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How do you reach the conclusion that the "universe began to exist"? Sure, it began to exist in its current form at some point...but that doesn't mean it didn't exist in another form prior to that.
That's knowledge we simply don't have.
The concept of ''began'' refers to time, so, the universe began to exist when time began to exist. Logically, time can't create itself.
It requires a lot of faith in something to categorically assume that time never began to exist.
Why call it "God"? You haven't established that it has any of the properties usually ascribed to a deity.
How do you know that? Your argument simply concluded with the universe having a cause. It said nothing about the nature or identity of the cause.
Why not? You assume that about your God, so can't we make the same assumption about the universe?
Again, the leap from a cause to Goddidit is a non sequitur. You haven't argued for why the cause must be a deity.
I may suggest that you study about causality, since you are referencing it.Ok, we have three logical possibilities:
Caused
Uncaused
Self-caused
Now, we can affirm that whatever began to exist has a cause, in the same logical basis that we assume 1+1 is equal to 2.
· The universe began to exist.
· Therefore, the universe has a cause.
The universe can't logically be uncaused or self-caused, therefore, the universe was caused by an uncaused being who has inherently all the potentialities to create everything possible inside the universe, including human intelligence.
If time began with the universe then the universe has always existed, in the sense that there was no time in which the universe did not exist.
I may suggest that you study about causality, since you are referencing it.
If causality isn't violated (that is, the unbroken chain of cause and effect remains unbroken uniformly throughout the universe), then essentially by definition, every effect must have a cause. Thus, the idea of an "uncaused cause" lies outside the realm of causality. IOW ... using causality to claim there is an uncaused cause defeats the actual argument. Because if there is an uncaused cause, then the very causality one is referencing cannot be trusted and is defeated lol.
To claim there is an uncaused cause is one thing ... to rely upon causality itself to back up that claim isn't logical.
That would be a false trichotomy.Ok, we have three logical possibilities:
Caused
Uncaused
Self-caused
...
St. Thomas Aquinas - Summa Theologica
Seriously, this is basic reading for someone who wants to understand the metaphysical concept of God. It looks like you guys have never read something about what you're discussing. People are discussing this, like, for more than 5000 years.
The answer with the fewest assumptions would be something akin to: "We cannot know what happened before the beginning of all things, because none of us can demonstrate we were there to witness it."Ok, let's use Occam's Razor here and see which has the fewest assumptions.
Exactly. But time exists, and time logically has a cause.
Search ''Escher hands'' on Google. That is what you're asking me to believe.
The concept of ''began'' refers to time, so, the universe began to exist when time began to exist. Logically, time can't create itself.
It requires a lot of faith in something to categorically assume that time never began to exist.
St. Thomas Aquinas - Summa Theologica
Seriously, this is basic reading for someone who wants to understand the metaphysical concept of God. It looks like you guys have never read something about what you're discussing. People are discussing this, like, for more than 5000 years.
In my view, in its current form the "Goddidit" theory (I'm using the word 'theory' very loosely here) is just theological handwaving in the face of one of nature's most intractable mysteries. It doesn't actually offer an explanation for the origin of the universe, but it has the pretence of one, and thus eases the discomfort of not knowing. Of concern, it also seems to discourage further inquiry by fostering the impression that the question has been satisfactorily answered and that there is nothing more to learn by studying the matter further.
Would someone else walk in and come to the conclusion that there was an infinite spinner-of-the-coin who has always been there?
That's my personal problem with theism.
We can come to the conclusion that at some point, all our knowledge and observations and reasonings about "our world" fail. We must start to speculate. (My own personal speculation about the origin of 'everything' is rather unintuitive and most likely will not satisfy you. I postulate something that I can only name as "primal chaos", but not describe, because its basic property is that it is undescribable.)
So what I cannot understand is why theists go from "All of our knowledge of our world fails here" to "So the cause is something highly complex that we derive from our knowledge of our world".
On what do you base this? How do you know they can "safely trust to know the answers one day"? Has this God of yours ever delivered these answers, to anyone?
Its more of the same dichotomy, spoiled children rebelling against the authority of their parents, demanding all the answers when they aren't even equipped yet conceptually to receive them.
Congratulating themselves when their clever sounding mental gymnastics produce no satisfactory answers, using this as reassuring proofs that the parents were misleading them all along.
It all still comes down to trust.
If we aren't conceptually equip to receive the answers, then why does religion pretend to have the answers?
Why should we trust that priests, imams, rabbis and theologians know more about the likely origin and fate of the universe than cosmologists and astrophysicists?
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