The Million Dollar Question

[lordofgemini]

All I am asking you to do is use logic. Something must be eternal in the equation. Otherwise nothing would make sense.

Why? You haven't explained why you think something eternal "must" do anything, let alone demonstrated it. You've just made an assertion. Anyone can do that.

Well I thought I just needed to convey the idea and u have the brains to do the thinking. Need I teach u to think. Why are you pointing at the obvious.... :/

@confusedape

Intresting views but we aren't talking about religion here. We are talking about God. Use you logic and understanding, it takes alots of intellect to grasp the concept of God and even higher to understand God. Those religions just follow blindly what ever God they are told of be it fire/idol/or some old ancient man/cow/elephant/sun. This doesn't mean all of them are god. Religion has nothing to do with the concept of God. Be it any religion.

[Esquilax]

Well I thought I just needed to convey the idea and u have the brains to do the thinking. Need I teach u to think. Why are you pointing at the obvious.... :/

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: whenever somebody says "it's obvious" in lieu of an explanation, what they really mean is "I have accepted this claim as true." I already know you believe this, but it's clear that I don't, and hence just burbling that it's obvious misses so many marks it's comedic. Clearly it's not obvious to me, or I would agree with you; there's a flaw in either my logic or yours, and the way to find out which is to defend your position, and not just lazily assert that it's self evident.

[Elskidor]

Those religions just follow blindly what ever God they are told of be it fire/idol/or some old ancient man/cow/elephant/sun. This doesn't mean all of them are god.

Doesn't that bother you? All these religions are follolwing blindly, but some how you belive you aren't as blind as they? Seems pretty obvious to me that all theists have been fooled, and following your thought process it didn't take much to fool you. Why in the world would you think you are any different than anyone else following a god they are told to follow blindly? You are welcome to believe what you wish, but the way you worded that makes no sense at all.

[lordofgemini]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: whenever somebody says "it's obvious" in lieu of an explanation, what they really mean is "I have accepted this claim as true." I already know you believe this, but it's clear that I don't, and hence just burbling that it's obvious misses so many marks it's comedic. Clearly it's not obvious to me, or I would agree with you; there's a flaw in either my logic or yours, and the way to find out which is to defend your position, and not just lazily assert that it's self evident.

Fine do you think there is a need of something to be eternal.
If not then you need to defend your position

[Esquilax]

Fine do you think there is a need of something to be eternal.
If not then you need to defend your position

Oh good, a childish one who doesn't understand the burden of proof. Such joy.

I don't particularly think any certain way about universal origins; I'm happy to admit that I don't know, and leave it at that. But you're saying that there definitely does need to be something eternal there, and for that to work you've got to get your ducks in a row. That's the burden of proof; positive claims need to be demonstrated. Simply not believing you when you make a positive claim doesn't mean I suddenly need to defend the opposite. It just means you've failed to provide any evidence.

Do you have any evidence?

[lordofgemini]

So yeah I am new to this burden of proof stuff. But yeah sure

You say you don't know if the universe wasn't eternal or not. Well when I think which you clearly aren't doing. I can seem to find a start, my imagination keeps going and and going. It puts my mind into a logical loop. Thus to get out of the loop I take something to be eternal that is beyond time. And everything else is created. Thus I came to a conclusion that there is something eternal, which is unlike anything. There is no other way about it. What do you reckon.

This is what I call logical evidence.

[Ryantology]

You inserted the assertion "everything else is created". You have also assumed that the universe has a beginning. So, already, your conclusion is unwarranted.

[lordofgemini]

You inserted the assertion "everything else is created". You have also assumed that the universe has a beginning. So, already, your conclusion is unwarranted.

Well obviously I won't consider everything to be eternal or even two things. Then it wouldn't make sense since why are two things eternal, there must be a first. Only a single thing can be eternal. The universe as in the one we are in does have a beginning, or no? This is why I called it created, because its existence is as a result of an action of the eternal entity. Thus its created

[Confused Ape]

@confusedape

Intresting views but we aren't talking about religion here. We are talking about God.

The question in the opening post is "What is a God?". Maybe a better way of putting it would be "What is a deity?" because that covers everything - the God of Judaism/Christianity/Islam is a deity along with all the gods and goddesses humans have ever believed in.

Use you logic and understanding, it takes alots of intellect to grasp the concept of God and even higher to understand God.

It really depends on whose concept of God you're talking about - Brahman - The Universal Self - The Highest God Of Hindusim

Brahman is the indescribable, inexhaustible, omniscient, omnipresent, original, first, eternal and absolute principle who is without a beginning, without an end , who is hidden in all and who is the cause, source, material and effect of all creation known, unknown and yet to happen in the entire universe.

He is the incomprehensible, unapproachable radiant being whom the ordinary senses and ordinary intellect cannot fathom grasp or able to describe even with partial success. He is the mysterious Being totally out of the reach of all sensory activity, rationale effort and mere intellectual, decorative and pompous endeavor.

According to that humans aren't going to understand Brahman through using logic and intellect.

Those religions just follow blindly what ever God they are told of be it fire/idol/or some old ancient man/cow/elephant/sun.

Gods and Goddesses of Hinduism

All the numerous gods and goddesses are the eyes, ears, hands and feet of Brahman only. In their individual aspects they represent diversity and His numerous duties (dharmas); but in their unified and highest aspect they represent Brahman, the Supreme Self.

So, it seems that they can be regarded as aspects of the Universal Self by people who want to interpret them like that.

This doesn't mean all of them are god. Religion has nothing to do with the concept of God. Be it any religion.

There wouldn't have been any religions if people hadn't come up with some concept of deity in the first place. Nobody knows how and why religion got started or what the earliest modern humans believed in.

There's a mysterious cave painting known as the Sorcerer of Trois-Frères and it's been dated to approximately 13,000 BC.

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Is this the root of the figure depicted on a seal which was found at Mohenjo-daro, a settlement which was built around 2,600 BC?

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Did this image of whatever it was supposed to be bear any relation to the figure on the Gundestrup Cauldron which has been dated between 200 BC and 300 AD?

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Humans have always wandered around and borrowed ideas from other groups of humans. There is evidence that people can have a subjective experience of God/Supreme Reality or whatever you want to call it. It's likely that some early modern humans had the same experience but there's no way of knowing how they interpreted it.

These days there's a New Age tendency to think of God as having something to do with quantum physics. I think we can safely say that early modern humans didn't come up with this concept.

[Esquilax]

You say you don't know if the universe wasn't eternal or not. Well when I think which you clearly aren't doing.

"Think"? You mean "imagine." They are different things; don't ever confuse what seems good in your mind with what's actually true.

I can seem to find a start, my imagination keeps going and and going.

So, because you imagine something and then can't figure out any other way to resolve the problem that you have fantasized into existence, suddenly something needs to be eternal?

Well, to begin with, what you imagine isn't necessarily reality...

It puts my mind into a logical loop. Thus to get out of the loop I take something to be eternal that is beyond time.

... And what you're doing here is an argument from ignorance and personal incredulity; just because you can't think of another solution (for the problem you have imagined into existence) doesn't mean the one you've decided on is correct....

And everything else is created.

... And this is an unjustified assertion. Where's your evidence?

Thus I came to a conclusion that there is something eternal, which is unlike anything. There is no other way about it. What do you reckon.

I reckon you've got an argument from ignorance. Not hugely compelling: when you reach the point where you can't figure out a solution the position should become "I don't know," not "I know something eternal is out there." How do you test that?

This is what I call logical evidence.

There's no such thing as logical evidence. Evidence is something you feed into logic to arrive at properly justified conclusions. But the claim you've made has no evidence, and cannot be tested, and thus you have nothing beyond your preferences to feed into logic to output your conclusion.

And what you prefer isn't the dictator of reality.