Who created god?

[smax]

Godschild,

Right on schedule, buddy. Right on schedule.

---

Anyway, the question is still out there for anyone who would like to try and make a compelling argument. So far we've got:

1. God is an immense magical being
2. God is eternity

With all due respect, these answers are not compelling, at least not by themselves. No comparative or supporting argument has been provided.

Not only that, but these arguments are contradict the notion that something can come from nothing. You'll have to do better than "that reasoning doesn't apply to god". That's convenient and selective reasoning.

[Gabriel Syme]

you must also conclude that god's existence is evidence of his creator.

No we don't need to conclude that.

God is the source, the "first mover". God has no creator - God 'just exists'. The same way that truth 'just exists'. (indeed, truth is an aspect of God).

Now, If you dont accept that God just exists, then you are essentially saying that we "just exist" - which is the exact same position (applied to a different subject) and which requires the exact same leap of faith.

And it would obviously be the height of ridiculousness to suggest that flawed, ignorant, weak, mortal men can "just exist" but "God" (and everything that noun implies) cannot.

God exists, my good fellow - like so many on here, you are just going to have to deal with it.

(Saint) Thomas Aquinas dealt with this topic quite magnificently, back in the 11th century. All logic and reason point to God, (Like truth, these are aspects of God), there is no escape.

[pocaracas]

Now, If you dont accept that God just exists, then you are essentially saying that we "just exist" - which is the exact same position (applied to a different subject) and which requires the exact same leap of faith.

There's no faith in saying that "I exist". I have 5 senses that relay the information of my existence to myself. None of them fails at this.
All of them fail at telling me this god thing exists.

[Gabriel Syme]

There's no faith in saying that "I exist". I have 5 senses that relay the information of my existence to myself. None of them fails at this.

You misunderstand.

The leap of faith isnt saying you exist - we know we exist, of course - the leap of faith I mention is asserting that humanity exists without a creator.

The OP attacks the religious for saying God has no creator - but then, every atheist alive says they themselves have no creator

Too funny!

[ideologue08]

Godschild,

Right on schedule, buddy. Right on schedule.

---

Anyway, the question is still out there for anyone who would like to try and make a compelling argument. So far we've got:

1. God is an immense magical being
2. God is eternity

With all due respect, these answers are not compelling, at least not by themselves. No comparative or supporting argument has been provided.

Not only that, but these arguments are contradict the notion that something can come from nothing. You'll have to do better than "that reasoning doesn't apply to god". That's convenient and selective reasoning.

What about Imam Gazali's argument that the universe must have a Creator since everything within it has a cause and was created from something else. Yet we don't know the nature of such a Creator so we are not in a position to judge whether or not it has its own Creator. We also have no reason to assume that there is more than one Creator, hence it is imperative to believe in One Creator. (I don't use this argument myself but I do find it intriguing).

[pocaracas]

huh... my parents created me.
Their parents created them... and so on and so on...
Humanity came into being through a process, at least, very similar to the one that has been called "evolution by natural selection". Look it up, the interwebz is full with stuff about it.

Having possession of this naturalistic explanation, why do you require the assumption of a god thing to "create" humanity?

[Gabriel Syme]

huh... my parents created me.
Their parents created them... and so on and so on...

Having possession of this naturalistic explanation, why do you require the assumption of a god thing to "create" humanity?

You are only describing the mechanics of procreation here - how life works. Looking back at previous generations gives us a chain of our personal ancestry, but it tells us nothing as to where humanity, life, everything came from to begin with, or why.

We know the Universe had a beginning (big bang) - mainly thanks to a Catholic priest, Georges Lemaitre, who was also an astronomer and professor of physics. Prior to him, scientists thought the Universe had always existed, ("Universe as God", if you will).

Selected quotes:

According to the Big Bang theory, the expansion of the observable universe began with the explosion of a single particle at a definite point in time. This startling idea first appeared in scientific form in 1931, in a paper by Georges Lemaître, a Belgian cosmologist and Catholic priest.

The theory, accepted by nearly all astronomers today, was a radical departure from scientific orthodoxy in the 1930s. Many astronomers at the time were still uncomfortable with the idea that the universe is expanding. That the entire observable universe of galaxies began with a bang seemed preposterous.

It is tempting to think that Lemaître’s deeply-held religious beliefs might have led him to the notion of a beginning of time. After all, the Judeo-Christian tradition had propagated a similar idea for millennia. (my edit - the similar idea being that the universe came into existence via a creation event).

Yet Lemaître clearly insisted that there was neither a connection nor a conflict between his religion and his science. Rather he kept them entirely separate, treating them as different, parallel interpretations of the world, both of which he believed with personal conviction. Indeed, when Pope Pius XII referred to the new theory of the origin of the universe as a scientific validation of the Catholic faith, Lemaître was rather alarmed

http://www.amnh.org/education/resources/...aitre.html

I like how he described how he thought of science and religion, as "parallel interpretations of the world". Of course they are. More crudely, I suppose you could say that "science = how, religion = why".

Anyway, you can only keep deferring the question of our origins back to the big bang, and there you must finally confront it. It is not (should not be) intellectually satisfying to the free thinker to simply stop at the big bang and wonder no more.

In addition to knowing how things happened, we should also seek to discover/understand why they happened, because there are massive implications from this: eg how we regard and understand ourselves as human beings, our priorities, our consideration of what life means, the types of lives we lead etc etc.

Thinking about the big bang:

- something cannot come from nothing, basic logic

- even the laws of science require an environment to exist in

- whatever stimulus caused the big bang must have come from outside our own universe, given our own universe didn't exist yet.

And every argument which states the universe / life / whatever "just exists" is always infinitely less plausible than "God" "just existing".

Cheers
GS

[pocaracas]

huh... my parents created me.
Their parents created them... and so on and so on...

Having possession of this naturalistic explanation, why do you require the assumption of a god thing to "create" humanity?

You are only describing the mechanics of procreation here - how life works. Looking back at previous generations gives us a chain of our personal ancestry, but it tells us nothing as to where humanity, life, everything came from to begin with, or why.

There was once a huge computer built for the purpose of answering that.
The answer is remarkably simple: 42

---

We know the Universe had a beginning (big bang) - mainly thanks to a Catholic priest, Georges Lemaitre, who was also an astronomer and professor of physics. Prior to him, scientists thought the Universe had always existed, ("Universe as God", if you will).

Selected quotes:

According to the Big Bang theory, the expansion of the observable universe began with the explosion of a single particle at a definite point in time. This startling idea first appeared in scientific form in 1931, in a paper by Georges Lemaître, a Belgian cosmologist and Catholic priest.

The theory, accepted by nearly all astronomers today, was a radical departure from scientific orthodoxy in the 1930s. Many astronomers at the time were still uncomfortable with the idea that the universe is expanding. That the entire observable universe of galaxies began with a bang seemed preposterous.

It is tempting to think that Lemaître’s deeply-held religious beliefs might have led him to the notion of a beginning of time. After all, the Judeo-Christian tradition had propagated a similar idea for millennia. (my edit - the similar idea being that the universe came into existence via a creation event).

Yet Lemaître clearly insisted that there was neither a connection nor a conflict between his religion and his science. Rather he kept them entirely separate, treating them as different, parallel interpretations of the world, both of which he believed with personal conviction. Indeed, when Pope Pius XII referred to the new theory of the origin of the universe as a scientific validation of the Catholic faith, Lemaître was rather alarmed

http://www.amnh.org/education/resources/...aitre.html

I like how he described how he thought of science and religion, as "parallel interpretations of the world". Of course they are. More crudely, I suppose you could say that "science = how, religion = why".

Anyway, you can only keep deferring the question of our origins back to the big bang, and there you must finally confront it. It is not (should not be) intellectually satisfying to the free thinker to simply stop at the big bang and wonder no more.

In addition to knowing how things happened, we should also seek to discover/understand why they happened, because there are massive implications from this: eg how we regard and understand ourselves as human beings, our priorities, our consideration of what life means, the types of lives we lead etc etc.

---

Thinking about the big bang:

- something cannot come from nothing, basic logic

- even the laws of science require an environment to exist in

- whatever stimulus caused the big bang must have come from outside our own universe, given our own universe didn't exist yet.

And every argument which states the universe / life / whatever "just exists" is always infinitely less plausible than "God" "just existing".

Cheers
GS

The big bang is a singularity... we have no way of knowing what happened before it, if there was a before.
"something cannot come from nothing", if you assume all that you know about conservation of energy and mass.... but the big bang, being a singularity, can violate this principle... how, we don't know, but there seems to be a hint in this book.

If there was no time before the big bang, then you cannot speak of a stimulus that causes the big bang... there was no before.
If there was time, then there was something.... and perhaps, as our Universe was created, another anti-Universe was also created, thus leaving the overall energy equal to that prior to the big bang, or ZERO.

Religion just presupposes a divine entity (conceived during the iron age, a time when people thought the stars were tiny dots in the firmament just beyond the planets of the Solar system) which then answers any "why" questions you may have on any subject.... wow, forgive me if I don't think it's a valid reasoning....
Still looks a lot like a god-of-the-gaps argument, to me.

[Darkstar]

God is the source, the "first mover". God has no creator - God 'just exists'. The same way that truth 'just exists'. (indeed, truth is an aspect of God).

Truth is a concept, not a sentient being.

Now, If you dont accept that God just exists, then you are essentially saying that we "just exist" - which is the exact same position (applied to a different subject) and which requires the exact same leap of faith.

And it would obviously be the height of ridiculousness to suggest that flawed, ignorant, weak, mortal men can "just exist" but "God" (and everything that noun implies) cannot.

That actually sounds a lot like an argument I have used against god...in reverse. Would it not be the height of ridiculousness to suggest that flawed mortal men cannot "just exist" but "God" can? I mean, would you expect disorganized atoms (that eventually, through understood processes came to form the universe as we know it today) to be unable to exist without a creator, but a being of infinite power can?

One could try to say that because he has infinite power, he doesn't need a creator, but one would have to presuppose his existence in order for him to have any known properties. You are in effect saying that he is responsible for his own existence, which is logically impossible.

[smax]

No we don't need to conclude that.

I should have better qualified that. You can either conclude that or continue being deluded.

I'll consider another possibility the moment a logical, rational, and compelling one is presented.

At this point, the only position that is intellectually compelling is that all things require a cause.

God is the source, the "first mover". God has no creator - God 'just exists'. The same way that truth 'just exists'. (indeed, truth is an aspect of God).

Truth is a term, one created by human beings.

Now, If you dont accept that God just exists, then you are essentially saying that we "just exist" - which is the exact same position (applied to a different subject) and which requires the exact same leap of faith.

That's not a sound deduction at all. I don't feel that we do "just exist". I feel there is a cause to our existence. Mine is just a far more plausible and rational one, and I accept the holes for what they are: holes.

It's arrogant to assume that you can fill holes without a reasonable amount of knowledge, information, and reason to do so.

In that arrogance, you, and your predecessors, assert god. But not just one, clearly defined god, which might lend a little credibility to the matter. No, literally millions of gods have been introduced during the course of human history.

If there truly were a personal god that revealed himself to men, surely there would not be so much confusion about who he really is.

And it would obviously be the height of ridiculousness to suggest that flawed, ignorant, weak, mortal men can "just exist" but "God" (and everything that noun implies) cannot.

Absolutely, only human beings don't just exist. All the evidence points to an seemingly endless number of causes.

Nothing about existence suggests a non-contingent singular cause.

God exists, my good fellow - like so many on here, you are just going to have to deal with it.

Damn! And I was hoping you wouldn't realize the trick is simply to declare as much!

Now it's so.

Well, I'm off to purchase a statue of budda. That's the way to go, right?

(Saint) Thomas Aquinas dealt with this topic quite magnificently, back in the 11th century. All logic and reason point to God, (Like truth, these are aspects of God), there is no escape.

You had me at "Saint". Now that's credibilty for you!