This question will never die, Glenis
I think this leads to the conclusion that God is a material being. A God that needs to be created is not God.
Universe definition: "The totality of known or supposed objects and phenomena throughout space."
If we could go to the farthest star of the farthest galaxy in our known universe, what if we saw for the first time a tiny speck of light in the distance that is another universe?
Maybe the God there created the God here.
Then one would have to admit that more than one god exists.
Agreed, if that's the case. On the other hand:
The universe is 13 billion years old. A planet could easily evolve 1 billion years before ours. Intelligent life from that planet could be 1 billion years ahead of us.
Who is to say that an intelligent life (or lives) with a presence on our planet aren't what we think is God?
Shallow understanding of what God means. God is the perfection of "source." He is pure cause without being effect. He is, as the Buddhists might say, "paramita source."
Creation happened in zero time (outside of time and space, with no energy or mass). Time is a product of God resting.
Hawking was missing a few marbles when he suggested that the universe was created by gravity. Gravity is physical -- consisting of space, time and likely energy -- all products of creation and never sources of that creation.
I feel that it is rather arrogant to suggest that one of the most respected scientists since Issac Newton was 'missing a few marbles'?
I feel that it is rather arrogant to say that the most respected scientist since Issac Newton was 'missing a few marbles'.
https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/8731/c … n-hawking-
When you say God, you shouldn't think Him in terms of any form or substance. He is the underlying Power or Energy of everything. There is no beginning for it nor any end.
Well, I can understand and accept what you are saying. But, in that case, why personify the Energy and call it God? And we are still left with the question about how the cosmos, in which 'god' is the underlying energy, came into being. Surely it can't have created itself from nothing? Thinking about it could drive a person crazy.
P.S. So if we accept your premise that 'god'/energy is omnipresent is he/it also omnipotent? Or is humanity the master of its own destiny?
Then is your calling god "him" rhetorical? It has been stated many times in many religions that god doesn't need sex to create or procreate.
Miz, rhetorical, perhaps. A convenience in discussing something which is non-physical using a language which is based near entirely on physicality.
Procreate? Never! You're thinking in terms of the physical and the Source of all physicality is not itself physical. God is not Homo sapiens.
Creation has nothing to do with the physical, though everything in this physical universe comes from such creation.
I had a conversation with my mom when I was about five years old. “Yes, mom, but God had to have had a beginning!” Her explanations didn’t quite satisfy me.
Now, some forty years later, my puny brain still can’t grasp the eternity of God. It suffices for me to understand that He is a supreme being, outside of time, and non-dependent, whereas all created things depend on Him.
I agree. That's what they taught in Sunday School, that god's life was a circle and that we just had to have faith in "his" existence. I left the church and try not to even think about that anymore.
You hit it. Our limited brains cannot grasp the unlimited. Trying to make God fit our image of what we think He should be is a futile effort.
The question is based on a self-contradictory logical fallacy, and is therefore meaningless.
Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking (an atheist, by the way) asserts that time began with the Big Bang that started the universe. Therefore, God, as the Creator who brought about the BB and thus created time itself, must necessarily exist outside of time. Because God exists in timelessness, with Him there is no beginning and no end, since both concepts are meaningful only with respect to some time-based frame of reference. The idea of something being created requires that it have a beginning at some specific point in time. Since God exists in timelessness where the concepts of beginning and ending have no meaning, the question of who created God is itself meaningless.
Beautiful RonElFran. God is perfect Source. The Buddhists refer to the perfections as "paramitas." The perfection of confidence is thus confidence without any spot or hint of doubt -- the true meaning of "faith." When you achieve paramita confidence, you can walk on water or any other miracle -- bending or breaking the "laws" of physical reality. You are working as spirit instead of a physical (meat) body.
God is Cause without any spot of Effect.
Hello RonElFran, that seems a logical perspective, until the question of what 'started/caused' the Big Bang.
As an atheist, it is probably a safe bet that Mr. Hawkins didn't attribute it to God.
Then there is the wonder if "time" can be more than just a human concept? If there is an occurrence, and then a subsequent occurrence, whatever term is used, there must be a descriptor for the sequence. We think in terms of linear time. Others use a concept of Space Time, (is there a difference?).
If the logic of the question was applied to a first existence, instead of calling that first existence God, would you think the question still meaningless?
Is there a foundation for the thought of "timelessness" other than that of a belief? Can the thought that it is a "logical fallacy" be supported by more than a belief
GA
GA, did you not see all the theories that came out a few years ago that the universe's motion was like folding batter over and over while making a cake? I believe one version was in Scientific American and another may have been on the Science Channel, but they were in agreement. They explained the Big Bang as just another fold in the universe and claimed that it will happen again.
I have a devote Christian friend who says she believes in the Big Bang theory, "God said "bang!" and it happened (she says).
"God said Bang! and it happened." That's a good one MizBejabbers. Wait, I am not making fun of it, I am sure your description of it is true. But, given all the unknowns, beyond faith, that was cute.
I haven't heard of the "batter" theory, but I have heard several "multiverse theories.
I was commenting from a much more shallow perspective. No great knowledge of the theories, or science behind them. No 'beliefs' for justification. Just a layman's concept that there must be a descriptive term to describe one thing happening after another.
To agree that there was a Big Bang - regardless of who or what you attribute it to, (or whether it was just another "fold"), demands the acceptance that there was something before the Big Bang. Even if that "something" was nothing.
How does the "timelessness" concept explain or describe that?
GA
Glad you enjoyed my reply, GA. That always gets a laugh and that's how my friend used to settle arguments over the Big Bang among her non-fundamentalist friends, including me. I agree with you that any attribution would demand acceptance that there was something before the Big Bang. Personally, I don't think logic has anything to do with it because logic is in our human minds and I think this subject is beyond our minds. It is definitely above my pay grade.
I know people with beliefs from one side of the pendulum to the other, so I'll just quote another:
"Aho. It is as it is."
Yes, GA. There is a foundation for timelessness. Hints of this can be found in Genesis. I detail this in my book, The Science of Miracles. Jesus said that truth will set you free. What he seems to have meant by it is that knowing the truth of a condition will have that condition cease to persist (time). It will be reduced to its instantaneity of creation, no longer persisting in the time stream. The next moment, your viewpoint moves to a new point in time, while the condition's instantaneity of creation is in the moment you just left. It has achieved its initial state of timelessness.
Would you like to expand upon your conclusion?
Kathryn, that's interesting and hilarious. But God, as I've come to understand Him, is incapable of being created, because He is pure Cause -- what the Buddhists might call "paramita source." He is Cause without any spot of Effect.
For example, paramita confidence would be confidence without a speck of doubt. This is what we normally think of as the "faith" to perform miracles. Too many confuse "belief" with "faith." They are not the same. Faith is perfect confidence. (See my book, The Science of Miracles, for a more in-depth description of this field.)
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