The phenomenon and the explanation

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Why not? I suppose the universe could be oscillating but it's not. Infinity vs. eternity it seems. One is an infinite duration the other no duration. When thinking about existence beyond matter I pick no duration.
A duration requires a beginning and an end

I said 'wrong' to your proposal that a beginning needs a beginner.

 

[Astrid]

Why not? I suppose the universe could be oscillating but it's not. Infinity vs. eternity it seems. One is an infinite duration the other no duration. When thinking about existence beyond matter I pick no duration.
A duration requires a beginning and an end

As defined in the dictionary.
Who thinks words set for human understanding
are even applicable?

I remember a Christian trying to win me for the
Faith. A proof was that the existence of natural
law requires a law giver.

Eternity is infinity btw.

 

[Astrid]

A beginner that is not an effect. A self existent being.

Reason and philosophy just give you a different version of
The Great Raven, though our Native American friends may not
have been into the obscurantisn of formal "philosophy".

 

[Eloy Craft]

You said so.

Nope. I said it is necessary. You imagine a boundary.

 

[Eloy Craft]

Eternity is infinity btw.

Eternity primarily means changelessness.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Eternity primarily means changelessness.

No.

 

[sjastro]

Nope. I said it is necessary. You imagine a boundary.

This doesn't even make any sense.
It doesn't matter how I responded to your original post given it doesn't alter the construction of that post.
Ironically this is how cause and effect works, my response is an effect to your post which is the cause.
The cause is not changed by the effect given it precedes it.

All you have succeeded in achieving is digging a bigger hole for yourself; you have emphasized that a first cause must exist outside the universe while at the same time denying ever having made the statement.

 

[SelfSim]

Eternity primarily means changelessness.

'Changelessness' is an imaginary concept conceived by a human mind which, itself, requires the concept of change to explain changelessness.
IOW, 'changelessness' cannot even be conceived independently from change .. it depends on it, regardless of the above claimed meaning.

 

[Eloy Craft]

This doesn't even make any sense.
It doesn't matter how I responded to your original post given it doesn't alter the construction of that post.
Ironically this is how cause and effect works, my response is an effect to your post which is the cause.
The cause is not changed by the effect given it precedes it.

All you have succeeded in achieving is digging a bigger hole for yourself; you have emphasized that a first cause must exist outside the universe while at the same time denying ever having made the statement.

I still didn't state 'only' outside the universe.

 

[Eloy Craft]

'Changelessness' is an imaginary concept conceived by a human mind which, itself, requires the concept of change to explain changelessness.
IOW, 'changelessness' cannot even be conceived independently from change .. it depends on it, regardless of the above claimed meaning.

Death isn't imaginary.

 

[SelfSim]

Death isn't imaginary.

.. and deathlessness is.

 

[sjastro]

I still didn't state 'only' outside the universe.

Yeah sure you did.
Even this blatant change in the goalposts fails because if your first cause occurred within the observable universe it cannot be a first cause as the hot big bang or the original concept of the big bang at t=0 precedes it.

 

[partinobodycular]

I still didn't state 'only' outside the universe.

And you still didn't answer the question, is there an "outside" the universe?

 

[Astrid]

I said 'wrong' to your proposal that a beginning needs a beginner.

A middle needs a middler and a ending needs a ender.
So there.

 

[Eloy Craft]

.. and deathlessness is.

Exactly, deathlessness is.

 

[Eloy Craft]

And you still didn't answer the question, is there an "outside" the universe?

The word outside isn't precise.

 

[SelfSim]

Exactly, deathlessness is.

So for the same reason that deathlessness is imaginary, so too must changelessness also be imaginary then.

 

[partinobodycular]

The word outside isn't precise.

So God doesn't exist outside the universe. Does God exist inside the universe?

 

[partinobodycular]

Eternity primarily means changelessness.

It's funny though, I would equate the ability to change with being alive, and the inability to change with being dead. Therefore, God must be dead. Or God is alive only insomuch, and as long as, we are alive. Which makes sense, because God didn't exist before we did, nor will He exist after us. "Us" in this case being all the stuff that changes.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

The word outside isn't precise.

The word is precise, your use of it isn't.