For the love of god, can someone explain who created god?

[WalterTrull]

Excuse me?

May you please elaborate a bit on this? I don't know what you mean.

Oh... A big explosion (one of these posts said explosion is the wrong term but...) from nothing, with matter created moving faster than whoopie doodle? A gazillion accidents happening without direction, over and over and over? Sentient matter? Actually the world turtle makes as much sense.

 

[Grandliseur]

I don't "believe" in Abiogenesis, it's just the best theory we have until some theist can show that his particular creation god exists and created life. Or a Raëlien can show that life was created by aliens. Or somebody can provide evidence for any other convincing theory.I don't "believe" in evolution, it's just the best theory we have until some creationist can provide enough evidence for creation to beat out all the evidence we have for evolution.
Evolution Is Finally Winning Out Over Creationism, Especially Among the Young
If you are referring to the Big Bang theory that came from a Catholic Priest...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lemaître
Your "you guys" covers a lot of different people...

This sophistry that you guys use when choosing to describe your beliefs is just another way of trying to impress others. You say Abiogenesis is the best theory that you have, so that means this is what you accept as having happened until you change your mind. In other words, you believe this to be what happened. Everyone has beliefs, not everyone has faith. They are not the same.

You cannot even say what you do with evolution, all you say is that it is the 'best'. In other words, that is what you believe happened. If you don't want to use that word, pick another. But, you are cannot even do that.

When you can demonstrate that cause and effect doesn't apply to our universe, then perhaps I will not believe in ID. Until then, I will accept that all things made of matter and working like machines, chemical, mechanical, or biological are having an origin, that my computer was ID by people a little more intelligent than animals but where the programmers of said machines might only be slightly more intelligent than said organisms. Until then I will go and check that I still need to wash my own dishes since they don't seem to do themselves; I'll go to the car dealers instead of waiting for the junk outside to assemble a car when I need a new car.

 

[ChristineM]

All things that begin to exist require a cause. If God never began to exist, then He does not require a cause. Hence certain of his titles: First Cause, Unmoved Mover, etc. The challenge for the skeptic is to demonstrate that an eternally existent being is a logical impossibility.

Not quite true, certainly after the 2nd law of thermodynamics coalesced everything required a cause. However the laws of thermodynamics did not exist until 10e-24 of a second after the bb event.

And a challenge to believers is to demonstrate eternity exists. Lets face it, its you making claims of the unknown.

 

[ArtieE]

Oh... A big explosion (one of these posts said explosion is the wrong term but...) from nothing, with matter created moving faster than whoopie doodle?

In the words of Father Lemaître, the originator of the theory:

"We may speak of this event as of a beginning. I do not say a creation. Physically it is a beginning in the sense that if something happened before, it has no observable influence on the behavior of our universe, as any feature of matter before this beginning has been completely lost by the extreme contraction at the theoretical zero. Any preexistence of the universe has a metaphysical character. Physically, everything happens as if the theoretical zero was really a beginning. The question if it was really a beginning or rather a creation, something started from nothing, is a philosophical question which cannot be settled by physical or astronomical considerations.23"
Library : The Faith and Reason of Father George Lemaître

 

[syo]

Then there couldn't have been a time where God had not created time yet? Because going from a state where something is not created to where something is created requires the passing of time...

says who? time is also a creation like you and me.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Why wouldn't it be?

Explain how something that never began to exist can happen to exist. All of the things I can think of that never began to exist stay non-existent.

Clearly something must be eternally existent, the so-called "Ground of Being," or else you have the problem of an infinite regression of causes.

If your alternative to this "problem" is impossible, then you haven't solved the problem (to the extent that it's a problem at all - why do you think it is?). Is it possible for a being that didn't begin to exist to exist? You've given no reason to conclude so. Until you've eatablished that the conclusion you want to jump to is even possible, you can't be justified in jumping to it.

Another way of looking at it:

- you can't see how things could exist without tracing everything back to something that didn't begin to exist.

- I can't see how something that didn't begin to exist can exist.

If we're using personal incredulity as a substitute for rational arguments, then your explanation fails, too. However, if we set our incredulity aside and try to base our positions on logical deductions from facts, then you have more work to do: your position can't be taken as some sort of default. It has to be supported on its own merits.

More than one is possible, if they are also all one. Hence the doctrine of the Trinity.

Why did you add "if they are also all one?" Where is this coming from?

To elaborate a little, the Christian position is that God is three in person but one in being. Because each person of the Trinity is infinite, and because all true infinities are infinitely overlapping, the being-ness of the Father is not separable from the Son, which is not separable from the Holy Spirit. It's sort of like a three-way Venn diagram where each of the circles stretches out forever.

I think you missed my point.

We start with the question "is it possible for a thing to exist if it never started to exist?" Your answer, apparently, is yes. The implication here is that some number of these things exist.

The next question for the theist is "do such things exist?" - to establish the existence of your god, you need to elevate your god from merely possible to actual.

If we're going for monotheism, the next question is "is there any sort of limit on the number of such things?" You've asserted "yes" and that this limit is one (or one trinity), but haven't given any explanation as to why.

 

[syo]

God is beyond time? Can you explain what exactly that means? How can time begin or end?

time is a creation, that's all. it started, like all creations.

 

[WalterTrull]

What "alternative theories"? What testable and falsifiable theories are out there besides the major ones that people find in the sciences?

Well, there are theories and "testable and falsifiable" theories. Don't know any of the latter. Well... except for " even though you do not believe me, believe the works...". Now that's cool. 'Cept it's just in books right now. Keepin' watch.

 

[WalterTrull]

Indeed so,

Cool.

 

[LuisDantas]

Oh... A big explosion (one of these posts said explosion is the wrong term but...) from nothing, with matter created moving faster than whoopie doodle? A gazillion accidents happening without direction, over and over and over? Sentient matter? Actually the world turtle makes as much sense.

You sound like the people who thought that it was absurd that Earth would be "hanging by itself alone in space".

Things are as they are. I guess some people have strong cravings for believing in purposes, causes and intelligence.

 

[ArtieE]

This sophistry that you guys use when choosing to describe your beliefs is just another way of trying to impress others. You say Abiogenesis is the best theory that you have, so that means this is what you accept as having happened until you change your mind. In other words, you believe this to be what happened. Everyone has beliefs, not everyone has faith. They are not the same.

I don't "believe" in Abiogenesis. Either it happened that way or it didn't. I am on the fence and haven't made up my mind what to believe. Maybe someday there will be sufficient evidence for me to jump down off the fence and state "I believe this" but I'm not there yet.

When you can demonstrate that cause and effect doesn't apply to our universe, then perhaps I will not believe in ID.

Of course cause and effect can't logically apply to our universe, since cause precedes effect in time and without a universe, no time.

 

[ArtieE]

says who? time is also a creation like you and me.

Says simple logic. You can't create time since creating something takes time which you don't have if you haven't yet created time.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Why does God need an origin? I know many who believe the universe, or at least the matter that makes up the universe, never had an origin. That it is a cycle.

There is no need for an origin - it is merely that the creationists/believers themselves set the parameters for an argument by saying "Look at the complexity! The universe/Earth/man must have been created!", and then are completely content to break from that exact same paradigm immediately by saying God didn't have to be created.

And the huge, overwhelming, stand-out difference between saying "God existed always" and "the universe existed always" is that we actually have proof of "the universe". We can actually witness it, we interact with it daily. In fact, we can't even choose not to deal with it. We ARE it. "God" however? Where is He/She/It? When is it that I am interacting with Him/Her/It? How would I know I was? Do I take someone's word for it?

It seems to me that it is nothing more than a bad joke that a lot of people take way too seriously.

 

[ArtieE]

time is a creation, that's all. it started, like all creations.

How do you find time to create something if you haven't created time yet?

 

[WalterTrull]

You sound like the people who thought that it was absurd that Earth would be "hanging by itself alone in space".

What? Hanging by itself in space?? What-what???

Things are as they are. I guess some people have strong cravings for believing in purposes, causes and intelligence.

Well, intelligence anyway. Causes and purposes are kind of point-of-view things.

 

[Faux Goat]

Explain how something that never began to exist can happen to exist. All of the things I can think of that never began to exist stay non-existent.

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding you, but what about, say, mathematical truths? I believe that "1+1=2" was true even prior to the Big Bang, and that there is not a conceivable circumstance when it was not or will not be true. I believe that mathematical truths are immutable and eternal; that it is not within our power to create, but only to discover them; and that they never began to exist, but simply are.

Why did you add "if they are also all one?" Where is this coming from?

Because an infinite Person (i.e. God), as a consequence of His infinity, necessarily subsumes all other things within Himself... including other infinite Persons.

If we're going for monotheism, the next question is "is there any sort of limit on the number of such things?" You've asserted "yes" and that this limit is one (or one trinity), but haven't given any explanation as to why.

For a Christian, the "why" of the Trinity is simply the revelation of Scripture. That's all. It's not my intention here to make the case for the Christian God as such, but simply to argue that one of the most perplexing of God's attributes -- infinity, eternity, unboundedness -- is not logically impossibile.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding you, but what about, say, mathematical truths? I believe that "1+1=2" was true even prior to the Big Bang, and that there is not a conceivable circumstance when it was not or will not be true. I believe that mathematical truths are immutable and eternal; that it is not within our power to create, but only to discover them; and that they never began to exist, but simply are.

I thought we were talking about material existence, but setting that aside: a moment ago, you said that the only thing in existence that didn't begin to exist was God; now you're saying that there are many other things that exist without beginning to exist (e.g. mathematical concepts). Which is it?

Because an infinite Person (i.e. God), as a consequence of His infinity, necessarily subsumes all other things within Himself... including other infinite Persons.

Wait one minute: we were talking about things that didn't begin to exist, not "infinite" beings. I don't actually accept what you're saying about "infinite" beings, but it's irrelevant to what was asked.

For a Christian, the "why" of the Trinity is simply the revelation of Scripture. That's all. It's not my intention here to make the case for the Christian God as such, but simply to argue that one of the most perplexing of God's attributes -- infinity, eternity, unboundedness -- is not logically impossibile.

It's not your intention to support your argument? Without limiting the number of things that didn't begin to exist, you do nothing to establish the need for God, which is the whole point of the "kalam" cosmological argument.

If some undetermined number of things exist that didn't begin to exist, but no more than one of them is your God, then your infinite regression "problem" (again: to the extent it's a problem at all) can be avoided if the things that began to exist can trace their causation back to these other uncaused causes that aren't your God.

If you can't establish that your God is necessary, then you've failed at establishing God. Instead of "God must exist," you're left with "God may or may not exist," which was where we were before you even tried to prove God.

 

[syo]

Says simple logic. You can't create time since creating something takes time which you don't have if you haven't yet created time.

for humans. for god, time is god's creation. god created time.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

for humans. for god, time is god's creation. god created time.

"Creation" implies a before and an after, and therefore implies the existence of time. "God created time" is nonsensical (like "north of the North Pole").

 

[dfnj]

To all my dear creationist friends, I have a simple question which you might divine from the title.

In another thread, I came across a post whose author clearly believes that god created everything including us. What I want to understand is, how come creationists can suspend their disbelief in regards to the origin of god, and yet in the same breath vehemently deny the possibility of origin of life without a creator.

Can someone explain this apparent schizophrenic belief?

Nothingness never existed. There is no proof nothingness ever existed. All we know is somethingness.

Time is a human construct and a delusion. You don't really exist separate from reality either. You just say words and pretend you exist as being separate. But in reality, you just are.

So your question if fundamentally wrong. God does not require a first cause because the idea of first cause is just delusion.