Where did God come from ?

[michel]

O.K; I was walking this morning, and, as usual started thinking, and went a bit "outside the Box"............

This is aimed probably more so - at non-theist as theists..

We all know about the big bang, and strings (well, I say we know about, because I know these theories exist - but haven't the mental capacity to understand them) .

I had a thought, this morning; like I said.

What if God was created at the same time, by the same process, as our universe was created ? The idea being that the "chaos" of the big bang produced "the energy" that was, in fact, God ?

Secondly, take this further.. we theists (at least some of us) believe in a devil..
Whenever something - maybe a "force" like God is crearted, there is an equal and opposite force created at the same time ...The devil ? (sort of along the lines of matter/anti matter). Biblical texts (IMO) are written in such a way as to simplify the understanding of man (at that point in time) about the concept of God.

Imagine these two powerful, opposing "forces" which embodied themselves into "souls" - chips off the wooden block sort of idea.. The original mass being God, and the rest of us being the wood chips ?

Could that scenario tempt any non theists into being prepared, for the first time, to accept the possibility of God?

I am sure I shall be tuna whipped by some theists..but, what the heck..

 

[zoro]

Michel: In response to your (rhetorical?) question, "Where did God come from?", I expect that, eventually, everyone will agree that "God" came from people's thoughts.

As for accepting the "possibility" of God, surely every (sane!) person does accept such a possibility -- just as every (sane!) person accepts the possibility that there is no god. The more stimulating question is to ask for the probability of any god's existence.

If you'll think about your "scenario" more, then I expect that you'll see that you're asking the original "total nothingness" to pull off quite a stunt! Thus, the Big Bang may have occurred because of a single, symmetry-breaking fluctuation in a total void (e.g., the formation of the first "string" of positive energy, which refused to re-associate itself with its "negative-energy counterpart", i.e., an "anti-string"), but meanwhile, you're asking the universe to pop into existence a full-fledged god! In my book (which you can find by typing "zenofzero" in a Google search), I estimate that the probability of what you're suggesting to be very much less than one chance in a google (i.e., very much less than one chance in 10^100 -- and more likely closer to 1 chance in 10^500). That's a mighty small chance.

But I grant you: there is a slight chance that some god does exist, somewhere. Further, the chance increases if the (untestable?) idea of "multiverses" is found to have any validity, since it suggest that there are somewhere around 10^500 universes! But then, just as the chance of drawing two aces in a row is not twice the chance of drawing one but, instead, very much smaller (viz., 4/52 x 3/51), therefore the probability for some god to have been created with our universe would be ~10^ (-500) x 10^(-500) = 1 chance in 10^1000 -- which is close enough to zero "for government work"!

 

[Ozzie]

O.K; I was walking this morning, and, as usual started thinking, and went a bit "outside the Box"............

This is aimed probably more so - at non-theist as theists..

We all know about the big bang, and strings (well, I say we know about, because I know these theories exist - but haven't the mental capacity to understand them) .

I had a thought, this morning; like I said.

What if God was created at the same time, by the same process, as our universe was created ? The idea being that the "chaos" of the big bang produced "the energy" that was, in fact, God ?

Secondly, take this further.. we theists (at least some of us) believe in a devil..
Whenever something - maybe a "force" like God is crearted, there is an equal and opposite force created at the same time ...The devil ? (sort of along the lines of matter/anti matter). Biblical texts (IMO) are written in such a way as to simplify the understanding of man (at that point in time) about the concept of God.

Imagine these two powerful, opposing "forces" which embodied themselves into "souls" - chips off the wooden block sort of idea.. The original mass being God, and the rest of us being the wood chips ?

Could that scenario tempt any non theists into being prepared, for the first time, to accept the possibility of God?

I am sure I shall be tuna whipped by some theists..but, what the heck..

Sounds like a damn good easily defendable argument for dualism.

 

[zoro]

Ozzie: If by "dualism" you include the idea of yin and yang (or positives and negatives), then I'd agree. Thus, it's suggested that "in the beginning" (when time, itself started!), the original "total nothingness" separated itself into positive and negative components (energy, momentum, electrical charge, etc.). Stated differently, the Tao (i.e. "that which can not be spoken about" -- because we have no experience with "total nothingness" and therefore our words fail) separated into yin and yang.

 

[doppelganger]

I had a thought, this morning; like I said.

What if God was created at the same time, by the same process, as our universe was created ?

It is true that God was created at the same time and by the same person as our universe was created. But I'm still not a theist.

 

[zoro]

doppelganger: On what do you base your statement "It is true that God was created at the same time and by the same person as our univese was created." What evidence supports the idea that some "person" created our universe -- especially given that "people" seem to be rather "late comers".

 

[doppelganger]

doppelganger: On what do you base your statement "It is true that God was created at the same time and by the same person as our univese was created." What evidence supports the idea that some "person" created our universe -- especially given that "people" seem to be rather "late comers".

What is the universe? Where does it exist and in what form?

 

[zoro]

Well of course "the answer" isn't yet "known", but maybe we're getting closer. To respond more rapidly, then (if I'm allowed!) I'll just paste, here, what I posted earier today for a different thread.

Relative to your question "what… action… caused…it [the Big Bang]?", the suggestion is that in such "fluctuations" in the original "total nothingness", some symmetry was broken (perhaps "parity", perhaps "the God particle" formed, or perhaps a "string" of positive energy "tied itself in a knot"), resulting in the Big Bang, leading to the separation of energy into positive and negative parts that today we call "the universe", with some of the positive energy in what we call mass and the negative energy being what we call "the vacuum", but with the total energy (and momentum, electrical charge, etc.) still summing to exactly zero, as it was before the Big Bang. That is, there is still "nothing" here, but it's been separated into positive and negative components.

That's what Edward Tryon meant, in his 1974 Nature article (vol. 248, p.396) entitled "Is the Universe a Vacuum Fluctuation", when we wrote

"In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that our Universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time."

Similarly, it's what Alan Guth meant (as quoted on p. 129 of Stephen Hawking's book "A Brief History of Time"):

“It is said that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But the universe is the ultimate free lunch.”

If such ideas interest you, you may want to look at my (free!) online book, which you can find by typing "zenofzero" in a Google search, where I try to explain them (and other ideas) in more detail, and which I explicitly wrote for my teenage granddaughter. The book is entitled "Love Letters from Grampa -- about Life, Liberty, and the Zen of Zero." The "Zen of Zero" phrase refers both to the universe creating itself from "the original nothing" (i.e., zero) and to resulting influences of such ideas on how we might want to live our lives. For example, there's Einstein's famous remark:

"Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, [then] wearing stripes with plaid comes easy."

[End of paste]

Specifically re. your questions, "What is the universe?" and "in what form", the universe appears to be a separation of "totally nothing" into positive and negative components (e.g., some of the positive energy has "congealed" into mass, and the negative energy is what we call "space" or "the vacuum"). And re. your question "Where does it exist?", unfortunately that question has no meaning, since locations only have meaning if momentum exists, and assuming that there is no momentum "outside" our universe, then 'location' has no meaning.

 

[Cordoba]

God is Eternal

He is not constrained by time, nor by the laws of cause and effect

You may wish to have a look at this article

Who Created God?

http://en.fgulen.com/content/view/584/5/

 

[darkpenguin]

He came in a kinder egg

much like this one but much bigger!

 

[eudaimonia]

Could that scenario tempt any non theists into being prepared, for the first time, to accept the possibility of God?

Yes, but at the cost of destroying the concept of God.

You'd be describing a natural Star Trek superalien, like Trelaine or the Q Continuum, not a God. Might powerful natural intelligent beings exist somewhere else in the Universe? Sure. But would they be supernatural gods? No.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[zoro]

Cordoba: What evidence supports your suppositions? What predictions are available from your hypotheses that can be tested? And please refrain from providing predictions that can be tested only by dead people, for as one of your countryman wrote more than 4500 years ago (in the Song of the Harper): "There is no one who can return from there, to describe their nature, to describe their dissolution, that he may still our desires..."

 

[Cordoba]

Cordoba: What evidence supports your suppositions? What predictions are available from your hypotheses that can be tested? And please refrain from providing predictions that can be tested only by dead people, for as one of your countryman wrote more than 4500 years ago (in the Song of the Harper): "There is no one who can return from there, to describe their nature, to describe their dissolution, that he may still our desires..."

Hello Zoro

Logic is the answer

All what is created has a begining and an end.

Only The Creator can't be like that. He is "outside" of time, and is the source of all creation.

 

[darkpenguin]

He came in a kinder egg

much like this one but much bigger!

aww c'mon is nobody going to bite? I put alot of thought into that lol.

 

[zoro]

Codoba: Go easy, there! The bases of (Aristotelian) logic are just two scientific principles that have been tested so many times (by fish, monkeys, and most humans) that few people now question them, namely, that things exist (viz., A is identically A) and are distinct (i.e., A is not identically not A). [I'll skip the "law of the excluded middle", since Russell showed that sometimes that "law" runs into difficulty.]

Now, if one accepts those two principles (which actually have their limitations), then one can't "prove" the "existence" of anything (let alone any god), because one of the premisses of logic is that things exist. Instead, the only way to reach the testable hypothesis that something exists is phenomenologically, e.g., if you want to test if a some brick wall (or pyramid!) exists, then keep banging your head against it until you're convinced!

Thus, to "prove" the existence of any god, logic is useless. In fact, if you'll look carefully at any such "proof", you'll find that God's existence is already taken as a premiss. Instead, to "prove" that god exists (or to reach a useful, testable hypothesis that "he" does"), then you'll need to bang your head against something else.

 

[doppelganger]

Specifically re. your questions, "What is the universe?" and "in what form", the universe appears to be a separation of "totally nothing" into positive and negative components (e.g., some of the positive energy has "congealed" into mass, and the negative energy is what we call "space" or "the vacuum"). And re. your question "Where does it exist?", unfortunately that question has no meaning, since locations only have meaning if momentum exists, and assuming that there is no momentum "outside" our universe, then 'location' has no meaning.

It's much simpler than that. The universe is an idea. It exists in my thoughts as part of the way I define my experience of my self in relation to other. It takes the form of a word.

What is God? Where does it exist and in what form?

 

[Cordoba]

Thus, to "prove" the existence of any god, logic is useless. In fact, if you'll look carefully at any such "proof", you'll find that God's existence is already taken as a premiss. Instead, to "prove" that god exists (or to reach a useful, testable hypothesis that "he" does"), then you'll need to bang your head against something else.

OK, lets take it step-by-step

The universe exists, and it is not eternal as it's only around 14 billion years old.

Right?

Can you (prove) where the universe comes from?

One answer is that it has a Creator, and that its Creator must be eternal, or else the creator of the universe would himself need a creator, who would also need a creator (in a never ending chain of creators, as mentioned in the Gulen article)

This thread is not about whether God exists or not, but about if God exists, who created God.

And the answer is very simple: nobody. He is Eternal and He is the source of all creation

http://en.fgulen.com/content/view/584/5/

 

[michel]

He came in a kinder egg

much like this one but much bigger!

O.K, you've got your fruballs - even though your picture link has disappeared...

 

[zoro]

Darkpenquin: Perhaps no one was tempted to "bite" on your "egg" because they got a hint that it was quite old -- a whiff of H2S perhaps?! For example, in his "Dictionary of World Mythology", Arthur Cotterell describes the Tahitian genesis myth as follows [to which I've added the note in "square brackets", such as these]; Cotterell is quoting still other sources.

The Tahitian creation myth places Ta’aroa within the darkness of the cosmic egg. He “developed himself in solitude; he was his own parent, having no father or mother.” Ta’aroa’s natures were beyond count; “he was above, below, and in stone; Ta’aroa was a god’s house; his backbone was the ridgepole, his ribs were the supporters.” Then the god cracked the shell, came out, and stood upon the broken pieces. Peering into the primeval darkness, he realized that he was alone; there was no land, nor sky, nor sea. Only a void existed. Weary of the silence and the emptiness [So, at least the primitive Tahitians gave their god a reason for creating humans: he was “weary of the silence and emptiness”! The dominant myths of our culture, in contrast, don’t “explain” their god’s inadequacies for creating humans!], Ta’aroa used one part of the shell as “the great foundation of the world, for the rocks and the soil”; another part became “the dome of the sky”; having himself assumed the form of a person, the god created everything that is now in the universe…

 

[zoro]

Doppelganger: You state:

"It's much simpler than that. The universe is an idea. It exists in my thoughts as part of the way I define my experience of my self in relation to other. It takes the form of a word.

"What is God? Where does it exist and in what form?"

I'd argue that most of us have come to the conclusion (based on an overwhelming amount of evidence) that the universe is more than just "an idea". I'm even prepared to accept the possibility that the universe will continue even when I'm dead (and no longer have any ideas). As for "what is God" -- that's where I'd agree that one is dealing with just an idea.