I give up. If you don't like the definitions i provided from the dictionary and you won't provide your own preferred definitions then there is nothing else to discuss on this subject.
The creation is changing but I don't have any idea why you are assuming that this is causing the creator to change. What change do you assume God is going through?
Well, I want to understand your argument - and there´s not much use in superimposing my definitions upon your words.
The change from an entity that is about to (and is aware that it is about to) cause changes to an entity that has (and is aware that it has) caused these changes. Every action affects the acting entity.
No, you would have to discuss my ideas with me.
I addressed this already with Insane Duck in post #118 and 121 and for personal convenience I'll just repost.
So no change occured?
Then you neither can say that the act of creation changed anything.
Change begins after the universe is created. There is no change from when there was no universe, to when there is a universe because there is no time before the universe.
That's a little confusing.
It is not reasonable to believe something when there is no sound evidence or sound argument supporting that belief. There has never been a single shred of sound evidence or a single sound argument establishing the existence of the Christian God or establishing the validity or truth of the claim that it is outside time.
You claim the Christian God exists, that it is outside time and that it is constant and unchanging. My position is that I dont believe you. I dont believe any of those claims until you can present some sound evidence or sound arguments establishing their validity or truth. So far, you havent done that.
I say the Christian God because this is a Christian web site and it stands to reason that it is the god to which most Christian posters are referring. I used to say your God when querying Christians, by which I meant the particular god in which you believe, but Christians would sometimes quibble about that by somehow taking it in the possessive sense thus evading the point of my questions. Recently, I decided to be more specific in an attempt to reduce those evasions.
I was trying to reduce the length of that sentence, but to avoid confusion Ill restate it using your phrase instead. So you think it is irrational and conceptually impossible for the universe to stretch back infinitely into the past, but Im guessing you dont think it is irrational or conceptually impossible for the Christian God to stretch back infinitely into the past despite there being a complete lack of sound evidence to support that belief. That isnt sound reasoning at all.
I agree. What is the sound argument that you heard that made you believe the universe has been around for an infinite amount of millennia and is without a beginning?
Why dont you believe though? What is irrational about what I am suggesting? What is the sound argument for material monism that you are supporting since I assume you believe there isnt anything that can be outside time?
Im still unsure of what you are identifying about the understanding of God you are using that makes you label it Christian. But if you arent making any point about God with the labeling then it isnt important.
And again what was the sound evidence and sound argument for your beliefs in a universe that has been here an infinite amount of time and is strictly material?
Nope. You can read the conversation I was having with Laughing Duck and Quantona about there being no time before God.
Or maybe we could examine the alternative and see how rational that is?
I had explained already. Now that I have found out that you consider god´s creation to be an action without any effect (which is an oxymoron in my understanding of these words, but apparently not in yours) I see how - based on this premise - it had no effect on god either.
Ok. Personally, I´d consider a state in which there is nothing to a state where there is a universe an effect, a change. Your terminology is different, apparently. And there we are back at square one: Me asking what "creation" actually means when it is an action without effect and didn´t change anything. God has always existed, the universe has always existed. I have no idea, then, what there was to create.
Yeah there is nothing to change. God is the beginning of everything.
Where did you explain what the effect/change in God was? Or is it just about you thinking there was a time before the universe and you can accept the idea of a constant God beyond that?
The bolded section is where you are messing up. There is no state of nothing. Nothing means there is no state with an empty space where the universe will be. Actual nothing. People have a tendency when they imagine the start of the universe to imagine it starting within an empty space sometimes with time even and I think that is what you are doing.
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Good. So god, the universe and time began simultaneously.
No, it´s you saying that there was be a state "before time". Since "before" signifies a temporal sequence "before time" is word salad.
I think you would have to make up your mind.
That´s why your idea "before time" makes no sense, by your own standards.
No, I am not doing such a thing. I am merely trying to make sense of your descriptions which to me appear to be the attempt to have the cake and eat it, too.
[/FONT]Explained above: "before" and "after" signify a temporal sequence. They are meaningless if "absence of time" is involved.
I dont believe that.
I just told you why I dont believe you. You havent provided any sound evidence or sound arguments to support your claims. There has never been a shred of sound evidence or a single sound argument to prove that the Christian God is real.Elijahw said:
When I say the Christian God, I mean the particular unproven god in which Christians believe. Im just distinguishing it from the Greek gods, Roman gods and all the other unproven gods that credulous people have believed in over time.
Again, I dont believe the universe has been here an infinite amount of time and I cant see why you would reach that ill-founded conclusion. I dont see any sound reason to think the universe is anything other than material. Do you have any sound evidence to prove that it isnt strictly material (whatever you mean by that)?
So tell us, do you believe the Christian God had a beginning? I havent seen any other Christian here make that claim. They usually claim it had no beginning, though, of course, they offer no sound evidence to support that claim or even the claim that it is real.
Well, the alternative is that it doesnt exist outside time and that it doesnt exist at all. Both of those are quite rational positions to take given that there has never been a shred of sound evidence or a single sound argument to prove that it does exist.ElijahW said:
Yep, in that there was no time before God or the universe.
I think you are severely confused or at least one of us is. Im the one who is suggesting there is no before time you are the one who is proposing a time (state) before time.
What is the nature of this state that existed before existence, if it isnt spacial or temporal?
But the point of the sentence was there is no before before god or time.
So you do believe there was a beginning to the universe. Ill try not to refer to that beginning as "God" since Im guessing you have some baggage with the word but so you know that is what the discussion has been about historically.
Ok so youre not a materialistic monist. Are you a dualist or immaterialist? If you have room in your model of the universe for things that are at rest/immaterial, why not consider the beginning act/actor displaying that same nature. What exactly is outside of time in your understanding of the universe?
Im not sure what you are distinguishing. The Christian God is a Greek understanding the Jews picked up from being occupied by the Greeks and Romans.
Because that is what you should believe if you dont believe in a God/Beginning. Instead of asking for proof of others understanding of God you should be explaining your understanding of the beginning.
Yes there is a beginning.
We both believe it existed but what was the nature of the beginning and what happened to it; along with why you are so certain it isnt still active, is what we need to discuss.
Ok. So there must have been a misunderstanding and we agree in this point: there can´t be a state before time.
Im not sure if we are on the same track here. The point is that the universe/god/time has a beginning because going back infinitely in time seems impossible.
The first cause had the nature and effect that led to the formation of the universe.
Again to clarify, they havent always been. God has always been since the beginning of time and the universe more importantly God doesnt change. The qualities that God had in the beginning that led to the formation of the universe has remained and is supporting existence now, just like it did initially.
When you place “The beginning” with a capital ‘T’ in quotes like that, it implies that you don’t mean the beginning in the usual sense, but instead you are using the term as a euphemism for the Christian God. It implies that you don’t mean “beginning” at all, but instead you mean “cause”. I can’t see why you wouldn’t just ask what I think is the cause of the Big Bang.
I don’t apply labels to myself. As soon as we apply labels to people, we have a tendency to pigeonhole them and assume characteristics about them they may or may not possess. At the moment, I can’t think of anything physical that is outside time. There may be physical things outside time that I have no knowledge of, but that is irrelevant to this discussion. This discussion is about your claims that the Christian God is outside time and that it is constant and unchanging. I asked you to establish the validity or truth of those claims. You keep failing to do that. However, before you can argue that the Christian God is outside time, you first need to prove that it even exists at all. You’ve failed to do that as well. In fact, you haven’t even attempted to do that.
You are exhibiting the common tendency of religious believers towards false dichotomies. Just because I don’t believe the Christian God is real it doesn’t mean I have to believe the universe has existed forever. Just because the Big Bang occurred is no sound reason to believe that the Christian God is real. Are you one of those Christians who just assume “God did it” whenever they are presented with something for which there is currently no explanation?
That isn’t what I asked. I asked do you believe the Christian God had a beginning. I ask because you claimed it is irrational to think the universe had no beginning. However, if you think the Christian God had no beginning then how is that not also irrational. If you think the Christian God did have a beginning then what do you think created the Christian God?
What on Earth are you talking about? You haven’t made any sense since the beginning of this conversation, but now your comments are degenerating into nonsense. I don’t believe the Christian God ever existed. I won’t believe it is real until someone provides enough sound evidence and sound arguments to prove that.
Which hypothesis do you consider the most rational when it comes to the nature of the cause for the Big Bang?
The question is what is the nature of the physical. You claim that you arent a materialist but I dont know what your understanding of the physical is. Is it matter bouncing off itself or is it the product of an law that isnt material.
I thought that is what you meant by "I dont see any sound reason to think the universe is anything other than material." If you werent a materialist then we wouldnt be having this argument. You would be able to accept constant aspects to the universe at work. And then recognize those constant aspects go back to the beginning of the universe and apply that nature to the actual beginning.
Yes. Nothing created the Christian God or caused the initial cause. What makes it the beginning or the cause is that nothing comes before it. If something comes before what you have in mind then that is the cause unless something comes before that.
You believe in a god you just label it the cause of the big bang. That beginning has been labeled God historically. You believe in a God, you just havent thought out which understanding.
