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 .

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #79

Because it is the difference between Schridinger's cat and pulling a rabbit out of a hat. the nothing that is also something is like the cat that is or is not (Indeterminacy is scientifically supported) whereas a complex entity that came from nothing is playing a trick on the audience.

You don't have to look in the box to see if the cat is dead. If it is, it will start to stink.

Good one. But you don't get indeterminacy. The cat isn't dead (or alive) until you look to see (1).

As to the law of conservation of energy, that's fine on the physical world we live on and work with, but it's a different matter at sub atomic and quantum level, and even more so when talking of (not dismissing out of hand) evidence of a nothing that has innate energy.

Are you saying that the law of energy conservation isn't a law? If there's energy, there isn't nothing.[/quote]

It is, of course, Just as the law of gravity is a law and Thermo 2/Entropy is a law - in the part or levels of the universe where they are relevant. But at quantum level and an open system like an infinite Cosmos, they are not. It's like saying that because the process of evolution doesn't obtain on a planet without life, it isn't a real process.

Again, this is all very speculative, but it does make 'something from nothing' a hypothesis with far less to explain away than a god without any origin.

"Something from nothing" means that Nothing has to create Something. How is that less magical than a cosmic mind?[/quote]

Because there is far less that has to appear. The problem (for you) is that a complex thinking being has a lot of causality to explain. A nothing does not I understand perfectly your problem with a nothing that can form or innately ha the potential to produce energy. But the point is that it has almost made the infinite recession problem go away. A thinking being with no origin has a big causality -problem.

And it isn't even important as you'd still have to show which god it was before you could validate any particular religion - which is what the debate is Really about.

When did I say that I was trying to validate a particular religion?
[/quote]

You didn't. Neither did you mention Indeterminacy, the 2nd law of thermodynamics or evolution on a lifeless planet. I did, because I was explaining something. What I was explaining is that this 'infinite recession' apologetic is actually academic.

If you hold with the law of conservation, which states in part that energy can't be created, then you definitely can't get something from nothing.

And yet some undefined God-magic is supposed to achieve just that.

Not if some "undefined God-magic", as you put it, has always been underlying the existence of energy.

Interesting you almost suggest that is the underlying potential of energy in nothing. The difference being that the 'potential' has less to do to produce energy than to produce a complex thinking being.

P.s I hope the q/A are clear. What was quotes didn't look quite clear in my preview but I don't want to fiddle about with it.

(1) as I get it, Schrodinger's cat isn't a mind experiment nor an analogy -used -as -evidence (which I consider a fallacy or misuse of analogy, anyway). It is a metaphor of what indeterminacy does. You may have heard of the 'double -slit' experiment, and perhaps of the way Theist use it to try to argue that 'observer affecting result' means that scientists ar making up all the results of science themselves. As I understand it (if I do) it is not a question of the observer making up the result, but two (or indeed more) results being potentially in existence, until the observe observes one of them, making it Their reality. The others being those alternate universes we hear so much about.

[JoeyKnothead]

If you hold with the law of conservation, which states in part that energy can't be created, then you definitely can't get something from nothing.

And yet some undefined God-magic is supposed to achieve just that.

Not if some "undefined God-magic", as you put it, has always been underlying the existence of energy.

But the IF in that statement makes the argument moot.

Don't it beat all, if they had a sound path to the truth, they wouldn't hafta if along to get there.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #81

It is, of course, Just as the law of gravity is a law and Thermo 2/Entropy is a law - in the part or levels of the universe where they are relevant. But at quantum level and an open system like an infinite Cosmos, they are not. It's like saying that because the process of evolution doesn't obtain on a planet without life, it isn't a real process.

But the quantum level is where everything is energy, so that's where conservation has to make it or break it. If it isn't a law there, it really isn't a law anywhere.

Because there is far less that has to appear. The problem (for you) is that a complex thinking being has a lot of causality to explain. A nothing does not I understand perfectly your problem with a nothing that can form or innately ha the potential to produce energy. But the point is that it has almost made the infinite recession problem go away. A thinking being with no origin has a big causality -problem.

If nothing does something, it has to explain whatever it does.

And if a "nothing" could do something as phantasmagorical as producing a "something" from the nothing of its nothingness, why couldn't that "nothing" be a cosmic mind? What's the worst that could be? Counter-intuitive?

[brunumb]

And if a "nothing" could do something as phantasmagorical as producing a "something" from the nothing of its nothingness, why couldn't that "nothing" be a cosmic mind? What's the worst that could be? Counter-intuitive?

How do we know there was ever nothing? What does 'ever' even mean when we don't really understand time. The faster things move the slower time passes. Wow. We get hung up on the counter-intuitive idea that something could come from nothing, but not on the idea that a magical being could exist and it somehow could make something from nothing. If there never was nothing, which the existence of a god obviously necessitates, then unless we know what the something was and how it behaves, we can't really claim anything about it. It's not that hard to imagine natural events occurring spontaneously since we already have precedents for that in things like radioactive decay. On the other hand, it is really hard to imagine a phantasmagorical being that can exist anywhere and 'anywhen'. This being allegedly has an incredible memory capacity in order to store information about everything inside and outside the universe for every moment of time that ever existed, past, present and future. That is one ginormous number of gigabytes of memory. Start piling up all the alleged attributes of this super-being and the notion that the beginning of the universe was a natural event pales into insignificance.

[Athetotheist]

And if a "nothing" could do something as phantasmagorical as producing a "something" from the nothing of its nothingness, why couldn't that "nothing" be a cosmic mind? What's the worst that could be? Counter-intuitive?

How do we know there was ever nothing? What does 'ever' even mean when we don't really understand time. The faster things move the slower time passes. Wow. We get hung up on the counter-intuitive idea that something could come from nothing, but not on the idea that a magical being could exist and it somehow could make something from nothing. If there never was nothing, which the existence of a god obviously necessitates, then unless we know what the something was and how it behaves, we can't really claim anything about it. It's not that hard to imagine natural events occurring spontaneously since we already have precedents for that in things like radioactive decay. On the other hand, it is really hard to imagine a phantasmagorical being that can exist anywhere and 'anywhen'. This being allegedly has an incredible memory capacity in order to store information about everything inside and outside the universe for every moment of time that ever existed, past, present and future. That is one ginormous number of gigabytes of memory. Start piling up all the alleged attributes of this super-being and the notion that the beginning of the universe was a natural event pales into insignificance.

I've never suggested that there was ever nothing. On the contrary----if there had ever been nothing, there would be nothing still.

And how can Nothing being the source of Something be "natural" when the nature of Nothing would be absolute nonexistence?

[brunumb]

I've never suggested that there was ever nothing. On the contrary----if there had ever been nothing, there would be nothing still.

And how can Nothing being the source of Something be "natural" when the nature of Nothing would be absolute nonexistence?

I'm not saying that there was ever nothing either, just that the something that was is not God. As far as I am concerned, based on its alleged attributes, God is an impossibility.

[Athetotheist]

I've never suggested that there was ever nothing. On the contrary----if there had ever been nothing, there would be nothing still.

And how can Nothing being the source of Something be "natural" when the nature of Nothing would be absolute nonexistence?

I'm not saying that there was ever nothing either, just that the something that was is not God. As far as I am concerned, based on its alleged attributes, God is an impossibility.

Yet one of those attributes----the power of creation----has been assigned to nothingness, which would itself qualify as impossible as far as I'm concerned.

[brunumb]

Yet one of those attributes----the power of creation----has been assigned to nothingness, which would itself qualify as impossible as far as I'm concerned.

I don't believe in absolute nothingness or any "power of creation".

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #81

It is, of course, Just as the law of gravity is a law and Thermo 2/Entropy is a law - in the part or levels of the universe where they are relevant. But at quantum level and an open system like an infinite Cosmos, they are not. It's like saying that because the process of evolution doesn't obtain on a planet without life, it isn't a real process.

But the quantum level is where everything is energy, so that's where conservation has to make it or break it. If it isn't a law there, it really isn't a law anywhere.

Because there is far less that has to appear. The problem (for you) is that a complex thinking being has a lot of causality to explain. A nothing does not I understand perfectly your problem with a nothing that can form or innately ha the potential to produce energy. But the point is that it has almost made the infinite recession problem go away. A thinking being with no origin has a big causality -problem.

If nothing does something, it has to explain whatever it does.

And if a "nothing" could do something as phantasmagorical as producing a "something" from the nothing of its nothingness, why couldn't that "nothing" be a cosmic mind? What's the worst that could be? Counter-intuitive?

Quantum is where the laws break down. The problem has been reconciling the laws of Physics with the discoveries about Quantum.

And I have already explained that the problem (and there is one, I concede) with an uncreated 'nothing' that can become (rather than 'producing') something, it is less of a problem than a complex mind with no apparent origin. 'Nothing'does not need an origin.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #81

It is, of course, Just as the law of gravity is a law and Thermo 2/Entropy is a law - in the part or levels of the universe where they are relevant. But at quantum level and an open system like an infinite Cosmos, they are not. It's like saying that because the process of evolution doesn't obtain on a planet without life, it isn't a real process.

But the quantum level is where everything is energy, so that's where conservation has to make it or break it. If it isn't a law there, it really isn't a law anywhere.

Because there is far less that has to appear. The problem (for you) is that a complex thinking being has a lot of causality to explain. A nothing does not I understand perfectly your problem with a nothing that can form or innately ha the potential to produce energy. But the point is that it has almost made the infinite recession problem go away. A thinking being with no origin has a big causality -problem.

If nothing does something, it has to explain whatever it does.

And if a "nothing" could do something as phantasmagorical as producing a "something" from the nothing of its nothingness, why couldn't that "nothing" be a cosmic mind? What's the worst that could be? Counter-intuitive?

Quantum is where the laws break down. The problem has been reconciling the laws of Physics with the discoveries about Quantum.

And I have already explained that the problem (and there is one, I concede) with an uncreated 'nothing' that can become (rather than 'producing') something, it is less of a problem than a complex mind with no apparent origin. 'Nothing'does not need an origin.

Neither can nothing be an origin. And again, laws are just descriptions of the behavior of what's already there.

And you keep referring to a cosmic mind as "complex", but what's the relationship between complexity and consciousness? The brain, the seat of our consciousness, is composed of individual neurons each of which individually is presumably unconscious.