[MEGA] God

[alostlittlebird]

the universe, an illusionary wrapped up package, assumed to begin, to end, to contain and to exist - because the human mind has an easier time imagining the goldfish in a bowl - but first i would think you'd need to know what the universe is, what god is, before you can suppose how they originated

can we even wrap our minds around that?

 

[psychoblast]

Well, I've often thought the one logical dilemma, for me at least, was the following set of what I perceive as truths:

1. Something cannot come from nothing (i.e., appear without cause).
2. Everything is caused by something else.
3. If we trace the causal chain backwards from now, it cannot be infinite. If it were infinite, then the causal chain would never have gotten to now (i.e., if you start counting from minus infinite to zero, you will never reach zero).
4. We have gotten to now, therefore the causal chain that precedes now must be finite, it must have a beginning.
5. If there is a beginning, then that means there is a cause that, itself, spontaneously came into existence (i.e., appeared without cause).
6. But something cannot come from nothing.

This is obviously a contradictory set of perceived truths. As near as I can figure, either the causal chain DOES go back forever (yet somehow still reached now) or at some time something did come from nothing.

The more I reflect on the idea of there ever being "nothing" the more I see that that is the true impossibility. Nothing can't ever have existed because the very concept of existence presumes a thing existing. I mean, you try to picture nothing existing, and you picture a big black empty universe, but that is not nothing, because if nothing existed, then the blackness would be gone, the bigness would be gone. When you erase absolutely everything, you see how it is particularly unthinkable for such nothingness to ever spawn something.

So, choosing the lesser of two evils, I must concede that something has always existed and you can trace the causal chain of existence back forever. I don't know how this is possible, but I think it must be.

~psychoblast~

 

[ff3mwg]

the super toaster exploded with a shower of the most perfectly toasted particles that had ever existed

^^^trying explaining that one out of context, eh?

I like what space_dolphin brought up about humans having an exceptional potential for understanding as part of nature's way to survive unexpected situations. Most humans try to assert explanations for the mysterious just because it is in our best interest to do so, as part of our superior evolution.
But do the explanations matter? Does coming to certain conclusions about the 'spiritual' world give some sort of essential satisfaction? Any insights you gain about 'god' etc. are probably false (not that they can be verified), because our brains don't exist outside of the traditional time-space realm. Essentially, 'god' wouldn't be able to explain itself to us.
I feel that the best way to be a spiritual person is to study the sciences to great lengths (as much as you want to until you get bored or senile, I guess? ). Then you feel personally connected to the wonders of nature and the universe, and you can be in great awe of them. Explanations for the metaphysical need not apply.

 

[Tr6ai0ls4]

3. If we trace the causal chain backwards from now, it cannot be infinite. If it were infinite, then the causal chain would never have gotten to now (i.e., if you start counting from minus infinite to zero, you will never reach zero).
4. We have gotten to now, therefore the causal chain that precedes now must be finite, it must have a beginning.


I think the problem with that reasoning is that it takes on the axiom of time being something which is measurable to 100% accuracy and that there is some sort of actual precise unit of measurement for time. Stop thinking of time in the context of it being split up into an infinite amount of seperate moments which are each 0 seconds long, and think of it as a singularity and you no longer have this problem. If time is a singularity there is no need to get to now. Its just always now, no matter when it is.

If you still want split the singularity of time into moments, you lose precision, and some momentary instances are left unnacounted for. Its like trying to say that time has some sort of frame rate and if you were able to take a video camera that can capture every single moment of whats happening if you were to slow it down enough it would appear as though reality is skipping frame by frame by frame. Does that sound as stupid to you as it does to me? The only way to split it up into moments is if all moments had a value of 0. Meaning they wouldnt' take up any space in time. 0 second long moments.

I think the same applies to spatial dimensions, but i'll just leave that alone for now, because I have not yet been able to me to explain it to anybody successfully. Its just a ridiculously confusing concept.

 

[trippingmonkey]

i think god is drumnbass

 

[rewiiired]

^
Here, here.

and:

Personally i think that the first cause is one of these issues, it could be too complex for an organic mind to comprehend.

No, the illusion of beginnings/ends are pretty easy for a human mind to comprehend. Look at books. The 12-month calandar. The 24 hour day split up into 12 hours. 365 days a year. Right and wrong, birth and death, good and evil, sleep and waking. As a matter of fact, I'd say we place these definite limitations on our perceptions of the world in order to make the world seem more comprehensible from our perspective. Without them we'd be in a mess of chaos. So god as a first cause, a big bang as the beginning of everything, the big crunch as the end, the fucking apocolypse, it's all the same to me. Limitations we place on the unvierse with our minds. `Dead End' signs or street names. Chapters. I think it's much more difficult for a human beginning to concieve of no end, no beginning. I think our dualistic concepts have more to do with the limitations of the human mind -- that the idea of god and a definite beginning were instinctively created because we need to think that everything began somewhere. But we say everything began somewhere, or with somewho, and don't apply the same questions that lead us to determine that never-before-proven somewhere/who exists to somewhere/somewho him/her/itself. We don't answer questions through belieiving in a god, the idea of god explains nothing. What we do by believing in god is throw all our questions to one central point and then secretly label questioning that point an act of raping the sacred; we instinctively find it a threat to the fundamental basis of all that is.

The first cause is a simple issue: it makes no fucking sense at all. Not one solitary shred of sense. There is not one good reason to believe in a god. And there is not anything pessimistic or dreary about a godless, beginningless, endless universe.

All the pain will never be gone, all the questions won't ever be answered. No god is going to save you. Get over it. Insipid ideas like the cosmological argument aren't going to change that.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Picture a circle, everything inside the circle represents all the knowledge humanity has. Anything that exists outside the circle may or may not exist, we have no knowledge of it, therefore we can not say. It is extremely possible to draw a dot outside the circle and name it God, which makes an unprovable statment that God may or may not exist. Not only that, but the answer to the question and theory stated in the first post also may be a dot that lies somewhere outside the circle of knowledge. Therefore anything and everything we know has no way of understanding it or knowing it. It is unlikely that with our unfathomably small amount of knowledge we should be able to deduce the causality and "purpose" of the universe, or a being referred to as "God."

 

[JerryBlunted]

The first cause is a simple issue: it makes no fucking sense at all. Not one solitary shred of sense. There is not one good reason to believe in a god. And there is not anything pessimistic or dreary about a godless, beginningless, endless universe.

All the pain will never be gone, all the questions won't ever be answered. No god is going to save you. Get over it. Insipid ideas like the cosmological argument aren't going to change that.

Your assertion that there is not one good reason to believe in god is pretty subjective and I'd personally say it is false. Arguments like the cosmological argument are never going to prove or disprove the existence of something transcendent like a theistic god, should he/she/it actually exist. But, because you can't construct an argument following the rules of symbolic logic to prove something doesn't necessarily disprove it. Can you prove the existence of consciousness, love, hate, or any of the other myriad ineffable elements of our subjective existances? No, but I'd be willing to bet these things actually do exist.

You seem to presuppose that a person's belief or at least openness to the possibility of a conscious creative principle or figure automatically is related to a need to be saved. I'd be willing to bet there are many people who are interested in answers to questions like that who aren't appealing to some cosmic parental figure to put their lives in order.

With all this said, I was going to post Hume's critical analysis of the cosmological argument, but I forgot I gave me philosophy of religion textbook to a girl I know so I can't do that. However, I bet you can look it up on the internet if anyone is interested in hearing what that ball buster has to say about it.

 

[Stasis]

Your assertion that there is not one good reason to believe in god is pretty subjective and I'd personally say it is false.

And that good reason is?

 

[psychoblast]

Symbolic logic CAN disprove the existence of God. It goes like this:

1. God = ?
2. Does ? exist?
3. Well, unless you define "?" it is meaningless to say "? exists.
4. So the existence of God is meaningless.

Well, that doesn't disprove the existence of God, so much as the meaningfullness of God's existence, which I think is close enough.

Alternatively, there IS one good proof for the existence of God. It goes like this:

1. Beings in the universe have varying degrees of intelligence, goodness, universal love, power, lifespans, and all other characteristics that are commonly ascribed to God.
2. So some beings are more intelligent, good, loving, powerful, long-lived, etc. than others and some are less.
3. Somewhere in the universe is a being who, based on whatever characteristics you ascribe to "god" and the importance you attach to each godly characteristic, there is a being who exists and is the most "god-like".
4. We can call this being God.
5. This being exists, as defined in step 4.

I call this the "somewhere there is a biggest chicken" proof of God. Essentially, this means God is, by definition, the most god-like being that exists. I believe in this being. (In fact, I believe there are many beings who fit this bill, depending on all the variable ways you could perceive what characteristics make a being "god-like".)

~psychoblast~

 

[Stasis]

I call this the "somewhere there is a biggest chicken" proof of God.

Sorry, I ate this god today, with a side of mashed potatoes.

 

[JerryBlunted]

And that good reason is?

Engagement with the subjective, experiential, mystical aspects of religious consciousness. This is a personal thing, and doesn't do well when you try to describe it within the bounds of normal language. Mystical writers have tended instead of trying to describe what "it" is, to describe what "it" is not. This is called apophatic theology. Mystical experience does not break down into symbolic logic. You can't represent an affectual state as a series of mathematical statements (at least not at the level of understanding we currently possess of mathematics).

The basic premise is that ultimate reality, whatever it may be, is beyond the limits of our current state of consciousness which insists on quantifying, categorizing and dissecting aspects of our field of perception. Most of the people who advocate this style of religious thinking would most likely be emphatic in their denial of God in the traditional theistic sense, however.

I think the paternal figure sitting on a throne out somewhere in the clouds is obviously not a literal reality. Well, I shouldn't say obviously as there are a lot of people who don't see things that way. However, the denial of a theistic God does not preclude belief in the actuality of a nontheistic God. I've seen this often referred to as "the ground of being" or "godhead" or "unitive consciousness." This fits the criteria for "God" only if you qualify god as the greatest, most all encompassing being in existence. Not if you go by the theistic characteristics of omnipotence, omnipresence, all good, infallible, etc.

As for psychoblast's "proof:"

1. God = ?
2. Does ? exist?
3. Well, unless you define "?" it is meaningless to say "? exists.
4. So the existence of God is meaningless.


I would answer with:

1. God = ?
2. ? = the subjective experience of mystery
3. subjective experience of mystery = undefinable in objective terms
4. God = undefinable in objective terms
5. That which is undefinable is not inherently false or meaningless
6. The concept of God is neither inherently false nor meaningless
7. The concept of God is a mystery, meaning any number of possible answers can be correct.

Obviously that is a pretty sloppy way to say all of that, which basically boils down to: The existence of God is a mystery. A mystery does not mean something is meaningless, it means it is unknown. Perhaps this type of knowledge is beyond out current limits of understanding, perhaps there really is no God. Without any additional evidence this matter cannot be resolved in a formal, logical, objective manner. However, the existence or nonexistence of God is a pressing matter in the course of a human lifetime. Your stance on this issue will effect how you think and feel about various situations, people, and occurrences in your lifetime. So you must make a decision or at least entertain one or more possible perspectives. In the absence of concrete factual information it is allowable to use personal intuition, subjective experience, and unprovable beliefs to guide one's life.

Another good reason to believe in God is the psychological evidence that having faith in some spiritual or transcendent beliefs is correlated with longer life and higher quality of life. There are many possible confounds in that type of correlational research, and of course correlation does not equal causation. But, nonetheless, it does seem to be a positive force in the lives of many people. If religion is not for you thats all well and good, but clearly for the vast majority of human existence it has been a very important and central aspect of life.

 

[rewiiired]

Your assertion that there is not one good reason to believe in god is pretty subjective and I'd personally say it is false.

Subjective assertion versus subjective assertion. I see this argument getting somewhere. Really.

 

[WhyzFool]

psychoblast, are you saying that god is defined by the grandeur of its characteristics? If so, we are the ones who label and define characteristics, so whom or whatever we characterize as god will simply be that which sufficiently fits our expectations for god, which may or may not be god (aka ultimate truth).

how do you define a degree, or a maximum, or a minimum for that matter? what about characteristics that we are unaware or ignorant of? Ultimately, most of the characteristics we think of when pondering the question of a higher being are human characteristics viewed from a human perspective.

the problem i find in the biggest chicken argument is that we assume that (a) there are a bunch of smaller chickens (b) we have the ability to discern the size of the chickens accurately (c) god can be defined (d) we know what a "chicken" is (chicken representing the fundamental description of a being).

not to say that your argument isn't rational, because it is, but that logic in general is insufficient for discovering ultimate truth because of axioms (assumptions) that create a false foundation for logic that are based on agreed subjective observations.

I think that if we approach the question of god with expectations, we will fail to see the truth, because we have already defined it in our minds.

In short, how can you fill your cup if it is already full?

 

[JerryBlunted]

Subjective assertion versus subjective assertion. I see this argument getting somewhere. Really.

Well, the assertion that religion is correlated with longevity and healthier lifestyles isn't subjective. That got somewhere. Besides, I wasn't trying to argue for the existence of God, I was arguing against the assertion that there is no good reason to believe in God. There ARE reasons to do so, whether they are correct or not is at this point entirely subjective as there is no possible objective process to determine one way or the other.

But, if you are so concerned about this argument "getting somewhere" why did you present your subjective experience or views as though they meant something more?

 

[psychoblast]

If "God" is not objectively defined, how do you know when you find him / see him / experience him? Maybe what you THINK is God will turn out to be his younger brother Hank, who is also very powerful but not quite right in the head.

~psychoblast~

 

[WhyzFool]

^^^ nice one.

 

[goatyoghurt]

I must say that when I posted this thread I thought that the argument was damn near infallible (especially how my philosophy tutor explained it), but now I see the flaws in it I would appreciate it if someone posted more about Hume's critique of the argument or told me which book I could find it in

 

[JerryBlunted]

goatyoghurt = I wish I still had the book I read it in (Introduction to a Philosophy of Religion, I don't remember the author's name). But, I bet you can find this on google or yahoo very quickly:


keywords: hume AND cosmological


He has pretty solid replies for all the traditional arguments for the existence of God except the teleological argument (the universe is orderly reflecting the mind of an orderly creator), in my humble opinion. But, Hume is also a reductionist and positivist of the worst sort (that which can't be measured is irrelevant or worse nonexistant), be warned he will probably frustrate the hell out of you.

 

[goatyoghurt]

Thanks, I'm actually looking forward to it, I enrolled in Philosophy of Religion for next semester, so I can't wait