JackGreenEarth ( @JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee ) English37•8 months agoIf God can exist without being created by something, why can’t the universe?
m_f ( @m_f@midwest.social ) English22•8 months agoThe argument I’ve heard is “It must stop somewhere, and whatever it stops at, we’ll call that god”. It’s not a good argument, because it then hopes that you conflate the Judeo-Christian deity with that label and make a whole bunch of assumptions.
It’s often paired with woo that falls down to simply asking “Why?”, such as “Nothing could possibly be simpler than my deity”
jadero ( @jadero@mander.xyz ) English11•8 months agoWhat is this stop business? I have it on good authority that it’s turtles all the way down.
Belgdore ( @Belgdore@lemm.ee ) English7•8 months agoIt’s just the one turtle flying through space, the Great A’Tuin
JackGreenEarth ( @JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee ) English10•8 months agoSo if it stops at the universe, the universe itself is called ‘God’?
Nougat ( @Nougat@kbin.social ) 9•8 months agoTo which I would ask, “Why are you using the word ‘god’?”
acockworkorange ( @acockworkorange@mander.xyz ) English13•8 months agoEverybody asks what is god, why is god… Nobody asks how is god.
…and it’s pronounced “jod” BTW.
m_f ( @m_f@midwest.social ) English5•8 months agoYeah exactly, though then you’d generally get arguments pushing you towards “But it’s actually totes Jesus”.
TheFinn ( @TheFinn@discuss.tchncs.de ) English3•8 months agoFurthermore, what does he need with a starship?
NattyNatty2x4 ( @NattyNatty2x4@beehaw.org ) English7•8 months agoAgreed, the big issue with their argument here is that “god” implies sentience, which isn’t something we have any reason to assume exists for whatever’s at the “stop somewhere” point. If energy was the starting point for example, I doubt these people would be down with calling heat a god
Morphit ( @Morphit@feddit.uk ) English3•8 months agoReject deities; return to sun worship.
jaycifer ( @jaycifer@kbin.social ) 2•8 months agoOn the contrary, I’d argue energy mostly meets many of the philosophical criteria for God.
Omnipotence: It literally is what drives stuff to happen.
Omnipresence: It is present to some degree in all things everywhere for all time, though you could argue about vacuum.
Omniscience: See omnipresence, although having knowledge implies some level of consciousness, which is pretty debatable. My psychedelic phase tells me that it’s totally a thing, but I’ll be the first to admit that’s not a rational argument.
Omnibenevolence: I don’t understand why God needs to be good. NattyNatty2x4 ( @NattyNatty2x4@beehaw.org ) English2•8 months agoI mean your argument stumbles at the exact point of my original comment. We have no reason to think it has any form of consciousness, and therefore no reason to believe it’s omniscient. On top of that, even if it was conscious, arguing it’s omniscient because it’s omnipresent assumes that it isn’t a collection of distinct consciousnesses and is instead one giant being, which we also have no reason to believe one possibility over the other.
Knusper ( @Knusper@feddit.de ) English2•8 months agoIt’s also a bad argument, because the concept of things being ‘created’ is an entirely human one. It’s us who decided that if a pile of pre-existing atoms are moved into the shape of a chair, we’ll say that chair was ‘created’.
Aside from this conceptual creation, nothing is ever created in the universe, as far as we know. Atoms don’t ever just pop into existence out of thin air.
I have heard the argument that the universe was just as well ‘created’ in the conceptual sense, so everything existed beforehand, it was just moved into a shape that we recognize as ‘universe’ today.
But that would still mean there’s no argument for a creator and of course, this is simply not what most people mean when they talk about the creation of the universe.
seSvxR3ull7LHaEZFIjM ( @seSvxR3ull7LHaEZFIjM@feddit.de ) English20•8 months agoI hate to tell you but philosophy has its own branch of basically math (logic). You need math to prove things :(
acockworkorange ( @acockworkorange@mander.xyz ) English9•8 months agoIt’s more like math uses logic as a tool to prove things.
ALostInquirer ( @ALostInquirer@lemm.ee ) English4•8 months agoIs that in the form of the supporting statistical data, for the maths alone, or…? For logic I have a better understanding, but maths has been more of a struggle for me.
F04118F ( @F04118F@feddit.nl ) English11•8 months agoIt’s nothing to do with statistics, “just” logic. But most people find that it starts to feel like maths real quick.
If you want to try it: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/24-241-logic-i-fall-2009/
Yardy Sardley ( @yardy_sardley@lemmy.ca ) English14•8 months agoHaving a hard time finding the average velocity of a car is definitely a sign from the universe that you should switch majors.
Johanno ( @Johanno@feddit.de ) English4•8 months agoThe question should be shifted.
If there is a god, does it matter?
Ok so now let’s assume a god like sentient creature formed our universe. Maybe they even intentionally created us.
We have no indication that they even once interacted with us in over 2000 or rather several million years.
Let’s go further and assume the god like creature is indeed the Christian God.
We have an immortal, allknowing and allmighty God who doesn’t care about innocent dying, suffering and other cruelties. So if the Christian God exists he is an asshole!
dope ( @dope@lemm.ee ) English1•8 months agoVia a difficult method you observe something strange.
For conversation’s sake you call what you observed, “gob”.
Overhearing the conversation, people, who never practiced the method (because it is difficult), discuss “gob”.
In time the method is forgotten. But the discussion continues.
That baseless, insubstantial discussion.