The Nehor Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 It is also in this same essay that he holds we live in the best of all possible worlds, an idea famously scoffed by Voltaire in Candide. I also scoff at this idea. We live in a beautiful world but it is incredibly dangerous and filled with sorrow, pain, and dreariness. If you think this is the best of all possible worlds I would argue you have incredibly low standards.
Maedros Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 God commanded but the earth was created in a big bang, E=MC2. God was created and His creator was created ad infinitum - we'll only know these answers at the end - one thing is clear to me though and that is that mankind is the dominant species in the universe.
Nofear Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 Creatio Ex Nihilo requires a self-existent God.Mormonism has self-existent matter and intelligence.Atheism (a la Hawking) requires self-existent laws/principles (though this is rarely confessed). In short, there is no paradigm which has nothing, nada, zilch as self-existent. One option that some philosophers like is that instead of nothing being self-existent, everything is. All possibilities exist. We just inhabit one of them. I confess I'm not a fan of that option though. I have my own ideas instead (though nothing can/should get away from self-existent concepts). PS: On a slight tangent, I'm a local flood advocate. Noah saw the whole earth flooded and we say that is only what he saw. Similarly, pretty much everything we see in the night sky with a naked eye is within a few thousand light years away (a few exception, e.g. Andromeda, supernova) of a hundred thousand light year or so diameter galaxy. I am quite willing to apply the same Noad-flood-language logic to the God creating/organizing the universe. 2
The Nehor Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 God commanded but the earth was created in a big bang, E=MC2. God was created and His creator was created ad infinitum - we'll only know these answers at the end - one thing is clear to me though and that is that mankind is the dominant species in the universe.I am not sure if we are the dominant species. There is a lot going on we are not privy to.I accept the Big Bang as plausible but I remain unsure that it is the last word on how the universe came into being.
Gray Posted June 5, 2015 Author Posted June 5, 2015 I am not sure if we are the dominant species. There is a lot going on we are not privy to.I accept the Big Bang as plausible but I remain unsure that it is the last word on how the universe came into being. I'm pretty sure the Protoss are the dominant species. 1
The Nehor Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 I'm pretty sure the Protoss are the dominant species.My rushing zerglings disrespectfully disagree.
Gray Posted June 5, 2015 Author Posted June 5, 2015 My rushing zerglings disrespectfully disagree. Psionics > fast-breeding bugs
The Nehor Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 Psionics > fast-breeding bugsThe Overmind and its cerebrates have psionics. You have obviously been reading Protoss propaganda. 3
thesometimesaint Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 This is actually wrong. It would not be a small part of this Universe as according to the Big Bang space itself did not exist and asking how long it existed is meaningless as time formed with the Big Bang as well. I am not sure I buy it completely but that is the current understanding. Sorry if I wasn't clear. This(our) entire universe, all matter, space, and energy, was in one infinitely small place. It then inflated then expanded to what we have now, and is continuing to expand at an increasing rate. I think that is where a multiverse fits better than a single universe, but know of no way to substantiate it at this time. If God, and us(as intelligences), were eternal beings in the past. Then time would of necessity also be eternal. If, as we figure, this universe started some 14 billion years ago. Then even that big number is very small compared to eternity. Quantum physics, plane theory, and string theory are trying to figure out what occurred before the Big Bang, if anything.SEE http://www.allabouthow.com/theories-of-the-origin-of-the-universe.htm
TheSkepticChristian Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 This is actually wrong. It would not be a small part of this Universe as according to the Big Bang space itself did not exist and asking how long it existed is meaningless as time formed with the Big Bang as well. I am not sure I buy it completely but that is the current understanding. It just depends which model you are talking about, but I think all models require a pre-existing something that allows the big bang. When something is created out of nothing, it doesn't mean that nothing else existed before, read http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/something-from-nothing-vacuum-can-yield-flashes-of-light/
Calm Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 God was created and His creator was created ad infinitumAre you LDS? If so, is this your personal belief or do you see it as church doctrine and if the latter, please document this claim that God is a created being.
Stroopwafel Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 Are you LDS? If so, is this your personal belief or do you see it as church doctrine and if the latter, please document this claim that God is a created being. Not sure if that counts, but Lorenzo Snow did say: "As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become." 2
JLHPROF Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 (edited) Are you LDS? If so, is this your personal belief or do you see it as church doctrine and if the latter, please document this claim that God is a created being. Perhaps he didn't mean that God is a created being, but rather that God was not always God, which is straight out of the KFD. Of course, I could be wrong about his meaning. Edited June 5, 2015 by JLHPROF
rodheadlee Posted June 6, 2015 Posted June 6, 2015 I don't believe there was a big bang or a singularity, the universe is eternal. No need for a multiverse. I know it appears the universe is expanding but there are problems with that theory too. http://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/science-universe-not-expanding-01940.html
mfbukowski Posted June 6, 2015 Posted June 6, 2015 Coming in late to this thread *captain obvious here*. You're right Gray in pointing out that a mainstream Christian (and I'd say any traditional Christian for that matter) would inevitably have to appeal to the ontological argument of a necessary first mover / first cause as an explanation. Interestingly, Leibniz, who first formulated the question "why is there something at all rather than nothing?" in an essay written in 1714, answers using this very argument. It is also in this same essay that he holds we live in the best of all possible worlds, an idea famously scoffed by Voltaire in Candide.People using "God" as the answer, here as a most perfect Deus ex machina in the story of our universe, don't say much unless they define what they mean by "God". And again as you pointed out, it certainly cannot be God as understood in LDS theology. Co-eternal as he is with matter, he also was at some "created", since he wasn't always "God". So we end up asking other questions, like: what is God? How can we know? How can there be a beginning if there was absolutely nothing before? How can something "be" without having a beginning? How can something come from nothing? What is "nothing"? Aaaand it never ends, for ever and ever (or at least not for 2500 some years; the question of being is as old as Parmenides).To me, this is one of those life's questions impossible to positively answer, along with "Is there a beginning or has the universe always existed?" No matter which alternative is right, both are equally difficult to fathom for our limited selves, but at the same time equally awe-inducing. That's the beauty of it (as well as cause of frustration).As an aside, people -- most specifically westerners -- generally have a hard time with the idea of "nothingness" (our Ancient Greece heritage I guess), as is made evident by some of the posts on this thread. We find it an ambivalent, ambiguous, uncomfortable concept. Asians, on the other hand, are usually fine with this, as they've grown on another milk. I say we have something to learn by acquainting ourselves with their take on the topic. Taoism is a great place to start. Where we tend to seperate both being and non-being, easterners tend to see them as going hand-in-hand (the yin-yang symbol does a good job at illustrating the thought). Finally, for anyone proficient enough in French -- I don't know of any full English translation -- there is a great book by sinologist François Jullien called Un sage est sans idée (non-marketable translation: "A wise man is free of ideas"). Did I say it was a great book? Well, I mean it! Read it if you can. Has that Schopenhauer reference always been there? Never noticed it before-- ?
Mudcat Posted June 6, 2015 Posted June 6, 2015 (edited) Many mainstream Christians would probably respond to this question using some version of the cosmological argument. I think ultimately, from the perspective of Mormon theology, we'd have to defer to scientific rather than theological explanations, as Mormon theology does not seem to answer this question as far as I can tell. But I'd be interested in everyone's thoughts on the topic. I don't know why there is something rather than nothing, though I am glad that there is something rather than nothing.... I don't think anybody knows. I imagine the people who might say they have an answer are just trying to sell books. To me it's sort of like trying to divide 42 by 0... or wondering where the 3's stop in a third. I guess from my perspective (evangelical).. it's sort of like asking why God exists... Regardless... At some point, we all fall upon something we accept as axiomatic.. even if that axiom would be that "I don't have axioms" or some such... Edited June 6, 2015 by Mudcat 1
Stroopwafel Posted June 6, 2015 Posted June 6, 2015 (edited) Has that Schopenhauer reference always been there? Never noticed it before-- ? You mean the words "Will and Representation" above my profile pic? It's been there for a while, but it's not like I post here very often. Edit: By the way, your Wittgenstein reference is definitely a good fit. Edited June 6, 2015 by Stroopwafel
TheSkepticChristian Posted June 6, 2015 Posted June 6, 2015 (edited) This is actually wrong. It would not be a small part of this Universe as according to the Big Bang space itself did not exist and asking how long it existed is meaningless as time formed with the Big Bang as well. I am not sure I buy it completely but that is the current understanding. It depends which model, but they usually mean the space that we know didn't exist. When something is created out of nothing, it doesn't mean that nothing else existed before, for one example read http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/something-from-nothing-vacuum-can-yield-flashes-of-light/ Edited June 6, 2015 by TheSkepticChristian
rodheadlee Posted June 6, 2015 Posted June 6, 2015 PS: On a slight tangent, I'm a local flood advocate. Noah saw the whole earth flooded and we say that is only what he saw. Similarly, pretty much everything we see in the night sky with a naked eye is within a few thousand light years away (a few exception, e.g. Andromeda, supernova) of a hundred thousand light year or so diameter galaxy. I am quite willing to apply the same Noad-flood-language logic to the God creating/organizing the universe. I believe the Kolob Thoerem expands on that thought.http://www.rogerknecht.com/uploads/2011/12/The_Kolob_Theorem.pdf
thesometimesaint Posted June 6, 2015 Posted June 6, 2015 We are all entitled to believe anything we want. However any time you must posit a God onto science to make it work. You are no longer using science, but something else.
Nofear Posted June 6, 2015 Posted June 6, 2015 I believe the Kolob Thoerem expands on that thought.http://www.rogerknecht.com/uploads/2011/12/The_Kolob_Theorem.pdfThat you recommend that booklet, unfortunately, inclines me to ad hominem dismiss other opinions. I will try not to do that, but, wow, seriously?
Calm Posted June 6, 2015 Posted June 6, 2015 He may not be recommending it, merely pointing out the similarity in thought. 1
Nofear Posted June 6, 2015 Posted June 6, 2015 Giving the benefit of doubt is indeed the more correct response. The mention of the book does make me a little irrational. My apologies rodheadlee. Any similarity in ideas is superficial at best.
Calm Posted June 6, 2015 Posted June 6, 2015 The mention of the book does make me a little irrational. I can understand that. It is an example of the need to have everything neatly packaged in concrete, finite terms taken to extreme in my opinion.
TheSkepticChristian Posted June 8, 2015 Posted June 8, 2015 I don't believe there was a big bang or a singularity, the universe is eternal. No need for a multiverse. I know it appears the universe is expanding but there are problems with that theory too. The evidence for the Big Bang is strong, it is called the cosmic microwave background. http://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html It is challenging the singularity theory, not the Big Bang theory http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/science-universe-not-expanding-01940.html Too early to conclude anything, new theories require years of scientific scrutiny.
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