A universe without God.

[Iacchus]

It may not be. Think of all the ways time is revealed. A sundial requires the relative movement of the earth around the sun. Wind-up clocks have all sorts of moving parts. Electronic clocks have currents of energy moving around. Atomic clocks rely on the pulses of atomic radiation eminating from an atom.

Try speaking of time in any sense that does not somehow relate back to the relative occurrence or positions of objects or energy. Now try to envision a place with no matter and no energy. Nothing happens relative to anything because there isn't anything. In such a scenario, the concept of time has no value.

Certainly it is difficult for us to conceive of a thing, never having experienced the absence of time. But if you try, you can. If you can envision a God, surely you can envision this concept, which is much simpler than God.

And yet what about future reference points, when a standard is developed after the Big Bang? Wouldn't it be possible to project a before the Big Bang at that point? Hey I don't see why not, because here we are doing it right now.

 

[Iacchus]

I have two big questions for you.
1. What are you smoking?
2. Where can I get some?

Are you serious? Actually "it" -- true ecstasy -- has more to do with Divine Union and the intimacy between the sexes, where we learn to develop our opposite male and female sides and become more "androgenous" ... to become more compatible as male and female.

Isn't that in effect what the statement of a newborn child reperesents? ... the joining of the sexes?

 

[Tricky]

And yet what about future reference points, when a standard is developed after the Big Bang? Wouldn't it be possible to project a before the Big Bang at that point? Hey I don't see why not, because here we are doing it right now.

But there is no standard. In order to project things, you must compare them to existing things. As you are probably aware, even the passage of time is determined by the relative movement of objects. With no objects, the term "speed of light" has no meaning either, so you can't project anything.

Here's a quiz for you that may help you realize the ambiguity of time. If an object (let's say a photon) is moving at the speed of light, how much time, from the photon's standpoint, passes from the time it leaves a source (like a star) until it reaches an object one light year away?

 

[DarkMagician]

Why? Doesn't the shepherd call to his sheep?

Maybe, but a whole lot of people confuse something else for a shepherd's call. Still doesn't prove there's a shepherd

Then where is God then?

Begging the question.

What about food for the pysche or, spiritual food, which is born of the understanding? ... Ever hear of a discerning palate?

Yes, this is what feeds the soul.

Again, you miss the point of proving any of these things exist before using them in an argument.

 

[Yahweh]

Then where is God then?

God(s) does not exist, do not burden yourself by worrying about those kinds of questions.

Yes, this is what feeds the soul.

Souls (as immaterial parts of your "being") do not exist either.

In case you are wondering about "life energy", I'll quickly describe what "life energy" is:

Life energy comes in the form of simple sugars, in the form of rapid fluctuations of voltage between parts of the cerebral cortex, and cellular sodium-potassium pumps. (Possibly a few other biological processes I've neglected.)

When you die, this energy be transferred into the motion of other objects, or perhaps will turn into thermal energy, but in the end it will all be completely useless and functionless entropy.

Life Energy is very real, but far too few people take the time to think about it...

(Note: To gain more life energy, you should eat nutricious foods)

 

[Dorian Gray]

First of all, I want to post the witty sarcastic pictures! How does one post pictures in their entirety, not just a link? When I right-click, copying a target is not an option. I don't know.

Now, if you really want to argue against this, you really need to explain how a primal-cause could produce a primal-act without willing that act to occur. If you can do that, I shall concede to you.

You prove your claim. You can't prove anything you say without using flawed logic.

Iacchus and Lifegazer: Please answer these questions:
1) If nothing can exist without a primal cause, what is the primal cause of God?
2) If God could not be the primal cause without free will, then doesn't that make free will the primal cause of God?
3) In that case, what is the primal cause of free will?
4) What's the deal with all the hyphens? Did you read that they somehow give you credibility?
5) You disappointingly have not yet used the term 'tachyon'. Why?
6) Flip a coin. Whether it came up heads or tails, what is the primal cause of that?
7) What is the primal cause of time?
8) What is the primal cause of funk?

Bonus: What is the numerological significance of the number of words in each question as it relates to Lifegazer's hamster?

 

[Upchurch]

"So what -- i.e., there has to be a 'what' which came before -- caused the Big Bang then?" In other words ... "What caused the Big Bang then?"

Quantum fluctuation followed by a period of cosmic inflation.

What about the Eternal Moment then, which for all intents and purposes doesn't require time and space in order to exist?

It's your claim that exists, not mine. What about it? I don't know that any such beast exists.

Yes, but isn't it possible to remain perfectly still and still allow time to pass?

I challenge you (not really) to try to remain perfectly still. No breathing, no heart beating, no neurons firing, no atoms wiggling. No matter how still you think you are, something on you or in you is still moving.

 

[Dancing David]

Why? Doesn't the shepherd call to his sheep?

Sometimes but usualy they use a dog.

Then where is God then?

Out of respect I will say. In our minds.

What about food for the pysche or, spiritual food, which is born of the understanding? ... Ever hear of a discerning palate?

Yes, this is what feeds the soul.

It were a joke, the soul is just another name for 'part of human nature'.

 

[Dancing David]

And yet what about future reference points, when a standard is developed after the Big Bang? Wouldn't it be possible to project a before the Big Bang at that point? Hey I don't see why not, because here we are doing it right now.

The problem in communication is what happens below the plank limit, take at the heart of a black hole. Time has no meaning in a singularity either. It has meaning outside of the black hole but looses communicable meaning in the black hole.

 

[Iacchus]

It were a joke, the soul is just another name for 'part of human nature'.

Obviously, but neither was I joking. Well actually I was in that I was showing it could be construed as more than a joke, in which case the joke would have been on you, sort of.

You know, like food for thought?

 

[Iacchus]

The problem in communication is what happens below the plank limit, take at the heart of a black hole. Time has no meaning in a singularity either. It has meaning outside of the black hole but looses communicable meaning in the black hole.

All these physicalities and we still don't understand it's the spirit that illustrates these things within in us.

Hey no offense to you, but this applies to almost everyone who has posted on this thread.

And before everybody jumps out of their chairs and decries, "where's the proof?" we have to ask ourselves, what is it that illustrates the truth in our minds? And neither is it as easy as playing games about whether the truth exists or doesn't exist -- or, in what way -- because without it there would be no means by which to communicate any of this.

 

[Zero]

Why don't you just STOP! Dammit, Iacchus, you are wasting everyone's time, including your own, with your made-up reality.

 

[El Greco]

Why don't you just STOP! Dammit, Iacchus, you are wasting everyone's time, including your own, with your made-up reality.

Did you notice this was your 900th post ?

 

[Marquis de Carabas]

And 900 months ago it was February 1929, when the Red Sox announced they would not play Sunday games in Fenway because it was too close to a church. And your screenname is zero which is the number of goals scored by the Bruins (another team from Boston!) in their most recent game.

Fargin amazing.

 

[Atlas]

This has been an interesting and frustrating post to follow. I'm a newbie and I'd like to join the discussion but I want to make sure I understand whats going on. I don't want to be attacked as an uninformed newbie.

LG is saying that the universe is not primal. It's effectual. Something is Primal. The Cause - which is very big but is reducible to God.

From this reduction is a resonable deduction. The Universe has free will. A very good deducter would have come up with QM as well, but if any did they were probably burned at the stake. In those days you were allowed to deduce sheep but even that was frowned on.

But the question remains. How do you, like I do, get from nothing to sheep. Random quantum fluctuation? Too easy.

Instead, we ponder an immaterial deity, jealous of nothing, so much so that He starts to eat it. This gives Him gas, a glorifed gas but there is nothing to take for it and so He continues. At some moment, just before time, in borgarigmic flatulence he cracks the sky. But not in the way you might think.

All that gas is squeezed through His quantum singularity, His Black Hole, if you will. But there is no place to go except inward. This expanding gas deformed the deity until He resembled a great turtle, all the way up and all the way down. (It's the only thing that makes sense.) Anyway I'm sure if you'd have been in there at the time you would have testified to the potency of that expanding gas, which is where the idea of omnipotence originated, no doubt. Surely, anything could have happened next.

You atheists know a mock turtle when you see one and have attacked it mercilessly. You send it back into the nothingness. Poof - it has vanished leaving only the fart in the void. This then begins to clump like some of those sticky ones I don't even want to talk about. You want us to believe it has clumped all on its own without any guidance from any turtles at all !!! (Yeah,right.)

I had a turtle when I was kid!

You know, after the dinosaurs died (because they didn't believe in the Great Turtle) and people emerged, is it any wonder they say things like "This is a pile of crap!"

Anyway, thats pretty much is what I've got so far. I hope I've been respectful to both sides. Let me know if I've missed anything.

 

[Tricky]

atLAS! Someone who understands. Welcome aboard, Titan. And you can tell that turtle to go shell himself because holding up the heavens is YOUR job.

 

[RussDill]

Are you aware that the Eternal Moment always Is, and always Will be, and doesn't exist within the parameters of time and space?

Please describe the "Eternal Moment" in great detail. You currently remind me of the guys on "Dude, where's my car" when they describe the transdimensional confunctioner, "whose mystery is only exceeded by its power"

It was all about the props. It wasn't real. And it didn't exist. And the only one who didn't realize this was the "meat-head" in the middle.

Have you ever seen Tora, Tora, Tora!? It was all real, and everyone in it realized it. (Same with Full metal jacket, which someone else previously mentioned)

Oh well, so much for this propped up life we call materialism, which begins nowhere and ends nowhere.

You are seriously trying to disprove a philosophy by using the plot of a movie? You are one wild, and crazzzyy guy

 

[RussDill]

Yeah, and what's wrong with asking why God did it?

When someone says "god did it", they are shifting the question from, "why did something happen" to "why did god do it". Since it is really impossible to know why a god would do anything, they are just claiming the question is unanswerable (as apposed to actually trying to find the answer)

Also, lifegazer claims that the only possible source for unpredictable events without cause it freewill, but if someone can ask why someone with freewill does something, they are enquiring about a cause. Meaning freewill does have cause.

Hmm ... First of all you would have to change your views now wouldn't you?

I'm perfectly happy changing my views, given rational reason to do so.

 

[RussDill]

A dualism which exists nonetheless in the same universe, which is to say they can't help but have an impact -- and/or a relationship -- with each other.

A dualism exists between salt and pepper too, but not the kind of dualism you are talking about, the same thing with matter and energy.

Evidence of what? Can you show me what the energy is doing at the same time?

It is easy to understand that we live in a closed, finite universe, if you travel far enough, you'll end up back where you started. If that distance is X lightyears, it doesn't make much sense to ask what is X+1 lightyears away. With distance, it is an easy concept, with time, it is not so easy to grasp, but it is the same type of concept.

Can you rephrase your question?

Except that you're more aquainted with the outward appearance of things, and I'm more aquainted with myself -- which, is internal -- and hence the only point of reference any of us really has ... our "conscious selves."

How are you internal, but the world external, you are certainly external to me.

 

[lifegazer]

Iacchus and Lifegazer: Please answer these questions:
1) If nothing can exist without a primal cause, what is the primal cause of God?

*Screammmmmmm*
I cannot believe that I hop over here from the wombat thread and am immediately confronted with yet another example of how naive most of you are when it comes to rational discussion. I've just this minute had to post a response to this same dumb question, by somebody else. Here's one of my replies:
"Why are there so many bozos out there who ask where God came from (the question assumes God's existence that the question may be answered), when God is equated to the primal-cause of that existence?
Do you not understand that it is moronic to enquire as to the cause of a primal-cause?"

I'm totally frustrated. I cannot be bothered answering any more of your stupid questions.