A former agnostic, with doubts?

[Alex K]

Welcome!

...and what Exquilax said

-

To add my 2 cents and clear up two misconceptions:

The balance sheet of the zero energy universe goes thusly:

matter dark and baryonic, radiation and dark energy: positive contribution.
curvature of spacetime: negative contribution.

Dark energy, antimatter and putative dark matter all have positive energy. There is no presently known substance
with negative energy density, which is one of the least problems of the hypothesised Alcubierre warp drive.



"- The universe requires a cause."


No, it doesn't. Case closed.

[Whateverist]

In all seriousness, from what I've seen of it, there is nothing wrong with your thinking. If you find you need god in the world to make sense of it, or even if you just like the world better with god in it, then go for it.

From my own observations, the structure of our consciousness and the way it functions does indeed make god a good fit. Of course god is first and foremost poorly defined so I'd begin there. What is god for you?

For me, what may be interpreted as god in our subjective experience, lives there and there only. I posit a great deal of significance to it. I don't however find any reason to think it has any existence apart from me. Let me be clear though. It isn't that god depends on me, it is entirely the other way around. My conscious mind is the child of my greater consciousness. It is I (talking to you now) who am dependent and incomplete. 'God' is greater.

But omni-anything? That's just hyperbole. I don't find any reason to think that the 'god' of consciousness had any creative role in the cosmos. The on-board 'god' of consciousness has created the subjective world and our sense of identity within it.

Hear me oh 'god' of consciousness. Kudos to you on-board god, wouldn't be here without you. Always appreciate your greater insight when you make it available. But of course You have made me because I have something to offer which You need too. You depend on me to intuit the intentions of others and to understand the cultural norms within which we must live. From time to time we need to get together just to remember who we are and what really matters. But for the most part we each do our part in our own way. And that is how we live. Mutual respect and appreciation goes a long way.

[Madness20]

I agree with much of what you say.
I just find it absurd to fill any gaps with any sort of deity.
As humans, we try to find order in chaos.
IMHO, all natural chaos will settle to an equilibrium state eventually.
There is no design in this...

The thing is, we humans also have been understanding that "chaos" doesn't really exist in our universe. Everything has an order, obeys to laws, physical interactions and conditioning from the whole universe. Chaos theory is preciselly the idea that simple sets of rules with a wider effect can have chaotic outcomes.
Let's say chess, for an exact game. It has exact and well defined standard rules, with very strict movements to pieces, but by gameplay, by opening the way for more and more variations and possibilities with each movement, makes it so that in chess then there is more positions and possibilities than there is of atoms in the universe, more than 10^100 in fact.
And all of this is just a byproduct of 32 pieces with very strict rules of predictable movement, creates a game with almost endless possibilities.
The fact that classic mechanics really confirm the exact deterministic nature of our universe, chaos by necessity, is just an illusion from complexity.
If you replace the 32 chess pieces with physical forces waves and fields of the universe you basically transpose as much possibilities to the universe.
Isn't it just brilliant that matter in the universe has the exact density required for stars to be generated, that in outcome generate all complexity of atoms we have? And those resulting atoms can bring in complex life forms, just from the "convenient" capacity of growing in complexity of the organic compounds?

I am not really for the first cause, because whatever God created the universe with in the start would have nothing before it, and there is no time before it, so there doesn't really need to be a cause to that cause, so it doesn't need to be eternal, as there is no time before time started just as there is no more north to the north pole.

I personally believe in God out of faith. Not out of a philosophical or scientific argument.

I'm very sceptical of the existance of nothing. Neither physics or metaphysics can even create a well defined concept of nothing, because the moment you define qualifications to it, it becomes "something" by itself.
So in my own opinion, nothing is the same as non-existence, which obviously can't happen. There is always something, even a void is something.
And the fact is, our universe can exist without the necessity of "nothing" before it/preceeding it. Space-time inflation is in itself evidence that even infinite space can be contained within a point, for instance, a black hole is much "bigger" in the inside.

Cosmological arguments:
- The universe requires a cause.

Despite being a mainstay of religious apologetics, this isn't actually an argument for theism at all, which should demonstrate the weakness of that position. The universe requires a cause? Lots of things are causes without being god, or even intelligent or alive. A tornado has a cause, doesn't mean an intelligent being sculpted it. "The universe requires a cause," gets you to exactly one thing, and that thing isn't "god," it's "cause."

You go on later to say that something must have caused our universe to expand from zero energy into everything, including spacetime. Perhaps you can see the problem there: without time, how does anything happen? Causation requires temporality, and you've just accepted there was no time prior to universal expansion. Why would we need a cause in a reality that doesn't have time for there to be a before or after that cause? What does that even mean?

Our current temporal vocabulary of causes and effects simply isn't equipped to deal with what we're actually discussing here, which is why this particular cosmological argument fails.

- Whatever primary cause the universe has, it must be eternal.

And what does eternity mean, in what we've already established to be a position that lacks time? Also, who decided it must be eternal? Couldn't it be something from another universe, or some form of thing that can exist beyond the boundaries of the universe, but not eternally? I mean, since we're already discussing things for which we have no evidence, why are you limiting yourself like this? Why are you playing into the framework the religious conmen want you to, when you have absolutely no reason to do so? Don't let them play their game just because they're trying to lead you down this path.

- The primary cause, created everything.

Same deal: what makes you say this? What's stopping the cause from creating some things and having the rest develop later? Why couldn't there be a series of causative events, stemming from the one unique one that only created something small and unimpressive? Lots of assumptions here.

Also, we're still at "cause," not "god," so you aren't even at deism, let alone theism yet.

Oh. And we're at the end of the cosmological arguments, here. Still not even an attempt to point to a god... little troubling, no?

Then there's other arguments:
- Intelligence/Determination

This is an argument from ignorance: "I can't understand how this could come about without design, and therefore it was designed." It's a fallacy: just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean it didn't happen. It just means that you don't know how it happened yet.

- Life

Meh. Life evolves, we know that it does, and there's no need to evoke magic in that. If common elements didn't sustain life, there's no reason to think that anything would even care. This isn't much of an argument.

If I were you, I would not be so hasty in concluding that there is a need for a creator. We don't know enough about the world to even make educated guesses about that, except that there was an event that resulted in our present universe. And while the world may be beautiful and full of wonders, keep in mind that it's us who give meaning to its beauty and its awesomeness. The thought that all of this was just "created" by a "god" (whatever that is) is just filling a gap in your knowledge with... well, a bigger gap, since you don't really have any ways of knowing what this "god" thing is.

I'm going to answer both collectivelly, and i apologize, but i feel like you missed some of my points, specially in the way consequences are connected.

Argument for first cause:
Universe has a cause - we all agree on that.
Now what i'm transposing too, is that whatever created the universe, let's call it multiverse, either had a cause(begin), or always existed. By infinite regression, we'll either have a systematically continuously transcending infinite of causation, or an eternal "supreme" entity that created everything. Either way, one of them has to be the answer if we suppose every statement is correct.
Obviously, we're supposing logic applys to the universe and outside, which in my opinion it's fully logical to believe in, the fact that we can apply logic , or rather our universe is literally made of logics, and at least the same must apply to any transcending entity, if not a wider set of logics.
The same way determinism seems to rule our universe, i think it's illogical to think something transcends it, which would be the same as saying that there exists something not influenced at all by anything else, forever.

Existance of eternity:
I'm assuming here the impossibility to there have been a moment "outside" the universe where "nothing" existed. Well, mainly because of the logical impossibility of nothing creating something. So i'm basically assuming something always existed.
Our own "time" was created in the big bang, but nothing contradicts that time exists outside the universe, and the fact that we know both space and time can infinitely distort, and they behave like something we call "branes"/dimensions, and also according to string theory, these dimensions and more exist outside the universe, and created our universe the same way as it "probably" created infinitelly more. We're just on our own spacetime distortion "bubble".

Life:
What i'm arguing here is that basically "life" is as much of a "law"/consequence of the universe as water, i think it's illogical to actually think anything in the universe isn't a natural consequence from the start.
So i can't help but wonder how come life seems to be a systematic of the universe in itself, at least in ours, probably spread through the universe.
In conclusion, i think it's acceptable to find this brilliant organization of matter into life as suspicious as a determination to the universe.

[Whateverist]

Universe has a cause - we all agree on that.

Clarifying question: would earlier states of what we call the universe count as its cause? Or must we look outside the universe itself?

If the former, then yes I agree. If the latter then no, I do not agree.

... whatever created the universe, let's call it multiverse, either had a cause(begin), or always existed. By infinite regression, we'll either have a systematically continuously transcending infinite of causation, or an eternal "supreme" entity that created everything. Either way, one of them has to be the answer if we suppose every statement is correct.

I'll take the multi-verse.

Obviously, we're supposing logic applys to the universe and outside, which in my opinion it's fully logical to believe in, the fact that we can apply logic , or rather our universe is literally made of logics, and at least the same must apply to any transcending entity, if not a wider set of logics.

You lost me. Logic is logical? .. and applies everywhere and always because logic?

Existance of eternity:
I'm assuming here the impossibility to there have been a moment "outside" the universe where "nothing" existed.

I am in complete agreement.

Life:
What i'm arguing here is that basically "life" is as much of a "law"/consequence of the universe as water, i think it's illogical to actually think anything in the universe isn't a natural consequence from the start.

I am in complete agreement.

In conclusion, i think it's acceptable to find this brilliant organization of matter into life as suspicious as a determination to the universe.

Not sure I understand. Are you saying that because of how splendidly everything fits together, maybe god?

I guess if you're open to the possibility of an out-there god you might get sucked into the watch maker theory. (I'll pass.)

[Madness20]

"- The universe requires a cause."


No, it doesn't. Case closed.

And how would you argue that? I'm unsure how you can justify that opinion. xD
So in your opinion cause effect doesn't extend to the big bang? And it's just a wild unique temporary organization of our universe?

What is god for you?

Well, to be honest i can't really define god much as of yet, beyond my perception/belief system that it's the supreme (mathematical supreme), eternal entity, collection and creator of everything else.

Obviously, if i regard him as a supreme being and intentional/non-intentional creator of everything else,i must say that by extrapolating that he "created" a universe by diving 0 total energy into a differential everything else was created from him and is part of him, since he's all that there is, so yeah, i would define myself as a pantheist in that aspect, but i don't agree with other pantheistic beliefs.

I'm unsure what i think about it's consciousness, but from guessing, and from the ever transforming and logical nature of the universe, i'd say he probably is ruled and influenced by some logical parameters, himself, he might as well be ruled by determinism.

My belief, is that beyond everything, we would find an homogeneous existance that "fractalized" into everything.
Consciousness is surelly an easy answer as a justification for the creation impulse, but i'm unsure about this.

[Losty]

For a bit of nostalgia I'd like to offer you these welcome cookies.

[Bibliofagus]

To me the word universe means 'everything in existence'. The definition precludes any existent cause.

And welcome.

[Cyberman]

Universe has a cause - we all agree on that.

How are you defining the term "universe"? Everything which exists/has existed within our spacetime? Or the set of everything which can ever exist? Clarifying this point will be a key factor in determining an appropriate avenue of response.

[Alex K]

"- The universe requires a cause."

No, it doesn't. Case closed.

And how would you argue that? I'm unsure how you can justify that opinion. xD

Then let me sureify you, at least to the extent that I think a justification is even necessary.

So in your opinion cause effect doesn't extend to the big bang? And it's just a wild unique temporary organization of our universe?

First of all, I'd like to shift the burden of proof to you.

But more concretely: the issue of cause and effect is not as clear cut as you might think. The arrow of time in physics (and hence the distinction between cause and effect) only arises as a statistical effect in physical systems with many degrees of freedom/particles. It is linked to the increase of entropy (with the universe going from less likely to more likely configurations).

Simple physical systems, like e.g. a few point masses attracting each other like a simplified solar system, are completely time reversal invariant. Let them run backwards, and they obey the same laws and are impossible to distinguish (*). Only when many particles are involved, a backwards running movie would suddenly be recognizable because very unlikely things happen.

On top of this, the fundamental laws of physics are not even obviously deterministic because of quantum uncertainty. So cause and effect are not really fundamental properties of the universe, they arise because of the boundary condition of low entropy in the (by definition) "past".

It is so much less obvious that the concept should apply to the universe as a whole. You really need to carefully define what the word even means in this context before you can make this claim. Otherwise, the statement is meaningless and does not require refutation.

(*) there is a small violation of time reversal in the weak interactions. It is not obviously connected to the arrow of time.

[Mystic]

I'm very sceptical of the existance of nothing. Neither physics or metaphysics can even create a well defined concept of nothing, because the moment you define qualifications to it, it becomes "something" by itself.
So in my own opinion, nothing is the same as non-existence, which obviously can't happen. There is always something, even a void is something.
And the fact is, our universe can exist without the necessity of "nothing" before it/preceeding it. Space-time inflation is in itself evidence that even infinite space can be contained within a point, for instance, a black hole is much "bigger" in the inside.

I don't like to get into the semantics of nothing used by some Atheist physicists because it is misleading because as you say it's always something. Theologians seem to be in agreement that there was no time before God's act of creation, since time began at that moment. If time was created by God, there is no before the act of creation. That makes God an ontological first cause, but it doesn't mean there was a time before creation. This was even discussed by old theologians prior to the big bang theory. Now if this is true, whatever first cause in creation that started the universe has no time to precede it. That being the case...why can't this cause be the first cause as it has no time to precede it without an ontological first cause of God?