raphieMontella:

his usage of the house builder comparison to God is actually illogical..

advocating an above 3d Transcendent being and in the same vein stating the above 3d being can interact with the 3d creation without having some 3d features...which is impossible...
because if it didn't possess some 3d capabilities.. it is impossible to act on a 3d "plane" and 2...it's acts on its 3d Creation cannot be felt by the 3d creation/ cannot be "visible" in the 3d dimension

think about it...

2d objects etc have 1d features in addition to whatever...
think about it

I'm sure you've heard christians (and non christians) made the argument of "God became man". If the claim is true, then you sure can count that as one of the characteristics of God. A SEPARATE DISCUSSION though.

9inches:

"Outside of time"? Let's just say it hasn't been revealed yet; same goes for 'nothingness' before the universe.

So, you just threw it in despite it not meaning anything!?

9inches:
Common sense, bro. If you only keep going back to creation or evolution, it's a bottomless hole. Even scientists/philosophers acknowledge something existed before every other thing.

I too do not dispute that there must have been something. And I'm not afraid of bottomless holes.

So, there is a universe. And according to you, all things are created by a creator of things. And since a creator of things is a thing in its on right, there must have been a creator of the creator of things. And if there was a creator of the creator things, there must have been a creator of the creator of the creator of things, and so on. At least, if it were true that, all things are created by a creator of things. That's sense to me. It will be nonsensical of me to try to avoid such a logical conclusion with an "Outside of time" that I go on to admit, "hasn't been revealed yet". If it hasn't been reveled yet, I'm likely to ask myself how I know of it to start with, "are you sure that you are not just making things up in your head buda", I would ask. If I can't find a meaning for it, I'd wonder why I would make such nonsense up in my head and claim it exists when I don't have a clue what I mean by it. And if I were trying to convince someone else of it, I'd definitely be asking myself if I was trying to make that someone else as stupid as I seem to be, talking about things that haven't been revealed yet and that have no meaning, but in all sincerity is just an attempt to avoid the obvious "bottomless hole" so as not to destabilise what I want to believe! And I'd definitely be wondering why I want to lead that someone else astray like I seem to be leading myself astray!

buda don't do sense that is common, I guess. buda would rather use buda brain!

9inches:

I'm sure you've heard christians (and non christians) made the argument of "God became man". If the claim is true, then you sure can count that as one of the characteristics of God. A SEPARATE DISCUSSION though.

"becoming" man is logically impossible
from your house builder comparison...
you do not build a house and "become" a wall of stone to be able to enter the house..

the builder already has to have(as a part of himself) some properties or features pertaining to the dimension in which the house is being built in the first place, if not an interaction with the house is not possible..


as you said sha...its a different discussion..

budaatum:

So, you just threw it in despite it not meaning anything!?


I too do not dispute that there must have been something. And I'm not afraid of bottomless holes.

So, there is a universe. And according to you, all things are created by a creator of things. And since a creator of things is a thing in its on right, there must have been a creator of the creator of things. And if there was a creator of the creator things, there must have been a creator of the creator of the creator of things, and so on. At least, if it were true that, all things are created by a creator of things. That's sense to me. It will be nonsensical of me to try to avoid such a logical conclusion with an "Outside of time" that I go on to admit, "hasn't been revealed yet". If it hasn't been reveled yet, I'm likely to ask myself how I know of it to start with, "are you sure that you are not just making things up in your head buda", I would ask. If I can't find a meaning for it, I'd wonder why I would make such nonsense up in my head and claim it exists when I don't have a clue what I mean by it. And if I were trying to convince someone else of it, I'd definitely be asking myself if I was trying to make that someone else as stupid as I seem to be, talking about things that haven't been revealed yet and that have no meaning, but in all sincerity is just an attempt to avoid the obvious "bottomless hole" so as not to destabilise what I want to believe! And I'd definitely be wondering why I want to lead that someone else astray like I seem to be leading myself astray!

buda don't do sense that is common, I guess. buda would rather use buda brain!

this Creator of the Creator of the Creator of the Creator is an endless loop LA..

if there's a Creator,, I don't think we should be concerned about its origin as it may well be beyond our human comprehension (I.e limited by our 4-d world and brains)
and as such cannot live/experience it,, as a stone cannot experience or understand being human.

something/ someone may have or may have not kicked off our universe's big bang tho,,

I believe if it did..it may well be beyond our human comprehension

HellVictorinho:

You don't get it.
What I mean is that 'there is no up and down in space'.

Ah OK.

think of it as a whole new level of physicality or something...

raphieMontella:


this Creator of the Creator of the Creator of the Creator is an endless loop LA..

if there's a Creator,, I don't think we should be concerned about its origin as it may well be beyond our human comprehension (I.e limited by our 4-d world and brains)
and as such cannot live/experience it,, as a stone cannot experience or understand being human.

something/ someone may have or may have not kicked off our universe's big bang tho,,

I believe if it did..it may well be beyond our human comprehension

Our minds and brains are most definitely not limited to 4d, even if the world so happens to be. And neither are humans brainless stones. Still, one can very well chose to not be concerned with the creator of the creator of things. And there are lots on here, comfortably going on about their creator of things with no concern with the creator of the creator of things. You would not find them in this sort of thread however, where the existence of creator of things, are being discussed. The question being are they something, someone, or nothing, as in, no creator of things at all.

And to claim it is beyond our human comprehension, is lazy. Energetic humans are using such contemplations to build a better world.

budaatum:

Our minds and brains are most definitely not limited to 4d, even if the world so happens to be. And neither are humans brainless stones. Still, one can very well chose to not be concerned with the creator of the creator of things. And there are lots on here, comfortably going on about their creator of things with no concern with the creator of the creator of things. You would not find them in this sort of thread however, where the existence of creator of things, are being discussed. The question being are they something, someone, or nothing, as in, no creator of things at all.

And to claim it is beyond our human comprehension, is lazy. Energetic humans are using such contemplations to build a better world.

E=KA

budaatum:

Yes, I think you are right. Something had to exist to go bang. And it must have been big for the bang to be big.

Exactly! We're in the same boat here.

9inches:
Exactly! We're in the same boat here.

I have trashed this out in my topic 'Timing of Existence'.

And,E=KA.

[quote author=budaatum post=74563940] The Big Bang didn't just result in our familiar universe, according to a mind-bending new theory - it also generated a second "anti-universe" that extended backwards in time, like a mirror image of our own.

A new story in Physics World explores the new theory, which was proposed by a trio of Canadian physicists who say that it could explain the existence of dark matter. The new theory, which is laid out in a recent paper in the journal Physical Review of Letters, aims to preserve a rule of physics called CPT symmetry. In the anti-universe before the Big Bang, it suggests, time ran backwards and the cosmos were made of antimatter instead of matter.

New Paper: A 'Mirror Image' of Our Universe Existed Before The Big Bang
[/quot
The mirror image might explain dark matter but dark matter can't limit time.
Antimatter also occupies whatever space available and it carries some weight so it is still matter basically.
And the properties it has are also as a result of cosmic events that are timeless.
There has never been a period when nothing was happening,even cosmologically.
A lot is still happening to keep the cosmos ,which describes a 'Form of Existence' and not everything because there is no everything, occurring..
The plane of Existence is un-dimensional .

HellVictorinho:
Time ran backwards?
So where did it start from before running backwards?
How is fixed time capable of running back and forth?
We shouldn't be talking about specified time here.

It's someone's new theory. To add to all the theories out there.

budaatum:

Our minds and brains are most definitely not limited to 4d, even if the world so happens to be.

we are,, until scientifically proven otherwise...

speculative and pseudo sciences can have their fun guessing how many dimensions there is...

but in the end,

we are "4-d" until proven otherwise..
thank you

budaatum:

So, you just threw it in despite it not meaning anything!?


I too do not dispute that there must have been something. And I'm not afraid of bottomless holes.

So, there is a universe. And according to you, all things are created by a creator of things. And since a creator of things is a thing in its on right, there must have been a creator of the creator of things. And if there was a creator of the creator things, there must have been a creator of the creator of the creator of things, and so on. At least, if it were true that, all things are created by a creator of things. That's sense to me. It will be nonsensical of me to try to avoid such a logical conclusion with an "Outside of time" that I go on to admit, "hasn't been revealed yet". If it hasn't been reveled yet, I'm likely to ask myself how I know of it to start with, "are you sure that you are not just making things up in your head buda", I would ask. If I can't find a meaning for it, I'd wonder why I would make such nonsense up in my head and claim it exists when I don't have a clue what I mean by it. And if I were trying to convince someone else of it, I'd definitely be asking myself if I was trying to make that someone else as stupid as I seem to be, talking about things that haven't been revealed yet and that have no meaning, but in all sincerity is just an attempt to avoid the obvious "bottomless hole" so as not to destabilise what I want to believe! And I'd definitely be wondering why I want to lead that someone else astray like I seem to be leading myself astray!

buda don't do sense that is common, I guess. buda would rather use buda brain!

Keep attacking that straw man, ma nigga. Keep on keeping on. There's no creator of the creator of things. The creator of things wasn't created. How hard is that to understand?

9inches:
The world didn't come out of nothing, it came out of something, and the 'origin' of the world wasn't created/evolved else it will exist in the world and become part of it, which would make the answers that we seek more likable to be obtained through science or otherwise here this world.

raphieMontella:


"becoming" man is logically impossible

Do you apply logic in everything you do in life?

raphieMontella:
from your house builder comparison...
you do not build a house and "become" a wall of stone to be able to enter the house..

the builder already has to have(as a part of himself) some properties or features pertaining to the dimension in which the house is being built in the first place, if not an interaction with the house is not possible..

as you said sha...its a different discussion..

I used simple examples to illustrate how God could exist outside the world but still be able to enter into the world. I don't think I went beyond that as I can't imagine an example one could use to fully explain what is beyond full comprehension like God.

9inches:
If you create a camera, you are not constrained by it but you can go inside of it and out at will. Same goes if you build a house, you are not constrained by it but you can move in and out at will.

9inches:
Keep attacking that straw man, ma nigga. Keep on keeping on. There's no creator of the creator of things. The creator of things wasn't created. How hard is that to understand?

If there was a time when only a thing(hole)existed, what was surrounding this hole from which your supposed everything came out?

HellVictorinho:

If there was a time when only a thing(hole)existed, what was surrounding this hole from which your supposed everything came out?

Was there a time when only a hole existed?

9inches:
Was there a time when only a hole existed?

You called the so-called origin of the world something ,the world,which you implied as everything,came out from, which makes it a hole.
Read this well,please.

HellVictorinho:

You called the so-called origin of the world something ,the world,which you implied as everything,came out from, which makes it a hole.
Read this well,please.

I never made any "hole" argument.

9inches:
The creator of things wasn't created. How hard is that to understand?

So it does not exist, since it wasn't created?

9inches:
I never made any "hole" argument.

A hole is used to describe a depth from which something erupts/comes out/escapes.
And you described the universe as something that came out from God.

9inches:
If something came into existence at a certain point in time, that is, if it had a beginning, then there needs to be a cause, an explanation, for why it came to be. But if something exists outside of time, like God, then it does not need an explanation for its beginning, because it does not have one.

So the question “When, then, did God begin?” is nonsensical, because it amounts to asking “When did a timeless being begin?"

I'm sorry the scientific words made no sense to you. Maybe you could ask follow-up questions for clarifications rather than the dismissiveness.

No, my friend, it's not crazy, even primary school kid. It's simple: It takes faith to believe in everything coming from nothing. It takes only reason to believe in everything coming from something.

Cathechism of the Catholic Church: "Human intelligence is surely already capable of finding a response to the question of origins. The existence of God the Creator can be known with certainty through his works, by the light of human reason, even if this knowledge is often obscured and disfigured by error. This is why faith comes to confirm and enlighten reason in the correct understanding of this truth: 'By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear.'"

Smokes and mirrors my friend, smokes and mirrors. This is a classic god of the gaps argument - we don't know what existed before time, therefore...God. Your apprach shuts down any intelligent enquiry. Why does something that exists outside of time not require an explanation? And why assume that that being, if it exists at all, is god?

Bandying scientific words about does not make your argument sensible or intelligent. In my view, it is intellectually dishonest to misuse terms with view to confuse the uninitiated.

It is amazing the slight of hand you have tried here. First, you appeal to the reasoning of children to buttress a point. Only in religion do we accept the innocent faith of children and magnify beyond what it is. Afterall, children believe in Santa Claus and the tooth Fairy. I an sure that you will not be holding those up as worthy, as they would not fit your narrative. In no other walk of life would you use the beliefs of children to support the unsupportable.

Secondly, I am sure that you did not read what you posted. Having said that belief in god is based on reason, you quote the cathechism, which makes it clear that your beliefs are based not on evidence or reason, but on faith.

As I said earlier, muddled thinking.

raphieMontella:


we are,, until scientifically proven otherwise...

So, you are 4d until someone proves you are more ds?

raphieMontella:
speculative and pseudo sciences can have their fun guessing how many dimensions there is...

But in the end,

we are "4-d" until proven otherwise..
thank you

Until someone proves you are more ds, right?

Ok.

9inches:

I don't think I went beyond that as I can't imagine an example one could use to fully explain what is beyond full comprehension like God.

Have you considered trying harder? You might see more ds.

budaatum:

So it does not exist, since it wasn't created?

Now you're making a circular argument. Attributing the nature of the created to the "uncreated".

HellVictorinho:

A hole is used to describe a depth from which something erupts/comes out/escapes.
And you described the universe as something that came out from God.

That's your definition of a hole. I have never heard that before.

You are making a straw man argument. Injecting your own argument so you can dismantle it. If you don't understand someone's argument, ask for clarification. It doesn't help you to veer off and derail.

Zodiac61:


Smokes and mirrors my friend, smokes and mirrors. This is a classic god of the gaps argument - we don't know what existed before time, therefore...God. Your apprach shuts down any intelligent enquiry. Why does something that exists outside of time not require an explanation? And why assume that that being, if it exists at all, is god?

Bandying scientific words about does not make your argument sensible or intelligent. In my view, it is intellectually dishonest to misuse terms with view to confuse the uninitiated.

It is amazing the slight of hand you have tried here. First, you appeal to the reasoning of children to buttress a point. Only in religion do we accept the innocent faith of children and magnify beyond what it is. Afterall, children believe in Santa Claus and the tooth Fairy. I an sure that you will not be holding those up as worthy, as they would not fit your narrative. In no other walk of life would you use the beliefs of children to support the unsupportable.

Secondly, I am sure that you did not read what you posted. Having said that belief in god is based on reason, you quote the cathechism, which makes it clear that your beliefs are based not on evidence or reason, but on faith.

As I said earlier, muddled thinking.

Jeez! Yet another god-of-the-gaps-plus-yeti-theory straw man! If you actually asked questions for clarification, you would not have embarrassed yourself this way thinking you are making counter argument.

God is a general term used to refer to what (people believe) exists before time and the universe and the source of every other creation. You are at liberty to use a different term. I understand the term "God" triggers folks like you but what else would you want me to use?

I wasn't making the god of the gaps argument at all. God is not "a thing" or "an individual" or some item within the natural world, rather God can be described as ipsum esse subsistens (the subsistent act of "to be" itself). God is that great ocean of existence from which the
world in its entirety comes, not something in the world that has to take worldly attributes for your sake just so you can understand.

This is different from god of the gaps of the ancient Greek and Roman myths or myths of any culture really. Those type of gods we can say legitimately have been indeed eliminated by the modern science. When atheists say the advancement of science pushes religion to retreats to ever smaller bits of intellectual turf, they they are talking about the god of the gaps, NOT the God christians and the likes talk about.

With our scientific equipment and our great scientific spirit scientists have explored the heavens and the mountaintops and the depths of the ocean and indeed haven't found supreme beings around, more to it the modern physical sciences have managed to explain most physical phenomena, so we don't have to appeal to extraneous causes of supernatural divine causes.

God is not some event or phenomena that can be examined by the physical sciences. He's not the subject or object of an experiment. Even in principle, the sciences can't eliminate God nor be able to address the question of God. The advancement of the sciences can never threaten authentic religion. That's why it's so silly for people to say "produce evidence" for God... You only do that for a Yeti theory, the "produce evidence for Big Foot" type of argument... You don't produce evidence like that for the creator of the entire universe. You don't use the scientific method to get at questions of God... it's simply a category mistake!

The true God

Authentic religion often begins in this extraordinary experience of the contingency of the world; this deep sense intuition that the world exists although it doesn't have to exist. Things are, but they don't have to be; they don't carry within themselves the reason for their own existence. Take a camera for example, it exists certainly but it did not exist through the power of its own essence; it exists because of a whole slew of engineers and designers and scientists. It exists because of its molecular structure, its atomic structure, its subatomic structure... If you take those away, there won't be any camera. The point is it's surrounded extrinsically and it's grounded intrinsically in all sorts of causes that bring it into being that allow it to be.

Now if you keep thinking in that direction, all the things I just mentioned all those designers and scientists and
technicians, all those lower levels of physical reality are themselves contingent - they don't contain within themselves the reason for their being. An endless appeal to contingent causes is not going to answer our question of why that camera exists. We know there is
some reality whose very nature is 'to be'. That infinite source of reality which grounds and gives rise to the whole nexus of conditioned things.

In church liturgy we say, "in you we live and move and have our being..." and that's the poetic expression of this philosophical
intuition... that's God! That's the true God - the non conditioned and non-contingent ground of contingency. In religious language, that's the creator of the heavens and the earth. You see again, that's the distinction between God and anything in the world, between the properly supernatural and anything within nature. It's why the sciences, try as they might, cannot even begin to address this question.

This is not any sort of magical thinking or superstition. Simply start by asking the really vital questions: why is there something rather than
nothing? Why does the world exist at all? Why is there the realm of nature? Why is there the nexus of contingent things. That's the nursing question you should be asking, not trying in futility to score cheap argument points on nairaland.

budaatum:


Have you considered trying harder? You might see more ds.

Yes I have.

9inches:


The true God

Authentic religion often begins in this extraordinary experience of the contingency of the world; this deep sense intuition that the world exists although it doesn't have to exist.

Interesting. You practically wanted to bite my head off for stating that your arguments were an appeal to intuition yet here you are stating it quite plainly.

9inches:
That's your definition of a hole. I have never heard that before.

You are making a straw man argument. Injecting your own argument so you can dismantle it. If you don't understand someone's argument, ask for clarification. It doesn't help you to veer off and derail.

And what is a hole to you?

9inches:
Jeez! Yet another god-of-the-gaps-plus-yeti-theory straw man! If you actually asked questions for clarification, you would not have embarrassed yourself this way thinking you are making counter argument.

God is a general term used to refer to what (people believe) exists before time and the universe and the source of every other creation. You are at liberty to use a different term. I understand the term "God" triggers folks like you but what else would you want me to use?

I wasn't making the god of the gaps argument at all. God is not "a thing" or "an individual" or some item within the natural world, rather God can be described as ipsum esse subsistens (the subsistent act of "to be" itself). God is that great ocean of existence from which the
world in its entirety comes, not something in the world that has to take worldly attributes for your sake just so you can understand.

This is different from god of the gaps of the ancient Greek and Roman myths or myths of any culture really. Those type of gods we can say legitimately have been indeed eliminated by the modern science. When atheists say the advancement of science pushes religion to retreats to ever smaller bits of intellectual turf, they they are talking about the god of the gaps, NOT the God christians and the likes talk about.

With our scientific equipment and our great scientific spirit scientists have explored the heavens and the mountaintops and the depths of the ocean and indeed haven't found supreme beings around, more to it the modern physical sciences have managed to explain most physical phenomena, so we don't have to appeal to extraneous causes of supernatural divine causes.

God is not some event or phenomena that can be examined by the physical sciences. He's not the subject or object of an experiment. Even in principle, the sciences can't eliminate God nor be able to address the question of God. The advancement of the sciences can never threaten authentic religion. That's why it's so silly for people to say "produce evidence" for God... You only do that for a Yeti theory, the "produce evidence for Big Foot" type of argument... You don't produce evidence like that for the creator of the entire universe. You don't use the scientific method to get at questions of God... it's simply a category mistake!

The true God

Authentic religion often begins in this extraordinary experience of the contingency of the world; this deep sense intuition that the world exists although it doesn't have to exist. Things are, but they don't have to be; they don't carry within themselves the reason for their own existence. Take a camera for example, it exists certainly but it did not exist through the power of its own essence; it exists because of a whole slew of engineers and designers and scientists. It exists because of its molecular structure, its atomic structure, its subatomic structure... If you take those away, there won't be any camera. The point is it's surrounded extrinsically and it's grounded intrinsically in all sorts of causes that bring it into being that allow it to be.

Now if you keep thinking in that direction, all the things I just mentioned all those designers and scientists and
technicians, all those lower levels of physical reality are themselves contingent - they don't contain within themselves the reason for their being. An endless appeal to contingent causes is not going to answer our question of why that camera exists. We know there is
some reality whose very nature is 'to be'. That infinite source of reality which grounds and gives rise to the whole nexus of conditioned things.

In church liturgy we say, "in you we live and move and have our being..." and that's the poetic expression of this philosophical
intuition... that's God! That's the true God - the non conditioned and non-contingent ground of contingency. In religious language, that's the creator of the heavens and the earth. You see again, that's the distinction between God and anything in the world, between the properly supernatural and anything within nature. It's why the sciences, try as they might, cannot even begin to address this question.

This is not any sort of magical thinking or superstition. Simply start by asking the really vital questions: why is there something rather than
nothing? Why does the world exist at all? Why is there the realm of nature? Why is there the nexus of contingent things. That's the nursing question you should be asking, not trying in futility to score cheap argument points on nairaland.

Others have said it - you need to try harder. What I read from you is word salad.
No matter what you say, your God is the theist God.
Mumbo jumbo does not turn superstitious beliefs into reality.
Your idea of reality is ... intuition!!!!
If I was a believer, I would say "God help us from confused people like you".