Did a God or Gods create the universe? EDITED
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Speaking of logic, since it was brought up by the atheists among us, how would an atheist account for the existence of logic from your worldview?
-Brodie
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Just as an interesting side note (and taking this from the back of my head hoping I remember things correctly).
So there is the universe be it the result of a Big Bang or Creation from nothing. Scientists still do not now what will happen to it. Will it be expanding forever and eventually, due to entropy, cool down, turn into dead matter or the amount of matter is enough to slow it down and eventually start bringing it together with gravity into one, ultimate singularity (the "Big Crunch")?
Now if this latter one, what will happen then? Another Big Bang or nothing? If another Big Bang, the universe may be pulsating and our only problem is that we will never know because there is no info from before the Big Bang.
And this is where god or gods come into the picture. The Judeo-Christian theogony would satisfy the one, single Big Bang and then singlée Big Crunch theory. Some eastern religions (Hinduism, Buddhism) however teach that there are worlds created (well not really as we'll see) and they die and recreated again - which would be similar to that pulsating universe. Interesting in these teachings too that there gods are not eternal either - just are created first and die last therefore for everyone "in-between" they seem to be eternal.
I do not care if the universe was created by god(s) or only popped out from nothing based on some physical thing. Both are so inapprehensible that I doubt that we'll ever have the answer in this earthly world. Scientists now already thinkthey know what happened (milliseconds) after the Big Bang but not at the beginning. And they say that even physical laws formed then and by chance, they could have formed differently. What's this if not speculation - just like how many archangels God has or why is the Father always depicted as a bearded, angry looking old man?
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To answer Mike's question:
In all likelihood, no. When compared to science's, the thesis religion provides us with, appears hole-ridden and shoddy.
@unknownuser said:
Speaking of logic, since it was brought up by the atheists among us, how would an atheist account for the existence of logic from your worldview?
I don't quite understand what you mean. Could you elaborate any further?
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@unknownuser said:
I don't quite understand what you mean. Could you elaborate any further?
There exist certain laws of logic or thought ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_thought ) which are absolute. For example the law of non-contradiction, "one cannot say of something that it is and that it is not in the same respect and at the same time."
Given an atheistic worldview, I wonder how one might account for logic to exist at all.
-Brodie
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@ ‘TomDC’. Thank you that you remember about my posts in “Gallery”!
@ David. You’re right: “It depends on how it is used in the grammatical context”, but when “Elohim” is translated as ‘the Creator’, ‘the Almighty’, the ‘Supreme Judge’, etc. there is no room for wrong interpretation. When used with plural verbs and adjectives “elohim” refers to "gods", “angels”, etc.
@ TIG You’re right also..., saying: “Cornel seems to have an even narrower view of things”, but remember that verses:
“[The wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, “He is THE ONE WHO CATCHES THE WISE IN THEIR CRAFTINESS”; and again, “THE LORD KNOWS THE REASONINGS of the wise, THAT THEY ARE USELESS.”]” (see 1 Chorintians 3:19-20) -
@unknownuser said:
Given an atheistic worldview, I wonder how one might account for logic to exist at all.
Logic is man-made. It's that simple. Or did I misunderstand you?
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@unknownuser said:
@unknownuser said:
Given an atheistic worldview, I wonder how one might account for logic to exist at all.
Logic is man-made. It's that simple. Or did I misunderstand you?
i might think logic is just there as it is. like Alan said once, "...the fact that it is...".
man just invented how to utilise it. and later on picturing and develop sort of systematic of it.
it's something natural within creatures. -
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@unknownuser said:
Er, no. It's a method, with 'rules' that were developed and improved upon over time.
well, that sounds more like parts of a system to me, Tom.
@unknownuser said:
You've not met my gf, have you?
i do have a few samples here, Tom 
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it gets more interesting than before contextual with the topic, in my opinion, it's a simple logic that there could only be one boss in a business. commanding officer in a unit, director in a project, etc.
more than one head figures might give it a lot of mess. since each one of them would probably do things in their own way and desire, each one believe.
i could imagine if one would like the shape of the earth to be a perfect cube and the other one prefer it to be sphere shaped. they'll end up quarreling or even fighting each other. and left the project without even ever start to do it
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This question about 'Logic' is a red-herring.
Why would atheists differ from anyone else on this matter ?
Logic is a method of thought invented/developed by the ancient Greeks [who were mainly theists].
"Logic" is itself a branch of mathematics.
Mathematics is the only real provable 'truth' that is available to us.A "number" either "is" or it "isn't".
Numbers interact in immutable ways.
There are clear mathematical 'rules' and 'theorems'.All scientific 'laws' can be deconstructed back to mathematics [although it's unlikely to be of much practical use].
Any scientific 'laws/theories' are our best current approximation of the truth.
They are practical tools used to understand the world.
They change and develop over time as our understanding advances.
So Newton's laws of motion were good enough on a day-to-day scale when he worked them out, but they were found to be an approximated subset of Einstein's theories of relativity, which also apply to large-scale phenomena, and then came along Quantum mechanics to explain phenomena on a tiny-scale... now a Grand Unified Theory might one day assemble all of these into a new 'theory of everything'...As I said "Logic" is itself a branch of mathematics, so to ask why logic exists is no different from asking why mathematics exists, which brings us full circle to 'why does anything exist at all ?'.
If we accept that 'things' simply exist, and that there are underlying 'laws' as to how they interact, it does not mean that they were 'made' by anyone.
The 'concrete' things [matter/energy] and the 'laws' governing their interactions 'exist'.
BUT they just 'came into being' and don't need to be 'created'...Indeed, the multi-verse theory says that as a result of the underlying rules of 'quantum-flux' every possible universe exists [they simply pop into existence, but are independent of each other] and their underlying 'laws' need not be the same in any of them!
However, the underlying 'laws' that we have in 'our' universe just happen to allow us to exist, observe it and think about it etc, so they do appear to be honed to suit us - however, in the zillions of other universes with less benign rules there is no stable matter, or if there is no sentient beings to consider them. We have the 'laws' we have because without them we wouldn't exist to think about them otherwise... We are not chosen/special, we are just the lucky ones who 'exist'. -
I find these debates regarding creationism vs. science fascinating. Science usually provides a unified front of logic compared to religion, let's not forget that Christianity is not the only belief, which has different theories of creation, rules to live by, afterlife or even reincarnation. Some argue that one God is all gods, but that does not change the fact that many do not believe that there is an afterlife or a god and they choose to live with good character among their fellow human beings, easily as well as any of faith claiming that the tenets of their religion make society livable.
That said about the differing views on creation; I simply do not think that, if there is a God of any kind, it would be knowable. All it takes is to look at the processes which make our bodies function, like DNA and proteins, things like String Theory or even Quantum Mechanics, and one can see the virtually bottomless complexity that allows us function within the space in which we exist. No matter how deep we dig, there always seems to be another layer. What lies beneath? If a being did create the universe, and us, the intelligence needed to create such a thing so vast and complex is undoubtedly beyond our ken. Many religions adhere to the belief that we are alone in this universe, I find that hard to swallow. What a colossal waste of space and matter this would be. If there are souls to be given, why not give them elsewhere too? This brings me to another thought (from a Western perspective); What sort of god lets entire populations be born into poverty, disease, war, rape and violence for the duration of their often brief existence? What sort of a god takes your child from you, your father, mother, spouse before their time to teach you to something or test your faith? What about those that get born into a deformed or vegetative state for the duration of their existence?
This is no god I need. I don't think that if there is a god that it is a hands-on kind of god, that meddles with universal affairs or that of Man. If there is one, and you are granted a life/soul, you have the option of investing it in the wealth of family, friends, charity and your fellow human kind, or it can be frittered away on drugs, crime, murder and any number of other bad things. I would dare to say that many aren't even given the choice of how to live. Judgement is for the afterlife and cannot be negated with a prayer, IMO. I also feel that the end of humanity will be at our own hands and by our own wasteful, selfish and foolish ways, not at the intervention of an extraterrestrial being manipulating the fabric of space and time in order to bring down some apocalypse in a predetermined sequence. Certainly we won't need any external help to do that.
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Not that I want to get immersed in this discussion, but consider:
You said:
"Many religions adhere to the belief that we are alone in this universe, I find that hard to swallow. What a colossal waste of space and matter this would be."
Maybe it takes this huge waste of space, energy, matter(all probably the same "thing") to manifest the eventuality of us. -
Even so, it's a very big universe. It's something of a mantra amongst cosmologists and astrophysicists...the opening lines from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy..."Space is big - really big - you just won't believe how vastly, hugely mind-bogglingly big it is."...because it's simply impossible to get across to people (or even yourself) exactly how incredibly big it really is. Our brains can't cope.
A decade ago, scientists were saying that the number of stars was equal to ten times the number of grains of sand in every desert and on every beach on Earth. That was before the Hubble Deep Space investigations...you can probably add yet another zero onto that now. Even after that explanation you still need to remind yourself how many billions of grains of sand there might be in a Fire Bucket...and that you can walk across some deserts for week after week. And they are rather more than one bucket deep.
I could buy the fact that you might need an entire galaxy for just one planet to have all the right conditions for life, but there are a similar number of galaxies out there to the number of stars in our own; and those are just the ones we know about. If some kind of being created all that, then it's intellect and power goes way beyond the simplistic and heavy-handed anthropomorphic version handed down to us from the Bronze Age.
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@mitcorb said:
Maybe it takes this huge waste of space, energy, matter(all probably the same "thing") to manifest the eventuality of us.
Anything is possible. Understand, I am not against a deity - only religion's attempts at claiming to know the truth of the entire matter and adherence to their truths is mandatory. This IMO is where the matter gets muddled, because something is does not mean it is as described in a flawed, man-made oral history transcribed years or centuries after the supposed events occurred. What is may very well be created, but certainly not for tithes, repentance, circumcision or any of the other odd things we do here in the name of a particular system.
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@ Escape Artist. You try to create your own god, but you will realize only a lowly idol...
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TIG, be serious! ‘Logic’ is NOT a real branch of mathematics, and mathematics are NOT the only real provable truth that is available to us...
Laws of Logic are a reflection of the way God thinks, and way He expects us to think...
These stem from God’s nature! God is Logical, and „in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3)Laws of Logic are immaterial, universal, invariant, abstract entities which govern all possible conceptual relationships.
They are contingent upon the biblical God!See for example the DVD “The ULTIMATE PROOF of Creation – resolving the Origins Debate”, by Dr. Jason Lisle, and you will be elucidated!
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Cornel you contradict yourself at every turn...
Logic IS a part of Mathematics.
AND whether Mathematics is a natural consequence of a naturally occurring Universe, OR a consequence of your God's tinkering with things is immaterial to that relationship.
I said that Mathematics is the basis of the only truth available to us - you almost agreed but then pulled back into crash sophistry...
You say that for you Logic is a direct manifestation of God: QED - for you then Mathematics must be a direct manifestation of God - because Logic itself IS a subset [perhaps even the very basis] of Mathematics.
You cannot redefine Logic as something it isn't - if you do that, then you should be honest and rename it...
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