Theists: What would a godless universe look like?

[Polymath257]

Well, for that, such events would have to stand out (or be separable) from the stochastic background gravity wave 'noise'.

Is there any reason/speculation to expect any such larger (distinct) events earlier on....? I'd say "no".

And I would agree. I am just making the point that such would be a possible way to probe significantly earlier.

But...if you do have some other view that gravity wave events would be occurring that could stand out earlier on (back before the 380,000 year mark) that would be interesting to hear! Though I don't expect any such thing, I enjoy hearing new ideas....

Given our current understanding, I don't see it as likely. The photon dominance would tend to overwhelm anything that would give distinct gravitational waves. Of course, the porposed BAO are essentially a gravitational wave phenomenon.

 

[Polymath257]

To be honest, I'm not well enough informed about alternatives to the standard cosmological model, to be able to comment on which may be worth consideration. As far as I can gather, the Big Bang theory, the name of which some cosmologists appear to consider a little misleading, is the paradigm within which the most fruitful research is taking place. There are problems with it though; the missing monopole, the fact no dark matter particle has yet been observed, the 'fine tuning' controversies, and that there is no direct evidence for the early period of rapid inflation. I don't imagine the Big Bang model getting thrown out anytime soon, but if you consider the theory from the perspective of Thomas Kuhn's ideas about scientific revolutions, there are reasons to believe we may be on the cusp of exactly that.

I sort of doubt it. There are enough variants that have been proposed for those issues that I doubt a complete overhaul will be necessary. Missing monopoles and 'fine tuning' are 'explained' by the inflationary stage. As you point out, there is no direct evidence, as yet, for this stage, but finding BAO would certainly help a lot. Even if the current ideas aren't right, they don't seem to be far wrong.

Not finding a dark matter particle is not (yet) a serious issue as the prime candidates have masses higher than what we can probe at this time. There is a concern that the standard model of particle physics is standing up so well in that no supersymmetry or other new physics seems to be showing up. There is still a lot of interest in figuring out what is going on with neutrinos and that might well link to some of these issues. More relevant, in all likelihood, is the nature of the Higgs particle(s). There is still a reasonable chance that the Higgs is the inflaton. Certainly, the existence of the Higgs makes an inflaton with the properties required for inflation not too extreme.

As for Kuhn, I find his discussion of the Galilean revolution to be rather naive. People, for good reason, didn't want to give up long standing explanations until the evidence for the new system was very solid. And it certainly was NOT when Copernicus wrote. It was much better once Gaileo started using telescopes and found moons orbiting other planets and once Kepler's laws were elucidated. But the theoretical underpinnings of the new system weren't set down until Newton. So it certainly wasn't unreasonable to be very skeptical of the new system until that time.

Now, which ideas do you think are not being taken seriously enough? Which evidence do you think strongly points away from the basic BB model? Sorry, but the monopole and fine tuning aspects are rather side issues (although interesting ones).

 

[halbhh]

BAO are essentially a gravitational wave phenomenon

That's interesting. I found one somewhat related article, already interesting and I'm reading. Do you have a recommended article?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

There are many things that I would expect to see in a universe containing a benevolent, omnipotent, personal god that I don't see in this universe, which leads me to conclude that such a god is unlikely to exist.

Great question.

There is a compelling argument that no interventionalist deity exists, that is, one that modifies our reality whether by leaving revelation, answering prayer, or performing miracles, which I call restricted choice. It is basically the argument that if [A] is the case, then two outcomes are possible, [R1] and [R2], but if (B) is the case, only one of these is possible, say [R2]. If one always finds [R2], the argument for (B) is strong, which is just a formalized way of saying what you just wrote.

Consider a coin flip experiment. If the coin is [A] a fair coin, it might come up heads [R1] or tails [R2], but if (B) it is loaded, only tails is possible [R2]. Suppose that we were unable to touch the coin to weigh or X-ray it, for example. The only test is a coin flip. How many consecutive tails would it take to convince one that the coin was loaded and likely will never come up heads?

Probably more than ten, but probably less than a thousand. Have you proved the coin is loaded after 1000 consecutive tails? No, but you've made a compelling case, one good enough to prevent reasonable people from betting on heads.

Now we apply the argument to the universe we inhabit:

If it was ruled by an interventionist god [A], we might have a holy book that clearly could have been written by any man [R1] or not [R2]. If no such deity exists , we would not [R2]. This world contains no such compelling writings [R2].

If our universe were ruled by an interventionist god [A], we might not [R1] or might [R2] have regular laws of physics, since an interventionalist deity might vary the strength of gravity, for example. If no such deity is running the universe we would have fixed laws [R2].

If our universe were ruled by an interventionist god [A], we might not [R1] or might [R2] see convincing manifestations of this deity. If no such deity is running the universe we never would [R2].

We can never prove the coin was loaded however many times we flip it, and this argument doesn't disprove anything either however many times it turns up tails [R2], but it is a compelling argument that there is no god running the show - good enough to ignore those who claim otherwise. Not that it is needed. The simple inability of the theist to sufficiently support his claims is enough to reject them. But this argument goes beyond simply saying there is insufficient evidence to believe. It says there is evidence that the claim is wrong. The absence of expected evidence for an interventionalist god is evidence (not proof) of its absence.

I am genuinely interested in what you would expect to see, in a universe where "a benevolent, omnipotent, personal god" exists.

Maybe my argument above answers that in part. We might find paradise, for example, but we don't. We might find something that only an intelligence could create. I realize that to many of the faithful posting here that that's anything and everything, but I put gods, if any are real, in the same category with the rest of reality. If the universe needs a cause, so does a god. If a god can exist uncreated and undesigned, then certainly anything simpler could as well.

The Progressive movement away from two sexes and toward homosexuality and gender, is also a movement toward birth control, since only classic male and female can breed.

I'm trying to recall if I've ever seen a post from you in any thread about any topic that wasn't conservative political apologetics.

You didn't get the life you wanted so you don't believe in God.

I got the life I wanted when I left Christianity and religion, but it's not why I don't believe in gods. I see it the other way around. The world isn't magical enough for many, they aren't special enough if an imagined god doesn't tell them they are through people claiming to speak for it.

Atheists say God does not exist, not, maybe God exists or doesn't exist.

Most atheists don't make that claim. What do you actually know about atheism and atheists?

How could anything but stillness exist, with no creative spark, no energy, no purpose driving it?

Use that argument against gods existing and see if you can refute it. How could one exist? How did it get to be? What gives it structural integrity to prevent it from evaporating away like a cloud? What powers it?

What you’ve done here is dismiss a literal interpretation of the Biblical God, then jumped to the logically erroneous conclusion that all God concepts are thereby shown to be absurd.

Gods can be divided into two categories - those who it is claimed intervene in our reality and noninterventionist gods that do not. The second group are irrelevant (see apatheism), and there is insufficient reason to believe that gods intervene in our lives. Holy books look mundane, prayer can be shown empirically to be ineffective except perhaps as placebo, and confirmed miracles don't happen.

The natural laws and constants which appear to govern the universe are clear evidence of an underlying creative purpose.

But not of an intelligent designer. The fine tuning argument is often offered here as evidence for an omnipotent, omniscient intelligent designer, but how powerful do we want to call a deity that is constrained to discover physical law for life and mind to arise? Not omnipotent. That's not any more of a creator than a scientist who must do the same thing.

How can it possibly be, that this universe in all it’s bewildering beauty emerged from nothing and rushes aimlessly nowhere?

It's either that or a god, which is a more absurd hypothesis which fact is overlooked because it is so commonly held, but describe something - anything at all - less likely to exist uncreated and undesigned thana tri-omni deity. You can't. Not a living cell, and not a universe. The argument that these need gods to exist but that gods are exempt from requirement with no reason better given that "Because it's God" or "God doesn't have to follow any rules" is the poster child for the special pleading fallacy.

if God is the Creator and He didn't exist, obviously there would be no creation.

Do you see that as an argument for the existence of a god? How about this one: "If there is no creator god, then obviously none is needed."

I see no evidence that the universe created itself.

There's plenty of evidence that no intelligent designer was needed for the universe to organize itself and to run itself without intelligent oversight. There are precious few jobs left for a god to do (the gaps keep narrowing), and no theory for how one could exist or do the things it is said to have done.

You're a theist, right? You have no more evidence for your religious worldview, but that's not a deal breaker for you, so what's this talk of evidence. Just believe it that the universe is godless and organized itself. What's the difference what one chooses to believe by faith? Any idea believed by faith is as well (or poorly) supported as any other.

 

[Polymath257]

To be honest, I'm not well enough informed about alternatives to the standard cosmological model, to be able to comment on which may be worth consideration. As far as I can gather, the Big Bang theory, the name of which some cosmologists appear to consider a little misleading, is the paradigm within which the most fruitful research is taking place. There are problems with it though; the missing monopole, the fact no dark matter particle has yet been observed, the 'fine tuning' controversies, and that there is no direct evidence for the early period of rapid inflation. I don't imagine the Big Bang model getting thrown out anytime soon, but if you consider the theory from the perspective of Thomas Kuhn's ideas about scientific revolutions, there are reasons to believe we may be on the cusp of exactly that.

I have yet to see anything other than a model involving expansion from a very hot, dense state that can explain the details of the CMBR.

Remember that it gives the theoretical Planck distribution of energies to within 1 part in 100,000. This implies an incredibly smooth universe when the CMBR was formed.

And no, no form of solid state theory has come close to giving this. ANY reasonable steady state theory will have fluctuations much larger than this and the effects would be *easily* seen in the CMBR.

 

[Polymath257]

That's interesting. I found one somewhat related article, already interesting and I'm reading. Do you have a recommended article?

The essential point is that the density fluctuations that give rise to the BAO are gravity driven. There is still a lot to be done even on the theoretical level with this, though.

 

[RestlessSoul]

I sort of doubt it. There are enough variants that have been proposed for those issues that I doubt a complete overhaul will be necessary. Missing monopoles and 'fine tuning' are 'explained' by the inflationary stage. As you point out, there is no direct evidence, as yet, for this stage, but finding BAO would certainly help a lot. Even if the current ideas aren't right, they don't seem to be far wrong.

Not finding a dark matter particle is not (yet) a serious issue as the prime candidates have masses higher than what we can probe at this time. There is a concern that the standard model of particle physics is standing up so well in that no supersymmetry or other new physics seems to be showing up. There is still a lot of interest in figuring out what is going on with neutrinos and that might well link to some of these issues. More relevant, in all likelihood, is the nature of the Higgs particle(s). There is still a reasonable chance that the Higgs is the inflaton. Certainly, the existence of the Higgs makes an inflaton with the properties required for inflation not too extreme.

As for Kuhn, I find his discussion of the Galilean revolution to be rather naive. People, for good reason, didn't want to give up long standing explanations until the evidence for the new system was very solid. And it certainly was NOT when Copernicus wrote. It was much better once Gaileo started using telescopes and found moons orbiting other planets and once Kepler's laws were elucidated. But the theoretical underpinnings of the new system weren't set down until Newton. So it certainly wasn't unreasonable to be very skeptical of the new system until that time.

Now, which ideas do you think are not being taken seriously enough? Which evidence do you think strongly points away from the basic BB model? Sorry, but the monopole and fine tuning aspects are rather side issues (although interesting ones).

One of Kuhn’s observations was that within any given paradigm, anomalies are set aside in the hope that they will eventually be accounted for within the existing model; and very often, that’s exactly what happens. Most likely, that will prove to be the case with regards to the BB.

But isn’t the fact that Modified Newtonian Dynamics has been given such serious consideration - including by yourself - evidence that there are anomalies within the Big Bang model which are being called into question for good reason?

 

[Polymath257]

Suppose we conceive of "God" as the whatever the answer is to the ultimate metaphysical questions: What accounts for the existence of existence, where did reality get the order that we perceive it to have, and all the other questions like that.

Seen that way, a universe without God wouldn't exist at all.

Existence exists because non-existence doesn't.

Proposing a deity to explain existence doesn't help. ALL it does it push the relevant questions one step down the road.

Why not simply say that 'existence simply exists'? No 'cause' (since any cause would have to be outside of existence and hence, non-existent). No personality (since personalities are complex phenomena, not simple ones--and thereby need a cause much more than simply properties do). No 'creative force' (other than the simple properties of matter and energy--which are described by the laws of physics).

So, looked at this way, the universe 'simply exists' and has no need of a creator or a cause.

 

[nPeace]

Maybe my argument above answers that in part. We might find paradise, for example, but we don't.

That does not follow, because God does not have to want Paradise.

We might find something that only an intelligence could create.

Like what, for example?

I realize that to many of the faithful posting here that that's anything and everything, but I put gods, if any are real, in the same category with the rest of reality. If the universe needs a cause, so does a god. If a god can exist uncreated and undesigned, then certainly anything simpler could as well.

Not really, because what you actually see, is transformed energy into matter, of various forms.
You cannot say that is how God is, and in fact the Bible does not describe God that way.
So, evidently, you are trying to create God, based on what you see.
That does not work.

 

[Polymath257]

One of Kuhn’s observations was that within any given paradigm, anomalies are set aside in the hope that they will eventually be accounted for within the existing model; and very often, that’s exactly what happens. Most likely, that will prove to be the case with regards to the BB.

But isn’t the fact that Modified Newtonian Dynamics has been taken seriously - including by yourself - evidence that there anomalies within the Big Bang model which are being called into question for good reason?

And that is precisely how science works: we push the explanations, proposed alternatives, see what the data says, rinse and repeat.

The data has shown steady state theories aren't workable. The data has made MOND and related ideas less likely. At this point, the standard BB model (LCDM) is *by far* the best supported by the evidence.

 

[halbhh]

Existence exists because non-existence doesn't.

Proposing a deity to explain existence doesn't help. ALL it does it push the relevant questions one step down the road.

Ah, switching to theology... Well, one way to define 'God' is simply that God is existence -- or "that anything exists".
Or in the common bible that's worded as "I AM that I AM". (or similar wording) Which seems to my eye to be an "existence exists" statement.

While in context it's in a story, this stands out from the story, like an thing out of left field...

viz:
13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

14 God said to Moses, “I AM who I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

Bible Gateway passage: Exodus 3 - New International Version

Moses and the Burning Bush - Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses...

www.biblegateway.com

 

[Polymath257]

Ah, switching to theology... Well, one way to define 'God' is simply that God is existence -- or "that anything exists".
Or in the common bible that's worded as "I AM that I AM". Which seems to my eye to be an "existence exists" statement.

Which begs the question of why there is a separate term. If God is simply existence, why the notion that there is a personality, a drive, a creative thought? NONE of that is required by 'simple existence'.

If you want to emasculate the term 'God' and identify it as 'existence', you are free. But that seems more like trying to keep the term while eliminating the essence.

And yes, I am familiar with the 'I AM that I AM'. Sorry, but that begs way too many questions to be useful..

 

[Viker]

I have a genuine question for theists and it is not meant to be a trick in any way. There are many things that I would expect to see in a universe containing a benevolent, omnipotent, personal god that I don't see in this universe, which leads me to conclude that such a god is unlikely to exist. I'm curious as to what theists would expect to see in a godless universe, and how a godless universe would differ from one in which a god existed. What would you expect this universe to look like if no gods existed, and how would that be different from the current universe?

It would look the same.

 

[halbhh]

Which begs the question of why there is a separate term. If God is simply existence, why the notion that there is a personality, a drive, a creative thought? NONE of that is required by 'simple existence'.

If you want to emasculate the term 'God' and identify it as 'existence', you are free. But that seems more like trying to keep the term while eliminating the essence.

Ah, well, perhaps existence itself then has a personality? It's not that we could say one way or the other just from that alone. There is the classic old idea of panpsychism, which is sorta similar.

We'd not (or I'd not) try to suggest that matter is as a whole (in large quantity or such) inanimate as a certainty (and..well, matter is pretty animate anyway also).

Which reminds of a fun topic, to switch topics again. Even just 1 proton is some kind of strange beast of immense complexity it appears:
The positively charged particle at the heart of the atom is an object of unspeakable complexity, one that changes its appearance depending on how it is probed.
“This is the most complicated thing that you could possibly imagine,” said Mike Williams, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “In fact, you can’t even imagine how complicated it is.”

The proton is a quantum mechanical object that exists as a haze of probabilities until an experiment forces it to take a concrete form. And its forms differ drastically depending on how researchers set up their experiment. Connecting the particle’s many faces has been the work of generations. “We’re kind of just starting to understand this system in a complete way,” said Richard Milner, a nuclear physicist at MIT.
As the pursuit continues, the proton’s secrets keep tumbling out. Most recently, a monumental data analysis published in August found that the proton contains traces of particles called charm quarks that are heavier than the proton itself.

Inside the Proton, the ‘Most Complicated Thing’ Imaginable

The positively charged particle at the heart of the atom is an object of unspeakable complexity, one that changes its appearance depending on how it is probed. We’ve attempted to connect the proton’s many faces to form the most complete picture yet.

www.quantamagazine.org

Who knows all that matter can do? Look at us, for instance.

 

[Polymath257]

Ah, well, perhaps existence itself then has a personality? It's not that we could say one way or the other just from that alone. There is the classic old idea of panpsychism, which is sorta similar.

We'd not (or I'd not) try to suggest that matter is as a whole (in large quantity or such) inanimate as a certainty (and..well, matter is pretty animate anyway also).

Indeed. One of the things I often here talked about it 'dead matter', which is quite different than the matter we actually see around us, which interacts all the time in multiple ways.

Which reminds of a fun topic, to switch topics again. Even just 1 proton is some kind of strange beast of immense complexity it appears:
The positively charged particle at the heart of the atom is an object of unspeakable complexity, one that changes its appearance depending on how it is probed.
“This is the most complicated thing that you could possibly imagine,” said Mike Williams, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “In fact, you can’t even imagine how complicated it is.”

The proton is a quantum mechanical object that exists as a haze of probabilities until an experiment forces it to take a concrete form. And its forms differ drastically depending on how researchers set up their experiment. Connecting the particle’s many faces has been the work of generations. “We’re kind of just starting to understand this system in a complete way,” said Richard Milner, a nuclear physicist at MIT.
https://chrt.fm/track/C9B4G7/d2r55xnwy6nx47.cloudfront.net/uploads/2022/10/quanta-208_FINAL.mp3
As the pursuit continues, the proton’s secrets keep tumbling out. Most recently, a monumental data analysis published in August found that the proton contains traces of particles called charm quarks that are heavier than the proton itself.

Inside the Proton, the ‘Most Complicated Thing’ Imaginable

The positively charged particle at the heart of the atom is an object of unspeakable complexity, one that changes its appearance depending on how it is probed. We’ve attempted to connect the proton’s many faces to form the most complete picture yet.

www.quantamagazine.org

Who knows all that matter can do? Look at us, for instance.

Exactly. Why any need for a supernatural when the supremely natural offers quite enough?

As for the proton, it is usually describes as having two up quarks and one down quark. But that is an overly simplistic description. There are also the gluons that hold the quarks together. But they way the gluons work also changes the type of quarks involved. So, it has been long understood that there is a significant aspect of 'strange quark' in the proton. This affects the dynamics in quite important ways.

As for the charmed quark, it is the cousin of the strange quark and so is excepted to appear in the proton as well (although in smaller 'concentration' than the strange quark). I would not be surprised if the top and bottom quarks, which are considerably heavier, also appear in 'small amounts'.

In any case, those qurks other than the up and down are closer to being 'virtual' particles, with their existence in the proton fleeting, even if important.

 

[halbhh]

Indeed. One of the things I often here talked about it 'dead matter', which is quite different than the matter we actually see around us, which interacts all the time in multiple ways.

Exactly. Why any need for a supernatural when the supremely natural offers quite enough?

As for the proton, it is usually describes as having two up quarks and one down quark. But that is an overly simplistic description. There are also the gluons that hold the quarks together. But they way the gluons work also changes the type of quarks involved. So, it has been long understood that there is a significant aspect of 'strange quark' in the proton. This affects the dynamics in quite important ways.

As for the charmed quark, it is the cousin of the strange quark and so is excepted to appear in the proton as well (although in smaller 'concentration' than the strange quark). I would not be surprised if the top and bottom quarks, which are considerably heavier, also appear in 'small amounts'.

In any case, those qurks other than the up and down are closer to being 'virtual' particles, with their existence in the proton fleeting, even if important.

We agree a lot! I'd myself word it that the 'natural' and the 'supernatural' can often be a kind of made up dichotomy, at least in many aspects. Natural is really something. Of course, as many on both side of arguments often can agree, sometimes what is called 'supernatural' turns out to just be natural. It's only about whether we understand it much....
And...well, why wouldn't 'God' participate in nature, for that matter....

Here in a moment we'll get to whether consciousness is entirely just a function of matter alone or is something floating on top of matter, sorta a bit analogous to mathematics or such.... but that's probably a question that has to do with how little we understand about it.

 

[Yazata]

Existence exists because non-existence doesn't.

I think that idea dates back to Parmenides. Ironically, he appears to have used it (it isn't certain since much of his writing is lost) to argue for a very immanent sort of pantheism. Everything, everywhere, all at once. So our seeming-reality of space, time and a multiplicity of things and selves is an illusion. (Some Vedantists seem to have had similar ideas.)

But despite those traditions, I'm inclined to perceive the 'non-existence doesn't exist' idea as verbal sophistry.

But I celebrate intellectual diversity and you are welcome to embrace it if you like.

'Let a thousand flowers bloom. Let a thousand schools of thought contend'.

Proposing a deity to explain existence doesn't help. ALL it does it push the relevant questions one step down the road.
Why not simply say that 'existence simply exists'? No 'cause' (since any cause would have to be outside of existence and hence, non-existent).

Is it really worse to say that the ultimate questions have unknown answers than to simply assert that reality is a given and deny that the ultimate questions are even legitimate? Asking questions is what human beings do. (It's how my dog and I differ. She just takes her surroundings as givens. I wonder how things got the way they are and how they work.) The human tendency to ask 'why?' is at the heart of what motivates science.

I'm inclined to think of existence as a question. (The Principle of Sufficient Reason.) I don't know if the question of being itself even has an answer, but historically natural theology has called the hypothetical answer "God". That's fine with me since I'm most emphatically not an atheist.

I'm aware that if we think of God as a question as well, then we seem to have launched ourselves on an infinite regress. That may or may not be fine, I'm undecided. All I'm willing to say at this point is that the ultimate metaphysical questions seem to transcend the realm of human knowledge. Hence my strong agnosticism on these kind of matters.

No personality

I have no motivation to equate whatever the answers are to the ultimate questions with the personalities of what I take to be religious myth. I don't personalize the answers at all. If it's unknown, I'm in no position to apply descriptive predicates.

No 'creative force' (other than the simple properties of matter and energy--which are described by the laws of physics).

So, looked at this way, the universe 'simply exists' and has no need of a creator or a cause.

But what explains the "laws of physics"? The 'non-existence doesn't exist' gambit doesn't seem to apply there.

The "laws of physics" are highly determinate. The question with them isn't so much why they exist rather than nothing at all (which I consider a legitimate question), but rather why they exist rather than something else. Why are the "laws of physics" what we observe them to be rather than different?

Why is existence orderly rather than chaos?

 

[Apostle John]

I have a genuine question for theists and it is not meant to be a trick in any way. There are many things that I would expect to see in a universe containing a benevolent, omnipotent, personal god that I don't see in this universe, which leads me to conclude that such a god is unlikely to exist. I'm curious as to what theists would expect to see in a godless universe, and how a godless universe would differ from one in which a god existed. What would you expect this universe to look like if no gods existed, and how would that be different from the current universe?

It’s actually an impossible question to answer for a knowledgeable Christian. The closest I would expect to see in a godless world is where God hasn’t been around in the past, places in the Bible like Sodom and Gomorrah.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

That does not follow, because God does not have to want Paradise.

No claim to that effect was made. You asked for what we might find in a universe created and ruled by a tri-omni god. Also, I reject the idea of a good god capable of creating a paradise for man but not doing it. That's a problem that I believe the Hebrews grappled with - why we struggle so to survive, why women die birthing children, and why we die. And that is why we have the Garden Story - to explain why we don't have that, because it really needs a reason if you want people to see this god as more than weak or indifferent.

Like what, for example?

Evidence for an intelligent designer? The ID people suggested irreducible complexity in biological systems. But my entire first paragraph addresses that. How about quality prophecy (specific and unlikely)? How about a holy book that no man could have written? There isn't a word in any holy book that couldn't have been written by an ancient human being. Millions today could easily improve on any of the holy books. If a deity exists, it ought to be far more intelligent that any man. What does it say when almost anyone can improve on the Bible and Qur'an, but very few can improve on a book by Stephen Hawking?

Not really, because what you actually see, is transformed energy into matter, of various forms.
You cannot say that is how God is

I wrote, "If the universe needs a cause, so does a god. If a god can exist uncreated and undesigned, then certainly anything simpler could as well." I don't see a counterargument to that from you. I didn't attempt to define what a god would be made of, and my argument is independent of materials and substances. Let this god be made of whatever you want it to be made of. The argument remains the same.

So, evidently, you are trying to create God, based on what you see.

Again, why would you write that? I'm not trying to create a god, and my argument isn't empirical (based in evidence or empiricism). It's pure reason. It doesn't even need to be about gods and universes. Let's substitute calico cats and gingham dogs. The argument is the same. If either needs a creator, they both do. If one doesn't need a creator to exist, then neither do. If you think that the argument is flawed, whether gods and universes or cats and dogs, identify the error and explain why it can't be correct. If my argument is flawed, you can do that. If it is not, you cannot. I think that the argument is unassailable, and that you will not succeed, but I'm willing to be rebutted if you can create a falsifying counterargument.

 

[Polymath257]

I think that idea dates back to Parmenides. Ironically, he appears to have used it (it isn't certain since much of his writing is lost) to argue for a very immanent sort of pantheism. Everything, everywhere, all at once. So our seeming-reality of space, time and a multiplicity of things and selves is an illusion. (Some Vedantists seem to have had similar ideas.)

But despite those traditions, I'm inclined to perceive the 'non-existence doesn't exist' idea as verbal sophistry.

But I celebrate intellectual diversity and you are welcome to embrace it if you like.

'Let a thousand flowers bloom. Let a thousand schools of thought contend'.



Is it really worse to say that the ultimate questions have unknown answers than to simply assert that reality is a given and deny that the ultimate questions are even legitimate? Asking questions is what human beings do. (It's how my dog and I differ. She just takes her surroundings as givens. I wonder how things got the way they are and how they work.) The human tendency to ask 'why?' is at the heart of what motivates science.

Understood. And I allow that what we have observed may have more causality yet to be learned about.

But in terms of existence itself, I don't see how there *can* be an outside cause simply because that cause would have to 'not exist'. Sure, ask the question. But then realize that the nature of the questions shows the question to be unanswerable and thereby useless.

Assuming causality where there can be no causality is a huge mistake, I think.

I'm inclined to think of existence as a question. (The Principle of Sufficient Reason.) I don't know if the question of being itself even has an answer, but historically natural theology has called the hypothetical answer "God". That's fine with me since I'm most emphatically not an atheist.

Again, at most that seems to push the question back a space and not to answer it.

I'm aware that if we think of God as a question as well, then we seem to have launched ourselves on an infinite regress. That may or may not be fine, I'm undecided. All I'm willing to say at this point is that the ultimate metaphysical questions seem to transcend the realm of human knowledge. Hence my strong agnosticism on these kind of matters.

I think many of the 'ultimate questions' contain hidden assumptions (like causality) that are, in fact, wrong.

My view is that there can be no explanation for the most fundamental questions simply because they are the most fundamental: there is nothing deeper. Existence itself is one of those fundamental questions. I see no alternative to simply saying 'existence exists' and moving own the road.

I have no motivation to equate whatever the answers are to the ultimate questions with the personalities of what I take to be religious myth. I don't personalize the answers at all. If it's unknown, I'm in no position to apply descriptive predicates.

Then why use the word 'God' as opposed to 'existence'?

But what explains the "laws of physics"? The 'non-existence doesn't exist' gambit doesn't seem to apply there.

Things have properties. Those properties determine how they interact. The description of those interactions are the laws of physics.

The "laws of physics" are highly determinate. The question with them isn't so much why they exist rather than nothing at all (which I consider a legitimate question), but rather why they exist rather than something else. Why are the "laws of physics" what we observe them to be rather than different?

I don't think there is an answer to such a question. Any answer would have to rely on some laws of physics.

Why is existence orderly rather than chaos?

Because things that exist have properties.