Did a God or Gods create the universe? EDITED

[Mike Lucey]

Just watched Did God create the universe? on the Discovery Channel. A very good documentary featuring Stephen Hawkings. The bottom line was that there was no time before the Big Bang, thus no cause, thus no God! I'm still not totally convinced but find it hard to argue with it.

I watched the program on TV but think it can be picked up here, http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/did-god-create-the-universe-videos

Well any thoughts!

[pilou]

That is more probably most likely the inverse!

[utiler]

Here goes another 'Do you smoke' like thread...

[Rich O Brien]

@utiler said:

Here goes another 'Do you smoke' like thread...

Will i ban him Mike or shall you?

[utiler]

thought you might be the next to post...

[TIG]

If we hadn't invented him, then God would have to exist...

Just because something exists [aka 'the universe'] it doesn't follow that it was created.
Thus there is no need for a creator [aka 'God'].
Our universe seems to have popped into being from nothing [that's nothing as in no matter, no energy and no time].

The Anthropic Principle argues that the universe is all too neatly set up so it allows us to exist/survive, because just some tiny tweaks to basic laws of physics etc [which don't seem inevitable at all as the startup could set up all kinds of variations] would have meant no us... so there must be a God [aka a creator or first mover] to ensure we do exist - even if after the kick-off he went back to drinking his nectar or whatever...
However, the contra-argument is that out of all of the possible universes we happen to be in this very one, and it's exactly because we are that we do exist/survive, so that we can ponder this stuff! All the other possible universes don't have the luxury of us to look at them ! It's just down to great luck for us [or conversely it's terrible luck for the zillions of other rubbish universes that are too hot or too cold - the Goldilocks affect - ours is just right]

There are one or two interesting alternative 'scientific' views too...

Like this information-processing analogy - when you look at the electrons whizzing around inside a computer you might be able to appreciate what's happening at a particular level of understanding... but you cannot see the information being processed by all of this activity - it's also the same in a human brain's electric/chemical processes and its resultant but in many ways separate 'thoughts and memories'... so when we look at the universe and try to understand what's going on we can maybe get handles on all sorts of complexities at microscopic to astronomical scales ... but we might well fail to spot that all of this is the 'brain activity' of God, 'who' exists on a quite different plane of being, just as the information being processed in your head is reliant on, but in many ways separate from the chemical and electric processes observed in a lab, 'God' is overlaid on the universe, inexorably tied to it's physical processes but not actually a part of it [supernatural in it's real sense].

Another one is the 'Matrix' hypothesis... it's already possible to make quite good simulations of reality, so it's easy to imagine that in the future with improvements in computing and so on these simulated-realities could become indistinguishable from 'real-life'. Now if you accept that possibility then we have no way of differentiating between a simulated and a real world, so chances are we are actually in a simulated universe, where the laws and rules are set up by some higher intelligence and we have the illusion that it's all real [it's all we have] - and so it is as far as we are concerned... So in the end we might just be the meanderings Ruby-coding of some adolescent demi-god doing a school-science project, whilst there are perhaps literally zillions of alternative realities being played out to different physical laws and so on, that each seem a real and consistent to their varied occupants as ours does to us. Just because the universe seems very complex and massive etc doesn't preclude the possibility that is is all been manufactured - albeit in a mega-computer somewhere - it just seems 'real' to us... and of course with this hypothesis 'someone' did indeed create the universe - but it wasn't 'God' in any traditional sense...

[TIG]

It's a loaded question...
What's 'God' ?
What's 'create' ?
What's 'the universe' ?

Assuming a traditional view of old-cranky-patriarch who sits on a cloud looking down on us, occasionally sending down plagues or thunderbolts - NO.
OR assuming some unspecified 'first cause' out side of everything 'real' - it's still [probably] NO !
'Create' as in the sense of manufacture all of the bits in it - it's a NO.
'Create' as in the sense of kicking it off [from outside of it] and seeing where it all led - still [probably] NO !
etc etc

Just because you can ask a question it doesn't follow that there's a simple yes/no answer... but my gut instinct is to say 'NO', in any meaningful interpretations of the words 'God', 'create' and 'universe' in such a question...

[pbacot]

I wonder if St. Hawkings actually said that. Seems like a weak argument, but I'll have to see that show. Sounds like because no time there's no causality. But God could exist without time. Why not? "Then" God creates time along with the universe(s). It's just that civilized humans can't talk without putting "time" into the equation.

[pbacot]

@tig said:

Just because you can ask a question it doesn't follow that there's a simple yes/no answer...

That's the Buddhist answer: Yes... and no.

[Dropout]

@solo said:

@unknownuser said:

Did God create the universe?

I'm willing to bet my life that he didn't.

[Krisidious]

@solo said:

@unknownuser said:

Did God create the universe?

I'm willing to bet my life that he didn't.

actually you're betting your soul... your life is quite safe unless you're traveling to the middle east.

and how can there be a universe with out a creator? and how can the creator not have a creator? what did he do before the universe? he just sat around in complete and utter nothingness for infinite time and then one day he's like "I'm bored, I think I create a few gazillion things..." and then he stopped.

both stories seem highly unlikely to the discerning mind. more likely? the universe has always been. in some type of rubber banding shrinking and expanding mashup... how can there be nothing ever? show me one example of something coming from nothing... until there is more proof, the only honest religion is the agnostic one.

[boofredlay]

@krisidious said:

... until there is more proof, the only honest religion is the agnostic one.

The Dyslexic Agnostic Insomniac sits up all night wondering if there really is a DOG.

[Krisidious]

well you said you were betting your life... and if you want to be real, you're not. it's just your afterlife slip on Snuggie that you're betting. so there is no real risk in being an Atheist, you simply do whatever you feel to be right. the christian or any other god lover has to live his life in a certain way, often sacrificing in some form or another, doing things he/she might not normally do... what if you tithed, volunteered, shaved your head, cut your penis, sacrificed your goat and gave up all those wonderful sins all your life only to wake up dead after death... no afterlife. now that's betting.

and what if you die and wake up in an afterlife? being the reasonable person I've found you to be I'm sure you would acknowledge your error and get on with things... how bad could it be? eternal life. (although I'm not to hip on spending eternity worshiping someone.) I mean pushing a boulder up a hill for eternity doesn't sound all that bad... at least you'd have your mind.

[Alan Fraser]

Yes He did....in a puff of smoke.
You really like stirring things, don't you Mike?

[Rich O Brien]

I'd just like to know how to get the figs in a fig roll.

[srx]

Is this logical:

Any entity whose conceptual recognition does not involve a necessary reference to any definite actual entities of the temporal world is called an eternal object"

No one can create eternal object, because if one creates an object, it is from start connected to him, which means it is not eternal by definition.

So, eternal object can not be created, (has no parent)...everything else can.

Every created object has its parent - creator...creator of creator...etc. ...so if there was a point in the past (BIG BANG) which had no parents, it had to be eternal object.

Man of course can not conceive eternal object because of its nature of not connected to anything, but it is burning inside as energy of life (love) - faith. To make it closer to people every religion has its human form.

[michaliszissiou]

Let's try to understand what we're saying here.
Especially Pete, the most "mystical" among us. This "c'mon lets be real" pete...

Some Ludwig Wittgenstein's quotes.
-The world is all that is the case.
-The world is the totality of facts, not things.
-It is quite impossible for a proposition to state that it itself is true.
-The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
-The subject does not belong to the world, but it is a limit of the world.
-Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death.
-The mystical is not how the world is, but that it is.
-doubt can exist only where a question exists, a question only where an answer exists, and an answer only where something can be said.
-There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.
And of course...
-Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

[Gaieus]

And to continue with Michalis' list (and which can at least be adopted for SketchUp works too)

- Every problem has a solution. Whatever does not have a solution is not a problem.
(BTW does/will this debate have a solution?)

[TIG]

The question of whether [or not] 'God' created the universe, in no way requires a sentient being to have a 'soul' [or not]...
Conversely whether [or not] a sentient being has a soul, in no way demonstrates that there is a 'God' [or not]...
They are quite separate questions and issues...

Now... onto the question of a 'soul'...

As set out in my earlier post, as sentient [human] beings we all agree [I hope!] that we have an existence outside of the physical universe - in our consciousness, thoughts and memories etc - which do not reside in the physical realm at all; however, to me it's quite clear that they do need the physical universe for their very existence - so the countless hyper-complex electro-chemical interactions in our brains and our interactions with the external world are what we consider to be our 'self'. If you destroy/heavily-damaged the physical brain then the 'self' is 'gone'.

So it is possible for 'something' to exist outside of the 'real' physical universe, whilst relying on that 'real' universe for its very continuance. If you equate 'self' with the 'soul' then it means this 'soul' is not then necessarily immortal...
However, an interesting hypothesis... if you consider your 'self' as the manifestation of a computer-program-like process happening in your brain, then there is a possibility that this process could continue after death when the brain ceases to function in its usual same way - for even in decay it is still 'functioning' at some level [albeit useless for your self's continuance]...
So let's backtrack for a minute... if you have a computer programs running it consists of a complex set of instructions and interactions of data, and it all happens very quickly - nows let's suppose you have the 'rules' of that computer-program clearly set out for you, and some pencils and a wad of paper... you could replicate what the computer-program did in a second, but by longhand it might take you a week to get to the same answer. So the 'process' can run independent of the 'machinery' on which it's running. It just comes down to 'timescale' - you take a week to do it longhand, whilst a computer takes a second. The core processes that make up 'you' [aka 'self'] run on the 'processor' called your brain, and these of course give rise to your [illusion of] consciousness [aka 'of being' - existence]. If we were skilled enough we could decode that process-program, then transfer it to another 'processor' [which doesn't need to be the same type - so 'brain' could then become 'hyper-computer'], then supposedly the 'self' resulting from the process would be cloned too and it could consider 'itself' conscious/existing - of course our perception includes all kinds of interactions with our senses and bodies too, so the cloned 'self' is unlikely to consider itself to be an exact replicant of the original [at least not after after the initial shock wears off!]. The alternative processor would almost certainly run at a different speed to the original, so a single thought might take a week rather than a second [or vice versa], but that thought would still happen, and although interaction with the outside [perhaps through new sensory add-ons] would be possible these interactions would be quite different to our 'normal' experience.

Now if we accept that we could [given enough time, money, effort etc] replicate a 'self/soul' onto an alternative processor then that new 'self/soul' could become effectively 'immortal' as long as there were enough physical processors made available for it to run on as time passed [until of course the universe dies of 'entropy' - but then that'd be an end to 'everything', a bit like the start was from 'nothing' the end is 'entropy'].

So let's now make another jump... If we accept that we could replicate a 'self/soul' by 'manual' means. then who's to say it doesn't happen 'naturally'. If at the moment of death [of your brain] your self/soul-processes could slip into another existence, so they are now running on an alternative low-level processor - perhaps as interactions in a 'field' [beloved by both physicists and Mr Spock] - then you would continue to 'exist' in some form, and although you might take a century to have a single thought the thought would still happen [or conversely all of your thoughts, ever, might appear to happen in an instant when viewed by us mere mortals]; however, because of the inevitable timescale issues in this alternative processing scenario 'you' could never perceive the world as it exists for us other main-brainers, let alone communicate/interact with us: although perhaps would could detect other 'independent' processes running on the same 'field' as yours and somehow interact with them... So 'consciousness' could be a process that exists at many different levels of being, it doesn't necessarily need a 'brain' - although that is the main processor that we know off it could be acted out on other processors too.

So, is your 'self/soul' a result of your 'consciousness' or vice versa, or perhaps they are manifestations of the same thing ? Either way 'you' could exist outside of your brain, but of course without your brain and all of its add-on senses etc you would be a very different 'being' - unrecognizable to us and vive versa !

[Marian]

@unknownuser said:

Did God create the universe?

Nope. Case closed.