Nature comes first

[bennyboy]

I think you're kind of ignoring the essential philosophical paradox there.

Where did the natural materials come from?  More nature?  Is it turtles, all the way down?  How?

@bennyboy:

 Your argument is also called "The 'watchmaker argument" . This an argument used by theists  to 'prove'e intelligent design . In another guise, it becomes 'irreducible complexity.'  It's simply incorrect.

The article linked below is too long to post here, but I recommend it to those with an open mind. I exclude apologists from that group.

I'm not making that argument.  I'm saying that there's knowing, not-knowing, and pretending-to-know.  We don't know how existence came into being, or if it ever did.  It's a paradox that if thought about too much will make any intelligent person shit their pants in philosophical terror.

Saying God made the Universe is pretty unsatisfying, because what made God?
Saying nature came first is pretty unsatisfying, because then what made nature?
Saying nothing came "first" and the question is broken because everything has always existed-- well that's just a mindfuck.

The only acceptable answer to the question of existence is-- I don't know. Nobody knows. Pass the peanuts.

[Lek]

How desperate of a believer do you have to be to cling to "what was before the universe was created" in order to "prove" your God? People that wrote the Bible (or any holy book) believed that supernatural beings were all around them: that they possess humans and cause illnesses, Paul believed he was seeing beings and people walking on clouds with heaven being divided in layers and Jesus was described as someone who had a popular belief of the time that the demons lived in the desert (Matthew 12:43) and therefore he went there to find the devil.

And now it's all about because people don't know yet for sure what happened before existence of the universe. Humans are not going to know everything, so will the theists just demand every time there is a gap in the knowledge that that is their God?

I'm asking reasonable and pertinent questions.  Will you consider them or just pass them off because of your beliefs?

---

I'm not making that argument.  I'm saying that there's knowing, not-knowing, and pretending-to-know.  We don't know how existence came into being, or if it ever did.  It's a paradox that if thought about too much will make any intelligent person shit their pants in philosophical terror.

Saying God made the Universe is pretty unsatisfying, because what made God?
Saying nature came first is pretty unsatisfying, because then what made nature?
Saying nothing came "first" and the question is broken because everything has always existed-- well that's just a mindfuck.

The only acceptable answer to the question of existence is-- I don't know.  Nobody knows.  Pass the peanuts.

Fair enough.

[Fake Messiah]

How desperate of a believer do you have to be to cling to "what was before the universe was created" in order to "prove" your God? People that wrote the Bible (or any holy book) believed that supernatural beings were all around them: that they possess humans and cause illnesses, Paul believed he was seeing beings and people walking on clouds with heaven being divided in layers and Jesus was described as someone who had a popular belief of the time that the demons lived in the desert (Matthew 12:43) and therefore he went there to find the devil.

And now it's all about because people don't know yet for sure what happened before existence of the universe. Humans are not going to know everything, so will the theists just demand every time there is a gap in the knowledge that that is their God?

I'm asking reasonable and pertinent questions.  Will you consider them or just pass them off because of your beliefs?

Wow so it's my "beliefs" now.
People gave you the answer: there's absolutely nothing to justify crediting a god for the existence of the universe. Some mysteries of the universe may never be solved. But this is ignorance, not evidence.
And also by clinging to supernatural explanations to unknown things makes it so much difficult for progress of science because supernatural explanation become someone's religion and dogma, and they find it insulting when someone makes a naturalistic explanation and proceed with torture and terrorist attacks, boycott schools because what may seem like magic or a god today often becomes an elementary school science lesson tomorrow.

[Amarok]

There is no reason to think there was anything before nature and we know nature exists , And there is no reason to think the  nature came from anywhere . That assumes a lot about causality that simply isn't supported . Ultimately Theists are just pushing an argument from ignorance .

[Peebothuhlu]

[quote pid='1885958' dateline='1550547716']

No.  I'm not any of those.  What I'm saying is that you don't know what that "energy" is, but because of your limited worldview you automatically rule out that this energy could have created the universe rather than have become it.  You exist in a box and will not wander beyond its boundaries.
[/quote]

1) "What I'm saying is that you don't know what that "energy" is.. "

 What that 'Energy' was.... That cooled, expanded and coalessed into the electons, protons and neutrons wich further combined into the first hydrogen and helium (Possibly lithium?) barium (Pretty sure that's right) matter which (After sorting out the matter/anitmatter thing) further condensed/collapsed into the first suns... etc....

2) "But because of your limited worldview you automatically rule out..."

Uhm... please don't post/do things like that. Telling others what they think is often seen as rather rude.

3) "That this energy could have created the universe rather than have become it."

Y'see. This sentence doesn't actually make sense. You can't be the source/beggining of something as well as actually 'Being' said something.

The whole 'What came before we know of the early energy' bit/point is the things people are still thinking/poking about. 

 4) "You exist in a box and will not wander beyond its boundaries."

Remeber point '2'? Yah, you're doing that point again. You really don't want to be that point.

 Not at work.

[Duty]

I don't have the answers, but I would like the seekers to know that becoming an atheist doesn't give you the answers. It just establishes boundaries that keep you from being open to all possibilities.

I see the god of the gaps (well, there seems to be only one gap left actually RE why is there something rather than nothing) is still merrily prancing around inside the minds of some. Can't explain lightning? Goddidit. Can't explain rainfall? Goddidit. Can't explain butterflies, vipers, parasitic wasps? Goddidit. Can't explain disease? Goddidit....etc etc etc down through the ages. We've got explanations for all that stuff now, yet still some say...Can't explain the big bang? Goddidit.

[Rahn127]

What is energy ?

Energy, in physics, the capacity for doing work. It may exist in potential, kinetic, thermal, electrical, chemical, nuclear, or other various forms. Energy in the process of transfer from one body to another.

A bat hitting a ball.
Wind moving the blades of a windmill.
Heat boiling water on a stove.
Every movement you make

Energy exists in many different forms. Examples of these are: light energy, heat energy, mechanical energy, gravitational energy, electrical energy, sound energy, chemical energy, nuclear or atomic energy and so on.

Sound energy moves the air.
The air moves your ear drum.
The ear drum creates an electrical pulse in your nerves that travels through your brain to create the experience of sound.

We call this transference ...energy.
It is not intelligent. It simply is what the universe is made of, in all it's various forms.

People spend their lives studying all the various forms of energy. A long distance runner. An engineer who builds bridges. Companies who put satellites in orbit.
Hell, every job you can think of deals with energy.

When a kite flies, a god is not lifting it up.
It's the wind.

When chemicals mix and form compounds, a god is not creating the compound.
It's just chemistry and the forces of nature.
Electrical charges, transferring electrons, chemical bonds.

I think you know all of this.

You're trying to fit your god in there somewhere.
You have this belief and you want your god to be doing something, to be part of that chemistry, to be part of the wind, to move the angle of the bat so you get a home run, but it's just your imagination.

I'm sorry, but all we have is reality.
It's a wonderful place. Lots of mysteries still to be solved. But you can't solve a mystery if you think some invisible, intangible, all knowing, all seeing entity did it.

There are actual answers to your questions.
You just have to discover them.

As a five year old, it's cute when they say my imaginary friend ate the cookie.
As an adult, saying the imaginary friend created the universe stops becoming cute.

[Lek]

What is energy ?

Energy, in physics, the capacity for doing work. It may exist in potential, kinetic, thermal, electrical, chemical, nuclear, or other various forms. Energy in the process of transfer from one body to another.

A bat hitting a ball.
Wind moving the blades of a windmill.
Heat boiling water on a stove.
Every movement you make

Energy exists in many different forms. Examples of these are: light energy, heat energy, mechanical energy, gravitational energy, electrical energy, sound energy, chemical energy, nuclear or atomic energy and so on.

Sound energy moves the air.
The air moves your ear drum.
The ear drum creates an electrical pulse in your nerves that travels through your brain to create the experience of sound.

We call this transference ...energy.
It is not intelligent. It simply is what the universe is made of, in all it's various forms.

People spend their lives studying all the various forms of energy. A long distance runner. An engineer who builds bridges. Companies who put satellites in orbit.
Hell, every job you can think of deals with energy.

When a kite flies, a god is not lifting it up.
It's the wind.

When chemicals mix and form compounds, a god is not creating the compound.
It's just chemistry and the forces of nature.
Electrical charges, transferring electrons, chemical bonds.

I think you know all of this.

You're trying to fit your god in there somewhere.
You have this belief and you want your god to be doing something, to be part of that chemistry, to be part of the wind, to move the angle of the bat so you get a home run, but it's just your imagination.

I'm sorry, but all we have is reality.
It's a wonderful place. Lots of mysteries still to be solved. But you can't solve a mystery if you think some invisible, intangible, all knowing, all seeing entity did it.

There are actual answers to your questions.
You just have to discover them.

As a five year old, it's cute when they say my imaginary friend ate the cookie.
As an adult, saying the imaginary friend created the universe stops becoming cute.

Very impressive, but you've used a lot of words describing the characteristic of energy when the original question was where did it come from.  You can throw all the scientific knowledge in the world around all day, but either there is something or there is nothing.  Either there was something here from infinity, or there was nothing before there was something.  Maybe you all don't care about the purpose of existence, but to me that's really what it's all about.  That's what humankind has searched for since we came about.  There is nothing amazing about a universe that just evolves according to some random natural processes.  Everything is just more dirt in different forms.  I'll ask another five year old question.  Is the universe limited in the size it can become or are its boundaries infinite? If it is limited in size, what is the nature of what is beyond the physical universe?  What space is the universe expanding into?  Atheists are convinced that science will one day be able to answer all these questions whereas ancient wisdom already had the answers.  The more scientists learn about the universe, the more they realize we don't know.

[Rahn127]

What is energy ?

Energy, in physics, the capacity for doing work. It may exist in potential, kinetic, thermal, electrical, chemical, nuclear, or other various forms. Energy in the process of transfer from one body to another.

A bat hitting a ball.
Wind moving the blades of a windmill.
Heat boiling water on a stove.
Every movement you make

Energy exists in many different forms. Examples of these are: light energy, heat energy, mechanical energy, gravitational energy, electrical energy, sound energy, chemical energy, nuclear or atomic energy and so on.

Sound energy moves the air.
The air moves your ear drum.
The ear drum creates an electrical pulse in your nerves that travels through your brain to create the experience of sound.

We call this transference ...energy.
It is not intelligent. It simply is what the universe is made of, in all it's various forms.

People spend their lives studying all the various forms of energy. A long distance runner. An engineer who builds bridges. Companies who put satellites in orbit.
Hell, every job you can think of deals with energy.

When a kite flies, a god is not lifting it up.
It's the wind.

When chemicals mix and form compounds, a god is not creating the compound.
It's just chemistry and the forces of nature.
Electrical charges, transferring electrons, chemical bonds.

I think you know all of this.

You're trying to fit your god in there somewhere.
You have this belief and you want your god to be doing something, to be part of that chemistry, to be part of the wind, to move the angle of the bat so you get a home run, but it's just your imagination.

I'm sorry, but all we have is reality.
It's a wonderful place. Lots of mysteries still to be solved. But you can't solve a mystery if you think some invisible, intangible, all knowing, all seeing entity did it.

There are actual answers to your questions.
You just have to discover them.

As a five year old, it's cute when they say my imaginary friend ate the cookie.
As an adult, saying the imaginary friend created the universe stops becoming cute.

Very impressive, but you've used a lot of words describing the characteristic of energy when the original question was where did it come from.  You can throw all the scientific knowledge in the world around all day, but either there is something or there is nothing.  Either there was something here from infinity, or there was nothing before there was something.  Maybe you all don't care about the purpose of existence, but to me that's really what it's all about.  That's what humankind has searched for since we came about.  There is nothing amazing about a universe that just evolves according to some random natural processes.  Everything is just more dirt in different forms.  I'll ask another five year old question.  Is the universe limited in the size it can become or are its boundaries infinite? If it is limited in size, what is the nature of what is beyond the physical universe?  What space is the universe expanding into?  Atheists are convinced that science will one day be able to answer all these questions whereas ancient wisdom already had the answers.  The more scientists learn about the universe, the more they realize we don't know.

Where did it come from ?
It came from here.
Here is all we have.

Either we have something or nothing ?
Answer - We have something.

We have no evidence of there being nothing.
We only have evidence of something.

The universe isn't expanding into any other space.
It is space and space is expanding.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

God of the gaps much, Lek?