Introducing The Universal Religion

[Angrboda]

You really are a simple creature. 13.x billion years is the time since the big bang. Not the age of the universe.

Idiot.

[Sword of Christ]

How do you know that the only alternative explanation is multiple universes

What applies to this universe will apply to any other universe anyone would finds themselves in. You would simply need one God for all of them.

, and how do you know any potential alternative universe would have a beginning?

Because it would need a beginning if it's something that exists as time else it wouldn't get started.

Stop asserting, and start demonstrating. If you can't, then just stop asserting.

I am demonstrating how Gods existence/reality is necessary, this is the idea. You can't demonstrate Gods existence with science but you demonstrate it this way.

[EvolutionKills]

Stop right there. First of all you don't know that it had a beginning.

The universe is 13.7 billion years old it has an age it had a point of creation. Yes there may well be other universes but they all had a beginning as well so that's moot.

You don't know that either, the 13.798±0.037 is our best estimate of the age of the observable universe based on an expansion from a single point. Beyond that is anyone's guess, including whether or not universes are cyclic or even can be created. Stop pretending to know things you do not know, that's called lying.

Even if it had a clear temporal beginning

It did if it has a definite age or time in which it existed. No-one puts the age of the universe at infinity.

It could be, we only have an estimate for the observable universe. The actual extent of the universe could be far larger, we simply do not know; not that it stops you from pretending like you do know, which is also known as lying.

this does not mean that something beyond the universe exists eternally

Something will have to be eternal in itself and it isn't this universe if it has a definite age and so has an actual starting point. If something starts to happen then something else made it start to happen.

Evidence? Of course not...

: the word "eternal" isn't even defined in the slightest sense if you don't have a timeline independent of what you call our universe.

God exists outside and beyond time as he is eternal without a starting point or an end point, this would be necessary to cause time to begin to exist.

What do we call claiming to know things you do not know? Oh right, that's lying.

If you have one, then the Big Bang isn't the beginning of that timeline and your argument has gone away.

The big bang is where God causes space/time to exist when it otherwise would not exist. Creation out of nothing or ex nihilo. If the the theory fits the facts.

A 'theory' with no evidence, that can make no predictions; is not a theory dumbass. Go get a real education.

It is true that there is no faith involved. Merely stringing together words that do not mean anything in the context in which you use them

God isn't a concept that can't be supported by logic and reason whether or not you disagree with the logic. But if you don't have a logical alternative that would be better than God then the argument in favor of Gods existence is going to win out on that criteria. The only real alternative is a beginningless universe but this wouldn't have an age/start and everything that could ever happen would only happen once an infinite amount of time has passed which is the same thing as never happening. You will ideally need something that does not exist within the time and is not in itself subject to the passage of time having had no begining to set-up the passage of time into which all events will then occur. Setting up the passage of time is an act of creation of something that otherwise would not exist.

Your god isn't supported by evidence, simple as that. You know nothing, but that doesn't stop you from making grandiose claims on the nature of the universe and reality. Would you please stop lying? It's getting rather tedious to wade through all of your presuppositional bullshit.

I've said it ten times now and I'll tell you again: causality is a meaninless concept outside a universe with a timelike dimension and low entropy

What you just said there is meaningless from what I can tell. Using words like low entropy doesn't help you in this context. Any scientific term you want to use is confined to description of a process that occurs within the universe as we observe it. The universe as we observe it exists for some other reason and there are no scientific terms for it.

Yet you attribute this to your particular god-concept, for fuck's sake...

No, your analogy does not work because time and space exist outside the pitch, and because we *know* the football pitch is human design.

We would know something had to exist outside the pitch in order to have brought the pitch into being even if it was impossible to ever observe anything outside the pitch. You could observe how the the pitch was built and whats it's made from and that's what science does.

No, we do not know that, and neither do you. The irony of you trying to talk about what science is and does is astounding.

[Esquilax]

What applies to this universe will apply to any other universe anyone would finds themselves in. You would simply need one God for all of them.

What possible evidence or education do you have to be making this assertion? What applies to this universe- still haven't established that a god is part of that, by the way!- doesn't even always apply to every corner of this universe (black holes, just off the top of my head) and you don't have any other universes to compare.

You're just making things up.

Because it would need a beginning if it's something that exists as time else it wouldn't get started.

What if it didn't exist in time and then began to at a certain point? That's what you think god did, right?

I am demonstrating how Gods existence/reality is necessary, this is the idea. You can't demonstrate Gods existence with science but you demonstrate it this way.

You can't demonstrate anything with fiat assertions. Here, lemme show you:

The flying spaghetti monster exists.

Is that true, now that I've just asserted it? If the answer is no, then why would any of the assertions you've made be any truer?

[Alex K]

Stop right there. First of all you don't know that it had a beginning.

The universe is 13.7 billion years old it has an age it had a point of creation. Yes there may well be other universes but they all had a beginning as well so that's moot.

It's like talking to a wall. No, no and no. We can extrapolate the dynamics of the universe back to a point where the universe is very hot, and where probably something like cosmic inflation happens (the evidence for this being the flatness, isotropy of the CMB, and scaling laws of fluctuations), and this means that we don't know what was before. This point in our timeline is not the beginning in the sense you would like to have it.

Even if it had a clear temporal beginning

It did if it has a definite age or time in which it existed. No-one puts the age of the universe at infinity.

The usual 13.7 billion years are what you get when you extrapolate back to the classical singularity, which does not exist. At this point, the universe is a hot soup of all the particles popping in and out of existence in a thermal bath. We cannot look any further back beyond e.g. inflation.

this does not mean that something beyond the universe exists eternally

Something will have to be eternal in itself and it isn't this universe if it has a definite age and so has an actual starting point. If something starts to happen then something else made it start to happen.

I am talking to a wall. Have you even tried to read and comprehend what I have written above about the concepts of "starting", and "happening" and their dependence on a concept of time?

: the word "eternal" isn't even defined in the slightest sense if you don't have a timeline independent of what you call our universe.

God exists outside and beyond time as he is eternal without a starting point or an end point, this would be necessary to cause time to begin to exist.

Eternal and beyond time. I get it, you are telling me your concept of god is inconsistent and therefore logically impossible. Good to know,really. But it explains why you are unable to form a coherent argument.

If you have one, then the Big Bang isn't the beginning of that timeline and your argument has gone away.

The big bang is where God causes space/time to exist when it otherwise would not exist. Creation out of nothing or ex nihilo. If the the theory fits the facts.

Wow, it is like talking to a wall indeed. Read again what I have written above and try to understand it.

God isn't a concept that can't be supported by logic and reason whether or not you disagree with the logic.

You are pretty desperate. You are trying to give an argument why you believe in god, and in order for your logic to work you need to claim that your god is not subject to logic. Why don't you just admit that you don't have an argument.

I've said it ten times now and I'll tell you again: causality is a meaninless concept outside a universe with a timelike dimension and low entropy

What you just said there is meaningless from what I can tell. Using words like low entropy doesn't help you in this context. Any scientific term you want to use is confined to description of a process that occurs within the universe as we observe it. The universe as we observe it exists for some other reason and there are no scientific terms for it.

Haha, did you just try to turn the table on me and use my argument against me? Amusing, but you'll have to do better in order to not look foolish:

So I explained to you that the concepts and words which you use in your argument are meaningless for a certain reason. Therefore, you don't have an argument. Now you are trying to retort by claiming that because they are meaningless, you are justified to use them in an argument, because if they are meaningless, you can do whatever you want? That works for poetry, but not for arguments.

[Napoléon]

You really are a simple creature. 13.x billion years is the time since the big bang. Not the age of the universe.

Idiot.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=age+of+the+universe

The big bang is the limit of the knowable universe no?

[Rampant.A.I.]

I am demonstrating how Gods existence/reality is necessary, this is the idea. You can't demonstrate Gods existence with science but you demonstrate it this way.

You are? Where?

Here are some historical objections to the claim you're presenting as "common sense," notably:

"We have no examples of necessary existence; we just have examples of necessary inferences or judgments. There can be no empirical necessities."

"The fact that many things exist when, if the argument were correct, the probability of objects existing is self-refuting since being must exist at the same time as these arguments in order to evaluate such arguments.
If God is an existent object in the universe, then by premise (1), it is possible for God not to exist. If God is a different kind of existent thing, then the argument commits the fallacy of petitio principii or the circularity of assuming in the premises what is to be proved.
The premise "If, for all existent objects, they do not exist at some time, then, given infinite time, there would be nothing in existence" commits the fallacy of composition. Simply because the parts of a group are limited, it does not follow that the group as a whole is limited. The properties of whole do not necessarily exhibit the properties of the parts.

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Simply because all human beings have a finite life-span, it does not follow logically that someday the human race will come to an end— unless, of course, additional assumptions are made. Moreover, in Aristotelian philosophy, the corruption of one being is the generation of another—nothing ceases to exist without the generation of something else.

Necessity is a property of statements not of objects. It doesn't make sense to claim that an existent thing is logically necessary. Existent things just are, that's all. We have no examples of necessary existence; we just have examples of necessary inferences or judgments. There can be no empirical necessities.
As Kant notes, existence is not a real predicate or property; existence is not a characteristic which can be added to the concept of the subject. Thus, the concept of necessary existence is not meaningful. (Q.v., the notes Existence Is Not a Predicate)
The idea of necessary being is unintelligible. As Hume point out, any statement concerning existence can be denied. Hume writes, "The words, therefore "necessary existence," have no meaning, or which is the same thing, none of which is consistent." Whatever we can conceive as existent, we can also conceive as nonexistent.
Nevertheless, Charles Hartshorne claims that the predicate "necessary existence" does add something the concept of God and so is a real predicate or property. E. g., "necessary existence" is distinguished from contingent existence in that necessary existence cannot not exist.
Problem with Creation ex nihilo. Thomas' statement of our premiss (3) that nothing can come from nothing is expressed by him this way: "…that which does not exist begins to exist only through something already existing." This premise implies that the newly existent thing is only a transformation of the already existing thing; otherwise, there would be no way to account for the newly existing thing given the truth of the principle of the conservation of matter and energy. If Aquinas were to deny the principle of the conservation of matter and energy, then he would be tacitly denying the principle of creation ex nihilo for contingent things.
Thomas' does seem to presuppose the principle of the conservation of matter (and tacitly, anything equivalent to matter) in the implicit assumption that the universe is limited.
As reasonable as this assumption appears to be, consider Stephen Hawking's explanation of creation of matter and energy:
Where did they [i.e., 1080 particles in the universe] all come from? The answer is that, in quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle pairs. But that just raises the question of where the energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the universe is exactly zero. The matter in the universe is made out of positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting itself by gravity. Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together. Thus, in a sense, the gravitational field has negative energy. In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero.
The physicist Heinz Pagels speculates, "Maybe the universe itself sprang into existence out of nothingness—a gigantic vacuum fluctuation which we know today as the big bang. Remarkably, the laws of modern physics allow for this possibility."
Problem of Criterion of Counting. Are space and nature continuous or discrete? Where does one object end and another begin? Is a fist made from a closed hand something or nothing? Where does the fist go when the hand is opened? Where does a lap go when one stands up? In premise (2) there is a serious problem of criterion of counting objects and their parts. How could Thomas handle these and similar examples?
Problem of the Ultimate Consistent of the Universe. Ultimately is nature continuous or discrete? Do we have any good reasons for assuming with Thomas that nature is discrete rather than continuous?
As Hume points out in his Dialogues, nature, the universe itself, or something else could qualify as just as much a "necessary being" as God would. Why would we suppose that there could just be one necessary being in the universe?"

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http://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/necessity.shtml

[Alex K]

You really are a simple creature. 13.x billion years is the time since the big bang. Not the age of the universe.

Idiot.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=age+of+the+universe

The big bang is the limit of the knowable universe no?

It depends a bit on what exactly you mean by big bang. What do you mean by big bang?

[Sword of Christ]

You are? Where?

I'm explaining why something with attributes like that of God has to exist in order for anything else to exist. No-one has suggested anything that would work as an alternative, that's because there isn't one.

"We have no examples of necessary existence; we just have examples of necessary inferences or judgments. There can be no empirical necessities."

You can still take what you have an apply some deductive reasoning to it.

"The fact that many things exist when, if the argument were correct, the probability of objects existing is self-refuting since being must exist at the same time as these arguments in order to evaluate such arguments.
If God is an existent object in the universe, then by premise (1), it is possible for God not to exist.

God is not an existent object in the universe but can still be immanent within it.

If God is a different kind of existent thing, then the argument commits the fallacy of petitio principii or the circularity of assuming in the premises what is to be proved.

You need one kind of thing to explain another different kind of thing. The two go together, one necessitates the other.

The premise "If, for all existent objects, they do not exist at some time, then, given infinite time, there would be nothing in existence" commits the fallacy of composition. Simply because the parts of a group are limited, it does not follow that the group as a whole is limited.

If it was unlimited group as a whole you would have a infinite regression of caused events and all events would require an infinite number of events to happen in order to happen therefore nothing can happen. It doesn't work you still something else beyond the system and cycle of events.

The properties of whole do not necessarily exhibit the properties of the parts.

---

Simply because all human beings have a finite life-span, it does not follow logically that someday the human race will come to an end— unless, of course, additional assumptions are made.

It does follow logically if all organic species go extinct and/or the universe itself will end. Providing God exists that wouldn't be a problem for us though we will outlast the universe.

Moreover, in Aristotelian philosophy, the corruption of one being is the generation of another—nothing ceases to exist without the generation of something else.

Nothing is removed from existence matter and energy just changes from one form to another and it would consistently follow that consciousness is immortal as well in much the same way.

Necessity is a property of statements not of objects. It doesn't make sense to claim that an existent thing is logically necessary. Existent things just are, that's all.

God "just is" and through God everything else exists or "just is" though it has a reason/purpose to exist. God exists for all the necessary reasons I've explained to this point.

We have no examples of necessary existence; we just have examples of necessary inferences or judgments. There can be no empirical necessities.

It makes more sense for existence to have a context to explain why it exists then to have no explanation or framework at all. We don't go around saying there is no explanation for anything at all and this can apply equally to everything as a whole.

As Kant notes, existence is not a real predicate or property; existence is not a characteristic which can be added to the concept of the subject. Thus, the concept of necessary existence is not meaningful. (Q.v., the notes Existence Is Not a Predicate)

Even a possible explanation is better than no possible explanation whatsoever. There is only one possible explanation that is possible to deduce, something eternal beyond time and space that brought forth time and space. This fits 100% with what God is supposed to be.

The idea of necessary being is unintelligible. As Hume point out, any statement concerning existence can be denied. Hume writes, "The words, therefore "necessary existence," have no meaning, or which is the same thing, none of which is consistent." Whatever we can conceive as existent, we can also conceive as nonexistent.

You literally can't conceive of non-existence as only existence exists and therefore only existence ever existed. Therefore there has to be something eternal within and behind existence as from nothing nothing comes. An infinite regression as we have covered won't work as everything in the system relies on an infinite number of other things to happen before they can happen. Instead you have only one thing that causes everything else to happen/exist. and this thing must have always existed.

Nevertheless, Charles Hartshorne claims that the predicate "necessary existence" does add something the concept of God and so is a real predicate or property. E. g., "necessary existence" is distinguished from contingent existence in that necessary existence cannot not exist.
Problem with Creation ex nihilo. Thomas' statement of our premiss (3) that nothing can come from nothing is expressed by him this way: "…that which does not exist begins to exist only through something already existing." This premise implies that the newly existent thing is only a transformation of the already existing thing; otherwise, there would be no way to account for the newly existing thing given the truth of the principle of the conservation of matter and energy.

Only God can create and he created the universe as a whole with all the necessary energy contained within it all at once. No energy is feed into or withdrawn from the system it is merely sustained in existence.

If Aquinas were to deny the principle of the conservation of matter and energy, then he would be tacitly denying the principle of creation ex nihilo for contingent things.

Only the universe itself had to be created ex nihilo and it's only the universe we can observe.

As reasonable as this assumption appears to be, consider Stephen Hawking's explanation of creation of matter and energy:
Where did they [i.e., 1080 particles in the universe] all come from? The answer is that, in quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle pairs. But that just raises the question of where the energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the universe is exactly zero.

The total energy of the universe means nothing as that was created by God along with everything else that exists.

The matter in the universe is made out of positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting itself by gravity. Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together. Thus, in a sense, the gravitational field has negative energy. In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero.

That's all very good but this observation as factual as it it means nothing at all as far as this question is concerned.

The physicist Heinz Pagels speculates, "Maybe the universe itself sprang into existence out of nothingness
—a gigantic vacuum fluctuation which we know today as the big bang.

Fluctuations in a vacuum require the existence of time and space to start with? That all started with the big bang science can't go beyond that as everything science can ever study came into existence at that point.

Remarkably, the laws of modern physics allow for this possibility."
Problem of Criterion of Counting. Are space and nature continuous or discrete? Where does one object end and another begin? Is a fist made from a closed hand something or nothing? Where does the fist go when the hand is opened? Where does a lap go when one stands up? In premise (2) there is a serious problem of criterion of counting objects and their parts. How could Thomas handle these and similar examples?
Problem of the Ultimate Consistent of the Universe. Ultimately is nature continuous or discrete? Do we have any good reasons for assuming with Thomas that nature is discrete rather than continuous?

Through God nature is discrete and continuous as God is continuous and nature is a creation of God. The two flow together.

As Hume points out in his Dialogues, nature, the universe itself, or something else could qualify as just as much a "necessary being" as God would. Why would we suppose that there could just be one necessary being in the universe?"

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[jideoni charles]

Neither science nor Faith cam prove the existence of God but commonsense.