₦airaland Forum

buzugee: i think you are confusing 'being a chauvinistic caveman' with bilical subjection to your husband. husband is supposed to love his wife and vice versa. they are both partners in the relationship and should treat each other with mutual respect. all of what i just said is scriptural. however the man has the final say in crucial decisions. like for example ' we have 20,000 pounds in our savings account and we just gave birth to a son. the womans natural instincts is to start buying baby clothes with all the money. she buys 400 pounds baby shoes etc etc. all emotional driven. if a man lets a woman lead the house she will drive them into bankruptcy. in this situation the man makes decisions like noooooooooo hunny we are buying the cheapest baby clothes because kids grow fast' etc etc etc. thats what it means when it says the woman should be subject to her husband. its not talking about chauvinism. scripture says ' husbands love your wives'

Even the so called "final say" is bad enough isn't it? In your example, it is simple things you are talking about. When the issues become critical and the woman who may have the sounder position is overridden, what then ?

[quote author=Mr_Anony]I don't know what we are arguing about really.
She has a choice whether to get married or not. Christian marriage is a contract where the man must love his wife and the wife must submit to her husband until they die. That is simply the nature of the agreement because of their nature as man and woman.

The man is also bound to love his wife (no matter what) as long as he is married, he has no choice in the matter.

The problem I percieve here is that you think submission to be a bad thing. I say: "what is wrong in submission where there is love?"[/quote]Submission may be good and bad. There are instances where it is good. Leadership for example would not work if there were no subjects.

I do not see how love comes into this. It is clearly a sentiment and sentiments are known to affect objectivity.
The fact that you are full of love does not make you a reasonable person.

Husbands ----------> Love your wives
Wives -------------> Submit to your husbands

In other words, in a marriage, one person has the final say. The scales are tilted in one way and the determining factor is gender.

How is that right ?

[quote author=Mr_Anony]If love isn't enough to reason to demand your partner's humility, then I put it to you that you don't know what love is.[/quote]You've taken a detour.

The issue is why you think that the fact that someone should be subject to another simply based on gender isnt sexist.


As for humility, let me address it one last time.

One can be said to be good if the person had the choice to be bad.
Your example does not work because the woman has no choice in the matter. If she is married under biblical standards, she is forced whether she likes it or not to be subject to the man.
She would be "humble" (not even sure if that word is appropriate in this context) if she made a decision to subject herself.

[quote author=Mr_Anony]You have purposely ignored the flip side of the equation namely: "Husbands love your wives so much that you can give your life for her".
There cannot be oppression of the woman if the man indeed loves her.[/quote]Oh come on. I already addressed that. I said it wasnt enough. If you don't want to address what I wrote, its fine.

[quote author=Mr_Anony]By marrying, the woman has chosen to submit. At least she wasn't forced to marry the man. Isn't that humility for you?[/quote]She cannot submit and be an equal partner. Thats basic. A woman who holds herself to be the equal of any man cannot therefore marry and be equal. She either abstains from marriage or marries and becomes subject to the man.

By marrying, the woman has chosen to submit. At least she wasn't forced to marry the man. Isn't that humility for you?

She could have been 'forced" culturally and otherwise, but I get your meaning. No, its not humility for me because if that instruction was not there, maybe many a marriage could have been happier without some inept husband lording it over the woman in the name of submission. What would be humility is if the injunction was not there but the woman decided to subject herself anyway.

I don't think you have ever been in love............and no I don't agree.

Lol. Oya tell me how many people you have died for . [size=4pt]Just kidding[/size]

I don't support tweaking the bible but I get your point anyway. The answer is I won't feel uncomfortable by it at all. As long as the wife is willing to lead the family and bear such responsibilities i.e. wear the pants, I have no problem submitting to her leadership.
You may as well ask me if I was a woman, how would I feel about submitting to my husband?

Yes, but note the blanket nature of the injunction. You probably say this cos you are a man and so you may not feel the acute oppression women go through. It may sound like a novel idea to you and one you'd probably be willing to try but think about it for a minute. What if it was a carpet instruction ; "As long as you are a man, you have to be subject to your wife". Would you think that was fair ?
Wouldnt you think it more reasonable to have some kind of objective criteria ?
If the basis of respect/authority/submission is tied to gender solely, how is that not sexist ?

Simple.
By nature, even without the bible telling us, we are a patriarchal society in the sense that men are always expected to lead. Genetically, the woman is usually attracted to the "macho man" and the man is attracted to the "helpless damsel in distress".

Basically, what that passage is saying is "Be the man" only it is saying it in a church context.

We are indeed a patriarchal society and that factor indeed points in the direction of a man made bible (as opposed to divinely inspired). Thats another topic though, I wouldnt like to go far with that one just yet.

I have a suspicion that you refrained from using the word evolution and choosing "nature" to convey your meaning.

The way I see it, we are "higher animals" because we can rise above our nature (or evolutionary traits if you will).

For instance, the s[i]e[/i]xual urge is one of the most basic amongst humans, yet we are aware of the consequences of uncontrolled breeding. Other animals generally rely on their natural instincts while we can overide them.

When we recognise that something is not good or has outlived its usefulness, we generally moderated it.

So also, when we have old traditions where might was right and we continue to enforce this tradition, its not hard to pin point its source. The bible has been used to oppress women for ages. History is replete with this fact.

As an example, I am sure you dont support female circumcision. Now imagine you came from a tribe where female circumcision was practiced and you were as educated as you are now. Also imagine there was biblical support for female circumcision. Its either you would recognise the barbarity of the act, or you'd justify it on biblical grounds.

So tell me if its not better to be equal partners in a marriage or failing that, have either spouse submit to the other depending on objectively defined criteria and not simply gender ?

MacDaddy01: Why cant the husbands submit in return if they are equal in marriage?

Lol. I just wrote many words to ask that same question.

[quote author=Mr_Anony]I could also say that the person who is submitting is being humble.[/quote]Sure you could IF the person submitting is being humble of his/her own volition. This is clearly not the case as the bible strictly asks for submission from the wives. Theres also the other verse about women being silent in church and to ask their husbands if they had any problems.

Now to read those verses completely would be:-
Wives submit to your husbands, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the Church so much to the extent that He died for Her. Eph 5:22-33.

I don't know about you but I don't think I'll have a problem submitting to someone who is willing to die for me and is humble enough to wash my feet and be a servant to me because He loves me.

The word submit is problematic. I'm not sure there would be a problem if the word submit was replaced with respect.

v. sub·mit·ted, sub·mit·ting, sub·mits
v.tr.
1. To yield or surrender (oneself) to the will or authority of another.
2. To subject to a condition or process.
3. To commit (something) to the consideration or judgment of another. See Synonyms at propose.
4. To offer as a proposition or contention: I submit that the terms are entirely unreasonable.
v.intr.
1. To give in to the authority, power, or desires of another. See Synonyms at yield.
2. To allow oneself to be subjected to something.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/submit

I think you would agree that just because someone loves you so much that the person would give his/her life for you, it doesnt mean that the person is worth "submitting" to.
Regardless of the love and or humility, the person can make questionable decisions. This would mean that those qualities are not enough to warrant submission.

Agree ?

Also, consider tweaking the verse a bit to read thus :

Husbands submit to your wives, wives love your husbands as Christ loved the Church so much to the extent that He died for Her. Eph 5:22-33.

Would it make you comfortable ?

I'm sure if the criteria were love and humility, many women can be found worthy of submission. So why are only women instructed to submit ?

[quote author=Mr_Anony]lol, why should I be responsible for buzugees ideas. I believe men and women are one in Christ. I also believe that the wife should submit to her husband. I don't regard a wife submitting to her husband as being sexist.[/quote]Wouldn't you say that the person submitting is lower than the person being submitted to ?

Take leadership for instance, we submit to authority. The difference being that authority is usually temporary, but in the case of the biblical injunction of submission, its for the duration of the marriage (which is usually intended to be permanent).

So if the bible asks women to be subject to the man, why dont you consider it sexist? Its a blanket rule, no exceptions given.

buzugee: yes you will be an antichrist if you hold a woman to be equal to a man.

1 corinthians 11 vs 3[b] Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.[/b]

1 john 2 vs 22[b] Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.[/b]

YOU DENY THE FATHER AND THE SON BY YOUR DEEDS WHEN YOU SAY A WOMAN AND A MAN ARE EQUAL.

TITUS 1 VS 16[b] They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him.[/b]

when you deny God N Christ by your actions and mouth, you are an antichrist. God and christ have established an order which if you go against makes you an antichrist. this is the order >>>>> Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. 1 corinthians 11 vs 3

Ok. I understand you.

Mr_Anony you agree with the above ?

buzugee: is christianity sexist ? you have been seduced by the way of the wicked PROVERBS 12 VS 26[b] but the way of the wicked seduceth them.[/b] the world was handed into the hand of the wicked JOB 9 VS 24 . AND SINCE THE WICKED HAS BEEN IN CONTROL HE HAS DONE EVERYTHING TO SUBVERT THE NATURAL ORDER OF THINGS. now you are so seduced into the way of the wicked to the extent that you believe that it is sexist for the sexe-s not to be considered equal. the reality of the matter is that men and women are not equal and will never be equal
1-men pee standing up women pee sitting down
2- men have testosterone women have estrogen
3-men have hairy faces women dont
4-men are stronger than women
5-men are more muscular than women
6-women bleed once a month, men dont etc etc etc

we are not equal. those are just facts. to think otherwise makes you a wicked person. you are an anti-christ if you think otherwise.

1 corinthians 11 vs 3[b] Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.[/b]

So one would be an anti-christ if he holds a woman to be equal to a man ?

MacDaddy01: Are you in love with DeepSight?

14 years oh.

^^^
Currently, all knowledge stops at the proposed singularity. No one can say for sure what was "before".

Deep Sight: . . . the universe demonstrably began to expand from a point.

And how do you answer the physicist who says that the laws of physics were not applicable until said expansion ?

Deep Sight: It is simple logic, my friend. Refute it first, before arriving at calculations of how likely it is to be rubbish.

I think you are still laboring under the notion that science should be somehow at war with the notion of God, and will in time refute any logical premise that proves the existence of God. It is this type of attitude that moves people like Jayriginal to doubt simple cause and effect, and moves people like Idehn to say that time and space do not exist at all, and moves people like Dawkins to say that it is theoretically possible for an eye to spring into existence in a single lucky step.

It is a terrible burden to labor under: as I said before, it leads one to become FAR more illogical than the religionists.

You called ?

You still miss the point. Its not about doubting cause and effect, its about the absolute value of cause and effect.

You based your arguments based on this notion, and I asked you if it held true absolutely. You said it did in everything we could observe and experience and I told you that such observation and experience are limited. I told you that trying to give the whole an attribute of its components is known as a compositional fallacy.

Thats logic. It can not be faulted.

Deep Sight: Jayriginal,

Please look at this statement again. Now I ask you to tell me what it means for something to be theoretically possible.

I say to you that it means that under current accepted theories of applicable science, such a thing could happen, even if it is an unlikely thing.

Not so?

Now, tell me, is it possible for an eye to spring into existence in a single lucky step under currently accepted science?

TELL ME THAT IS NOT BALDERDASH, ADMIT THAT I DID NOT LIE, AND BE OBJECTIVE IN THIS PLEASE!

The issue here is context.

I said you were taking liberties with the truth, not that you were lying. You took that one line and ignored the other sentences that put what he was saying into perspective.
Its that simple. Notice also, when I quoted the full paragraph, the line you previously quoted was left in it.

Deep Sight: Ah, yes, here it is indeed. It is the first line that informed my memory, and yes, I state that it is still a nonsensical line. Such nonsense is not even theoretically possible. For him to -

1. Conceive it as theoretically possible

2. Then admit it impossible in practical terms, and then

3. String out the same idea simply interpolating extended time as the pacifier -

Is eminently nonsensical.

Let me ask you - what does it mean to assert anything to be "theoretically" possible?

I say to you that the bold in red in his quote below is NOT even theoretically possible. What follows it in blue bold is nothing but an admission that such would require intelligent programming.



And so yes, i retain my position.

You wont get away that easily. Remember that you remembered just one line. This in spite of the fact that he said more than that putting his comments in proper perspective.
Admit it. You took him out of context. If anyone was passing by and did not know how to access the full article, that your comment would have misled them.

Deep Sight: Ol boy, i will seek out the quote where I saw the thing. Perhaps it was KAG, who was supporting him, that actually said so. I will verify.

Check here https://www.nairaland.com/758572/improbability-god
You remember, but you let your objectivity be clouded as you usually do when up against an opponent of your ideals.

Deep Sight: nowadays we have nit wits like Richard Dawkings writing that the eye could have "sprang into existence in a single lucky mutation".

How about that?

Wow! In your hatred for Dawkins, you are willing to take liberties with the truth.

Its quite telling you know?

Here is what the man said.

For instance, it is theoretically possible for an eye to spring into being, in a single lucky step, from nothing: from bare skin, let's say. It is theoretically possible in the sense that a recipe could be written out in the form of a large number of mutations. If all these mutations happened simultaneously, a complete eye could, indeed, spring from nothing. But although it is theoretically possible, it is in practice inconceivable. The quantity of luck involved is much too large. The "correct" recipe involves changes in a huge number of genes simultaneously. The correct recipe is one particular combination of changes out of trillions of equally probable combinations of chances. We can certainly rule out such a miraculous coincidence. But it is perfectly plausible that the modern eye could have sprung from something almost the same as the modern eye but not quite: a very slightly less elaborate eye. By the same argument, this slightly less elaborate eye sprang from a slightly less elaborate eye still, and so on. If you assume a sufficiently large number of sufficiently small differences between each evolutionary stage and its predecessor, you are bound to be able to derive a full, complex, working eye from bare skin. How many intermediate stages are we allowed to postulate? That depends on how much time we have to play with. Has there been enough time for eyes to evolve by little steps from nothing?

http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/dawkins_18_3.html

truthislight: the life or soul is in the blood, so since you had class plants and animal together when talking about life it may lead one to believe that plants are among the list of things having the "life" in question.

Yes, plant are alive, but may not really be in the class of Animal, fishes and human since it has no blood like this do.
Peace

Peace.

[quote author=Okija_juju]All dogs go to heaven..[/quote]Nostalgia !

truthislight: so plant have blood?

Did I say that ?

Deep Sight: Anyone who says animals don't have souls has never lived with a dog as a pet.

Animals are not only amazingly intelligent, but they display knowing sentient awareness of unexpected attributes: its amazing to observe animals that have a sense of guilt, a sense of family, a sense of loyalty FAR exceeding that of humans, a sense of work ethic and duty, a sense of deception, stealth, cunning and deceitfulness, a sense of love, a sense of intense jealousy, and many more.

Any person who is a lover of animals both wild and domestic, and has taken time to observe them, will be in no doubt that they possess souls of some sort.

Very nice and apt actually.

On the issue of "souls", I see no reason why that is the distinguishing feature of humanity. Reading the thread, I expected to see many christians denouncing the concept of animal "souls". Possibly, the thread hasnt attracted them yet.

In fact, I think I've heard Pagan9ja use the term "our animal equals". That carries deep meaning. I'd like to be a vegetarian but some of our furry friends are quite delicious and besides, plants are alive too; they're just easier to catch.

My whole family is animal loving. We have had pigeons, dogs, a cat and even a chicken we called Remi. She died a natural death. No one could bear to eat her.

I'm rambling . . .

^^^

Ok.

PhysicsQED: My point was that ruling out the "first cause" or "prime mover," whether that prime mover is a God like entity or not, on the basis of it needing a prior cause may not necessarily the case. Basically I disagree with the assumptions underlying the argument of the opening post of this thread.

It would depend on your angle. I will agree with you if you are arguing scientifically. I will disagree with you if you are arguing philosophically. As you can see, first cause proponents on a "philosophical and logical' basis say everything needs a first cause except their own first cause. That is clumsy logic at best but as I noted and as should be obvious, we can argue all day and it wont change a thing.

Reality is not determined by our limited understanding.

For all I know, first cause proponents may actually be right, its just that they cannot prove it logically.

As I've said in the past, god cannot be proven using logic.

According to Feynman, a system has not just one history but every possible history. As we seek our answers, we will explain Feynman’s approach in detail, and employ it to explore the idea that the universe itself has no single history, nor even an independent existence. That seems like a radical idea, even to many physicists. Indeed, like many notions in today’s science, it appears to violate common sense. But common sense is based upon everyday experience, not upon the universe as it is revealed through the marvels of technologies such as those that allow us to gaze deep into the atom or back to the early universe

Until the advent of modern physics it was generally thought that all knowledge of the world could be obtained through direct observation, that things are what they seem, as perceived through our senses. But the spectacular success of modern physics, which is based upon concepts such as Feynman’s that clash with everyday experience, has shown that that is not the case. The naive view of reality therefore is not compatible with modern physics.

According to M-theory, ours is not the only universe. Instead, M-theory predicts that a great many universes were created out of nothing. Their creation does not require the intervention of some supernatural being or god. Rather, these multiple universes arise naturally from physical law. They are a prediction of science. Each universe has many possible histories and many possible states at later times, that is, at times like the present, long after their creation. Most of these states will be quite unlike the universe we observe and quite unsuitable for the existence of any form of life.

Some people support a model in which time goes back even further than the big bang. It is not yet clear whether a model in which time continued back beyond the big bang would be better at explaining present observations because it seems the laws of the evolution of the universe may break down at the big bang. If they do, it would make no sense to create a model that encompasses time before the big bang, because what existed then would have no observable consequences for the present, and so we might as well stick with the idea that the big bang was the creation of the world.

In the first two thousand or so years of scientific thought, ordinary experience and intuition were the basis for theoretical explanation. As we improved our technology and expanded the range of phenomena that we could observe, we began to find nature behaving in ways that were less and less in line with our everyday experience and hence with our intuition, as evidenced by the experiment with buckyballs. That experiment is typical of the type of phenomena that cannot be encompassed by classical science but are described by what is called quantum physics. In fact, Richard Feynman wrote that the double-slit experiment like the one we described above “contains all the mystery of quantum mechanics.” The principles of quantum physics were developed in the first few decades of the twentieth century after Newtonian theory was found to be inadequate for the description of nature on the atomic—or subatomic—level.

The fundamental theories of physics describe the forces of nature and how objects react to them. Classical theories such as Newton’s are built upon a framework reflecting everyday experience, in which material objects have an individual existence, can be located at definite locations, follow definite paths, and so on. Quantum physics provides a framework for understanding how nature operates on atomic and subatomic scales, but as we’ll see in more detail later, it dictates a completely different conceptual schema, one in which an object’s position, path, and even its past and future are not precisely determined.

So though the components of everyday objects obey quantum physics, Newton’s laws form an effective theory that describes very accurately how the composite structures that form our everyday world behave. That might sound strange, but there are many instances in science in which a large assemblage appears to behave in a manner that is different from the behavior of its individual components.

The responses of a single neuron hardly portend those of the human brain, nor does knowing about a water molecule tell you much about the behavior of a lake. In the case of quantum physics, physicists are still working to figure out the details of how Newton’s laws emerge from the quantum domain. What we do know is that the components of all objects obey the laws of quantum physics, and the Newtonian laws are a good approximation for describing the way macroscopic objects made of those quantum components behave.

The predictions of Newtonian theory therefore match the view of reality we all develop as we experience the world around us. But individual atoms and molecules operate in a manner profoundly different from that of our everyday experience. Quantum physics is a new model of reality that gives us a picture of the universe. It is a picture in which many concepts fundamental to our intuitive understanding of reality no longer have meaning.

The universe, according to quantum physics, has no single past, or history.

The idea that the universe is expanding involves a bit of subtlety. For example, we don’t mean the universe is expanding in the manner that, say, one might expand one’s house, by knocking out a wall and positioning a new bathroom where once there stood a majestic oak. Rather than space extending itself, it is the distance between any two points within the universe that is growing.

It is important to realize that the expansion of space does not affect the size of material objects such as galaxies, stars, apples, atoms, or other objects held together by some sort of force. Rather, because the galaxies are bound by gravitational forces, the circle and the galaxies within it would keep their size and configuration as the balloon enlarged. This is important because we can detect expansion only if our measuring instruments have fixed sizes. If everything were free to expand, then we, our yardsticks, our laboratories, and so on would all expand proportionately and we would not notice any difference.

. . . but although one can think of the big bang picture as a valid description of early times, it is wrong to take the big bang literally, that is, to think of Einstein’s theory as providing a true picture of the origin of the universe. That is because general relativity predicts there to be a point in time at which the temperature, density, and curvature of the universe are all infinite, a situation mathematicians call a singularity. To a physicist this means that Einstein’s theory breaks down at that point and therefore cannot be used to predict how the universe began, only how it evolved afterward. So although we can employ the equations of general relativity and our observations of the heavens to learn about the universe at a very young age, it is not correct to carry the big bang picture all the way back to the beginning.

But if you go far enough back in time, the universe was as small as the Planck size, a billion-trillion-trillionth of a centimeter, which is the scale at which quantum theory does have to be taken into account. So though we don’t yet have a complete quantum theory of gravity, we do know that the origin of the universe was a quantum event. As a result, just as we combined quantum theory and general relativity—at least provisionally—to derive the theory of inflation, if we want to go back even further and understand the origin of the universe, we must combine what we know about general relativity with quantum theory.

To see how this works, we need to understand the principle that gravity warps space and time. Warpage of space is easier to visualize than warpage of time. Imagine that the universe is the surface of a flat billiard table. The table’s surface is a flat space, at least in two dimensions. If you roll a ball on the table it will travel in a straight line. But if the table becomes warped or dented in places, . . . then the ball will curve.

Since we can’t step outside our own space-time to view its warpage, the space-time warpage in our universe is harder to imagine. But curvature can be detected even if you cannot step out and view it from the perspective of a larger space. It can be detected from within the space itself. Imagine a micro-ant confined to the surface of the table. Even without the ability to leave the table, the ant could detect the warpage by carefully charting distances. For example, the distance around a circle in flat space is always a bit more than three times the distance across its diameter (the actual multiple is p). But if the ant cut across a circle encompassing the well in the table pictured above, it would find that the distance across is greater than expected, greater than one-third the distance around it. In fact, if the well were deep enough, the ant would find that the distance around the circle is shorter than the distance across it. The same is true of warpage in our universe—it stretches or compresses the distance between points of space, changing its geometry, or shape, in a way that is measurable from within the universe. Warpage of time stretches or compresses time intervals in an analogous manner.

Armed with these ideas, let’s return to the issue of the beginning of the universe. We can speak separately of space and time, as we have in this discussion, in situations involving low speeds and weak gravity. In general, however, time and space can become intertwined, and so their stretching and compressing also involve a certain amount of mixing. This mixing is important in the early universe and the key to understanding the beginning of time.

The issue of the beginning of time is a bit like the issue of the edge of the world. When people thought the world was flat, one might have wondered whether the sea poured over its edge. This has been tested experimentally: One can go around the world and not fall off. The problem of what happens at the edge of the world was solved when people realized that the world was not a flat plate, but a curved surface. Time, however, seemed to be like a model railway track. If it had a beginning, there would have to have been someone (i.e., God) to set the trains going. Although Einstein’s general theory of relativity unified time and space as space-time and involved a certain mixing of space and time, time was still different from space, and either had a beginning and an end or else went on forever. However, once we add the effects of quantum theory to the theory of relativity, in extreme cases warpage can occur to such a great extent that time behaves like another dimension of space.

In the early universe—when the universe was small enough to be governed by both general relativity and quantum theory—there were effectively four dimensions of space and none of time. That means that when we speak of the “beginning” of the universe, we are skirting the subtle issue that as we look backward toward the very early universe, time as we know it does not exist! We must accept that our usual ideas of space and time do not apply to the very early universe. That is beyond our experience, but not beyond our imagination, or our mathematics. If in the early universe all four dimensions behave like space, what happens to the beginning of time?

The realization that time can behave like another direction of space means one can get rid of the problem of time having a beginning, in a similar way in which we got rid of the edge of the world. Suppose the beginning of the universe was like the South Pole of the earth, with degrees of latitude playing the role of time. As one moves north, the circles of constant latitude, representing the size of the universe, would expand. The universe would start as a point at the South Pole, but the South Pole is much like any other point. To ask what happened before the beginning of the universe would become a meaningless question, because there is nothing south of the South Pole. In this picture space-time has no boundary—the same laws of nature hold at the South Pole as in other places. In an analogous manner, when one combines the general theory of relativity with quantum theory, the question of what happened before the beginning of the universe is rendered meaningless. This idea that histories should be closed surfaces without boundary is called the no-boundary condition.

Over the centuries many, including Aristotle, believed that the universe must have always existed in order to avoid the issue of how it was set up. Others believed the universe had a beginning, and used it as an argument for the existence of God. The realization that time behaves like space presents a new alternative. It removes the age-old objection to the universe having a beginning, but also means that the beginning of the universe was governed by the laws of science and doesn’t need to be set in motion by some god.

One requirement any law of nature must satisfy is that it dictates that the energy of an isolated body surrounded by empty space is positive, which means that one has to do work to assemble the body. That’s because if the energy of an isolated body were negative, it could be created in a state of motion so that its negative energy was exactly balanced by the positive energy due to its motion.

If that were true, there would be no reason that bodies could not appear anywhere and everywhere. Empty space would therefore be unstable. But if it costs energy to create an isolated body, such instability cannot happen, because, as we’ve said, the energy of the universe must remain constant. That is what it takes to make the universe locally stable—to make it so that things don’t just appear everywhere from nothing.

If the total energy of the universe must always remain zero, and it costs energy to create a body, how can a whole universe be created from nothing?
That is why there must be a law like gravity.

Because gravity is attractive, gravitational energy is negative: One has to do work to separate a gravitationally bound system, such as the earth and moon. This negative energy can balance the positive energy needed to create matter, but it’s not quite that simple. The negative gravitational energy of the earth, for example, is less than a billionth of the positive energy of the matter particles the earth is made of. A body such as a star will have more negative gravitational energy, and the smaller it is (the closer the different parts of it are to each other), the greater this negative gravitational energy will be. But before it can become greater than the positive energy of the matter, the star will collapse to a black hole, and black holes have positive energy. That’s why empty space is stable. Bodies such as stars or black holes cannot just appear out of nothing. But a whole universe can.

Because gravity shapes space and time, it allows space-time to be locally stable but globally unstable. On the scale of the entire universe, the positive energy of the matter can be balanced by the negative gravitational energy, and so there is no restriction on the creation of whole universes.

Because there is a law like gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing in the manner described in Chapter 6. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.

All quotes taken from "The Grand Design" , Stephen Hawkin and Leonard Mlodinow, Bantam Books, New York, 2010.

caezar: Now, we do not know the truth values of statements 1 and 2 and it would be very difficult to ascertain them. Statement 1 is in fact impossible to prove through experiment as you would first have to create nothing itself before deriving something out of it, which would be ridiculous as the experimenter would be a something which created the something.

A catch 22

Lord Babs, Plaetton and Deep Sight, kind words indeed.

It was mainly a summary of the contributions on this thread.

In my opinion, if someone needs for god to exist, you can do precious little about that fact. Any argument is bound to be met with obstinacy. Early on, I used to ask the question "what will it take for you to stop believing in god ?". The answer is usually that they will never stop.

In an episode of the Simpsons, one day after Homer gets an IQ boost by getting a crayon removed from where it was stuck in his brain, he accidentally proves that there is no god. He shows Ned Flanders his proof as Ned is about to go to church. Ned reads the proof and realises that the calculations are irrefutable and god actually doesnt exist.

What does Ned do ?

He destroys the paper and goes to church.

That is the attitude of those who need god. There is a difference between needing god and believing god.

Deep Sight, no offence intended, but you come across as one of those who need god.
Like I said, no offence and I hope non taken.

Deep Sight: Great post, but I would like to remind you that I have not argued for intelligence or consciousness in this thread.

Not yet, but I cant pretend that I dont know your stance on the matter (except it has changed).

I'd like to state clearly what I perceive to be the problem. Before I do so, I'd like to state that the stances between Plaetton and Deep Sight seem to be similar. The obvious difference is that Plaetton does not assign any properties to "god", whereas Deep Sight gives his god many qualities, intelligence and consciousness being a sample.

Now the topic is a question.
I'd like to modify it slightly to bring out what I think is the true intention.

For the sake of argument, if we assume that the premise that nothing comes from nothing is true, does that refute god's existence ?

On one side, it is argued that
1)Nothing comes from nothing.
2)We know there is something (we exist for example).
3)That means there has always been something (because if there was a time when there was nothing, then something would never have emerged).

The issue is what that something is, and how it can be if we accept the first premise.
This is a problem cos we need to know where that something comes from since it cannot come from nothing (remember, we are all accepting this premise for arguments sake).

The theist/deist proponents call that something "God", which ordinarily should not exist since it cannot come from nothing and if it came from something, it cannot be god (also we must necessarily keep going backwards to investigate the origin of something).

To resolve this problem, god is allowed to be self existent/not needing a beginning or creation or cause. The opposition shouts foul. This is ad hoc reasoning and is only employed to save the theory that something cannot emerge from nothing. One might as well say of a blind person, "Mr X sees very well except when he doesnt".

There is nothing preventing anyone from resolving this problem in any other way such as saying nothing comes from nothing except the first time it happened. In other words, we make a general rule and save it from its fallibility by creating an excuse.

Now it is one thing to accept the first premise for arguments sake and its quite another to argue that something can come from nothing. It was caezar who acknowledged that the first premise is difficult at best to prove/disprove (which made me think there was hope for him), and this is quite true.

So far, I believe everyone has accepted (for the sake of argument) that nothing comes from nothing. God which is something, cannot exist since it cannot come from nothing (some solve this by bestowing self existence on god). But wait, says Caezar, it also invalidates our existence since we cannot come from nothing and we clearly exist, so in the long run, there must have been something. In other words, if there was nothing, there would always have been nothing since (for the sake of argument) nothing comes from nothing. Therefore, there was something and that something did not come from nothing, rather it was always there. So what was that something ?

Deep Sight : The oneness of infinity. An immutable, self existing, immaterial intelligence.
Plaetton: Pure energy which only changed form, birthing the Universe as we know it and which is indestructable.

Wahala !!

If we follow the trail to the end and if we accept the conclusion then that some self existing thing/concept existed then we are left with the problem of WHAT? And how can the "what" be verified?

Why is there a need to assign qualities of intelligence and consciousness to this god (this after "saving" it from the brink of non existence by an ad hoc postulation)?

Interesting question. If it were conclusively proven tomorrow that the Universe did have a cause, however, that cause was mechanical or physical in nature, perhaps pure energy; in short, the cause was devoid of intelligence and consciousness. would you call it god ? (A hypothetical question but should bring up interesting responses).




Bear in mind that the foregoing argument is hardly relevant to reality. Whatever is, is. No matter how much we want something to be, it wont if it isnt. No matter how "logical" our arguments are, it has no bearing on reality. If we could learn things just by "thinking" about them, we would have no electron microscopes, no Large Halidron Coliders, no sensitive telescopes etc.
We could all just sit down and come with what works best for us and leave it at that. Nature in no way has to pander to our notions.

Deep Sight: One day sha, we shall sha hear your own opinion, o Shah.

If I have one I'll give it. I'm not averse to listening. What I'm averse to is turning opinion into fact without solid basis.

As I mentioned once, these arguments will not validate or invalidate the existence of god.

If it is, then it is and if it was, then it was.

caezar: Your above comment makes no sense.

I have spoken clearly. I presented cogent, coherent arguments. I have provided the SAME argument from different angles in the hopes that you would see it. I have NOT been dogmatic. This is logic. There is no dogma in logic.

I have not tried to invoke or explain God. Yet. I have kept it simple. I only want to show you the necessity of a self-existent being if you take Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit as a given. But you are so tied up with eliminating all the characteristics of God from any explanation of origins that you are unwilling to accept even something as basic as self-existence!

Finally, I have done no harm to logic. Unless perhaps you define logic in a way only Jayriginal understands.

You make no sense either. I do not take anything as a given.

Caezar, you are only slightly less dogmatic than Deep Sight so far.

Dont be in such a frenzy to prove your god that you end up chasing your tail.

Listen, the major problem with the arguments you and Deep Sight are putting forth is that they are expressed wrongly.
The problem which you may or may not have realised is that once you express yourself properly, it becomes clear that the substance of your argument is conjecture.

Due to a need to avoid this, both of you begin to speak as if these notions are known to you.

Think man, think!

Its really not difficult if you will let your biases go.

As far as you tow this line of reasoning, you will meet insurmountable problems. Obstacles you cannot scale without doing violence to logic.

Deep Sight: Ok, here is my own answer: Eternity is the infinite continuum into which events are interpolated.

See, you cant answer one without the other. That is, eternity and infinity.
The above doesnt satisfy me.

Just how do you verify eternity/infinity?

Its easy enough to say what eternity/infinity is when those words are uttered, but you run into problems when you critically examine their implications.

Deep Sight: What then would reside on the left side of the zero equation in order to render reality existent?

Oh I dont know, and I am definitely not going to invent something for that. Why must reality be "rendered" existent ?

Deep Sight: Perhaps, you simply don't like the word "God". . . you can substitute it with another word of your choosing. . . BUT something permanent is THERE.

Perhaps if you stopped giving it certain attributes (especially intelligence) . . .