but your wordy and fairly incoherent post says more about your obsessions than about your ability to form coherent arguments.
Are you asking a question? If you are asking a questions you ought to be able to tell me the difference between asking a question and not asking a question.
But seriously in all that babble is what you're really trying to ask, how do we tell the difference between a created universe and a non-created universe, rather than the existence of our universe?
And if it's still, about how can we tell the universe exists? Well I doubt many atheist here even doubt that. And we decipher it's existence, no differently that we decipher that you exists, or an apple exists in my hand right now, or a continent that i've never visited exists, and foreigners I never met exist.
As soon as one buys a naked assertion without investigation, they have fucked themselves which allows them to make up anything to justify the naked assertion.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
....I don't understand the point/question
I think he's trying to say that claiming, "God created the universe," isn't really an explanation of how the universe came to be since both "God" and God's methods are left undefined and labeled supernatural. What is God? How did he create the universe? These questions need to be answered in coherent, unambiguous terms.
Well, that's part of his argument. I'm not sure if I understand all of it.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Sorry I lost everyone. I'll see if I can explain it better.
First, my problem here has nothing to do with how one defines God. (I do have issues with that, but its not the topic of this thread.) My argument applies equally well to claiming that our universe is caused by a natural means such as a cosmic singularity. Now almost certainly, a rapid expansion was happening during the earliest moments of our universe. But that itself is a part of the universe, not a cause of it. It would be just as absurd to say a football is caused by the point at its end, or that a song is caused by its first note.
My problem here is with how people have been talking about existence.
My odd questions above were to illustrate why I can't see existence as a magical intrinsic property any possible world can have either granted or taken away from it (That leads to a mess of contradictions.) But that appears to be what a lot of people are implying God or nature did to our world. I likewise can't imagine God creating the prime numbers. Numbers are logical necessities, and no amount of divine pixie dust could ever change the fact.
The characters in a story have no way to know, and no reason to care, if their story is ever written or not. They'd still be in the same plots, saying and doing the same things after the story is written. (If not, then what was written is a different story than theirs - but we are talking about their story.) The writing of the story is not for their benefit, it's for our benefit, so that we'd gain from knowing their story. That is, the existence of Snoopy's world is not a fact about his world - it's a fact about our world, about our ability to look in on Snoopy's world through Schulz's art.Likewise, when you say our world exists, it appears to me that you are claiming a fact that is not even about our world. That's a claim that only has meaning if we are able to step outside of our world. If "our world exists" is not a fact about our world, how is it anything we can verify or refute? If it can't be verified, it shouldn't cause anyone any surprise, or lead anyone to demand an explanation.
Hmmm, you've presented some interesting ideas that I've never quite thought about in that way before. I'm still having a hard time wrapping my brain around it; I'll come back later and try to absorb more of it. Maybe somebody more knowledgeable like Bobspence or Todangst can add a different perspective to your OP.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
By the looks of your shirt, you want to kill yourself?..
I don't get it.
If you reply to this I'll take that as your accepting your own existence and refuse to join you in mental gymnastics over the question.
When a Christian says that God created the universe they mean that God supernaturally willed all of the material universe into existence out of nothing, admittedly defying many laws of the universe in the process which He was obviously not limited to as the Author of said laws.
This is clearly evidenced by His telling us in the Word of God.
I have my doubts that you will accept the truth of this, but you are now without confusion I hope.
May God save you.
Speaking Truth in love,
"We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ..." - Paul to the Corinthians
------
Christian | Amaterialist | Supernaturalist | Anti-Crypto-Theist
------
Facts do not speak for themselves.
Or you'll be late for school in the morning...
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
I'm not that lucky... Sadly, my future holds a Monday morning in Corporate America.
S'all good.
I think I will sleep though, thanks for the reminder bro.
Speaking Truth in love,
"We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ..." - Paul to the Corinthians
------
Christian | Amaterialist | Supernaturalist | Anti-Crypto-Theist
------
Facts do not speak for themselves.
"There is no God higher than truth." -Mahatma Ghandi
"When a Christian says that God created the universe they mean that God supernaturally willed all of the material universe into existence out of nothing, admittedly defying many laws of the universe in the process which He was obviously not limited to as the Author of said laws."
But in that view, the material universe is not the whole of everything. The greater universe in which God allegedly exists and in which the process of creating the material universe takes place, is itself left unexplained.
David Lewis explained in his book "On the Plurality of Worlds" that every possible (non contradictory) state of affairs defines a separate world, all of which exist (within the space of possibilities) out of logical necessity. Furthermore, that is the only sort of existence we can establish for our world. Our world can not have any detectable "magical property" making it more real than other possible worlds. The only thing special about our world, compared to alternate ways the world could be, is that this world is OUR world and alternatives to it are not ours. But our counterparts in an alternative possible world find THEIR world special, and ours not. The specialness of our world, in contrast to other possible worlds, is simply a consequence of our limited perspective.
In other words, we'd still experience everything the same as we experience, even if God did NOT choose to create our world; we'd still be a part of a consistent logical structure that God could have choose to create but didn't. All we can experience is the interrelationships between elements within the structure we are part of, and those interrelationships don't change when God does some alleged magic to "make a possible world became actual". Nothing in our experience can be used to prove our world ever went through a change from being a merely possibility to being a reality. As possible people we'd have the exact same experiences we have as actual people. In fact, all "actual" even means, is that something is part of the world we experience. Since by definition we are part of our own world, by definition we are actual. Our being actual does not depend on any magical "act of creation".
The term greater universe is of no use.
Universe:
Uni - One
Verse - Single spoken sentence
'In the beginning, God said...'
God exists outside of the material universe so you are right by saying that this universe is not the whole of everything... The idea of another universe like anything we could even possibly observe seems unfounded at best.
Speaking Truth in love,
"We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ..." - Paul to the Corinthians
------
Christian | Amaterialist | Supernaturalist | Anti-Crypto-Theist
------
Facts do not speak for themselves.
Just when I think you can't possibly come out with anything sillier, you surprise me again. This little gem is your new gold standard for the fabrication of evidence out of nothing.
Hey - maybe you are like god after all...
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Thankfully God is far beyond the best of us mortal men in many ways.
You can keep the gem, I got it from someone else anyway.
Speaking Truth in love,
"We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ..." - Paul to the Corinthians
------
Christian | Amaterialist | Supernaturalist | Anti-Crypto-Theist
------
Facts do not speak for themselves.
More thankfully, we have only the gods we fashion for ourselves. I've chosen to accept that the only thing in all of existence that comes anywhere near to a definition of god is myself. I choose my destiny. I face the conequences, good and bad, for my choices. I even have sway in those consequences, with the ability to accept or deny them, leading to further consequences. Noone can take my accomplishments or mistakes away from me unless I allow them to.
I AM.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
When man fashions a god for themselves or makes a god in their own image this is called idolatry. God takes it very seriously.
Can you choose a destiny that involves a reformation of all the land, returning the planet to perfection, etc? Of course not. The will of man is a joke when compared to God... your destiny is limited by many factors, God being the chief director.
You are right about your mistakes though, no mere man can take them away. That will be your dilemma on judgment day, only God was able to lift them from your soul and you denied Him all your days.
Speaking Truth in love,
"We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ..." - Paul to the Corinthians
------
Christian | Amaterialist | Supernaturalist | Anti-Crypto-Theist
------
Facts do not speak for themselves.
"When man fashions a god for themselves or makes a god in their own image this is called idolatry. God takes it very seriously."
I am not the least concerned. I don't worship myself by any strech, but I do know that nothing else comes closer that I've ever experienced.
"Can you choose a destiny that involves a reformation of all the land, returning the planet to perfection, etc?"
I might. History is filled with the names of men and women who changed the world. Would my acts last forever? They never do. Am I lord over everyone? No, only myself. Everyone chooses their own "god" or better termed: "hero" in a way. Some choose miley cyrus, some choose jesus. I choose me.
"Of course not. The will of man is a joke when compared to God... your destiny is limited by many factors, God being the chief director."
A director directs. The seat is vacant. My destiny is limited. I can't grow wings and fly. But I don't claim omnipotence. My life is filled with interactions that will live on centuries after I'm dead.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
"You are right about your mistakes though, no mere man can take them away. That will be your dilemma on judgment day, only God was able to lift them from your soul and you denied Him all your days."
If god exists, and is truly loving, then he will judge me for what I am, not what I believe. And if his judgement finds me lacking, then we have nothing in common anyway. Oblivion is what I expect. Not your afterlife that never ends.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Accept my 'self-evident' dogma or burn in hell forever - nyah, nyah, nyah, nyahhhh, nyah.
You know, one of this site's rules is thou shalt not make threats against other posters but here we have the heart of your doctrine and like your tawdry belief system, it vibrates with an implicit threat.
Go away eXni.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
I notice that none of the recent comments even attempt to address the point I was actually making.
Sorry Otishpote
I guess that's a typical thread for you. Part of the issue is that most atheists here aren't going to disagree with you even if they don't entirely understand everything you're saying. There's this universe and no others, so far as we can know.
The theists who have so far visited the thread are unwilling to chase you down your rabbit hole, preferring to suggest that god made the world because it says so in the bible while contending the bible is axiomatic truth because it was written by god. We also have at least one threat of hellfire if you don't embrace this whirlpool of circular logic. Congratulations on your imminent demise.
I think your posts 6 and 12 include a series of extremely interesting points that I, far more than ButterBattle, am not sure what to make of. I can kind of follow you and I like what you're suggesting in that our very existence in this universe itself proves a lack of need for god, or for a magical creative force, but I don't have anything clever to say that extends the breadth of your own lateral thinking. It's going to require brainboxes like Butter, BobSpence or HisWillness to get into this further with you.
Love the shirt, BTW. Do you wear it out of the house?
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
I tend to agree with your points, and didn't have much if anything to add to the discussion until my chew toy dropped by. Sorry.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Out of respect for the poster, this will be my last reply regardless of how much your reply tempts me to comment...
It's not that people will go to Hell because they didn't do 'enough' good, it will because they never did anything good. It's impossible to please God without faith. The only reason unbelievers do what appears to us as 'good' at all is because God chooses to use them in that way. All good comes from God. The problem is that the unbeliever is not motivated by a love of God or the desire to see Him honored by their deeds, so despite the appearance of good, evil is hiding itself inside the deed.
And I am not in a position to threaten anyone with Hell... It's a Biblical promise, not a threat. If by explaining my beliefs without compromise is breaking the rules then I apologize and will certainly accept the due punishement of merely presenting truth...
Speaking Truth in love,
"We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ..." - Paul to the Corinthians
------
Christian | Amaterialist | Supernaturalist | Anti-Crypto-Theist
------
Facts do not speak for themselves.
"Out of respect for the poster, this will be my last reply regardless of how much your reply tempts me to comment..."
Why do they always give up so quickly...
"It's not that people will go to Hell because they didn't do 'enough' good, it will because they never did anything good." (I cut the rest to fit in one post)
Well to start, I said nothing about deeds, I spoke of who and what I am. It was my understanding that you hardcore christians didn't acknowledge deeds as having anything to do with gods judgement.
To conclude, I've done plenty of good in my life. And plenty of evil too, but more good than bad. On your cosmic scales, I'm more christian than most christians, truly believing in doing unto others what you'd like them to do unto you. If my lack of belief in your god itself is the deciding factor, then your god is evil for requiring a test I'm literally incapable of passing, yet creating me despite having the knowledge of this.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.