Does God exist?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Tell me, what happens before Planck time?

And?

This is the strength of science, we can freely admit that there are things we don't know.

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Did everything just spring up out of nothing, or do we just have no way of investigating before that period?

Any philosophical conundrum that applies to this universe applies equally to YHWH. If we must look for an origin of everything, why stop at this universe?

[Urban Ranger]

The Ontological Argument is even easier to refute. First of all, you can just dismiss it because it is just "proof by definition," or reject the idea that existence is a property.

Even if you don't go that route, it depends on three highly implausible premeses:

1. Something that exists is somehow greater than an identical thing that doesn't exist.
2. Existence is a necessary condition for perfection.
3. If something is perfect, it must exist.

You can easily knock over any one of these.

[Geronimo]

5d God hypothesis always give me headaches. It's worse than time travel paradox that way!

It seems to me that in some cases a nd entity can percieve the entirety of a n-1d entitys environment as a finite n-1d geometric (in that special case the two entitys do not share the same time dimension, the nd's time dimension is imperceptable to the n-1d entitity and the n-1d's time dimension appears to be a spatial dimension to the nd). In such a case it would seem that the nd entity might manipulate a n-1d entity's environment in such a way that the n-1d entity percieves communication. However, the real result of this would be the creation of an entire new n-1d spacetime that would alter the 'past' of all events which otherwise had occured in the absense of the 'commication tinkering'. An obvious work around for this would be to have the nd entity create the n-1d entity and it's environment such that the communication was imbedded in it's timeline from the moment of it's creation. In this case the n-1d entity might percieve communication with the nd entity but to the nd entity the entire n-1d environment would appear to be a static unchanging object.

One thing remains clear though. You cannot have true two way 'communication' between such a n-1d and nd entity simply because for the nd entity all information from all points of the n-1d entitys timeline are all available at once and any 'response' to that information in the form of further tinkering with the n-1d entity directly or it's environment would destroy all events that such a response would effect 'after' the moment of alteration ('after' in this case refering to time points 'futureward' along the n-1d's time axis from the site of the 'response'.

In the circumstance that both entities shared the same time dimension but one enjoyed access to an additional space dimension it seems as if maybe true communication could occur. but in that case both would be constrained by that same time dimension. And so while the entity with more dimensional access could be practically omnipotent in interfering in the fewer spacial dimensions environment it would lack the omniscience that being able to percieve the time dimension of the environment with fewer dimensions as a spatial dimension would confer.

So if my understanding is correct, a 5d entity interacting with our universe might allow for it to exhibit the capabilities of God and would even instantly imply that it would be in some sense our creator, it would also mean that it would have direct responsibility for all events in our universe.

Whaleboy, is the entire reason that you reject the possibility of a 5d entity interacting with our universe the fact that such interaction would inherently disrupt the timeline? Would you reject the possiblity of a creator interacting but only in the act of creation? Such 'interaction' could appear to be continuous and ongoing to us since it would effect various points of our timeline but to the 5d entity it would simply be a single event.

[Robert]

[SIZE=1] Urban Ranger: Any philosophical conundrum that applies to this universe applies equally to YHWH. If we must look for an origin of everything, why stop at this universe?

Why would philosophical conundrums that apply to this universe apply equally to God?
If God is from an whole other realm, with other rationals and natural laws, why would that what counts for us count for him as well?

Man created computers. Computers need electricity. Now two computers say to each other: everything we know needs electricity. In fact our existance (still computers talking) consists of electricity and no-elictricity (hence the bits, the 1 and the 0)
Anything that created us must fall under the laws of electricity.

Pherhaps for any smart computer that is the highest he can get. But in fact man who did create the computer in fact, does not have to obey to the laws of electricity. Man invented electricity.

There's no reason to be sure that God must obey to the same laws as everything in our realm must obey to.
We can be sure that everything we can observe has to obey to these laws, but we can't be sure about the things outside our realm.

God created time, God created the need for a first cause, God created space, God created dimensions.
We don't understand how anything can exist without cause, time, space, dimensions. Like computers can't imagine anything without electricity.

Saying that God needs a cause because we need a cause is like saying men need electricity because computers do so.

[Ned]

I'm not going to read thru this entire thread. It seems filled with fruitless argument. However, I do have a question. Do we have any idea, from a physics point of view, of what existed just prior to the big bang?

[Drogue]

Yes, though not conclusively. The most recognised theory, IIRC, is that that there was an abundance of energy, that under some extreme conditions can turn into matter, I believe in a reverse nuclear reaction sort of way, and that caused the big bang. But then my knowledge of astrophysics comes from Horizon, Equinox and various other documentaries, I don't claim to have studied the field.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Drogue
Yes, though not conclusively. The most recognised theory, IIRC, is that that there was an abundance of energy, that under some extreme conditions can turn into matter, I believe in a reverse nuclear reaction sort of way, and that caused the big bang. But then my knowledge of astrophysics comes from Horizon, Equinox and various other documentaries, I don't claim to have studied the field.

Very dense energy?

How could that happen naturally?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by CyberShy
Why would philosophical conundrums that apply to this universe apply equally to God?
If God is from an whole other realm, with other rationals and natural laws, why would that what counts for us count for him as well?

Because it's philosophy, not science.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ned
I'm not going to read thru this entire thread. It seems filled with fruitless argument. However, I do have a question. Do we have any idea, from a physics point of view, of what existed just prior to the big bang?

All of the universe cooped up in an infinitesimal point.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


All of the universe cooped up in an infinitesimal point.

In the form of energy.

But, how could that happen naturally?

[Kuciwalker]

It ... ... started out like that?

How could God happen naturally?

[Drogue]

Given that such a huge quantity of energy would be, by it's nature, unstable, it seems plausible. Given that much energy again, yes it could happen. However I'm not sure you understand the scale of the energy. Imagine the entire universe broken down in nuclear reactions, with the lead that's left compressed into a black hole. Probably gives you an idea. But like I said, I'm no expert, I'd recommend doing some research on it to find a better answer.

[Ramo]

We can't model what happens at singularities through generally accepted physics.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by CyberShy
Saying that God needs a cause because we need a cause is like saying men need electricity because computers do so.

So, why does this universe need a cause?

[Robert]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Originally posted by CyberShy
Why would philosophical conundrums that apply to this universe apply equally to God?
If God is from an whole other realm, with other rationals and natural laws, why would that what counts for us count for him as well?

Because it's philosophy, not science.

philosophy acts within the borders of our ratio. Otherwise it's phantasy, not philosophy.
why should God have to fit within the borders of our ratio?

Urban Ranger: So, why does this universe need a cause?

Because all parts of the universe need a cause.
And the universe is just the sum of all it's parts.

But indeed, you can chose. Either one choses to believe that the universe needs no cause and has always been, or one believes that something extra-universal caused the universe.

I think there is no scientific reason for believing that anything within our realm could have always existed without any cause.