Can you prove that God exists?

You got it all wrong, juice-as usual; the words were written in whimsy for the religious minded. I guess the joke went over your head. It's been amply demonstrated in these forums that the religous will only give real consideration to statements crouched in psuedo religious wording.
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Your "philosophy" Is based on stagnation. You'll study the unsubstantiated opinions of men of old and come to more unsubstantiated conclusion, completly ignoring advances in knowledge- as well as Reality.
A thinly disguised attempt to justify bible study as a science. You're getting sloppy.

And I got news for you- before Entropy began to increase, the universe was "chaos" by definition. Time is a measure of entropy, so "before" the universe began there was no time as we know it.

As for the rest, I don't pretend to know what I don't know. I'm niethier young enough to know everything, like our friend jedi, nor homocentric enough to mistake my opinion for reality.

You've already stated that human opinion (and by extrapolation human needs) superseeds the Reality all around us. So what value a totally subjective evaluation by someone who fails to grasp the empirical reality of the environment all around himself?

 

Gecko... some thoughts on objectivity I wanted to share:

All my experiences are metaphysically subjective (i.e., no one else has my unique experiences; all my experiences are from my unique point of view).

If my experiences are metaphysically subjective, any statements I make about my experiences must be epistemologically subjective — they are "merely" my beliefs, or my opinions.

Whoever you are you have access only to your experiences ("your reality") and no one else's, and whatever you say, it's just your opinion ("your truth"). We simply can't be objective. There is no Objective Reality or Objective Truth. Reality and truth differ for everyone, and always will.



[We have tons of evidence. There is no convievably possible way in which it will NOT be here tommarow. Study physics.]

I have studied physics and find that our entire physical reality is based on some very complex and almost completely unknown forces. We can ram particles together and determine their composition but we really don't know what's holding all this together. We can measure it, we can name it, but we don't know what it is. For all we know it could disappear, however unlikely. 5 billion years of stability doesn't insure tomorrow will be the same. We really don't know and if you are claiming you do then you should be locked in a tower somewhere doing research.

[Hypocrisy? You ask for a Complet definition of "working", yet demand Faith in non-tagibles?

Working: applying energy and obtaining a result.
Pretty definitive definition.]

I think you are confusing me with someone else... I am not trying to convince you of intangibles. I am not a religious man. I was a physics major in college and hold a deep interest in religion and philosophy. I beleive only what I see in the world around me. However, with my understanding of chaos and the world we know today I think your explainations seem FAR more faith-based than mine. However if that is your deffinition of a 'working' computer I have a whole closet of working computers I would love to sell you! Plug them in - you will get a result. Are they working though... I'll let you decide.

Truth, objectivity, sameness, solidity... all illusions. It is far less opinion than you suggest. Unless of course, you are beyond human experience, and then, again, you need to be locked up and studied.

 

How can you not Know the basic definition of "work" and be a physics major?

Where does it say that the work obtained must be that which is desired?
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The fallacy in the "no objective reality" is clear- It presupposes the need for concious observation. Homocentricity. Spiecies Solipisim.

I propose that somewhere in the galaxy an event is occuring which we can not observe. At some time in the future, observation will be possible.

By your definition the event did not occur until the obsevation is conciously made.

And the universe revoles around the sun. Do you have a time tunnel to school? There's been a few breakthroughs since '98. That's 1898.

My knowledge, derived from observations, tells me that the event occured sometime in the past. It might even allow me to approximate that time.
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The fact that we can't (yet) explain the forces does not negate our ability to learn and utilize thier properties.
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Statements like"for all we know..." presuppose the existence of an unobserved, indescibable force, taylored to fit a fantastic statement.
I cannot address another man's fantasy.

But I'll bet you a penny, double or nothing everyday, that old Sol peeks out on time for the next month.
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My statements aren't faith based.
They're based on extensive study and observation. I pretend at no Truth.

Just truth- what IS.

Always subject to new evidence, of course.
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Your beliefs seems to be based on the existence of Ego.
There is no reason to believe humans are needed for existence.

I suggest you stop thinking so highly of yourself.
And perhaps change majors- How can a physics student not know the definition of "work"?

Clown College majors don't count.

 

I am aware of the definition of work. You said 'the computers working isn't it?' I say 'working' in that statement is undefinable. It relies on a subjective observation measured over an indivisble moment of time. A moment later it may not be working.

I am not saying REAL things aren't happening. I am not at all saying real things are dependent on our observation of them. I am saying that ANY attempt at a description of that event as TRUTH is impossible because truth then is based only on an understanding WE share. I NEVER suggested our experience is needed for reality. Only that any attempt at explaining reality seperate from human existence (as a human) is simply impossible.

I would concur that the sun probably will be in it's predicted location for the next month. There is considerable evidence that it will. Does that make it truth. Really?

"My statements aren't faith based.
They're based on extensive study and observation. I pretend at no Truth.
Just truth- what IS.
Always subject to new evidence, of course."

Truth is subject to new evidence? Now here is the root of our disagreement. If it is TRUTH then it is truth. If it is subject to new evidence then it is just subjective observation.

I appreciate the insights your insults bring to this discussion.

 

You started the insults, compadre.

Bait me at your own risk.

Newton spoke "truth".

But later evidence modified that truth.

But of course you don't understand the transitory nature of time.

"Only that any attempt at explaining reality seperate from human existence (as a human) is simply impossible."

Your projecting. All mankind is not limited to your understanding. I can easily explain fission without a human needed.

Your mistaking your opinion for the reality of the universe all around us.

Your opinions are yours, but they are NOT factual. They are just opinions. Homocentricity.

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but I do not recall insulting you.

We obviously disagree on our terms. When I use the word truth, I mean something which is true. Not modifiable. Newton gave us a basic understanding upon which to build a framework of scientific understanding. I think he would not have called it truth.

Again with the insults... I most certainly understand the transitory nature of time. Truth, by my definition, does not change over time. Our understanding of truth may change over time, but that is why I say our understadning is not truth. It is at best an apporxiamtion of truth. Subjective by necessity.

YOU can explain fission without a human needed. WHO exactly is doing this explaination again? Oh YOU... are you suggesting you are not human.
I am not mistaking my opinion for the reality around us. I am fully aware that it is only my opinion here. I think YOU, my friend are mistaking your opinion for reality. I submit to you again that no matter what you attempt to explain will only be your opinion. Just as anything I try to explain will only be my opinion. That is all their is. To have truth you MUST be able to describe something entirely.

Take you fission for example. There are MANY, MANY things that are unknown about fission. We have learned much. Still any attempt at a TRUTHful respresentation of it will be necassarily incomplete... subject to correction. Not tuth. Opinion. We get closer to the truth perhaps, but it is an impossiblity so long as we are required to put our ideas into humanly communicable forms. Language is by no means perfect, so perfection can not be acheived with language.

Do you really not agree or are you just enjoying the argument?

 

You keep using that homecentricity word. I think you are flat out wrong here. I have never asserted that any of this is based on, requires or cares if humans exist.

I think it is VERY homecentric to suggest that based on our few thousand years of observation you are able to lay out for me objective truths.

 

Meagain:

"Must is not redundant."

No, I didn't say it was. I said that using the word "must" with a quantifier is redundant.

"Even if we grant that all future events have a cause, which we have no way of knowing, they still do no have to have a cause."

The quantifiers "all" and "every" do imply the future tense. It doesn't matter if we can know it or not. That's just the function of a quantifier. The matter at hand is not whether or not it is possible to have an effect without a cause. I was only pointing out that the sentences, "Every effect has a cause" and, "Every effect must have a cause" are synonymous. It doesn't even seriously effect your argument in any way, as long as you are willing to doubt the existence of causality, which you apparently are.

"It may be physically true that all events do have a cause, but logically untrue that they have to have a cause."

So, logic does not necessarily reflect the physical world? I'm not disagreeing with you, I just find it curious that you distinguish so sharply between physicality and logic when logic is a set of rules specifically designed to reflect the real world.

"In other words it is not a contradiction to say that something can happen by chance, even if it never does in our world."

I never said it was. In fact, I explicitly wrote that chance can be a cause.

"Further if we agree with your statement that ‘every’ implies all events past, present, and future, then we have nullified the first cause argument, as it would have to be included, as an event, as having a cause. So the first cause is an event, and all events have a cause. We now have a first event minus one. Now, if you jump out of time and say that God operates in some timeless realm I can also jump out of time and say that an event can happen by chance which means it does not follow the temporal cause/effect relationship. If it has occurred due to chance, it has no cause and thus ‘appears’ without being predicated upon a previous event. So, saying that God is the first cause, by your definition of ‘every’ is the same as saying something happened by chance."

I don't know where you got the idea that I didn't believe chance could be a cause, but, now that I have cleared that up, your argument in the above paragraph is no longer sustainable.

"You are redefining chance. Chance, as I used it, means without cause. You cannot change the meaning of words by giving them a contradictory meaning to counter an argument. You are saying that anything that happens without cause has a cause, which is that it has no cause."

Wait. Now you're confusing me. You wrote, "Every event must have a cause [is an assumption]. This is different than saying that every event has a cause. We can say that an event occurs by chance. We may be wrong, but we are not being self-contradictory, so this is a logical statement."

So why can't chance be a cause? If an event happens by chance, then chance is the cause, even if chance itself is without cause.

"Then you go on to say that I cannot presuppose that chance has no cause yet you can presuppose that God has no cause. We can’t have it both ways."

You're right; we can't. But I didn't say that God is without cause, I said that God is self-caused.

"I’m sorry; you must explain this to me. How can something be self-caused? To have a cause and effect we must have two different things. (I am not arguing that cause and effect are even valid, but assuming that they are.)"

Well, this could turn into a bit of a history lesson, so I'll just give you the short version. German Idealism began with Kant, though Kant's idealism is not what we normally think of as German Idealism. Kant's idealism is Transcendental Idealism. Kant used Hume as his starting point and responded to him by saying that our subjective thought posessed certain "categories" for making sense of the objective world (such as causality). But Kant still kept an objective world (a world outside of Idea), specifically, the thing-in-itself. The thing-in-itself exists is completely unknowable and exists outside the categories of thought, in effect, causing our mental categories to kick into gear. But there was a problem, which Fichte pointed out. If causality is a category of thought, then how can the thing-in-itself cause our empirical experiences? To solve the problem, Fichte dropped the thing-in-itself and said that universe is nothing but the categories, nothing but Idea (not my idea, your idea, but Absolute Idea). Thus, the categories become universal laws and not just things inside our heads. Now we get what we normally think of as German Idealism, Absolute Idealism. Basically, the Absolute is reality, mind, spirit, truth, totality, and many other inadequate terms the philosophers used to describe it. But at the heart of it, is unconditioned self-awareness. The Absolute becomes conscious of itself through itself. And since the Absolute's consciousness is the universe, the Absolute itself is self-caused.

I do not expect you to be satisfied with that summary, but I do strongly urge you to research German Idealism yourself. If you view it as an extension of Hume's and Kant's thought, it really makes a lot of sense.

 

"Yes, the universe is not a house but this argument is based upon the analogy that the universe has a purpose, as a house has a purpose."

If the universe as a whole is without purpose, then how can a house, which is a part of the universe, have purpose?

"Why is that? I postulate that a guy named Beejob copied the 4th universe from the left to create this one. Why is that harder to conceive than a single God created it out of nothing?"

Because there is no empirical evidence supporting the existence of the 4th universe from the left, whereas there is much evidence supporting the existence of this universe.

"Well, we could get into manufactured housing and program a factory to built a 1,00 houses with no intelligent direction after the thing got going. Why can’t we imagine a cosmic universe factory chugging along producing many universes of which this is one? By the way Beejob ceased to exist after he programmed the factory."

Well, Beejob must have copied himself a brain to be able to program the factory. The factory still needed an intelligent designer, even if that designer no longer exists. But do you really think that these scenarios, which are, I suppose, possible, are really as equally probable as the existence of God?

"Are we talking about the God that I defined at the beginning of this thread? You must tell me Hegel’s definition of God. There are many definitions."

Yes, that's Him.

"Now that I think of it does a hammer have an innate purpose? Is the purpose of a hammer to hammer? Disregarding the fact that we are labeling it by its purpose. Let’s call the hammer a ‘glip’. We can assign the use of this ‘glip’ to hammering and say that is its purpose. Or we can be ignorant of what it is meant to be used for, we are a South American aborigine who has never seen a hammer (I mean ‘glip’) and decide it has no purpose and toss it in the river."

Well now the question has really become, "Can the presence of purpose ever be detected?"

To be honest, I'm not sure. What do you think?

"I checked this out. I have trouble seeing how this applies. Why can’t I imagine something that doesn’t exist? Just because I can image God doesn’t mean he exists."

You can imagine something that doesn't exist. But to know anything about a being, you must presuppose its existence.

"Napoleon exists (or did at one time), if not I will not find him no matter how hard I presuppose him."

You won't find him anyway. He's dead. But if you went to Paris and opened up his coffin, you still wouldn't find him unless you presupposed his existence. You could argue that that's not Napoleon in that coffic, that's Fred, or that the skeleton of Napoleon is an optical illusion.

But you really have to look at Kierkegaard's argument in the context of Kierkegaard's system (or lack thereof) of thought. Always keep in mind Kierkegaard's premise that "Truth is subjectivity."

 

"You got it all wrong, juice-as usual; the words were written in whimsy for the religious minded. I guess the joke went over your head. It's been amply demonstrated in these forums that the religous will only give real consideration to statements crouched in psuedo religious wording."

Then write it in not whimsy.

"And I got news for you- before Entropy began to increase, the universe was "chaos" by definition. Time is a measure of entropy, so "before" the universe began there was no time as we know it."

Is that so?

 

Hammer

I too am unsure if time did not exist as we know it at the begining of our universe. However I also am not convinced the begining of our universe was the begining of all.
You suggest that no matter how many universes there may be there still must be a creator. This premise is based on an assumption that there is a beginning. In my searching I have found beginning and ending to be human terms invented to categorize things. Matter and energy are thought to have no beginning and no end, only transformation. Why then can this not be true for a universe, for time itself?
When we look at the sun we see an orb of (primarily) hydrogen and helium joining in fusion and splitting in fission over and over again until the energy is spent. Why can't we look at the entirety of existence as universes which contract and expand infinitum? I do realize of course that there is no evidence that any universe outside of ours exists, but there is also absolutely no way we could know. Being on the edge of an expanding bubble of observable reality makes us necessarily cut off from observing other bubbles.

Man has always thought he is at the center of the universe. There was a time he thought that the sky was more or less a facade which passed over us like a veil and we rode on the back of a great tortoise.
When we found this was untrue, that those lights in the sky were real things, we decided the Earth MUST be the center of the universe... but it was not.
Well, we thought, then it must be the Sun at the center of the universe, but it was not.
Well then, we thought, it must be the center of the milky way which is the cetner of our universe, but it is not.
Well then, we think, it must be the big bang which is the center of the universe, but... (fill in the blank)

Do we learn nothing from our past?

I have come to assume (without a shred of proof) that our universe is just one bubble in a sea of bubbles. Expanding, contracting, changing, and moving just like all of the other forces I witness in the physical word. Not an isolated terrarium of existence, but a sphere of observable reality on and endless, timeless, and infinite stage.

 

Addendum:

I do beleive in a force I might call God. I am not sure if it exactly fits the definition being thrown around in here. I do not think that force is beyond, above, before or seperated from physical reality. If it exists it too, in my opinion, plays by the rules of phyiscal existence. It is dependent on them, just as we are. Maybe it has existed forever... maybe the universe has too (not just our bubble though). We assume everything has a cause, it is true, but that model doesn't disclude the possibility that this causality chain extends infinetly. There doesn't HAVE to be a beginning. It is entirely possible that we can follow a chain of cause and effect quite literally forever and not find a start.

The only piece of evidence I have to base a quite undefinable beleif in God on is that of life and its progression into complexity. A sort of force or framework which passively encourages life to progress. I simply do not beleive God is responsible for matter.

 

Pop:

I'm really just leading Gecky on, hoping that he'll share some more of his "wisdom" with us. I find it entertaining - not really interesting - just amusing. You can never really tell what he's going to say next but chances are it'll have something to do with entropy and homocentrism.

 

Well that's not nice.

 

Jucieman,

I'm tired of defeating you. State your case or fuck-off.
You already hold the record for being banned.
Congradulations.
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Popthree13,

I submit that a difference which makes no difference, is no difference.

Existence before existence is a non-sequitor.

By definition, there can be no "before" the universe began, anymore than thier can be "supernatural" occurances.

This is not to say that ALL could not have been in an entirely un-recognizable state. An embroyonic Universe is still the universe.

I submit that "The Begining" is the "point" (I have no better word) in (at?) which time began to flow in the direction it is flowing now; that is to say in the direction of increasing Entropy.

I've encountered no better definition.

You can call this the big-bang (a very simplified term that misleads the masses and is exploited by the unscrupulous) or creation- it doesn't matter.

"In the begining, Time began to Flow and events began to occur..."

 

I agree with those terms. But I would submit perhaps time was beginning for OUR universe alone at that moment. Maybe it was ending for another universe, mid road for another, etc. etc. etc. I think our view that the WHOLE of existence is all wrapped up in this one big bang is, as you would so rightly put it, homocentric.
Maybe big bangs are as countless as stars and big collapses as common as black holes. We just don't know and there is no reason to assume it isn't the case. Precedent doesn't support it, but precedent is isolated. Learning over and over again that the universe is one step beyond our imagination suggests to me that it always will be.

 

Yet if bangs go in cycles, then, IF and End is reached i.e., Total Entropy, all differences cease, and although the Original Energy remains it would logically contian no internal (eternal?) discrepencies. It would, in effect, be a Single Quanta Of Universal Energy.

Nothing would remain of the "previous" universe- a difference which makes no difference.
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On the other hand, if "begining" is assumed to contain an element of "before", it is, logicaly, NOT the "begining".

However, allowing the concept validity leads to this:

As long as a single quanta of ANYTHING from the "last" incarnation exist, then additional spontaneous decreases in Entropy merely destabalize the the approach to Chaos and the Universe continues. The Universe may, in this case, continue indefinitely.

This implies a "creation" as opposed to a "begining".
It also assumes the concept of "Infinity", which has no real-world validation.

The hypothesis of a closed cycle is, far more logical as well as in tune with the known beat of the universe.

Overall, Entropy increases. Time ends.
What happens "after" that is non-sequiter.

 

Had to run.

Within the cycle spontaneous destabalizations occurr. Life is created constantly on a small scale.

Perhaps new galaxies are "born" as well.

But the evidence would seem to indicate that the tendency toward Entropy is, overall, statistically supreme and will eventually lead to an "end".

 

Right.

Because there are two types of time involved. God's time and our time. If God exists in any kind of time, then his time has nothing to do with our own time. For example, if I decide to make a universe, then I design one, bring it into existence, maybe change it a little — this has all happened in my own time, not the time of the universe. Time within the universe is irrelevant to me since I don't live inside it. If I spend a day designing a universe, the whole of time throughout that universe is just one day in my life. Everything I do after that day has nothing to do with that universe.

Copy of God? No, God does not exist inside this universe. But God will always 'exist' from our perspective, since he made our universe. You can't make something and not be there to oversee it. God will exist as long as the universe exists (which is likely to be forever), however, God, in his own time, may cease to exist (which I doubt but it's theoretically possible) however this will have no impact upon us and our time, since our universe has already been made, so we'll never lose God.

To put it another way, if God ceases to exist in the future, he will no longer exist in his own time, but we are not in God's time, we are in a seperate time created by God. No duplicate Gods are necessary — when we interact with God, we're interacting with God when he designed and created the universe.

I can write a book, talk to the characters in the book, and die, and the characters in the book will never know I've died because I've already written the book and talked to all the characters I will ever talk to.

I'm not basing the existence of God on the existence of the universe. God didn't have to make the universe. But he did.

You just need to stop thinking of God's time as having anything to do with our own time. If you do that, it will all become quite clear. (Hopefully.)

 

Gecko,

I would like for you to explain (and I am not being a smart-ass) how entropy and gravity or electric charge relate. I do remember a bit of my thermodynamics - I recall entropy definition requires a closed system and is contigent upon no action by outside forces and it can be seen in heat tranfer and other simple examples. In this definition is gravity or charge an outside force? Bodies which have mass exert gravity and therefore attract more mass which will increase gravity, etc. etc. Does this conform to rules on entropy? How can mass-attraction and building be related to a system's innate tendency to spread it's energy?
Here are two definitons on the web:
1) entropy increases as matter and energy in the universe degrade to an ultimate state of inert uniformity
2) Systems tend to go from a state of order (low entropy) to a state of
maximum disorder (high entropy).

How can inert uniformity = maximum disorder.

If high entropy is inert unifomity then... by theory at the singularity directly before the bing bang all know energy and matter were one. Isn't this perfect entropy? Complete uniformity... How do we measure 'inert'? How can a system based on entropy proceed from that? If we are to beleive the thoughts on the big bang the first trillions of a second (or whatever) was pure energy spreading perfectly (pure entropy, right?) Since that time energy has slowed cycles have become longer, mass has collected, systems have spiraled into existence and the whole universe seems coiled into countless circular collection of increasingly complex atoms, molecules, compounds, and now life forms. If this is occurring, then where is the entropy counter-balance?

How can entropy supercede the other forces at work when it appears it clearly isn't winning the battle to randomize, disperse and unify the universe we know?

That's why the definiton of increasing disorder appeals to me more. Disorder does not mean 'as spread apart as possible.. it means as many parts as possible. A glass of distilled water has little disorder it has lower entropy (randomness). A glass of pond water is full of disorder from particulates, pollen, and millions upon millions of life froms and therefore has more randomness or higher entropy.

I would say that entropy tells us that ENERGY disperses. As energy is 'lost' (or diluted over space) the cyclicle nature of the universe increases. Energy cycles create subatomic particles and more cycles create atoms and more cycles create planets and star systems and galaxies and the like. So then what is ultimate entropy. No energy? If entropy tells us that thing will get more random... more complex... then what is of ultimate complexity? Is it the same as ultimate disorder? It certainly isn't the same as inert uniformity.

Please clear any or all of this up if you can...