(August 1, 2010 at 3:53 pm)Spencer Wrote:

(August 1, 2010 at 2:12 pm)SleepingDemon Wrote: The judeo-christian god and the muslim god alike were the amalgam several gods that existed before it. If you look at the mythologies within christianity, judaism, and islam you will find elements from previous religions and mythologies. Monotheism itself comes from a period in Egyptian history when a single pharaoh eradicated all of the egyptian gods and forced worshipping a single god upon his kingdom. This was subsequently undone after his death, but it had not been done before then.

Is there an explanation as to how or where the first God originated?

I'm sorry if my question was confusing. I understand that man technically created God, but obviously Christians don't believe that, so my question is more, where do Christians believe God came from?

Evidence for such is hard to find. We've found a few precious cave paintings that appear to be men worshipping a god, but there were many civilizations that preceeded the isrealites and had other gods. Polytheism was here a good 2000 years or so before monotheism. My uncle is a preacher, I asked him about this before, and he said that he believes there has always been a "christian" orthodoxy, we just haven't found evidence for it. Really you can argue and present archeological evidence that completely destroys that theory, but it doesn't mean anything to them.

A few years back a cave in South Africa yielded up apparent religious symbology some 70,000 years ago ( a date which will piss off creationists from the outset!).

Of course, all this means is that we have evidence going back 70,000 years of cultic practices. Who knows how much further back in time man started imagining gods?

http://www.world-archaeology.com/great-c.../438-.html

Quote:This summer, inside a cave in remote hills in the Kalahari Desert of Botswana, archaeologists discovered evidence of organised ritual activity dating to 70,000 years ago. Their findings are set to change our perceptions of human development since previously it was generally thought that human intelligence had not evolved the capacity to perform group rituals until perhaps 40,000 years ago, when the first such evidence appears in Europe.

(August 1, 2010 at 12:34 pm)Spencer Wrote: Ive always thought that was an interesting question, but have yet to hear an argument.

What stance do Christians in general take on the inception of God?

I'm not christian, so I'm not qualified to answer that question, but this is a really good question.

So this birthed my thought for the day:

I was thinking about the idea of 'irreducable complexity' - the intelligent design idea that things need a designer because they are too complex to have formed in nature and therefore imply that a designer is neccesary to explain its existance.

It also goes into the whole '2nd law' ridiculousness because creationists argue that entropy prohibits the idea that the Earth can form complex organisms out of simpler materials. (The idea is bunk because the Earth isn't itself a closed system - all life on the planet gets its energy directly or indirectly from the sun, among other sources).

That said, God is supposed to have the greatest intellect and wisdom in the known universe and there is no evolutionary basis for that level of complexity in existance - certainly not before creation (since there was only darkness) so by this logic:

God had to be created by an intelligent designer

So, I can conclude that this means one of two things:

1) Humans created god (the actual answer) which may very well mean that we are the true superior intelligence in the story of the Earth

2) Intelligent Design's own logic defeats itself (also the actual answer, but using a method I haven't seen before)

3) God had a desiger and that designer had a designer and that designer had a designer - and this goes on and on until someone somewhere can state how the first divine designer came into being. I wonder if I could get the discovery institute to attempt to answer this question by attempting to state that god evolved from a monkey god.

Like this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyxmTGt9H2E

So... yeah. That was my thought for the day. I think there may have just been a point in there somewhere, maybe.

And now a third (forth now, with pastafarianism) perspective on evolution in schools:
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=...=574#comic

(August 1, 2010 at 4:01 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: If God is not timeless, God isn't all knowing. If he isn't all knowing, he can't be all powerful. The ancient goat herders worked it out pretty well and it is consistent.

Except it isn't.

A being does not need to have always existed in order to know everything. As long as it knows everything that happened before it came along, and everything that is going to happen in the future, there isn't anything preventing it from being all knowing.

Unless you can give me an example of something a being could not possibly know without being timeless?

Your other part (all powerful implies all knowing) is fine though, although as discussions with Arcanus earlier in the year showed, the definition of "all-powerful" should really be addressed before I can know what you mean. What kind of "all-powerful" are you talking about?

http://atheistforums.org/thread-3951.html

Already a thread on this. Can we merge the two?

(August 2, 2010 at 1:51 pm)tavarish Wrote: http://atheistforums.org/thread-3951.html

Already a thread on this. Can we merge the two?

Done

That explains why I went to the first page of a 14 page discussion as "new messages".

(August 2, 2010 at 9:17 am)Tiberius Wrote: Except it isn't.

A being does not need to have always existed in order to know everything. As long as it knows everything that happened before it came along, and everything that is going to happen in the future, there isn't anything preventing it from being all knowing.

Unless you can give me an example of something a being could not possibly know without being timeless?

Your other part (all powerful implies all knowing) is fine though, although as discussions with Arcanus earlier in the year showed, the definition of "all-powerful" should really be addressed before I can know what you mean. What kind of "all-powerful" are you talking about?

Yep, I agree. By being 'timeless' God has the potential to act at any time. By being just knowledgeable God will only know and not also be all powerful (as in able to act at any point in time).

"If he isn't all knowing, he can't be all powerful." ...If God isn't all knowing then his power is likely to be ineffectual. (all powerful as in effective)

But he also can't be all knowing and all powerful.

If he is all knowing he knows everything he will ever do, but he cannot change his mind. If he cannot change his mind then it can be said he lacks the power to do so, hence he is not all powerful.

Changing one's mind infers a time line. I think you're talking about an all knowing God that isn't also timeless VOID/ that knows everything from a fixed point in time. If God is timeless then his mind exists in all time at once/ He knows all things at all time at once. He cannot change his mind because his mind would exist at an end state of knowledge. Hence all knowing.

Changing his mind is not something a timeless God would ever need to do. Therefore it doesn't challenge his omnipotence.