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How did god create the universe?
April 18, 2014 at 2:46 am
(This post was last modified: April 18, 2014 at 2:48 am by Freedom of thought.)
Often god is the explanation for the existence of the universe by people of faith, but even if you accept something like the cosmological argument you still have another question to deal with: How did god create the universe, if he indeed did create it? And if you don't know how god can create a universe, how can you seriously accept god as an explanation? You're replacing the question we don't know the answer to: "How did the universe come into existence?". With another question: "How did god make the universe come into existence?". A mystery is replaced with another mystery that we will never know.
A common answer to this question would probably be: "God is omnipotent, he can do anything, he willed it into existence". So what if he's omnipotent, and so what if he willed it into existence? How could he 'will' it into existence? This sounds more like magic than a serious explanation. At least scientific models of the universe can explain 'how' it got to where it is, if you propose god (and your argument is successful, which it isn't) it's only explaining 'what' got our universe here. If god indeed did create our universe, we will never find an explanation for how the universe got here. Because who could possibly know? Only god can know right? Thus god can never be considered a satisfying explanation.
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RE: How did god create the universe?
April 18, 2014 at 5:16 am
(April 18, 2014 at 2:46 am)Freedom of thought Wrote: Often god is the explanation for the existence of the universe by people of faith, but even if you accept something like the cosmological argument you still have another question to deal with: How did god create the universe, if he indeed did create it? And if you don't know how god can create a universe, how can you seriously accept god as an explanation? You're replacing the question we don't know the answer to: "How did the universe come into existence?". With another question: "How did god make the universe come into existence?". A mystery is replaced with another mystery that we will never know.
A common answer to this question would probably be: "God is omnipotent, he can do anything, he willed it into existence". So what if he's omnipotent, and so what if he willed it into existence? How could he 'will' it into existence? This sounds more like magic than a serious explanation. At least scientific models of the universe can explain 'how' it got to where it is, if you propose god (and your argument is successful, which it isn't) it's only explaining 'what' got our universe here. If god indeed did create our universe, we will never find an explanation for how the universe got here. Because who could possibly know? Only god can know right? Thus god can never be considered a satisfying explanation.
If we're going all theistic about the origin of the universe, I confess to being fond of the Douglas Adams theory:
The universe was sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure, and we should all live in fear of the time of the coming of The Big White Handkerchief.
Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
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RE: How did god create the universe?
April 18, 2014 at 6:58 am
"God" isn't an answer to any scientific question. The only real answer to origins is that we don't know.
The theological first cause argument posits a singularity. Yet another theological argument posits a non time delimited dimension: God is permanently extant. Ultimately none of these satisfy the something from nothing question.
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RE: How did god create the universe?
April 18, 2014 at 7:00 am
I don't even know what a god is.
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RE: How did god create the universe?
April 18, 2014 at 7:56 am
God made the world with WORDS.
This is one reason why we will give account for every useless word, and by our words we will be justified or by our words we will be condemned.