The problem is imho that these proposals, insofar they are concrete enough to even be addressed, only shift the problem. Creating something is a uniquely temporal concept which we have formed based on various observations in our universe. To be able to say that this universe itself is created in its entirety, including our time itself, one needs another concept of time to which this creation refers. One can then ask the same thing of that 'divine' time, where did it come from. Most answers though are vague and merely repeat the question with more words. None I've seen scrolling through really address the issue what it could possibly mean to say that a creator god exists outside time - and precise clarification is needed or otherwise the statement is meaningless.

And more importantly, where the hell any of this "knowledge" came from.

(December 1, 2015 at 11:13 am)Catholic_Lady Wrote:

(December 1, 2015 at 11:09 am)Judi Lynn Wrote: *bold mine*
You said: 

Don't you think that a belief is a behavior? If so, then the part of your quote that I bolded, makes no sense and has no relevancy. Furthermore, you go on to ask questions that have nothing to do, as you say, with the OP's question of who created the creator.

You can't argue that my questioning someone's behaviors aren't on topic when you did the same thing. I"ll put my responses to your questions below for reference so you get it. 

1. Making the assumption that god is perfect doesn't answer the "who created the creator question".
2. This still doesn't answer the question about who created the creator. 
3, 4 and 5 have nothing to do with the "who created the creator" question. 

It would appear that you may feel that my questions aren't justified enough to be asked because they deal with behaviors of christians, which, not surprisingly, you don't want to address. But you seem to feel that YOUR questions carry more merit, when in reality, your questions don't address the OP either. 

Let that marinate.

Hm? I guess I don't follow. Your first post to me seemed to go on a rant about Christians shoving their beliefs down people's throats. I didn't really see how that fit in with me answering the OP's question in regards to whether or not the "who created God argument" was convincing to a theist.

Well, it wasn't a rant. The first part, if anyone has been paying attention to social media memes and discussions on forums pertaining to religion and beliefs have merit to them, otherwise I wouldn't have mentioned it. The latter half, well, those were four statements, the first two of which have actual facts backing them up. The other two are pause for discussion. But I guess discussion on a discussion board is out of the question? 

As with many threads in these forums, getting slightly off topic (or even derailing all together) is par for the course. 

And I didn't address it before because I was getting ready for court, but your first reply to me, you answered no. I'm curious as to what that was for given I didn't directly ask a question.

Even if their logic was sound (spoiler alert: it's not) I don't see how it leads to monotheistic deism. Everything doesn't require a creator. Pretty much everything requires multiple creators. One person might have made a painting, but someone else made the paint and another the paintbrush. This argument seems more one for polytheism to me.

(December 1, 2015 at 1:26 pm)CapnAwesome Wrote: Even if their logic was sound (spoiler alert: it's not) I don't see how it leads to monotheistic deism. Everything doesn't require a creator. Pretty much everything requires multiple creators. One person might have made a painting, but someone else made the paint and another the paintbrush. This argument seems more one for polytheism to me.

I can already see the argument against that brewing now. It would go something like this: 

But the paint and the paintbrush were made by people who were made by the creator. And if machines made the paint and the paintbrush, then it was people who made the machines that made those things. So ultimately it comes back to being made by people, who were made by the creator.

All in all, the usual circular word-salad bs.

(December 1, 2015 at 1:54 pm)Judi Lynn Wrote:

(December 1, 2015 at 1:26 pm)CapnAwesome Wrote: Even if their logic was sound (spoiler alert: it's not) I don't see how it leads to monotheistic deism. Everything doesn't require a creator. Pretty much everything requires multiple creators. One person might have made a painting, but someone else made the paint and another the paintbrush. This argument seems more one for polytheism to me.

I can already see the argument against that brewing now. It would go something like this: 

But the paint and the paintbrush were made by people who were made by the creator. And if machines made the paint and the paintbrush, then it was people who made the machines that made those things. So ultimately it comes back to being made by people, who were made by the creator.

All in all, the usual circular word-salad bs.

Yeah, I wish Christians would just be honest and say 'I believe it because I believe it." Leave it at that and leave logic alone.

(December 1, 2015 at 11:05 am)Catholic_Lady Wrote:

(December 1, 2015 at 11:00 am)Quantum Wrote: Sure, you can postulate that. God looking upon our timeline all at once kind of as we do on space, but infinitely far in all directions. Then, God could for example have its own time in which it operates and does stuff. Better yet, if the laws of our universe turn out to be deterministic, a timeline is not even necessary, as a snapshot of the state of our universe at one time contains all there is to know about our universe and its past and future.

I really don't understand why you guys have such a need to ridicule another person's beliefs. I could have just not taken the time to answer your question.

Because the specific belief in question had a long and immensely lamentable track record of attempting to stomping on all other beliefs, by hook or by crook, in order to aggrandize itself, while unable to provide even a single significant piece of evidence that any one of its own tenants is even just slightly more than trivially possible.

(December 1, 2015 at 10:17 am)Catholic_Lady Wrote:

(December 1, 2015 at 7:12 am)Quantum Wrote: So He had literally an infinite time to think about what to do, and this universe is what He came up with one day? I guess after waiting for an infinite period of time, he suddenly got bored and thought... whatever, let's throw tapeworms in there, and meteorites.

The belief is that God is not bound by the dimensions of time and space, so it doesn't work the same way where He would just be sitting there bored, doing nothing for years and years. Personally I think there is/was much more out there than this universe. I definitely think there was more before the big bang.

But, Cathy, look, wouldn't you agree that whatever you argue is out there, outside the universe, must by definition be included in the universe once it is discovered? Wouldn't the term universe include everything you know or can know or dream up, even "God" or the place he resides in(if you're right about that)?


See, I've said this again and again. This is about definitions. It is a failure of communication. We are merely arguing about language, when we really get down to it. But the thing is, the language you're using is outdated, simplistic and mundane in the extreme.

(December 1, 2015 at 6:41 am)Quantum Wrote:

(November 30, 2015 at 7:13 pm)robvalue Wrote: I thought of a better way to state my position about weird "gods" ordering me to dance around like a bitch, or else I'll be punished:

I don't negotiate with terrorists.

But you hopefully are interested in whether *there is a terrorist*?

Brilliant!! Attend:

1. The causal agents of all terroristic acts are terrorists.

2. Inversion of #1 (above) tells us that terrorists are contingent upon terrorism.

3. Regress tells us, however, that there must be a non-contingent terrorist, The 'First' Terrorist, from which all other terrorists originate.

4. We call this uncaused terrorist 'God'.

Boru

The first, uncaused terrrorist. Nice.