How do you explain this with regard to an all-powerful god?
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Peace arnold and nabi. Arnold;Ok,but you know well i will ask,if everything needs a cause/mover,then what caused/moved god? If people believe in an uncaused,eternal,unmoved god,then why not believe in an uncaused,eternal,unmoved universe/multiverse....What caused the first mover? Where did god get the ideas for the laws of the universe with no prior experience or knowledge of how to create laws?
Also arnie,i think we should be clear again,that you and the professors are not talking about the traditional ides.concept of god in any way,and so that is why i said statistics can be misinterpreted.... handshakePeace.
The best formulation of the Prime Mover argument is encapsulated in the KCA (Kalam Cosmological Argument) which I believe OpenMind touched upon.
Goes as follows
- Anything that begins to exist has a cause.
- The universe began to exist.
- Therefore, the universe had a cause.
There is a difference between things existing and things beginning to exist. If we say "anything that exists has a cause," then it would be appropriate to ask "well what caused God?" But that is not what this argument purports this argument states that anything that begins to exist has a cause. The difference is slight but it is there and it is key. One must keep in mind this is a probabilistic argument, meaning it makes more sense to believe in it, than not.
Back to the argument
Premise 1 has incontrovertible experiential evidence backing it up. There is no evidence of anything popping into existence uncaused. Lack of evidence, of course, does not in itself prove that things beginning to exist have a cause. Like I said, its a probabilistic argument. At the very least, it is extremely likely that things that begin to exist have a cause.
Premise 2 is backed by staggering amounts of scientific data. Current Big Bang cosmology shows that the universe indeed did have a beginning. This is also backed up (and even predicted) through metaphysics (the impossibility of an actual infinite) and mathematics (set theory, etc.).
Therefore, the conclusion seems pretty sound. At the very least, one must agree that the conclusion is probably more true than its opposite.
And suffice it to say, if one follows the argument to its logical conclusion, one cannot ask "well then what caused God?" for that would misunderstand the argument. The argument does not say that anything that exists has a cause, but rather anything that begins to exist has a cause. If it is shown that the universe had a beginning, it accordingly has a cause. It stands to reason that the cause is outside the universe itself. Whatever caused the universe (call it X) need not have a cause because it is not necessarily true that X had a beginning.
There are a lot more details to the KCA but thats a brief synopsis of it.
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Peace,
To add to caveman. We know for sure the universe is created with a first mover, this is step 1. To understand what the first mover is, is step 2. There can be no doubt about that the first mover is an intelligence as the universe has a perfect design which such an accurate balance, the number is to big for computers even. The fine tuning and design, are the second proof for the first mover to be intelligent.
Now to go to your step 2 question. What created God then? First the finite can only come from the infinite, as it must encompasses the finite. Then again we have the question who created inifity? The fun thing is, you don't have a beginning in infinity to have a starting point. You cannot say, oh infinity started here in this moment. To say there was always an infinite intelligence is the same as saying there never was an intelligence, because an infinite nothingness is the same as an infinite intelligence. But to have an infinite nothingness cannot explain the beginning of a finite creation. Where did the energy come from then?
Then you can say, the energy was always there. But who created the energy? And who made the first push so it started to move into what we see now?In the end, it always points to an infinite intelligence that started this creation, which itself is uncreated. The design and just even the presence of a finite universe shows an intelligent mover. That the mover itself is uncreated is nothing weird for me, it is the same as believing in eternal energy without conciousness. But for the later there is evidence that it just can't be.
So step 1 proves step 2 to be infinite.
As for understanding my concept of God and freewill. You have to understand that God knows everything, but how then do we have any freewill as it seems then that he already planned our very steps? This has to do with knowing cause and effect. If you push a ball, it will move. The concept of choosing has to do with a guess of what that choice=cause creates as an effect. God knows all the causes and effects that are taking place, so He knows which effects will influence your effect. So not knowing the future has to do that we cannot know all the causes and effects that are taking place which will cause our cause and effects. Choices are based on knowledge, so when you have this kind of knowledge, in this situation you will choose this. God knows our knowledge, and will by thus know what we will choose in a certain situation. So God knows every effect of every cause, the ones taking place right now, and the ones that will take place in the future, as a cuase now will have a certain effect, which then will create a new cause and so on and so on.
So when He first 'moved' the creation, from that very little 'push' on He knew exactly what was going to happen as He knew exactly which causes will end up in certain effects and which will create new causes and so on.
So where is our freewill left in all this infinite cause and effect? Because we don't know what effect our causes create, and by not knowing all the causes and effects that take place in this creation, you try to make the best choice based on your knowledge.Does knowing that God knows, take away your feeling of freewill? Does His infinite knowledge take away your feeling of freewill? Not at all. So now we come to the next point. So God knew we were gonna cause wars and let people starve. How then could He be mercifull if He knew all this pain was gonna happen?
We know already from the above that there was a first mover, and that He knew exactly what was going to happen from the very first little push that causes the universe to create. So He knew that that pain would happen, so it was inside the plan, as He pushed in such a way, that only this could have happened. So again why? Why would that be in the plan?
This can only mean that the next steps, the next effects will be so much better, the pain will be forgotten. Because of course people will must have a good answer why it happened. He is God and He wants it so is not enough. He made us intelligent with a reason, so He wanted us to ask questions.
So there must be a very good reason we don't understand yet for that pain, and also a pretty damn good compensation for all that pain. We have found inside the laws of nature that our bodies will be created again, so now outside of the holy books we have proof that the resurrection is true. But these laws also show that it will happen again after that, and again. But it also shows that our conciousness will not loose it's knowledge from the previous stage. This is really important, because it means we will not have to go through certain phases again. We will not need to re-invent the wheel again and again in every new resurrection. For a short intro on this
http//www.free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=5417.0
And the concepts of Djenna and Gehenna and YaumweDeen are highly misunderstood. These are lightly explained here
http//www.free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=6171.msg95085#msg95085
http//www.free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=6171.msg95257#msg95257
In my explaination of Gehenna and Djenna, i show 11106-109, which tell us that Gehenna will stop eventually, and there will be no more people that are in that state of mind and cause harm to themselves and their surroundings. So this means that in stage of our evolution we will stop doing harm to each other. Everybody, will be in a higher state of conciousness that it knows enough and will not harm themselves or others anymore. And then we will create true Utopia. In which stage it will be i don't know, that is for to know and for us to find out.
So we end up again to the question why war and pain? If i look at the explanation above, it must have something to do with our development. But what can pain show us? I do know that you need to experience or see certain things to know if you want it or not. So it is part of our freewill to learn what we want and don't want. But why to let evil be here? To know what extreme goodness is, the extreme opposite must be known. To have a + we need to have a -. But in our nature, it is made so that we want to choose the +, only people must learn what + is and what not. The Nazis thought they were choosing +, we know they chose they opposite. So we are learning what the + are and what are the real - in this creation, and to know that we must test everything out. The beauty of it all is, that we will remember the real +'s and -'s of our previous stage, so we don't have to find out those anymore, but there are still a lot of +'s and -'s left.
Eventually we will know the -'s and we will avoid those and only choose +'s, and from then on we will only move up. We are still evolving, in mind and in body. And every step, be it + or -, was part for that evolution. Because of the extreme evils, i know my true nature only want the extreme goods.
In this phase, we are the ones who are letting people starve and we are the ones allowing wars so the west can have their surplus lifestyle. We are choosing a - now, which we think is a +. So we are fooling ourselves again. We are just as dumb as the Nazis. So we have to find the real +'s in life. That is the true purpose of this creation.
And so we come to the end of my thoughts. When i think it all over, it is all amazing. Like J.R.R. Tolkien said
"Life is a song, it has sad parts and happy parts, but whatever the song plays, it is always beautifull, whichever part it plays it is always beautifull."
And i agree with him as i understand the purpose of it all. At least i try my best, because God always has some funny tricks up His sleeves.
But the real question that is left, is why did He moved the universe into creation? Why did He create us? There was no need for Him to do this. He is out of need, doesn't need worship or service, or recognition. He knows what He is. So why, why give us the gift of life and conciousness?
Why God?Bishmillahir Rahmanir Rahim
With the Glorious name of Allah, the source of instant and Eternal Beneficence and Mercy Who embraces the entire universe in His fold, nourishing and taking care of all things, for what they are meant to be, just as a mother's womb nourishes the embryo without any returns.Peace enquirer......
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Peace nabi,arnie and cavey. nabi;Would you suggest nuclear waste,child-abuse,oppression,murder,poverty,famine and mans disobedience towards gods so-called laws/decrees are harmony....?
arnie and cavey; i will read your posts in detail later,as i will be away from the pc till about the middle of next week.
handshake -
Sugar; i sympathise with your point about 'theories; which make you feel better and cause you less stress,however these same theories can also cause you stress when we realise that some of the theories are not really grounded in reality,but wisful thinking like a happy ending in all bollywood and hollywood movies.... Life is not always like that....Ask god why he doesnt make better endings...?
Enq believe me when I tell you that ignorance really is BLISS!! ignore
Also i would say that actually pondering/dwelling/thinking about problems is a huge step in solving them,rather than making up or believing in an irrelevant theory,which can create even more problems and obscures the real issues at hand...
lol and exactly how are we gonna sort all the stuff you mentioned throughout the thread?
each and every single one of them are not as straight forward as they seem.
So Enq what do you have in mind?
It just seems to me that you want to turn everybody against God, coz your dead bitter about his plan for humanity you want everybody to be else like that too....
peace
peace,
sugar -
peace enquirer,
what you are calling disharmony in the universe is not the act of God, but the result of the free will given to us HUMANS.
We can CHOOSE to live in harmony with nature, but sometimes we don't. nature by itself is in harmony, it is our free will , and the bad choices we make because of it, that causes the "disharmony." -
Peace nabi,phoenix,elena,arnold,cavey and sugar.
Nabi; you seem to have a phobia regarding me my friend...I addressed what i felt were examples of disharmouny.....now be a man,and stop throwing the childish accusation that i havent answered your question straightly....You have studied psychology havent you....? Maybe you cannot take someone questioning the foundations of your shaky beliefs,and so are resorting to the same tired old accusations,red herrings and diversions ..........Break the habit/conditioning my friend...........And while your at it why dont YOU answer my question on harmouny and disharmouny,if you cant,then go and think about it....?
phoenix;I can respect your understanding phoenix,but how can others use this as evidence of an intelligent creator by saying all creation is in harmouny then? Surely man is not in harmouny with this logic,thus making the creator illogical and/or disharmonious.....I
thought god wasnt the authout of confusion...? (bible... .)Elena; Im glad someone is paying attention.....Your post is exactly what i am suggesting... bravo
sugar; maybe some theories can help us in the short term,but ignorance on a lot of occasions is not bliss,reality will bite us in the ass if we stay ignorant.....One example is many teenagers seem to ignore that if they have sex without contraception that they will very likely get pregnant.....Ask them when they have an unplanned baby if this is bliss,or this theory/ignorance worked.....?
'Reality is that which when you dont believe in it,it still exists'...
one of the ways we can tackle these seemingly tough/difficult questions is by deep pondering on reality after verifying issues in our own life/real experiences.... Also many issues are down to our own upbringing and our own brainwashing...One of the difficulties is that we have much too much FEAR of the unknown.....I feel we ought to channel our energy into trying to learn at a reasonable/realistic pace about our world and our own-selves rather than expecting certainty and full knowledge of the universe just by reading the quran or even from thinking...we have to realise our own theoretical limits in thinking,and maybe let go of our obssessions with acheiving certainty,and our obsession with black and white final,one size fits all solutions...
As for me being bitter against god.....You might be right.....Thats if she exists....
However i dont necessarily want everyone to think the same as me,because there is always the possibility i could be wrong,and others may have a more informed/real understanding of these matters than me...
By the way,what is the plan god has for humanity.....?arnold; i found you post interesting as normal,however sometimes i feel that if you were a christian you would find 'logic' to fit the bible and the trinity bro....I just feel you are eloquent and logical,but i feel its a little misplaced....But i can live with it.... handshake
As for the themes in you post,you seem to have a lot of faith in gods plan for humanity, as you see it.....It would be great if its true.....I can only verify this plan in the next life or when i die,so i cant say i currently agree with this plan,as i see human suffering that goes on for decades and decades with little respite,i see children born into abuse,disease,disability etc,and then i hear people say its part of gods plan for humanity.....Its of little real practical consolation to the poor,hungry,oppressed and suffering.....I hope you are not selling these oppressed folks theories that may be cruelly dashed as the passage of time goes by...
As for the first mover and an eternal god....Well if we are part of the god,then we are eternal too? Can you scientifically prove that there was a time where a 'thing' did not exist...? You can show that we did not perceive it as being there/existing,but how can you show it didnt exist at all,in any form....?
The first mover makes little sense,as it presumes a 'thing' (god.) that moves with no cause and effect and has no prior/first mover itself,this is against the laws of cause and effect itself....It seems to me this theory only works if you refute the actual premise it is based on,by a god that is supposedly outside of his own laws/logic.....?
I dont see the validity of eternal concious energy being any less a theory than an eternal,conscious/intelligent god...At least i can verify the fact that energy cannot be totally destroyed,or be created from nothing,and so is eternal...
The stuff you said about free-will and god having prior knowledge of everything is irreconcilable to me,and has never been shown on this forum or anywhere else to make sense to me...We either are free and god doesnt know,or god has pre-ordained/knows everything and we are not free....how can it be both....? Otherwise how can god judge us if he knows/pre-ordains our deeds....?cavey; i like this theory because it is soo based on false assumptions .....example; 'for something to begin to exist it must have a cause'.....Who said that anything begins to exist....?... You mean you PERCEIVE that this thing has come into existence......? Can you verify that a baby was literally absolutely nothing before sperm and egg met,or an embryo was formed....? When do you draw the assumption/line that a 'thing' comes into existence.....? What came first the chicken or the egg...? What was the egg before it was an egg...? Was it nothing at all? Can you show me ONE verifed scientific example of creation from nothing,or something spontaneously appearing with no cause.....? Many times the cause has been discovered after scientific research and thus explains peoples illusions of things appearing from nothing.....is there any such reality as NOTHING.....?
If metaphysics claims the impossibility of an actual infinite (as you claimed.) then thats the so-called infinite god gone down the chute....
What wrong with an eternal universe once the false premise of something 'appearing' in existence having to need a first mover or cause......?
This whole theory is as you said only a probabilistic theory,or in my words a gamble.....in fact i would say this kind of weak pseudo intellectual theory is an intellectual trick,which can be fallen for by the unwary,and be used to trick the intellectually easily lead into theoretical ridlles,illusion and fallacies.....I now realise more fully the highly dubious nature of the so-called logic put forward to defend these views on god and religion....
If everthing is eternal and always existed in some form or another (whether perecieved by us or not........eg,could the previous peoples perceive bacteria.....? Or did disease spread by bacteria suddenly existing from nothing then manifesting physically as disease,ie did bateria only exist when scientists first perceived/discovered it.......?) then this makes more sense than everything being finite except one thing. (god.) Time will tell which of us is right..... handshake -
Peace,
Enq, because you don't believe, again you take the responsibility like me, that all the suffering is all our fault right? Isn't this exactly what i'm saying? As for the first mover, you have to understand that only a thing bounded to time can move. Something eternal, as by thus infinite cannot be affected by time, so energy cannot be eternal, this has been adressed by the greatest minds on earth. Energy moves, and by thus, it is not infinite. It lies in infinity itself. So infinity lays outside the term cause and effect. To believe energy is eternal goes against all laws of nature. As for being part of God, while not being eternal ourselves, it is God who allows us to 'borrow' His energy and He can take it away when he wants to, so the idea that we have to be eternal to then is wrong.
And how could i be ever a christian as my logic cannot accept such onlogic. I base it all on scienitific criteria, that is why i believe in the Quran. And the thing about freewill while God knows everything, i suspected you wouldn't grasp it, few will.....
You get your conclusions based on emotions, not totaly on evidence. But it is God's school, not mine, He teaches everyone on the tempo He decided.
Peace bro..
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Peace arnie. yes,im glad we both conclude adult man is somewhat responsible for his own faults....The energy and eternal thing we will agree to disagree on that bro...
My evidence is from my own experiences bro,not just emotions....
Finally,free-will,does anybody except a select few understand it? And if god is the teacher,then do you think he is doing a god job,or do we blame man totally...? Surely the 'teacher' has some input/responsibility...? If god was a sixth form lecturer he would have been sacked by now for lack of results...
Ps;we may have to wait for more verification to clarify some of these issues....maybe even upon the next life...... -
Peace,
He is a god teacher and a good teacher ....and if He really sucks like you say, how then is it that you like the things you have learned in life? You are happy with understanding reality don't you? Otherwise you wouldn't have professed them on this forum.....
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Peace enq
The energy and eternal thing we will agree to disagree on that bro...
My evidence is from my own experiences bro,not just emotions....How do you get evidence for things dealing with infinity through life-experiences? I'm just wondering. What does that exactly mean? Please give us an example, because I'm sure what you're saying is insightful, I just don't understand
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Peace openmind and arnold,i should be on tommorow,until then take it easy....I enjoyed todays discourses.....I will try to respond tommorow sun handshake peace elektro
ps;excellent last question openmind... bravo -
Peace Enquirer
No I do not fear you, but you really did not answer my question. I said "Please give an example of it and how it upsets the balance of harmony." Your response was "Would you suggest nuclear waste,child-abuse,oppression,murder,poverty,famine and mans disobedience towards gods so-called laws/decrees are harmony....?" You asked me a question and suggested that these are the examples you would give, not explaining why.
Take it easy.
Joe
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Peace openmind and arnie.
Openmind; How i personally verify something as infinite from life experiences is as follows;
When we burn a substance or try to destroy it there is always residue,even if a very small amount...When a person dies there is always residue after decay...When anything in life is seemingly destroyed or dies there is always residue of some sort,and this is empirically verifiable....Further,with advances in microscopes and scientific progress when can verify that even if we THOUGHT we completely destroyed/eliminated a substance or thought it went out of existence,that the substance will still have residue which is not pereceived by the naked eye....
Now on to death,even when a human dies the memory of that person in other peoples memories does not cease,and so their residue lives on.....Further,when we sleep (the closest real-life experience of death we routinely go through.) we get a mini taste of death....Now if the larger physical death is of a similar nature,then we may physically die/change,but our conciousness may live on....I however verify one thing for sure,i always will exist in some form or another (i have yet to see matter completely destroyed without a trace.) and im sure we have always existed as well,as ive yet to
see anything appear from nothing or from no prior cause without any raw materials....I verify we have always been raw material in one form or another and always will be...arnold and openmind; The teacher issue; I have learnt from others,myself,my surroundings and experience....Some things i learnt have been wrong,and some right.Some things i learnt from relatively good teachers,and others taught me badly and were relatively bad teachers... I fail to see the correlation between teacher and student when the so-called teacher (god.) takes no responsibility at all for any of his pupils failures....Seems the old geezer is above reproach....
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Peace
So, enq, you're telling me you'd debate what arnold said
As for the first mover, you have to understand that only a thing bounded to time can move. Something eternal, as by thus infinite cannot be affected by time, so energy cannot be eternal, this has been adressed by the greatest minds on earth. Energy moves, and by thus, it is not infinite. It lies in infinity itself. So infinity lays outside the term cause and effect. To believe energy is eternal goes against all laws of nature. As for being part of God, while not being eternal ourselves, it is God who allows us to 'borrow' His energy and He can take it away when he wants to, so the idea that we have to be eternal to then is wrong.
..Using this "evidence"
When we burn a substance or try to destroy it there is always residue,even if a very small amount...When a person dies there is always residue after decay...When anything in life is seemingly destroyed or dies there is always residue of some sort,and this is empirically verifiable....Further,with advances in microscopes and scientific progress when can verify that even if we THOUGHT we completely destroyed/eliminated a substance or thought it went out of existence,that the substance will still have residue which is not pereceived by the naked eye....
Good luck with that. This would upset me if I was debating you.
What you're saying is profound, indeed. But using it in this sense does not make sense and is not productive.
Peace
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Peace openmind. Thats fine...As you may know,im not a 'traditional' or orthodox debater in any fashion...
By the same token,arnolds post on something eternal not moving,makes no sense to me,because it implies god being eternal moves other things without himself moving.....Now that has never been verified and goes against all the thinking i know...How does something beyond cause and effect,and without movement cause the world to move.....?
Just for my curiosity,why would you be upset with my post in a debate...? Also,just because we havent verifed or understood a post for ourselves doesnt make the post wrong.....It just makes no sense to some....I remember when i first read posts by idolfree and others i couldnt make heads or tails of what they were saying,or even begin to agree with thim....But when i really thought deeply and correlated their posts with my own empirical evidence i began to see what they were saying was,on some occasions,right on the button....But i still had to verify for myself. You must realise we all have different levels/angles of logic which others might not always see easily,also just because posters are eloquent or bring 'evidence' that suits traditional methods,does not make their posts,conclusions or evidence always correct..... peace -
Peace
God, in definition, is eternal. That's what the idea of God is. This cannot be applied to things within this universe, or the universe itself, because it isn't God.
I would be upset because it wouldn't respond to my argument.
Also, you are right. So out of curiosity, could you show me the whole argument using that evidence? Connect them together, please. Thanks.
Peace