Godlorica

In the words of Mr. Hicks, "What Balls!" Also: who said there was anything logical about theism or quintessence anyway?
 

a being looks into the mirror
sees perceptions reflected
takes reflections as reality
reality is shaped by the percieved
Percievers sometimes forget
How little they see
And cease to recognize
The God in the Machine
 

I am always fascinated by these kinds of arguments -- but alas, they always reduce to one of four self-destructing metaphysics: 1. Infinite regress, 2. Effects without cause, 3. Self-causation, 4.Denial of reality. Quentin Smith's paper commits error #2, or in his words "...a probabilistic and noncausal explanation of why our universe exists." The construction of this sentence is mind-boggling! It affirms that chance or probability is not a causal agent (a correct conclusion) and yet simultaneously offers an "...explanation of why our universe exists," which is to say: it gives a cause for the universe.

Ultimately, Smith (and all of us) are forced to appeal to "cause," because effects without cause are nonsense. The are certainly not science because science is cause and effect by definition.

If we say that the universe is infinitely old, we commit the first fallacy because no amount of time is sufficient to arrive at "now." If the universe is not infinitely old as Smith concedes, then it needs a cause to come to be. It cannot be self caused (fallacy #3) because then it would have to precede itself. With nowhere left to turn, we paint ourselves into a corner and disavow that anything is real (fallacy #4). But some reality must exist because we are acting in time: we are contemplating the nature of the universe!

The only possible explanation after all is that some always existing reality, transcendent of time and space, must have created the universe. Apparently, the only reason intelligent folk abhor this conclusion is because they are loathe to believe in God.
 

Joe, "Cause" and "effect" aren't real. They are abstractions that are useful for describing and predicting the day-to-day events of the world. They are not literally true and aren't universally (pun intended) applicable. Never confuse a theory with reality!

Also, you seem blind to the assumptions about time and space that go into your argument. For example, have you considered the possibility that all of time-space is actually static, and time as something that "flows" is an illusion? Then again, what if time is circular?

What created the universe? Fuck if I know. But postulating an entity outside of time and space only moves the problem. Worse, it elaborates the problem without solving it. I need God for love, not for creating the universe.
 

Reality is a million billion times more complex than the human brain, which makes me wonder if the universe differentiates between existence and non-existence like we do...
 

The moral of this story is that quantum cosmology and classical theism cannot both be true. One has two choices: become an atheist or else argue that science, in the form of quantum cosmology, is false. However, since Copernicus and Galileo, any time that religion has opposed science, religion has lost.

Didn't the scientists at the time subscribe to the flat earth theory?
 

what if it goes further then having to choose either/or. the idea of both/and better explains the relation. perhaps the creator does exist as creation itself being sentient. the thought that we are "the universe made manifest trying to figure itself out" allows both truths to be equally plausible
 

The very vast, maybe infinate "no thing" from which tiniest matter appears and disappears and appears again subatomically, without notice... but with predisposed predictable outcome... screams intent. Coherent Intent like a matrix from the void soup is far from Creatorless. Is this not obvious? Maybe Dr. Hawking means a persona "Voice from Above," as separate from the universe,creating the universe, rather than seeing God as His own expression, the Universe as it ocurrs. The Voice is in you and all things manifested. How is that not quantum?
 

I wish anonymous writers would indicate which particular anonymous they are...anonymous 1, 2, 3, etc.

In this instance,

Anon 1: Aristotle, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas blah blah blah...

Anon 2: This guy has a problem. What to do with all those broken mirrors? Will he ever learn? "The God in the machine" Isn't that a plagerized heavy metal lyric or a lost manuscript from HG Wells?

Anon 3: So, you crave invisible love from that illusory other-side-of-the- fence and in the same moment you seem incognizant of the press and plea of the billion lonely pink and brown real human beings frantically beckoning for your abstract, absent, yet spiritually laudable(?) attentions? We all die soon enough. Tragic.

Anon 4:Everything must be true and everything must be false otherwise biological beings could not postulate the idea or the image. Logos. Name it and make it real.
Name it, make it the cause, then plan the effect. Look in your mind. Whatever God there is hides there, dionysian or crucified, smiling or starving, master of a thousand mudras, composer of your favourite hymns. And yes, even though I live on a globe agreed upon by science and nature, some prototype scientists , once upon a time, believed the earth was flat, (although there is much evidence pinpointing the religious and ignorant as the chief devotees of the prone flatness of the earth. So, I suppose if THEY can believe nonsense then you're allowed to believe in a magic Jesus.

Anon 5: Getting somewhere, getting somewhere, the fetters are popping, the shell is cracking, the yellow sunshine rises like a little pill, OMIGOD, it's 1969! (Does the past really have to cease existing to be called the past?)

Anon 6: Have you ever tried to scream "intent"? Its a really tough word to scream. Is this not obvious? I bet you haven't even tried to scream "intent" even though you write of it with such authority. Where was this tent anyway? What happened, skunk? bear? that caused you to scream in a tent? Seriously, what you describe is only quantuum because our collective version of you is quantuum, and your idea that G-d is manifest, in fact is creation is the basis of primitive animism /pantheism...Not less valid than any other speculative fiction.
Hey why not? When you need to know the weather for that big picnic just ask the cloud god and the wind god to seduce the moon goddess so she'll intercede with the sun god to squash the ant god. Makes as much sense and is probably as accurate as most meteorological reports.

Anonymous writers should worry less about G-ds and religion and concern themselves with their own apparent lack of existance.
 

bob-the-goat, it does not matter if I give you my name... I'll still be anonymous....

And I am still in existence!!

Science and religion do not differ as much as most people like to make it seem. Most scientific folks, who believe in "Science God", fail to realize the most evident similarities.
 

Adam: prove para 2.
 

Maybe I'm a bonehead, but I don't see consider "nothing" that operates according to the Hartle-Hawking wave function to actually be "nothing". To truly be nothing it could not have any laws associated with it.on
 

how is it that apparntly bright peopole can be so clueless dont you realize that putting scientific postualate on such philosophical ideas are usuless when using the boundries of the mind and science lets remember that when einstein said we konw one thousanth of a percent of nature or something to that effect he was telling us that our minds are not capable of putting the universe inside of a mental consturct it is really stupidity to think that it is possible through analytical understanding. One has to be INTUITVE actually Einstein had a good quote about INTUITION there is nothing more valuable..........But i will say this Nothing that is VALUABLE can be understood WITHOUT IT......all genius remember involves the RIGHT BRAIN and INTUITION the analytical left brained while intelligent are really CLUELESS when it comes to GOD i.e.........DDOILDh