Definition of God

[JoeyKnothead]

I won't name the source, cause it was offered in the spirit of explanation moreso than outright fact, but let's fuss on it all the same:

...
For a general definition of God, "the underlying source of all else which exists"...

For debate:

Please offer some means to confirm God is the underlying source of all else which exists.

Remember, the bible ain't considered authoritative in this section of the site .

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #60"We don't know enough about nothing and something at the most basic level to be able to say that one can't act like the other."

I have to say, I find this one of the strangest assertions I've ever read. I have no doubt that If I were to propose such a thing I would be accused by many a materialist of wearing a tinfoil hat.

In any case, if we consider that Nothing would by definition be infinite, inert emptiness, wouldn't it be easier for a cosmic mind to make nothing act like something than it would be for nothing to make itself do so? You find me guilty of "juggling with words....to make a god look more probable", but you keep trying to endow infinite, inert emptiness with properties and abilities which, by its very nature, it would be incapable of posessing. Which of those is really more unreasonable?

[Athetotheist]

Again, if we see fit to apply causality to a "god entity", we really have no excuse for not applying it to the universe.

That's the point. I don't see fit to apply causality to a "god entity", so logically I don't see fit to apply it to the universe either. Demonstrate that either one needs or doesn't need a cause as being fact.

What is energy? It's the capacity to do work, which comes down to energy being motion or at least the potential for motion. For there to be motion, there has to be something which can be moved. Nothing moveable, no energy. Thus again, energy is dependent on the existence of "stuff". "Stuff" has to consist of something, and then what is that something? And we're back at causality.

Energy is not dependent on the existence of stuff. Energy itself can be considered 'stuff'. How do we know that we have discovered all the forms of energy that might exist and any other properties it might therefore have?

We experience three spacial dimensions but, as Michio Kaku has put it, there isn't enough room in the dimensions we experience for all the laws of physics. He was commenting on the quantum realm and the mathematics of possible higher dimensions, but what if that principle can be extended? What if there isn't enough room in the material universe for the entirety of a "god entity", so that we would perceive such an entity's presence like Flatlanders would perceive a ball going through their 2-D universe?

"What if" is not much of a hook to hang your coat on.

The notion of a "god entity" may seem a stretch. But even Einstein, who didn't believe in a personal god, expressed a "deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe".

A deeply emotional conviction is no substitute for evidence regardless of ones intelligence.

If energy is "stuff", what is energy made of? And what is what it's made of made of?

[brunumb]

[You] find me guilty of "juggling with words....to make a god look more probable", but [you] keep trying to endow infinite, inert emptiness with properties and abilities which, by its very nature, it would be incapable of posessing.

I'm wondering what basis you have for making that claim.

[brunumb]

If energy is "stuff", what is energy made of? And what is what it's made of made of?

Does it matter? It's not nothing and surely that is what counts.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #60"We don't know enough about nothing and something at the most basic level to be able to say that one can't act like the other."

I have to say, I find this one of the strangest assertions I've ever read. I have no doubt that If I were to propose such a thing I would be accused by many a materialist of wearing a tinfoil hat.

In any case, if we consider that Nothing would by definition be infinite, inert emptiness, wouldn't it be easier for a cosmic mind to make nothing act like something than it would be for nothing to make itself do so? You find me guilty of "juggling with words....to make a god look more probable", but you keep trying to endow infinite, inert emptiness with properties and abilities which, by its very nature, it would be incapable of posessing. Which of those is really more unreasonable?

I wouldn't blame them for accusing someone who came up with that idea of wearing a tinfoil hat. No doubt they would think the same about someone proposing Schrodinger's cat (a thing doesn't happen until a observer looks to see what happened) or the holographic universe (it isn't real but a projection from beyond the universe). These things at the cutting edge of cosmology and physics are unsettling and counter - intuitive, but that doesn't mean that those who propose them are wearing tinfoil hats.

I have to remind you that your 'move' to assert that nothing can only act like Something if a Cosmic Mind makes it happen has already been countered, since because you have to explain where such a complex entity came from. A faith - based assertion that it 'always existed' is dismissing a bigger problem of causality than the 'nothing acting like Something' idea. Quite apart from why the Cosmic Mind would just do the very, very, basic thing instead of doing it all in one go, just like it says in Genesis.

[TRANSPONDER]

If energy is "stuff", what is energy made of? And what is what it's made of made of?

Does it matter? It's not nothing and surely that is what counts.

Indeed. So far as I know, it isn't known what the basic 'Thing' that matter/energy (they are the same thing, doing different things) is made of. The hists of the experiments is that it is nothing that can act like Something. Effectively (so far as I can gather) it is nothing taking up positions that give the illusion of substance. If that is an inherent quality, it doesn't need anything or anyone to create it. This is all still very theoretical and an unknown, but it really does remove the whole question away from the solution of a god waving a magic wand. In other words, Something from Nothing (a long -standing debate) looks a lot more plausible than Goddunit does and of course makes the objection to 'Infinite recession' irrelevant and passe.

It's all interesting and it even 'matters' to the the instinct of curiosity and discovery, which is one thing that makes us human. I learned not to be alarmed by some of the weirder stuff at the cutting edge of physics because, 'whatever happens at quantum level, the laws of Newton still apply' as I used to say on my previous board. Even if we are a game in an alien computer, the rules of physics still apply. And even if everything is made of Nothing, and is a holographic illusion, it doesn't matter as Reality is what is predictably repeatable in physics, not what you can bang on a table. This basis (like logic) enables one to consider this bewildering stuff without the mind falling off a cliff. Which I have seen happen a couple of times.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #66"This is all still very theoretical and an unknown, but it really does remove the whole question away from the solution of a god waving a magic wand."

How? By having inert emptiness waving a magic wand?


"I have to remind you that your 'move' to assert that nothing can only act like Something if a Cosmic Mind makes it happen has already been countered, since because you have to explain where such a complex entity came from."

But you don't need anything for a complex universe to come from?

[Diagoras]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #66"This is all still very theoretical and an unknown, but it really does remove the whole question away from the solution of a god waving a magic wand."

How? By having inert emptiness waving a magic wand?

"I have to remind you that your 'move' to assert that nothing can only act like Something if a Cosmic Mind makes it happen has already been countered, since because you have to explain where such a complex entity came from."

But you don't need anything for a complex universe to come from?

<bolding mine>

I’m certain TRANSPONDER will be able to answer this just as effectively, but in answer to your ‘How?’, I draw your attention to the bolded part of the above quote. That’s kind of the point. We have some speculative ideas, but until we advance our knowledge of cosmology and quantum physics, it’s more honest to simply state that we don’t know with any certainty.

And to the second part, the ‘best current answer’ is ‘So it would seem.’

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #66"This is all still very theoretical and an unknown, but it really does remove the whole question away from the solution of a god waving a magic wand."

How? By having inert emptiness waving a magic wand?

Not if the emptiness doesn't need one as the potentiality is there and always has been

"I have to remind you that your 'move' to assert that nothing can only act like Something if a Cosmic Mind makes it happen has already been countered, since because you have to explain where such a complex entity came from."

But you don't need anything for a complex universe to come from?

Yes, you need chemical evolution. That is the tendency of simple energy -packet formations to form larger units, thus forming 'stuff' or basic matter.

I repeat that this is hypothetical- theoretial; just a suggestion, but noting experiments that suggest that energy can exist in nothingness. Plus the realisation that particles are pretty much nothingness doing stuff.

And I would ask you to account for the origins of a cosmic mind and why that is more credible than this something from nothing I outlined, and why it would go through an evolutionary process instead of just making what it intended to make all in one go?

[Athetotheist]

[You] find me guilty of "juggling with words....to make a god look more probable", but [you] keep trying to endow infinite, inert emptiness with properties and abilities which, by its very nature, it would be incapable of posessing.

I'm wondering what basis you have for making that claim.

What particular basis do I need in order to assume that the absence of all characteristics would have no characteristics?