Is God's existence necessary?

[Rick O'Shez]

IOW, everything in the materialist world is contingent.

You can say that everything is interconnected, but what has that got to do with God existing?

 

[Ben Dhyan]

So now you are telling people they don't know who or what they are. Does your arrogance know no bounds?

Do you think our mutual friend goofball created himself....and since you are asking...do you actually know what and who you are....did you create yourself?

 

[viole]

P

Actually, on the naturalistic view, there is no "uni" verse, because that implies a unity (interconnection or oneness) which you have clearly denied. (Remember our discussion on "nonlocality?")

Naturalism accepts quantum entanglement and non-locality. Where did you get the idea that it does not?
By the way, it also accept the fact that many things manifest only a local influence.

I'm only using one assumption - God. You seem to be presupposing an infinite regress of "verses" (and each "verse" is contingent, dependent on another for its existence). Also, on the materialist view, everything in a "verse" reduces to subatomic particles (every particle is composed of virtual particles, which are "popping in and out of existence."). IOW, everything in the materialist world is contingent. There are no exceptions. Finally, the "laws of nature" (which are NOT physical!) are descriptive, not causally efficacious.

I do not. I can even make a case for only one universe (ours) as the only one existing and not depending on a a-priori causation for its existence. An eternal and immutable context that simply is. All you have to do to see how it works is to assume that relativity is true and analyze the consequences thereof.

I could also postulate, with the same evidence that you have for your God's necessity, that this eternal and immutable universe is necessary. And by doing that, I even require a step/assumption less than you.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Rick O'Shez]

I'm only using one assumption - God.

No, God is an additional and unnecessary assumption.

 

[leibowde84]

and your efforts are no more tan contrary claim....with a crutch.

Substance was created......God did it.

That's it?

 

[McBell]

That's it?

That is all you need when you use faith as your crutch...

 

[aoji]

Is God's existence (metaphysically [speaking]) necessary?

Is life necessary? Only the living can ask that absurd question. "If" God is life and everything that exists, then to put forth such an absurd question is moot.

A baby doesn't ask whether or not there is a God, it only "knows" that it is alive, a child doesn't ask whether or not there is a God because it sees its parents as God. It's only when a group of teens and adults get together that one becomes aware of others and the world that one starts to ponder the Universe and the meaning of life. What the mind tries to understand is Philosophy, what the mind tries to know is Religion, what the mind finally accepts is Rationalism (Science). Philosophy and Religion is personal, Science is impersonal; Philosophy and Religion relies on subjective empirical knowledge, Science creates collective knowledge.

Metaphysics:
a : a division of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental nature of reality and being that includes ontology, cosmology, and often epistemology b : abstract philosophical studies : a study of what is outside objective experience.

Since the the question of the existence of God is metaphysical, then the answer must be "yes", according to "b". If one supposes "No," according to "a," then what we can know is limited by our senses, meaning that animals that can see in the dark, or those that can hear above and below our hearing levels, those that can smell things which we cannot smell, taste what we cannot taste, feel what we cannot feel, etc., have a different reality than we do, which negates the validity of our reality as being "the" only reality. If we can experience a reality beyond what the mind normally experiences as reality, then that again invalidates the reality we all experience daily. Reality is therefore subjective, even though we rationalize it as objective. Science seeks to define reality by what all the senses of sentient and insentient "beings" sense and what our senses cannot sense (smallest atom to largest galaxy). But in reality, the only reality that matters is our own subjective reality. Knowing about atoms and galaxies is just imagination to our minds, and as such are not real, just as knowing a mirage is a mirage will not stop us from seeing it.

At best you can say that the existence of God was necessary. Science has bought us to the point where it is no longer necessary. But then it wouldn't be metaphysics. So the wrong question is being asked or the question is worded incorrectly.

 

[Shad]

Your rebuttals fall short....
I have no religion.

You have your own version since you hold religious ideas and express these ideas.

and assumption is a tool that allows forward thinking.

You forget that forward thinking requires more than repeating your assertion and claiming it is correct.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

That is all you need when you use faith as your crutch...

The problem with crutches is that they tend to prevent mobility.

 

[Gambit]

Naturalism accepts quantum entanglement and non-locality. Where did you get the idea that it does not?

"Nonlocal" (in the context of physics) actually means not located in space and time. So, nonlocality actually points to something transcendental - something that transcends the spacetime continuum. What you are denying is that everything is interconnected at a nonlocal level.* And unless everything is interconnected at a nonlocal level, then you don't have a "uni-verse." All you have is an aggregation of contingent parts.

* See my thread entitled "Do entanglement and nolocality imply that everything is interdependent and interconnected?"

I do not. I can even make a case for only one universe (ours) as the only one existing and not depending on a a-priori causation for its existence. An eternal and immutable context that simply is. All you have to do to see how it works is to assume that relativity is true and analyze the consequences thereof.

What exactly is this "eternal and immutable context that simply is?"

 

[Gambit]

No, God is an additional and unnecessary assumption.

Then you have no explanation for why there is something rather than nothing.

 

[Gambit]

You can say that everything is interconnected, but what has that got to do with God existing?

Something that is nonlocal is something that is not located in space and time. IOW, nonlocality points to something transcendental.

 

[viole]

"Nonlocal" (in the context of physics) actually means not located in space and time. So, nonlocality actually points to something transcendental - something that transcends the spacetime continuum. What you are denying is that everything is interconnected at a nonlocal level.* And unless everything is interconnected at a nonlocal level, then you don't have a "uni-verse." All you have is an aggregation of contingent parts.

* See my thread entitled "Do entanglement and nolocality imply that everything is interdependent and interconnected?"

Non locality is a consequence, validated by experiments, of quantum mechanics that applies to some particles that are in a state of mutually coherent superposition of states. A scientific theory based, like all scientific theories, on methodological naturalism. There is nothing in it, that points towards a trascendendent reality, whatever that means. And it does not transcend the space time time continuum in any way. I wonder where you got the idea that it does.

Are you sure you fully understand what quantum entanglement entails?

What exactly is this "eternal and immutable context that simply is?"

Take a look at relativity and explain to me how a 4-dimensional space time continuum can be mutable or change in any way.

And if you also ignore what relativity entails, let me know. I will try to explain it to you in very simple terms.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Rick O'Shez]

IOW, nonlocality points to something transcendental.

No, that's that's just pseudo-science.

 

[Gambit]

Non locality is a consequence, validated by experiments, of quantum mechanics that applies to some particles that are in a state of mutually coherent superposition of states. A scientific theory based, like all scientific theories, on methodological naturalism. There is nothing in it, that points towards a trascendendent reality, whatever that means. And it does not transcend the space time time continuum in any way. I wonder where you got the idea that it does.

Are you sure you fully understand what quantum entanglement entails?

I believe I do. But it doesn't appear that you do. Nonlocality/entanglement implies the "unity of the cosmos" (see quote below). But since you deny this "unity", then my argument still stands: You don't have a "uni-verse" but an aggregation of contingent parts - parts requiring a causal explanation that does not entail an infinite regress.

"Thus nonlocality, or non-separability, in these experiments could translate into the much grander notion of nonlocality, or non-separability, as the factual condition in the entire universe." p. 81

"The experimental verification of nonlocality is the convincing demonstration to date of the unity of the cosmos." p. 179

(source: "The Non-Local Universe: The New Physics and Matters of the Mind" by Robert Nadeau and Menas Kafatos)

Take a look at relativity and explain to me how a 4-dimensional space time continuum can be mutable or change in any way.

I see. You're invoking the block universe. So, how do you (physically) account for the change that observers experience? Also, are you dispensing with all causality (local or nonlocal)?

 

[Gambit]

No, that's that's just pseudo-science.

There's no physical explanation for entanglement/nonlocality (what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance").

 

[prometheus11]

There's no physical explanation for entanglement/nonlocality (what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance").

Not yet.

Are you suggesting that, as of this date, no more scientific discoveries will be made?

Also, since there is precisely ZERO evidence, aren't "first cause" and "infinite regression" equally absurd and equally plausible?

Why or why not?

 

[viole]

I see. You're invoking the block universe. So, how do you (physically) account for the change that observers experience?

I hope you indulge me if I do not consider the psychological illusions of observers, that evolved a brain for mere survival, as fundamental.

And since you seem to like to quote Einstein, here is one for you:

"people who understand physics know that the distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion" (A. Einstein)

Also, are you dispensing with all causality (local or nonlocal)?

Yes. By the way, what is non-local causality?

Ciao

- viole

 

[viole]

There's no physical explanation for entanglement/nonlocality (what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance").

Of course there is. It is called Quantum Mechanics.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Parsimony]

There's no physical explanation for entanglement/nonlocality (what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance").

We're making progress on that, though.