Question/Claim (Q): I want to start off by stating, I'm not sure exactly how God would be needed in a worldview to begin with. What purpose does having that concept serve?
Reply (R): Our existence raises some fundamental questions. Like:
1. The existence of the universe. The universe had a beginning. What was the cause?
2. The universe obeys the laws and rules of mathematics and physics. What does its implementation depend on?
3. The physical universe and the laws of physics are interdependent and irreducible. There would not be one without the other. How was that instantiated?
4. Fine-Tuning: The Laws of physics, physical constants, the initial conditions of the universe, the Big Bang, the subatomic particles, atoms, Carbon nucleosynthesis, the basis of all life on earth, the Milky Way, our Galaxy, the Solar System, the sun, the earth, the moon, water, the electromagnetic spectrum, and biochemistry are fine-tuned to permit life. Over 100 constants must be just right. How do you explain that?
5. Formation of life. How did life start, if abiogenesis research has failed, and never been able to demonstrate to be possible despite over half a century of intensive scientific research?
6. Cells ARE literally factories. Biological cells ARE an industrial park of millions of interconnected complex factories, full of machines. How do you explain their origin?
7. A minimal free-living Cell requires 1350 proteins with an average size of 400 amino acids. That requires selecting 1 out of 10^722.000! How do you have such enormous faith in lucky accidents?
8. Irreducible complexity. Biological cells require a minimal number of parts, which have no use by themselves, and would never accumulate on the prebiotic earth. Evidence rather shows that molecules randomize and devolve into asphalts.
9. The appearance of design. The universe and biological systems appear designed. Therefore, most probably, they are designed. If not, why not?
10. Codified Information. DNA has the highest storage density known, and stores the blueprint of life. Blueprints can always be traced back to intelligence. If now, what is your alternative explanation, and do you have evidence?
11. The Fossil Record. The Fossil record, and in special the Cambrian explosion, demonstrates the sudden appearance of lifeforms, without intermediates. How can evolution therefore still be true?
12. Consciousness and language. Conscience, mental reality, language, logic, free will, moral values, are immaterial entities, and cannot emerge from physical matter. Or can they? And if so, how do you know?
13. Objective moral values exist. They are "ought to be"s, imprinted in our conscience. How comes?
14. Human objective logic depends and can only derive from a pre-existing necessary first mind with objective logic. Prove me wrong.
125 reasons to believe in God
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1276-125-reasons-to-believe-in-god
These questions are either best explained by an intelligent, powerful, eternal creator, or not.
Comparing worldviews - there are basically just two
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2793-worldviews-there-are-basically-just-two-in-regards-of-origins
How to recognize the signature of (past) intelligent action
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2805-how-to-recognize-the-signature-of-past-intelligent-action
(Q): Within my own worldview, I can say that I still have values that have been attributed to religion, but without the baggage of damaging texts that get between me and those very important values. These values are things such as love, kindness, empathy, compassion. I understand that religion claims to hold these values, but the texts they are using do not seem to hold those values at all times and I think actually impede the implementation of those values successfully within human culture.
(R):
What good has the Christian faith brought to us
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1452-what-good-has-the-christian-faith-brought-to-us
Why do positive, active, strong militant atheists or weak atheists/agnostics promote their views with such fervor and time spent?
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2379-why-do-postive-active-strong-militant-atheists-promote-naturalism-with-such-fervor-and-time-spending
Jeffrey Dahmer: If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then—then what's the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges?,” "That's how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we, when we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing.”
(Q): If I look at what is causing more harm, is it the value of love, or is it people telling two humans who love each other that they can't get married, or that their love is lesser than, or that they do not value their love? I can understand taking the religion and trying to separate it from the way people use it politically, but the problem comes from faulty texts that muddle the ability to process the human being next to you as a person with value, who is doing their best, even if that best doesn't look very good at the time. My personal worldview allows space for not only the concepts to exist independently of doctrine that holds it back, it additionally allows me to interpret the meaning of those words from moment to moment without being held back by trying to see if the person next to me is passing any particular test for being shown these values. At this point, I have started to view religions and religious texts as nothing more than language that was developed to try to navigate society as best as was possible, and citing the insight of others that said important things at the time.Let's say, for example, that "Jesus" (I'm putting it in quotes because this is not real Jesus; this is make-believe Jesus) was here right now. What would he say now? It would necessarily be different than what the Jesus of the bible was talking about because the culture is not the same.
(R): Leviticus 19.18 Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.
Matthew 22:39 “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
Jesus would still say the same. The foremost command did not change in the Old, and the New Testament.
(Q): In regard to your second question, how do I explain our existence without a creator, this is how I think things have gone. Atoms exist. It is not possible for me to state how, but the teleological argument that there was a beginning is not satisfactory for me because I do not know what came before.
(R): I think inference to the best explanation is enough.
Aquinas showed us that the attributes of a true God are logically deduced. Properties of the first cause:
1. Supernatural in nature, (As it exists outside and beyond of the natural physical universe),
2. Uncaused, beginningless, and eternal (self-existent, as it exists without a cause, outside of time and space, besides the fact that infinite regress of causes is impossible. ),
3. Omnipresent & all-knowing (It created space and is not limited by it),
4. Changeless ( Change depends on physical being )
5. Timeless ( Without physical events, there can be no time, and time began with the Big Bang )
6. Immaterial (Because He transcends space and created matter),
7. Spaceless ( Since it created space)
8. Personal (The impersonal can’t create personality, and only a personal, free agent can cause a change from a changeless state )
9. Enormously Powerful ( Since it brought the entire universe, space-time and matter into existence )
10. Necessary (As everything else depends on it),
11. Absolutely independent and self-existent ( It does not depend on a higher causal agency to exist otherwise there would be infinite regress which is impossible )
12. Infinite and singular (As you cannot have two infinities),
13. Diverse yet has unity (As all multiplicity implies a prior singularity),
14. Intelligent (Supremely, to create everything, in special language, complexity, factories and machines),
15. Purposeful (As it deliberately created everything with goals in mind),
An agent endowed with free will can have a determination in a timeless dimension to operate causally at a (first) moment of time and thereby to produce a temporally first effect
1. God is supernatural in nature Acts 17:24-25
2. God is uncaused, beginningless, and eternal 1 Timothy 1:17
3. God is omnipresent & all-knowing Psalm 139:7-12; Jeremiah 23:24
4. God is unchanging Malachi 3:6
5. God is immaterial (spirit) John 4:24
6. God is personal John 4:24, 1 Thessalonians 5:18, Isaiah 25:1, Isaiah 63:7, Psalm 78:1, 1 Chronicles 16:8, Micah 4:12, Job 29:4, 2 Corinthians 13:14
7. God is enormously Powerful Genesis 17:1
8. God is timeless Revelation 1:8
9. God is necessary Genesis 1:1
10. God is omniscient ( All-knowing ) Psalm 147:4-5
11. God is absolutely independent and self-existent Isaiah 46:9
12. God is One, yet He exists in three persons Matthew 3:16-17
13. God is extraordinarily intelligent Jeremiah 32:17
14. God is all-understanding Psalm 147:5
15. God is purposeful
The Kalam leads to the God of the Bible
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2877-the-kalaam-leads-to-the-god-of-the-bible
(Q): It is also not possible for me to know if there were other universes, before this one, if the universe is expanding and contracting, where life was more probable than the universe we are currently in.
(R): 1. The theory of the Big bang is a scientific consensus today: According to Hawking, Einstein, Rees, Vilenkin, Penzias, Jastrow, Krauss, and 100’s other physicists, finite nature (time/space/matter) had a beginning. While we cannot go back further than Planck's time, what we do know, permits us to posit a beginning.
2. The 2nd law of thermodynamics refutes the possibility of an eternal universe. [size=12]Luke A. Barnes: [/size]The Second Law points to a beginning when, for the first time, the Universe was in a state where all energy was available for use; and an end in the future when no more energy will be available (referred to by scientists as a “heat death”, thus causing the Universe to “die.” In other words, the Universe is like a giant watch that has been wound up, but that now is winding down. The conclusion to be drawn from the scientific data is inescapable—the Universe is not eternal.
3. Philosophical reasons why the universe cannot be past eternal: You cannot reach B from an infinite interval of time. It has to be finite starting from A. If we start counting from now, we can count infinitely. We can always add one discrete section of time to another. If we count backwards from now, the same. But in both cases, there is a starting point. That is what we try to avoid when we talk about an infinite past without a beginning. So how can you even count without an end, forwards, or backwards, if there is no starting point? A reference point to start counting is necessary to get somewhere, or you never get "there".
The universe is not past eternal but had a beginning
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1333-kalaam-the-cosmological-argument-for-gods-existence#5124
The universe had a beginning
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1297-beginning-the-universe-had-a-beginning
(Q): I think that could be a possibility though. I also think there could be universes that have existed, or even do currently exist, outside of this one or prior to this one using the same or even different materials that had no life for billions or trillions or more years. I can't know these things. I have no reason to know or not know them. They are just questions and thoughts that don't have answers, but are within the realm of possibility given what is known so far. I have no reason to assume that matter expanding and contracting infinitely is somehow governed by something with any intelligence or anything at all.
(R): Guth, A.H. and M. Sher:
The ability of the universe to oscillate is dependent upon a certain critical mass. This critical mass is required to slow the expansion of the universe and force a contraction. If this total mass is not present, which seems likely, then the universe will continue to expand into eternity. Even if there were enough mass to cause the universe, the result of that collapse would be a "Big Crunch" as opposed to another Big Bang. The reason that the universe would not "bounce" if it were to contract is that the universe is extremely inefficient (entropic). In fact, the universe is so inefficient that the bounce resulting from the collapse of the universe would be only 0.00000001% of the original Big Bang (see table above). Such a small "bounce" would result in an almost immediate re-collapse of the universe into one giant black hole for the rest of eternity.
1983. The impossibility of a bouncing universe. Nature 302: 505-506.
(Q): Because of all of this, the idea that there is some little pixie in a space between universes using pixie dust to create new universes for fun is just as plausible as any other explanation, and because of that, what it comes down to for me is, "where science ends, imagination begins."
(R): Pixies creating universes would still make more sense, than none, in my view.
(Q): If I were to imagine a universe being created without the pixie, god, or any other being, it would come down to nothing more than an infinite amount of energy. Energy, as far as I understand it, has no properties that assert intelligence.
(R): Mithani, Vilenkin Did the universe have a beginning? 20 Apr 2012
There are three popular scenarios: eternal inflation, a cyclic universe, and an “emergent” universe that exists for eternity as a static seed before expanding. Here we shall argue that none of these scenarios can actually be past-eternal. Did the universe have a beginning? At this point, it seems that the answer to this question is probably yes.2 Here we have addressed three scenarios which seemed to offer a way to avoid a beginning, and have found that none of them can actually be eternal in the past. Both eternal inflation and cyclic universe scenarios have Hav > 0, which means that they must be past-geodesically incomplete. We have also examined a simple emergent universe model, and concluded that it cannot escape quantum collapse. Even considering more general emergent universe models, there do not seem to be any matter sources that admit solutions that are immune to collapse.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1204.4658.pdf
Energy was created at the Big bang
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t3159-energy-was-created-at-the-big-bang
Reply (R): Our existence raises some fundamental questions. Like:
1. The existence of the universe. The universe had a beginning. What was the cause?
2. The universe obeys the laws and rules of mathematics and physics. What does its implementation depend on?
3. The physical universe and the laws of physics are interdependent and irreducible. There would not be one without the other. How was that instantiated?
4. Fine-Tuning: The Laws of physics, physical constants, the initial conditions of the universe, the Big Bang, the subatomic particles, atoms, Carbon nucleosynthesis, the basis of all life on earth, the Milky Way, our Galaxy, the Solar System, the sun, the earth, the moon, water, the electromagnetic spectrum, and biochemistry are fine-tuned to permit life. Over 100 constants must be just right. How do you explain that?
5. Formation of life. How did life start, if abiogenesis research has failed, and never been able to demonstrate to be possible despite over half a century of intensive scientific research?
6. Cells ARE literally factories. Biological cells ARE an industrial park of millions of interconnected complex factories, full of machines. How do you explain their origin?
7. A minimal free-living Cell requires 1350 proteins with an average size of 400 amino acids. That requires selecting 1 out of 10^722.000! How do you have such enormous faith in lucky accidents?
8. Irreducible complexity. Biological cells require a minimal number of parts, which have no use by themselves, and would never accumulate on the prebiotic earth. Evidence rather shows that molecules randomize and devolve into asphalts.
9. The appearance of design. The universe and biological systems appear designed. Therefore, most probably, they are designed. If not, why not?
10. Codified Information. DNA has the highest storage density known, and stores the blueprint of life. Blueprints can always be traced back to intelligence. If now, what is your alternative explanation, and do you have evidence?
11. The Fossil Record. The Fossil record, and in special the Cambrian explosion, demonstrates the sudden appearance of lifeforms, without intermediates. How can evolution therefore still be true?
12. Consciousness and language. Conscience, mental reality, language, logic, free will, moral values, are immaterial entities, and cannot emerge from physical matter. Or can they? And if so, how do you know?
13. Objective moral values exist. They are "ought to be"s, imprinted in our conscience. How comes?
14. Human objective logic depends and can only derive from a pre-existing necessary first mind with objective logic. Prove me wrong.
125 reasons to believe in God
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1276-125-reasons-to-believe-in-god
These questions are either best explained by an intelligent, powerful, eternal creator, or not.
Comparing worldviews - there are basically just two
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2793-worldviews-there-are-basically-just-two-in-regards-of-origins
How to recognize the signature of (past) intelligent action
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2805-how-to-recognize-the-signature-of-past-intelligent-action
(Q): Within my own worldview, I can say that I still have values that have been attributed to religion, but without the baggage of damaging texts that get between me and those very important values. These values are things such as love, kindness, empathy, compassion. I understand that religion claims to hold these values, but the texts they are using do not seem to hold those values at all times and I think actually impede the implementation of those values successfully within human culture.
(R):
What good has the Christian faith brought to us
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1452-what-good-has-the-christian-faith-brought-to-us
Why do positive, active, strong militant atheists or weak atheists/agnostics promote their views with such fervor and time spent?
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2379-why-do-postive-active-strong-militant-atheists-promote-naturalism-with-such-fervor-and-time-spending
Jeffrey Dahmer: If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then—then what's the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges?,” "That's how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we, when we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing.”
(Q): If I look at what is causing more harm, is it the value of love, or is it people telling two humans who love each other that they can't get married, or that their love is lesser than, or that they do not value their love? I can understand taking the religion and trying to separate it from the way people use it politically, but the problem comes from faulty texts that muddle the ability to process the human being next to you as a person with value, who is doing their best, even if that best doesn't look very good at the time. My personal worldview allows space for not only the concepts to exist independently of doctrine that holds it back, it additionally allows me to interpret the meaning of those words from moment to moment without being held back by trying to see if the person next to me is passing any particular test for being shown these values. At this point, I have started to view religions and religious texts as nothing more than language that was developed to try to navigate society as best as was possible, and citing the insight of others that said important things at the time.Let's say, for example, that "Jesus" (I'm putting it in quotes because this is not real Jesus; this is make-believe Jesus) was here right now. What would he say now? It would necessarily be different than what the Jesus of the bible was talking about because the culture is not the same.
(R): Leviticus 19.18 Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.
Matthew 22:39 “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
Jesus would still say the same. The foremost command did not change in the Old, and the New Testament.
(Q): In regard to your second question, how do I explain our existence without a creator, this is how I think things have gone. Atoms exist. It is not possible for me to state how, but the teleological argument that there was a beginning is not satisfactory for me because I do not know what came before.
(R): I think inference to the best explanation is enough.
Aquinas showed us that the attributes of a true God are logically deduced. Properties of the first cause:
1. Supernatural in nature, (As it exists outside and beyond of the natural physical universe),
2. Uncaused, beginningless, and eternal (self-existent, as it exists without a cause, outside of time and space, besides the fact that infinite regress of causes is impossible. ),
3. Omnipresent & all-knowing (It created space and is not limited by it),
4. Changeless ( Change depends on physical being )
5. Timeless ( Without physical events, there can be no time, and time began with the Big Bang )
6. Immaterial (Because He transcends space and created matter),
7. Spaceless ( Since it created space)
8. Personal (The impersonal can’t create personality, and only a personal, free agent can cause a change from a changeless state )
9. Enormously Powerful ( Since it brought the entire universe, space-time and matter into existence )
10. Necessary (As everything else depends on it),
11. Absolutely independent and self-existent ( It does not depend on a higher causal agency to exist otherwise there would be infinite regress which is impossible )
12. Infinite and singular (As you cannot have two infinities),
13. Diverse yet has unity (As all multiplicity implies a prior singularity),
14. Intelligent (Supremely, to create everything, in special language, complexity, factories and machines),
15. Purposeful (As it deliberately created everything with goals in mind),
An agent endowed with free will can have a determination in a timeless dimension to operate causally at a (first) moment of time and thereby to produce a temporally first effect
1. God is supernatural in nature Acts 17:24-25
2. God is uncaused, beginningless, and eternal 1 Timothy 1:17
3. God is omnipresent & all-knowing Psalm 139:7-12; Jeremiah 23:24
4. God is unchanging Malachi 3:6
5. God is immaterial (spirit) John 4:24
6. God is personal John 4:24, 1 Thessalonians 5:18, Isaiah 25:1, Isaiah 63:7, Psalm 78:1, 1 Chronicles 16:8, Micah 4:12, Job 29:4, 2 Corinthians 13:14
7. God is enormously Powerful Genesis 17:1
8. God is timeless Revelation 1:8
9. God is necessary Genesis 1:1
10. God is omniscient ( All-knowing ) Psalm 147:4-5
11. God is absolutely independent and self-existent Isaiah 46:9
12. God is One, yet He exists in three persons Matthew 3:16-17
13. God is extraordinarily intelligent Jeremiah 32:17
14. God is all-understanding Psalm 147:5
15. God is purposeful
The Kalam leads to the God of the Bible
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2877-the-kalaam-leads-to-the-god-of-the-bible
(Q): It is also not possible for me to know if there were other universes, before this one, if the universe is expanding and contracting, where life was more probable than the universe we are currently in.
(R): 1. The theory of the Big bang is a scientific consensus today: According to Hawking, Einstein, Rees, Vilenkin, Penzias, Jastrow, Krauss, and 100’s other physicists, finite nature (time/space/matter) had a beginning. While we cannot go back further than Planck's time, what we do know, permits us to posit a beginning.
2. The 2nd law of thermodynamics refutes the possibility of an eternal universe. [size=12]Luke A. Barnes: [/size]The Second Law points to a beginning when, for the first time, the Universe was in a state where all energy was available for use; and an end in the future when no more energy will be available (referred to by scientists as a “heat death”, thus causing the Universe to “die.” In other words, the Universe is like a giant watch that has been wound up, but that now is winding down. The conclusion to be drawn from the scientific data is inescapable—the Universe is not eternal.
3. Philosophical reasons why the universe cannot be past eternal: You cannot reach B from an infinite interval of time. It has to be finite starting from A. If we start counting from now, we can count infinitely. We can always add one discrete section of time to another. If we count backwards from now, the same. But in both cases, there is a starting point. That is what we try to avoid when we talk about an infinite past without a beginning. So how can you even count without an end, forwards, or backwards, if there is no starting point? A reference point to start counting is necessary to get somewhere, or you never get "there".
The universe is not past eternal but had a beginning
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1333-kalaam-the-cosmological-argument-for-gods-existence#5124
The universe had a beginning
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1297-beginning-the-universe-had-a-beginning
(Q): I think that could be a possibility though. I also think there could be universes that have existed, or even do currently exist, outside of this one or prior to this one using the same or even different materials that had no life for billions or trillions or more years. I can't know these things. I have no reason to know or not know them. They are just questions and thoughts that don't have answers, but are within the realm of possibility given what is known so far. I have no reason to assume that matter expanding and contracting infinitely is somehow governed by something with any intelligence or anything at all.
(R): Guth, A.H. and M. Sher:
The ability of the universe to oscillate is dependent upon a certain critical mass. This critical mass is required to slow the expansion of the universe and force a contraction. If this total mass is not present, which seems likely, then the universe will continue to expand into eternity. Even if there were enough mass to cause the universe, the result of that collapse would be a "Big Crunch" as opposed to another Big Bang. The reason that the universe would not "bounce" if it were to contract is that the universe is extremely inefficient (entropic). In fact, the universe is so inefficient that the bounce resulting from the collapse of the universe would be only 0.00000001% of the original Big Bang (see table above). Such a small "bounce" would result in an almost immediate re-collapse of the universe into one giant black hole for the rest of eternity.
1983. The impossibility of a bouncing universe. Nature 302: 505-506.
(Q): Because of all of this, the idea that there is some little pixie in a space between universes using pixie dust to create new universes for fun is just as plausible as any other explanation, and because of that, what it comes down to for me is, "where science ends, imagination begins."
(R): Pixies creating universes would still make more sense, than none, in my view.
(Q): If I were to imagine a universe being created without the pixie, god, or any other being, it would come down to nothing more than an infinite amount of energy. Energy, as far as I understand it, has no properties that assert intelligence.
(R): Mithani, Vilenkin Did the universe have a beginning? 20 Apr 2012
There are three popular scenarios: eternal inflation, a cyclic universe, and an “emergent” universe that exists for eternity as a static seed before expanding. Here we shall argue that none of these scenarios can actually be past-eternal. Did the universe have a beginning? At this point, it seems that the answer to this question is probably yes.2 Here we have addressed three scenarios which seemed to offer a way to avoid a beginning, and have found that none of them can actually be eternal in the past. Both eternal inflation and cyclic universe scenarios have Hav > 0, which means that they must be past-geodesically incomplete. We have also examined a simple emergent universe model, and concluded that it cannot escape quantum collapse. Even considering more general emergent universe models, there do not seem to be any matter sources that admit solutions that are immune to collapse.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1204.4658.pdf
Energy was created at the Big bang
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t3159-energy-was-created-at-the-big-bang
