[split] Critical Thinking Skills

[Mister Agenda]

Are we talking about an eternal God that's always existed? If so, wouldn't such a being also be an example of infinite regression?

[Mystic]

I think we may be at an impasse, MK, I think set theory proves the opposite: the set of all chairs is not a chair. The set of all causes is not a cause. The set of all effects is not an effect. And the set of an infinite chain of causes and effects is neither a cause nor an effect, just a set.

Yeah. I'm not certain. It just seems to me a chain of effects is both by definition required of a cause (by being an effect itself) and not require it (by being infinite). So it seems like a contradiction.

Anyways, "authorities" of science say it has practically proven an infinite regress to the universe is impossible, or stars and planets and all that stuff would never form, it would have by this infinite long time, just became pretty much a void darkness (this includes the constant expanding and contracting universe hypothesis).

So if the "authorities" are right - we should be less focusing on infinite effects and try to figure out the time zero thing.

[The Grand Nudger]

What sort of explanatory value or accuracy would anything that follows "no one will believe" have - beyond being a description of what you think people would believe?

If you can't imagine something, you can't imagine it as possible or impossible. You simply -cant- imagine it.

There are "universes" within the atom. It's a demarcation line that is entirely anthropocentric, but, granted, useful.

Can we? We can imagine something that violates the very reason we would feel the need to imagine it? LOL< of course we can, but what does that say? That we can imagine things? Granted.

You know my thoughts on atoms and universes - it's just an issue of scale and relation, but my opinion on what things people might say......people might say alot of things.

[Mystic]

Are we talking about an eternal God that's always existed? If so, wouldn't such a being also be an example of infinite regression?

Not if it created time and then time became part of it's reality.

Remember there is no before "time". So it would be causing first moment of time, itself, at the same time for all purposes.

But cause doesn't need to precede time wise, it can precede ontologically.

[The Grand Nudger]

That doesn't work for the observable universe Mystic? That it "created time"? I mean, between the observable universe and god - one is "a little" easier to establish.

[Mystic]

That doesn't work for the observable universe Mystic? That it "created time"? I mean, between the observable universe and god - one is "a little" easier to establish.

Well no the universe can't create time, it rather had to be a property of it. At least this is how it seems to us humans. Which is why time is treated as a dimension.

At time zero, time would be a property, and ready to go, even though technically no time has passed. In one way, it's not a property because no time has passed, but in another way, whatever it makes it a dimension when time has passed, remains true at time zero.

[The Grand Nudger]

That doesn't work for the observable universe Mystic? That it "created time"? I mean, between the observable universe and god - one is "a little" easier to establish.

Well no the universe can't create time,

Why? Further, why doesn;t this apply to your creator? I don't find the explanation you offered very compelling - and you keep referring to what you think other people think.......

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it rather had to be a property of it. At least this is how it seems to us humans. Which is why time is treated as a dimension.

At time zero, time would be a property, and ready to go, even though technically no time has passed. In one way, it's not a property because no time has passed, but in another way, whatever it makes it a dimension when time has passed, remains true at time zero.

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I want you to apply the same line - every time- to your creator... What it -seems like - to this other person , is that you're engaging in special pleading on a glorious scale.

[Mystic]

Why?

Because it's material. It can't cause something like time to exist anymore then it can cause a billion souls to come to existence.

I want you to apply the same line - every time- to your creator... What it -seems like - to this other person , is that you're engaging in special pleading on a glorious scale.

Well it can be that the time was a dimension of the Creator at time zero or it can be that he created it like Theists believe. Both are logically possible.

What I was saying to Mister Agenda, it wasn't necessarily that God being eternal is an infinite regress of time.

[The Grand Nudger]

Because it's material. It can't cause something like time to exist anymore then it can cause a billion souls to come to existence.

Because it's material? FFS... you think that answers the question? I wan't you to really try to tease out what I expect to be a very long list of things that "because it's material" is standing in for Mystic. A couple of other ancillary things, this "explanation" also displays a couple of things that may have eluded you, assumptions you've made. Whats keeping god from being material? It also seems to suggest that you're of the opinion that if the material couldn't do such a thing - "god" is somehow strengthened by this. You can appreciate the trouble with either, eh?

Well it can be that the time was a dimension of the Creator at time zero or it can be that he created it like Theists believe. Both are logically possible.

Try something a little more difficult than starting with -if god-. More like "Well, it can be said that god was a -insert whatever you like here- of the universe at time zero". lol. I'm trying to be charitable - and granting you a god - but suggesting that the universe "created it". The troubles you might have with a universe creating a god are likely to be the same troubles i have with a gd creating the universe. Whatever you claim the universe cannot have done - I will claim god could not have done - for the same reason - or along the same lines. Roger?

[Mystic]

To be clear. I'm not saying the universe couldn't be the cause of it's current state, and be the first cause (ie. the big bang). But I will have to go with scientists that if this was the case, time would be a property of the universe, from the beginning till now. It would not pop into existence from the universe. Unless you state time is just a measurement of events, then I would say, then you are right, universe could have cause time. But time seems more then that, it seems part of reality.