(February 11, 2014 at 5:31 pm)Alex K Wrote: SoC,
Again, why do you think that God is a valid reason which does not need a reason itself?
God is the eternal context or the sphere into which everything that exists begins to exist and is from then on sustained within existence. Without God you can't have anything that exists because everything depends on being started by something and you would end up with an infinitude of things that have to happen in order for anything else to ever happen. God also accounts for the fine tuning/immense complexity and order of course. So you have killed two birds with one stone by accepting his existence, which as you see will have to be real as you can't really argue with the logic.
Quote: Why would it need less justification and reason-to-be than the universe by itself?
The universe is a finite entity with a point of creation and seeing as literal non-existence can't effect or do anything on account of not existing something that exists will have to have caused the universe to exist. Even if it's a cycle something as to contain and cause the cycle to operate, this is along the lines of what the Hindus believe regarding the universe.
Quote:Different problem: you talk of a process of generation of existence
That is basically nonsense because a process is a temporal change of the state of something. If the universe doesn't exist, there is no time against which the concept of change or creation can be defined. The sentence is therefore nonsensical.
Time as we experience only exists as a part of the universe as we experience but this didn't always exist therefore time is also the production of something that causes time to exist. Whatever this is would of course have to be placed beyond time, space and the physical universe. This is the cause of the universe and the reason why the universe exists. If you remove this you remove the entire foundation and the whole structure collapses. It's not as simple matter of just removing the word from the sentence as though it's something trivial that you don't need.
Come all ye faithful joyful and triumphant.