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A disclaimer at the start . This thread is not an attempt to rehash all the old evolution vs creation arguments, so please refrain from those , and any assistance the mods could give in keeping this on topic would be appreciated .
The point of this thread is to get past those into the First Cause debate . This often gets casually mentioned but every time I have seen it brought up it quickly gets moved past back to evolution arguments about monkeys and such . I want to focus solely on the First Cause argument here .
The classic theist argument is that there must be a First Cause . Usually this is framed as " since there is a creation, there has to be a creator ". This isn't actually true , theists cannot prove that a creator is needed , but their argument is based on this assumption . Eventually the debate will get down to the theists asking who or what created the energy of the BB , and rejecting any argument that the energy could have always existed .
And this is the point of this thread . Theists that use this tactic want to play by two sets of rules, one for them and one for their opponents . Theists will argue that the energy of the universe cannot have been eternally existing and must have been created , but when asked who or what created God, they reply that God has always existed and needed no creator . But if God needed no creator but could exist eternally , why can't energy? Why the different rules , other than because you need them for your argument to stand up? If God has no need of a creator to exist , then the pure energy of the universe needs no creator to exist . If the theists want to claim that nothing can exist unless created, then this should apply to God as well, but then what created God, and what created the creator that created God?
So we see that the theist argument here is more or less dishonest, as it demands two sets of rules , and refuses to be held to the same standards it wants to apply to non creationists , nor does it want to allow non creationists the same allowance on eternal existence as it demands for its argument .
A disclaimer at the start . This thread is not an attempt to rehash all the old evolution vs creation arguments, so please refrain from those , and any assistance the mods could give in keeping this on topic would be appreciated .
The point of this thread is to get past those into the First Cause debate . This often gets casually mentioned but every time I have seen it brought up it quickly gets moved past back to evolution arguments about monkeys and such . I want to focus solely on the First Cause argument here .
The classic theist argument is that there must be a First Cause . Usually this is framed as " since there is a creation, there has to be a creator ". This isn't actually true , theists cannot prove that a creator is needed , but their argument is based on this assumption . Eventually the debate will get down to the theists asking who or what created the energy of the BB , and rejecting any argument that the energy could have always existed .
And this is the point of this thread . Theists that use this tactic want to play by two sets of rules, one for them and one for their opponents . Theists will argue that the energy of the universe cannot have been eternally existing and must have been created , but when asked who or what created God, they reply that God has always existed and needed no creator . But if God needed no creator but could exist eternally , why can't energy? Why the different rules , other than because you need them for your argument to stand up? If God has no need of a creator to exist , then the pure energy of the universe needs no creator to exist . If the theists want to claim that nothing can exist unless created, then this should apply to God as well, but then what created God, and what created the creator that created God?
So we see that the theist argument here is more or less dishonest, as it demands two sets of rules , and refuses to be held to the same standards it wants to apply to non creationists , nor does it want to allow non creationists the same allowance on eternal existence as it demands for its argument .
It's certainly possible . One of the most sensible ideas about God is a panentheistic one in which the transcendent part of God is the receptor of all the experiences of the universe it set into motion with the BB, or possibly even some act previous to that , and the immanent part of God is all of the universe experiencing and delivering these experiences back to the transcendent part of God .
It's certainly possible . One of the most sensible ideas about God is a panentheistic one in which the transcendent part of God is the receptor of all the experiences of the universe it set into motion with the BB, or possibly even some act previous to that , and the immanent part of God is all of the universe experiencing and delivering these experiences back to the transcendent part of God .
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Originally Posted by wallflash
It's certainly possible . One of the most sensible ideas about God is a panentheistic one in which the transcendent part of God is the receptor of all the experiences of the universe it set into motion with the BB, or possibly even some act previous to that , and the immanent part of God is all of the universe experiencing and delivering these experiences back to the transcendent part of God .
In other words, not a personal, anthropomorphized god, but a universal "force". The issue I see with the transcendent part is that it suggests that that "force" is beyond scientific existence, even if that existence may not yet be measurable. I can agree with the expressing it as a pantheistic perspective, but not as a panentheistic, as then we are starting to get into the woo again.
I agree that the First cause argument seems special pleading or self serving. But that is a convenient tactic, using a valid rule of logic, true, but that doesn't mean that any probable conclusion can be drawn.
Suppose I put on my theist hat and, with the argument put that a claim that a creator god could always have existed can equally be applied to a proto -universe of matter without God, would argue that a divine being could always have been there and didn't need to be created, whereas matter has to obey the rules of physics and cannot come from nowhere. Donning my atheist hat again, I respond that this is improbable since proto -matter is so near to nothing that it is not improbable that it come from nothing, whereas a divine mind is so complex that it seems improbable that it came from anywhere or existed without needing creation.
Recovering my theist bonnet, I respond that there had to be something to say "Go" and decide that it should start. Resuming the pirate hat I say this could be a natural effect. The argument about timing goes pretty much the same way since whether time existed (in any sense) before the universe of matter - in which the Big bang, for all we know - is just one of a myriad of such events - or not doesn't alter the persuasive argument that a something from nothing process had to begin.
This is evidently a sortagod area where a primary impulse had to start the process of our universe off - and whether that is the best that a fully formed mind that can plan and execute anything can do, or whether the mind itself has to evolve, seems to me to lean towards the gradual evolution suggestion. A fully formed mind that can do stuff would by all reason, have done what Genesis said.
We are close to seeing a natural start and a divine start as being as much alike as a proto -cosmos of nothing becoming a cosmos of nothing that acts like something, that applying the term "god" to this primary action smacks more of a pyonnging of the springboard of the leap of faith to Biblegod than of just using a handy term to denote however the universe started.
At best "we don't know" is the only honest and logical answer (1) and one is tempted to say "we can't guess". But there is some circumstantial evidence. In a way it is a response to the attempt to find such evidence for a creating mind in Order, I/D Cosmic constants and the like. I/D has been debunked. Order has been shown to be more with human predeliction for seeing patterns in processes that have simply settled down to work because they do work. And cosmic constants (though it does have some telling points to make) do sometimes come down what we get comes from the conditions, not the conditions designed to suit the result. The argument is the classic theist fallacy - assuming what they are trying to prove.
The result has been to find a lot of indications that the universe does not look as though it was planned. My own favourite argument is that we cannot have been planned because two major extinctions had to happen, or we wouldn't be here. Rather like the 'why not start with Noah?' argument,the palaeontological record ought to follow Genesis. All done without needing to wipe the board and start again.
I don't want to mention any names but the temptation of me in my theist funny hat is to wave away all the evidence on faith and say it must be wrongly interpreted (though how you can interpret cliffs of chalk without a single mastodon in other than a very long time of depositing sea shells without it being a global flood I find it hard to imagine) but then you have to make a decent alternative interpretation and Eus...sorry...the Creationist apologist has failed as Ken Hamm failed against Bill Nye and all the Creationists arguments have failed. The result is to try to get rid of evidence that doesn't support a creator, not pointing to evidence that does.
So First cause, while probably the best theism has, is really rather poor, when you get down to it. And what continues to make me wonder is why those who argue for a creator of the god with a small "g" kind seem to forget that it is merely an academic argument (unless they had Biblegod in mind all the time ) and they get so annoyed when the other side will not accept Firstcausegod without discussion.
This is very unreasonable, and I still wonder why it is so important to them that they put so much red -faced screaming into trying to bully us into believing it.
(1) and I keep thinking of the debate between Matt Dillahunty and some pastor or other, and the latter mocked at the atheist 'don't know' apparently unaware that he deserved the mocking laughter himself for exclaiming he did know - on Faith.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 06-12-2016 at 09:59 AM..
In other words, not a personal, anthropomorphized god, but a universal "force". The issue I see with the transcendent part is that it suggests that that "force" is beyond scientific existence, even if that existence may not yet be measurable. I can agree with the expressing it as a pantheistic perspective, but not as a panentheistic, as then we are starting to get into the woo again.
Thoughts?
Certainly the whole thing is unprovable . I simply described a view I once read and pointed out it was more sensible than the fundamental Christian view . Nothing concerning a transcendent supernatural being will ever be provable unless that being decided to make itself conclusively known . Which obviously hasn't happened .
It's certainly possible . One of the most sensible ideas about God is a panentheistic one in which the transcendent part of God is the receptor of all the experiences of the universe it set into motion with the BB, or possibly even some act previous to that , and the immanent part of God is all of the universe experiencing and delivering these experiences back to the transcendent part of God .
By George, I think he almost gets it. Guess what the conductor of those experiences back to the transcendent part of God is, wallflash??? Could it be - consciousness???
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but the temptation of me in my theist funny hat is to wave away all the evidence on faith and say it must be wrongly interpreted (though how you can interpret cliffs of chalk without a single mastodon in other than a very long time of depositing sea shells without it being a global flood I find it hard to imagine) but then you have to make a decent alternative interpretation and Eus...sorry...the Creationist apologist has failed as Ken Hamm failed against Bill Nye and all the Creationists arguments have failed. The result is to try to get rid of evidence that doesn't support a creator, not pointing to evidence that does. 
) and they get so annoyed when the other side will not accept Firstcausegod without discussion. 
