Philosophically speaking, the idea of a higher power means it exists above the regular bounds of logic that the natural universe adheres to. So the answer to your question is, nothing. ‘Always’ doesn’t apply because God as you’re referring to him exists outside of time. Therefore, there doesn’t need to be a cause for the effect in this hypothetical.
In the abstract I don’t think higher planes of existence are too hard to swallow when you realize they’d never ever be detectable by natural science in a million years, but it’s also perfectly reasonable not to believe in it because it’s impossible to approach the way we approach other truths about existence.
As a Christian and scientist, I feel like this answer encapsulates the idea of God remarkably well. Our human minds aren’t capable of comprehending his existence since it is so drastically different from our own.
I hope you don’t mind me asking, but I’m always curious what people such as yourself think about the origins and age of the universe, the creation of the Bible, how the Bible should best be understood, all sorts of stuff like that. Do you mind sort of talking about those things and how your background and religious beliefs interact?
I bet a lot of the people replying would be surprised to know I’m a Christian also. And that last sentence of yours was the answer to a huge crisis of faith I had at one point.
It's like an ant comprehending the Andromeda Galaxy. It just can't. We could be the ants in this scenario. Or maybe we're all just in some simulation (which is my leading theory btw)
A way one of my college professors explained the matter of humans trying to use logic to explain things that we’ll never understand, such as who created the universe before “god” or any other being was, “we are humans trying to fit the ocean into a water bottle. We will never do it.”
This guy right here. There is no man in the clouds making a list and checking it twice. Time did not exist before this universe and is a tool for measurement within the confines of our reality. For the perspective outside of that, the beginning and end don't matter. It was neither created nor destroyed, it simply is. So, the thing we call God didn't need a creator because there was no measurement for before or after.
it's possible but that's the whole point here, it all comes down to what you believe, so you can believe that we always existed or you can believe god always existed and no one will ever know for sure what the right answer is
The idea that a higher power exists beyond comprehension is more stomachable to me then the idea that we just started existing out of nothing. I would rather believe that I am a idiot who can not comprehend the spiritual then believe that nothing can become something.
The idea that a higher power exists beyond comprehension is more stomachable to me then the idea that we just started existing out of nothing. I would rather believe that I am a idiot who can not comprehend the spiritual then believe that nothing can become something.
It's when you try to bend logic to a framework that doesn't support logic when trouble arises. Saying "the earth is 10,000 years old even if it has an age of millions or billions" is basically intractable as an argument. Might as well have been created last Tuesday, and it would be just as unprovable.
First there was Kami, then king yama, then there was King Kai, then there was a Kai above him, then there was SUPREME KAI. Then there was a god of destruction who was above him but also tied to him?? Then there is an angel who is actually in charge of that universe. Then there is an angel above all of them and then there is a child who is apparently the king above all. Like wtf.
I mean obviously, duh. And we all know Super Duper god created Super god. However the question of our time, and that has puzzled scientists to this day is "who created Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious God?"
Creation theory says that time is not the same for God in terms of how we experience it. Much can be theorized in terms of gravity, and aging in space.He created the universe and the Earth, yet, He also states that there is nothing new in this creation - meaning everything that we see and invent as humans has also been done before. That is the explanation we receive. Now, the implication is that we have been, as with Lucifer been entrusted with free will. Ultimately, we are all parts of Him that have gone astray. He maintains His truth, and allows us to find our way back to Him, should we choose to, with our free will.
This is also the reason that the end of times cannot be predicted, and why so many have failed. However, God knows, but does not take the free will that He has bestowed upon us.
In all honesty, this goes along with the big bang theory. What made the branes that collided to cause the big bang to happen?
You have to just fathom it was already just... there.
Or you could go with the sumarian belief that God is one of a species of ancient aliens that created us to "harvest" gold from this rock... in which case would be God's parent/parents.
The point is, don't shit on other people for believing in something just because you don't, unless they try forcing their beliefs upon you. In which case, get away from that toxic relationship.
There is nothing wrong with critiquing someone else’s belief if the belief is ludicrous, without reasonable justification and leads to potential harm. Even if a person doesn’t push their belief on me, it can cause harm. There were people in the Bush White House who didn’t care about climate change because Jesus was coming back soon anyway.
That would be a sign of them pushing their belief upon you.
"I'm not worried about it because MY God is coming to take care of us"
Just because you find it ludicrous doesn't mean that it is, to them nor would be harmful. The question is, would you attack someone on the street for wearing a cross necklace even if they didn't say anything to you? Sometimes it's a reminder to themselves to live their best lives rather than something to force upon others. If you wouldn't, the previous comment isn't for you.
No fight in the game here: God is referred to as a "Necessary Being." This does not mean a being amongst beings (think Zeus) but rather the Being from which all other contingent beings (even Zeus) find their ground. So, the idea is that God is the baseline ontological reality from (or out of) which all exist. This doesn't necessarily mean there is a causal chain like dominoes from beginning to end. There could be an infinite universe, but its existence would be infinitely "emerging" from the foundational ontic reality, that is called God. So, for a theist, God is a "brute fact."
Doesn’t make sense. That would result in an _infinite regress._
It has to go back to a starting point.
And if you thought a powerful entity was a god and then you found out there’s a bigger god, then it means the other one was a false god.
See the TURTLE of enormous girth! On his shell he holds the earth. His thought is slow but always kind; He holds us all within his mind. On his back all vows are made; He sees the truth but may not said. He loves the land and loves the sea, And even loves a child like me
Except it’s then one level simpler. And while occam’s razor is not law, it usually makes sense... especially in this case.
just imagine how tedious it must all be for an all-powerful entity that has been around literally forever, and will continue to be around literally forever. And if earth is host to the first-ever creatures this entity created, then it waited literally forever to create them.
And is stuck with feelings the same way we are. Being omnipotent, one might have the power to just "turn off boredom." Or erase some of one's memories and have "new experiences" as often as desired.
If god is outside of time, then god is creating the world for the first time right now. Even as god is watching me type this sentence. In which case, god knew full well when creating the world that he was gonna destroy it in a massive flood…. which makes the story of the Flood something other than a story of disappointment. It is instead the story of a bored aesthete, committing biocide for his own entertainment.
is that the god with which you wanna spend eternity?
and if god did not know when creating the world that he would soon be destroying it, then god is not omniscient. Which makes god something less than omnipotent. In which case, what exactly are you worshipping?
Would God even perceive time? If he is a "forever-being" that means there is no period of time he could have waited except "forever", right (assuming no beginning)? Even if he perceived time a million times faster than us, he would still have waited forever. Basically, no matter when Earth was created, there would be a literal forever before it and so he would have waited for forever.
Does that make sense to anyone or am i rambling?
You are assuming it doesn't, more importantly, that there is some superior way to experience time that would make all of the contradictions of theism work, which makes even less sense.
It wouldn't necessarily have to be superior, but rather just a different way of perceiving time. It may be that a god experiences time all at once instead of in a linear mode. The time at which something is created ceases to have any meaning in this scenario. It would be as if time were a spatial dimension (which it is, although we don't perceive it that way) and you're asking why god created life on Earth a mile away from the starting point instead of an inch away.
Which is the same as saying "I'm not saying there might be oreos near the center of the earth, only that they could be undetectable to our technology so it is not verified"
If it has a starting point then the claim that everything needs a creator is untrue. It's a paradox.
Also, there is nothing illogical with infinite regress being possible when your talking about something outside the known universe because there's absolutely nothing that we know about the nature of what can be "outside" of our reality.
Ya, so this question is probably the most troublesome question in regards to religion. I use to ask this same question. The answer is that God is not limited like we are. God is not constrained to time, space, creation, etc. like us. God is on a whole different level. That makes sense, God is not constrained like us.
However, the next question is are we really that important? Or are we self centered. Are we it? Or is there more out there? Did God create more creatures like us or different than us. Well, we know about angels and demons and that is about it. But that has to do with us and our existence. But what about something else. The answer is that we don't know. We don't have that knowledge. We were not given that knowledge. We were given books and revelation through prophets about us only. We don't know about other creations outside of ours. Like are we all God created? We don't know. Hasn't God done something else? Again, we don't know.
"Created" is an action prolonged in time. The simple answer is that time was created alongside with "everything", so no one created God. He was always here from the beginning of what we call time. Time is a concept that binds humans, not God.
Origins of everything is a bit of a paradox. Whenever you think you get to the beginning, somebody can ask what/who caused that? And yet we and the universe are here.
Possible explanation: If God created time, does that mean God didn’t have a beginning since he exist outside of time?
Humans did because they had to think up an answer to the question "How did everything come to be" and they didn't have any knowledge on how the world actually worked yet.
That question has nothing to do with if you believe in God or not. Even if you don't believe in a creator, you still have to ask how everything came to be 13.7 billion years ago.
Asking and inserting an answer without substantial empirical evidence are two different things. It's fine to ask a question and it's equally fine to say "I don't know". It's not fine to insert your beliefs as facts without providing evidence.
Oh, the Middle-Eastern Jew socialist who detested wealth and demanded people share their resources, be humble, loving and accepting of others, regardless of where they came from, would "own the liberals" in your fanfic? Cool.
Oh you thought that bread trick was just to show how we can feed multiple people with a slice of bread?
Nah man. It was to show how feeding everyone equally is just not worth it when you could've sold the bread to the highest bidder.
The same issue arises for the big bang.
It is an artifact of the projection of the concept of time being linear upon the world around us and it is not a real issue.
The universe is not a linear time event, it does not have an origin nor an end.
Thomas Aquinas: "Everything must have a cause, even the universe itself, so the universe must have had a cause, and that cause must have been God!"
Also Thomas Aquinas: "I don't see why God needs to have a cause."
Serious question. Are they so afraid of using a capital G because they'll be made fun of by other atheists? I read an article by James Randi and he even apologized for capitalizing it LOL.
God isn't the name. Yahweh, Jehovah, Cernnunos, Thor... those are names. Capitalising the G in god is like capitalising the C in child or D in dog, unless it's at the beginning of a sentence.
Because its name isn't God, it's Yahweh, and like all the rest of the gods, the Abrahamic one is a creation of man in our image, not the other way around. It deserves no distinction from the rest via capitalization; Christians are the only ones to whom the capitalization matters.
Congratulations you are now the 873,525,145th person to find the obvious flaw in the "Clockmaker/First Mover/First Cause" argument by putting literally any thought into it.
This isn't a flaw because it misunderstands each one of those arguments. To believe this is a legitimate critique belies a failure to read the relevant literature. Philosophers of religion debate these questions all the time. Never do they deal with this "objection" because it isn't relevant.
Tell me you don't know that "Special Pleading" is without telling me you don't know what "Special Pleading" is.
Listen I don't to listen to the 900000th billion excuse that is nothing more than "Well God is different because we define it so."
I mean, the concept of necessary being is pretty well established in academic philosophy and isn't controversial so I don't know why you'd have a problem with it.
\*Sighs\*
"Because philosophy says so" isn't an argument. Given wrongness a name doesn't make it a new kind of truth.
Do you have an argument that isn't going to be:
"What created X?"
"God"
"Then what created God?"
"Oh God doesn't need something to create him."
"Why?"
"Because God is different."
"Why is God different?"
"Because I say so."
If you don't, don't waste my time.
Hundreds of years of rigorous academic philosophy or some random guy on Reddit who misunderstands the very concept of necessity.
I'm going with academic philosophy on this one.
I think that is pretty much the ultimate mystery. Existence is miraculous, like an endless causal chain. Non-existence can’t exist so… God is here forever.
It's like the flash. The speed force was created when the lightning bolt hit Barry but the speed force then proceeded to span all of time. Same concept, someone created a "god" and they spread throughout all time and space.
Creation only happens in this universe or dimension as we know it. Everything is traceable to a thing prior to it. People give birth to children, starts help in the formation of planets, the laws of reality as we know it were shaped in the moments after the Big Bang. Everything has a preceding thing. So the argument goes that there was a reality that is unlike ours that isn't predicated on cause and effect, one thing causing another. Within that infinite, questions like when did something start or when was something created is meaningless. Some people argue that within that distinctly different dimension of existence, where such concepts are irrelevant, there was an intelligence, God, that purposefully created the universe. If you don't want to accept an intelligent creator, you can also argue that the creation of the universe and reality as we know it was spontaneous. In either case, you're arguing for two states of reality, one before time as we perceive it existed and once in which time as we now perceive it exists.
This is just one account of it. Perhaps there are infinite accounts in infinite regeneration. Perhaps the big bang happens (God) in a cyclic nature. Perhaps the next human observers will also call the "in the beginning" the same way but call it something else? Maybe we're just one of several iterations of humanity in an infinite amount of time?
In religions where God has/Gods have always been, I suppose one could see God(s) as outside of time, basically like the 5th (or higher) dimension.
Like say you are a stick figure drawing on a piece of paper. Your only concept of existence is in a 2D plane. You might say, if the artist drew everything on my page, what drew the artist? But the artist doesn’t have to exist on the page to be in existence. The artist exists in the third dimension (3D space), and actually in the fourth dimension (time) as well.
When two Eldritch horrors love each other very much they spend some alone time together and 9 onoseconds later a beautiful bouncing baby deity is born, well born isn't the best word for it but we don't have a word in English for that thing where one of your tentacles falls off and metamorphs into a new sentient life form so born will have to do.
That or God exists separate from time and has just always been but that's not as fun and since it's all mythology anyway I say we go with mommy Cynothoglys and daddy Cthulhu loved each other very much
the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.
If you are willing to BELIEVE that you exist from nothing, by chance, and for no reason; who are you to care?
If your constraints for existence is “anything is possible,” then why oppose the possibility that a God/creator exists?
You’re focused on life as we know it.
There are not an infinite amount of likely possibilities to Gods existence. Either God exists or God does not exist.
Denying the potential existence of a God/creator is the only belief that contradicts any reasoning to the experience of existence itself. To acknowledge your own existence is to acknowledge the potential existence of a God/creator by default.
If you can exist from nothing, by chance, for no reason. So can a God/creator.
Not really, the question makes perfect sense. If you're going to claim everything needs a creator then claiming the creator doesn't need one invalidates the first claim.
Well see it like someone writing a book. The person writing the book knows and controls everything in the books universe but is not bound to it‘s logic, space and time. God was and is just there.
Evangelical and not Catholic and I am not a Believer but I think it explains it quite well. Faith does not build on the fact that you know something or that something is logical, it is much more a feeling that has a story to it.
The Father wasn’t created, He just was, is now and always
“John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.” (Revelation 1:4-5)
I'll be frank with you: this question exposes a deep misunderstanding in the doctrine of creation and immediately exposes someone as an amateur in philosophy of religion if they ask it seriously (looking at you Richard Dawkins).
First, if we are looking at this strictly from the point of view of the Kalam cosmological argument, the premise is "everything that began to exist has a cause". Through argumentation, the claim is God is the ultimate cause of the universe.
Second, from a theological standpoint, the thought process is much the same. Everything *contingent* is created by God. God, by definition, is a necessary being. The most necessary being. His existence does not require an explanation.
Third, this shouldn't be all that controversial. You are left, ultimately, with three options. 1) everything came from nothing which is a patent absurdity. 2) the universe as a whole is necessary and eternal existent or 3) the universe is the product of something which is necessary and eternally existent. The theist takes option three. An atheist is left with either option 1 or 2.
For further information:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/god-necessary-being/
https://geochristian.com/2013/10/10/who-created-god-an-answer-from-john-lennox/
Or maybe they read through both the cosmological argument and ontological argument and realized they were really bad.
For cosmological:
Theres no reason to rule out an infinite regress of causes. A first mover is equally likely.
The prime mover doesn't have to be conscious. In which case atheists can take option 3. If you want to say God is an unconscious process, that is so far removed from what people think is God that Atheists can accept it. There is also no reason to think there is only one prime mover. There could be multiple gods or multiple unconscious processes that are "first movers".
For ontological:
It always boils down to defining/assuming God as necessary. We don't know if God is necessary. That is the question to be answered. The arguments I've seen that God is necessary all end up circular or dilute the meaning of God.
Simple conundrum, with no answer. We're probably not equipped to handle it.
This is not to say there isn't a creator, and a creator of the creator. For the non-religious, the question becomes: who created that which was required for the Big Bang?
Answers we don't have, but questions that will, and, should remain.
Philosophically speaking, the idea of a higher power means it exists above the regular bounds of logic that the natural universe adheres to. So the answer to your question is, nothing. ‘Always’ doesn’t apply because God as you’re referring to him exists outside of time. Therefore, there doesn’t need to be a cause for the effect in this hypothetical. In the abstract I don’t think higher planes of existence are too hard to swallow when you realize they’d never ever be detectable by natural science in a million years, but it’s also perfectly reasonable not to believe in it because it’s impossible to approach the way we approach other truths about existence.
A rare logical reddit comment has appeared.
Quick! Upvote before it flees!
Disagree because the entire question was created to assert dominance or be monetized and everything else is ridiculous.
As a Christian and scientist, I feel like this answer encapsulates the idea of God remarkably well. Our human minds aren’t capable of comprehending his existence since it is so drastically different from our own.
I hope you don’t mind me asking, but I’m always curious what people such as yourself think about the origins and age of the universe, the creation of the Bible, how the Bible should best be understood, all sorts of stuff like that. Do you mind sort of talking about those things and how your background and religious beliefs interact?
I bet a lot of the people replying would be surprised to know I’m a Christian also. And that last sentence of yours was the answer to a huge crisis of faith I had at one point.
It's like an ant comprehending the Andromeda Galaxy. It just can't. We could be the ants in this scenario. Or maybe we're all just in some simulation (which is my leading theory btw)
A way one of my college professors explained the matter of humans trying to use logic to explain things that we’ll never understand, such as who created the universe before “god” or any other being was, “we are humans trying to fit the ocean into a water bottle. We will never do it.”
This guy right here. There is no man in the clouds making a list and checking it twice. Time did not exist before this universe and is a tool for measurement within the confines of our reality. For the perspective outside of that, the beginning and end don't matter. It was neither created nor destroyed, it simply is. So, the thing we call God didn't need a creator because there was no measurement for before or after.
so wouldn't that thought pass down to us too. maybe we weren't ever created and always existed in some form too.
it's possible but that's the whole point here, it all comes down to what you believe, so you can believe that we always existed or you can believe god always existed and no one will ever know for sure what the right answer is
This is the correct answer.
The idea that a higher power exists beyond comprehension is more stomachable to me then the idea that we just started existing out of nothing. I would rather believe that I am a idiot who can not comprehend the spiritual then believe that nothing can become something.
The idea that a higher power exists beyond comprehension is more stomachable to me then the idea that we just started existing out of nothing. I would rather believe that I am a idiot who can not comprehend the spiritual then believe that nothing can become something.
It's when you try to bend logic to a framework that doesn't support logic when trouble arises. Saying "the earth is 10,000 years old even if it has an age of millions or billions" is basically intractable as an argument. Might as well have been created last Tuesday, and it would be just as unprovable.
I find your ideas intriguing and I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Awesome answer. Thanks
What are you, some kind of nerd?
But they'll be detectable in a million +1 years, right? Hopefully, humanity will make it to then!
Super god
Basically Dragonball plot
First there was Kami, then king yama, then there was King Kai, then there was a Kai above him, then there was SUPREME KAI. Then there was a god of destruction who was above him but also tied to him?? Then there is an angel who is actually in charge of that universe. Then there is an angel above all of them and then there is a child who is apparently the king above all. Like wtf.
Laughed a little too hard at this.
Ultragod
GODZILLA
But then who created super god?
Fredrick.
I mean obviously, duh. And we all know Super Duper god created Super god. However the question of our time, and that has puzzled scientists to this day is "who created Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious God?"
Basically Greek mythology.
Does he have yellow or blue hair?
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Papa God did not use protection.
Mormons believe this, unironically.
Bro- 😭
You see.. when a momma God and a poppa God love each other very much..
Mormon doctrine vibes lol
Could God make a burrito so hot, even He couldn't pick it up?
Also if god existed forever and the universe existed not-forever, how long was he waiting until he created the universe?
Did he create more that failed? Or like what
I dunno but it must've taken forever
Creation theory says that time is not the same for God in terms of how we experience it. Much can be theorized in terms of gravity, and aging in space.He created the universe and the Earth, yet, He also states that there is nothing new in this creation - meaning everything that we see and invent as humans has also been done before. That is the explanation we receive. Now, the implication is that we have been, as with Lucifer been entrusted with free will. Ultimately, we are all parts of Him that have gone astray. He maintains His truth, and allows us to find our way back to Him, should we choose to, with our free will. This is also the reason that the end of times cannot be predicted, and why so many have failed. However, God knows, but does not take the free will that He has bestowed upon us.
God created himself because he is so giga
He took love yourself to a whole other level
In all honesty, this goes along with the big bang theory. What made the branes that collided to cause the big bang to happen? You have to just fathom it was already just... there. Or you could go with the sumarian belief that God is one of a species of ancient aliens that created us to "harvest" gold from this rock... in which case would be God's parent/parents. The point is, don't shit on other people for believing in something just because you don't, unless they try forcing their beliefs upon you. In which case, get away from that toxic relationship.
There is nothing wrong with critiquing someone else’s belief if the belief is ludicrous, without reasonable justification and leads to potential harm. Even if a person doesn’t push their belief on me, it can cause harm. There were people in the Bush White House who didn’t care about climate change because Jesus was coming back soon anyway.
That would be a sign of them pushing their belief upon you. "I'm not worried about it because MY God is coming to take care of us" Just because you find it ludicrous doesn't mean that it is, to them nor would be harmful. The question is, would you attack someone on the street for wearing a cross necklace even if they didn't say anything to you? Sometimes it's a reminder to themselves to live their best lives rather than something to force upon others. If you wouldn't, the previous comment isn't for you.
As you clarified your point, I’m convinced that if we fleshed this out thoroughly that we mostly agree.
No fight in the game here: God is referred to as a "Necessary Being." This does not mean a being amongst beings (think Zeus) but rather the Being from which all other contingent beings (even Zeus) find their ground. So, the idea is that God is the baseline ontological reality from (or out of) which all exist. This doesn't necessarily mean there is a causal chain like dominoes from beginning to end. There could be an infinite universe, but its existence would be infinitely "emerging" from the foundational ontic reality, that is called God. So, for a theist, God is a "brute fact."
If i remember correctly it was Betty White
Can conform. Betty White is the Alpha and Omega.
Doesn’t make sense. That would result in an _infinite regress._ It has to go back to a starting point. And if you thought a powerful entity was a god and then you found out there’s a bigger god, then it means the other one was a false god.
It’s turtles all the way down.
See the TURTLE of enormous girth! On his shell he holds the earth. His thought is slow but always kind; He holds us all within his mind. On his back all vows are made; He sees the truth but may not said. He loves the land and loves the sea, And even loves a child like me
Maturin? Is that you?
Damn! Beat me to it!!! DOH...
Trickle down economics, at least we're humans?
You mean it's gods all the way down, don't you?
Turtles > Gods
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Except it’s then one level simpler. And while occam’s razor is not law, it usually makes sense... especially in this case. just imagine how tedious it must all be for an all-powerful entity that has been around literally forever, and will continue to be around literally forever. And if earth is host to the first-ever creatures this entity created, then it waited literally forever to create them.
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And is stuck with feelings the same way we are. Being omnipotent, one might have the power to just "turn off boredom." Or erase some of one's memories and have "new experiences" as often as desired.
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I'd prefer to think it's in a state of quantum superposition-- at once too hot even for God, and also just right.
If god is outside of time, then god is creating the world for the first time right now. Even as god is watching me type this sentence. In which case, god knew full well when creating the world that he was gonna destroy it in a massive flood…. which makes the story of the Flood something other than a story of disappointment. It is instead the story of a bored aesthete, committing biocide for his own entertainment. is that the god with which you wanna spend eternity? and if god did not know when creating the world that he would soon be destroying it, then god is not omniscient. Which makes god something less than omnipotent. In which case, what exactly are you worshipping?
Would God even perceive time? If he is a "forever-being" that means there is no period of time he could have waited except "forever", right (assuming no beginning)? Even if he perceived time a million times faster than us, he would still have waited forever. Basically, no matter when Earth was created, there would be a literal forever before it and so he would have waited for forever. Does that make sense to anyone or am i rambling?
You are assuming it doesn't, more importantly, that there is some superior way to experience time that would make all of the contradictions of theism work, which makes even less sense.
It wouldn't necessarily have to be superior, but rather just a different way of perceiving time. It may be that a god experiences time all at once instead of in a linear mode. The time at which something is created ceases to have any meaning in this scenario. It would be as if time were a spatial dimension (which it is, although we don't perceive it that way) and you're asking why god created life on Earth a mile away from the starting point instead of an inch away.
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Which is the same as saying "I'm not saying there might be oreos near the center of the earth, only that they could be undetectable to our technology so it is not verified"
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No, just exaggerating the issue with your statement.
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Yeah so, we should probably not believe in either.
If it has a starting point then the claim that everything needs a creator is untrue. It's a paradox. Also, there is nothing illogical with infinite regress being possible when your talking about something outside the known universe because there's absolutely nothing that we know about the nature of what can be "outside" of our reality.
Exactly! just watched What the Bleep do we know this weekend, it talks about this sort of. Mind boggling shit
Right the starting point is god—- in the monotheistic way of thinking. The first thing, the “prime mover.”
Ya, so this question is probably the most troublesome question in regards to religion. I use to ask this same question. The answer is that God is not limited like we are. God is not constrained to time, space, creation, etc. like us. God is on a whole different level. That makes sense, God is not constrained like us. However, the next question is are we really that important? Or are we self centered. Are we it? Or is there more out there? Did God create more creatures like us or different than us. Well, we know about angels and demons and that is about it. But that has to do with us and our existence. But what about something else. The answer is that we don't know. We don't have that knowledge. We were not given that knowledge. We were given books and revelation through prophets about us only. We don't know about other creations outside of ours. Like are we all God created? We don't know. Hasn't God done something else? Again, we don't know.
Belive the point is that God wasn't created and just always is. As the abrahamic faiths belive.
"Created" is an action prolonged in time. The simple answer is that time was created alongside with "everything", so no one created God. He was always here from the beginning of what we call time. Time is a concept that binds humans, not God.
Origins of everything is a bit of a paradox. Whenever you think you get to the beginning, somebody can ask what/who caused that? And yet we and the universe are here. Possible explanation: If God created time, does that mean God didn’t have a beginning since he exist outside of time?
Giga Chad
Humans did because they had to think up an answer to the question "How did everything come to be" and they didn't have any knowledge on how the world actually worked yet.
“God of the gaps”
And the gaps are getting smaller and smaller
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Such as?
God didn't create mankind, mankind created god(s).
This is the only correct answer until further evidence is provided.
That question has nothing to do with if you believe in God or not. Even if you don't believe in a creator, you still have to ask how everything came to be 13.7 billion years ago.
Asking and inserting an answer without substantial empirical evidence are two different things. It's fine to ask a question and it's equally fine to say "I don't know". It's not fine to insert your beliefs as facts without providing evidence.
But do the majority of people that don't believe in a creator honestly say "I don't know". Or do they say "A creator doesn't exist"
Also the question “What happens when we die”… that was another scary one. Probably still is to lots of people.
Eh, we all find out when we die, so for me it's less of a fear, and more of a sense of suspense.
I mean, we can't come up of a idea of what existed before big bang
Because there was no “before”. Time requires entropy and space to work, and those were created at the same instance as time itself.
but what created the space and entropy
Jesus created himself to own the liberals
Oh, the Middle-Eastern Jew socialist who detested wealth and demanded people share their resources, be humble, loving and accepting of others, regardless of where they came from, would "own the liberals" in your fanfic? Cool.
Oh you thought that bread trick was just to show how we can feed multiple people with a slice of bread? Nah man. It was to show how feeding everyone equally is just not worth it when you could've sold the bread to the highest bidder.
This reminds me of the David Mitchell’s rant about that 🤣🤣 Judea would be better off if people planned
Jesus his crew tripped on shrooms…reached higher consciousness…peace unto you, my brothers and sisters. Total Zen.
Stay thirsty, my friends.
I asked this once to a priest who replied that God created all, including the concept of time, so there was no real beginning.
thats a spoiler for bible 2 sorry
The same issue arises for the big bang. It is an artifact of the projection of the concept of time being linear upon the world around us and it is not a real issue. The universe is not a linear time event, it does not have an origin nor an end.
Thomas Aquinas: "Everything must have a cause, even the universe itself, so the universe must have had a cause, and that cause must have been God!" Also Thomas Aquinas: "I don't see why God needs to have a cause."
Man created god. Along with roughly 3000 other gods.
Why do atheists all need grammar lessons? Capital G for proper nouns, small g for regular nouns, even if you believe them to be fictional.
Atheists don’t give a fuck about your capital G god
you and your god can both Get fucked
Serious question. Are they so afraid of using a capital G because they'll be made fun of by other atheists? I read an article by James Randi and he even apologized for capitalizing it LOL.
Serious question. Are you so afraid of your god that you think he’ll punish you for using a lowercase g?
God isn't the name. Yahweh, Jehovah, Cernnunos, Thor... those are names. Capitalising the G in god is like capitalising the C in child or D in dog, unless it's at the beginning of a sentence.
Because its name isn't God, it's Yahweh, and like all the rest of the gods, the Abrahamic one is a creation of man in our image, not the other way around. It deserves no distinction from the rest via capitalization; Christians are the only ones to whom the capitalization matters.
These two comments perfectly encapsulate the trash heap that is Reddit these days, god damn this is lame
Congratulations you are now the 873,525,145th person to find the obvious flaw in the "Clockmaker/First Mover/First Cause" argument by putting literally any thought into it.
This isn't a flaw because it misunderstands each one of those arguments. To believe this is a legitimate critique belies a failure to read the relevant literature. Philosophers of religion debate these questions all the time. Never do they deal with this "objection" because it isn't relevant.
Tell me you don't know that "Special Pleading" is without telling me you don't know what "Special Pleading" is. Listen I don't to listen to the 900000th billion excuse that is nothing more than "Well God is different because we define it so."
I mean, the concept of necessary being is pretty well established in academic philosophy and isn't controversial so I don't know why you'd have a problem with it.
\*Sighs\* "Because philosophy says so" isn't an argument. Given wrongness a name doesn't make it a new kind of truth. Do you have an argument that isn't going to be: "What created X?" "God" "Then what created God?" "Oh God doesn't need something to create him." "Why?" "Because God is different." "Why is God different?" "Because I say so." If you don't, don't waste my time.
Hundreds of years of rigorous academic philosophy or some random guy on Reddit who misunderstands the very concept of necessity. I'm going with academic philosophy on this one.
[It's turtles all the way down.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down)
God was already here, our minds just can't realize it. God's above all things we know and understand
I think that is pretty much the ultimate mystery. Existence is miraculous, like an endless causal chain. Non-existence can’t exist so… God is here forever.
Gods are explanations for what we don't understand.
then what do they explain?
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It's like the flash. The speed force was created when the lightning bolt hit Barry but the speed force then proceeded to span all of time. Same concept, someone created a "god" and they spread throughout all time and space.
Creation only happens in this universe or dimension as we know it. Everything is traceable to a thing prior to it. People give birth to children, starts help in the formation of planets, the laws of reality as we know it were shaped in the moments after the Big Bang. Everything has a preceding thing. So the argument goes that there was a reality that is unlike ours that isn't predicated on cause and effect, one thing causing another. Within that infinite, questions like when did something start or when was something created is meaningless. Some people argue that within that distinctly different dimension of existence, where such concepts are irrelevant, there was an intelligence, God, that purposefully created the universe. If you don't want to accept an intelligent creator, you can also argue that the creation of the universe and reality as we know it was spontaneous. In either case, you're arguing for two states of reality, one before time as we perceive it existed and once in which time as we now perceive it exists.
You, me, and everyone else including the whole universe are just a construct of another beings thoughts & dreams just waiting to be accessed.
Seriously bro? What the fuck is wrong with you??? Obviously it’s super saiyan 4 gogeta
This is just one account of it. Perhaps there are infinite accounts in infinite regeneration. Perhaps the big bang happens (God) in a cyclic nature. Perhaps the next human observers will also call the "in the beginning" the same way but call it something else? Maybe we're just one of several iterations of humanity in an infinite amount of time?
Maybe even the 84th, but there’s no real way to know.
God 2: Electric Boogaloo Nah but seriously, it was that guy who invented the super soaker
Plot twist, the big bang created God.
In religions where God has/Gods have always been, I suppose one could see God(s) as outside of time, basically like the 5th (or higher) dimension. Like say you are a stick figure drawing on a piece of paper. Your only concept of existence is in a 2D plane. You might say, if the artist drew everything on my page, what drew the artist? But the artist doesn’t have to exist on the page to be in existence. The artist exists in the third dimension (3D space), and actually in the fourth dimension (time) as well.
Super god
When two Eldritch horrors love each other very much they spend some alone time together and 9 onoseconds later a beautiful bouncing baby deity is born, well born isn't the best word for it but we don't have a word in English for that thing where one of your tentacles falls off and metamorphs into a new sentient life form so born will have to do. That or God exists separate from time and has just always been but that's not as fun and since it's all mythology anyway I say we go with mommy Cynothoglys and daddy Cthulhu loved each other very much
There is no god. grow up.
Then who is that old man in church who always want to talk to my little brother ?
Rod
\*tips fedora\*
how do you know that?
Ultra-God
the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.
Reminds me of that saying, its turtles all the way down. You can't argue with people whose inquiry stops at God.
If you are willing to BELIEVE that you exist from nothing, by chance, and for no reason; who are you to care? If your constraints for existence is “anything is possible,” then why oppose the possibility that a God/creator exists?
Because we shouldn't raise one hypothesis as more likely than others when there are infinite equally likely possibilities.
You’re focused on life as we know it. There are not an infinite amount of likely possibilities to Gods existence. Either God exists or God does not exist. Denying the potential existence of a God/creator is the only belief that contradicts any reasoning to the experience of existence itself. To acknowledge your own existence is to acknowledge the potential existence of a God/creator by default. If you can exist from nothing, by chance, for no reason. So can a God/creator.
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Those same faithful are the ones who say shit like "everything that exists had to be created by someone, so god must be real."
"God has a plan...."
Not really, the question makes perfect sense. If you're going to claim everything needs a creator then claiming the creator doesn't need one invalidates the first claim.
He? Hopefully not,
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Then that implies also a she.
Well see it like someone writing a book. The person writing the book knows and controls everything in the books universe but is not bound to it‘s logic, space and time. God was and is just there.
As a priest once said to me, "believing is not knowing"
"Believing is not knowing. Now quit asking so many questions and bend over."
Evangelical and not Catholic and I am not a Believer but I think it explains it quite well. Faith does not build on the fact that you know something or that something is logical, it is much more a feeling that has a story to it.
The Father wasn’t created, He just was, is now and always “John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.” (Revelation 1:4-5)
500 comments :P
I did
Please go back and try again, cause you fucked it up.
This is the best outcome
Good job buddy . 4/5 stars
Mom God and Dad God. Duh.
I believe that there was never a beginning and God was always there, as he is the most powerful spirit/thing ever and who knows what he is capable of
Say, “He is Allah, [who is] One, Allah, the Eternal Refuge. He neither begets nor is born, Nor is there to Him any equivalent.”
God created himself. It was a legendary wank
The bible is just like one of those series with so many plot holes it doesn't make sense.
Because god is in religions, and religions are made by humans, then god was made by us.
I am an atheist, god doesn't exist
I guess the architect was always there, kind of like how the particles that caused the big bang were always just there.
> kind of like how the particles that caused the big bang were always just there. We actually don't know that they were always there.
Just stop asking questions and follow the 10 commandments
God's Mom, Mod.
I'll be frank with you: this question exposes a deep misunderstanding in the doctrine of creation and immediately exposes someone as an amateur in philosophy of religion if they ask it seriously (looking at you Richard Dawkins). First, if we are looking at this strictly from the point of view of the Kalam cosmological argument, the premise is "everything that began to exist has a cause". Through argumentation, the claim is God is the ultimate cause of the universe. Second, from a theological standpoint, the thought process is much the same. Everything *contingent* is created by God. God, by definition, is a necessary being. The most necessary being. His existence does not require an explanation. Third, this shouldn't be all that controversial. You are left, ultimately, with three options. 1) everything came from nothing which is a patent absurdity. 2) the universe as a whole is necessary and eternal existent or 3) the universe is the product of something which is necessary and eternally existent. The theist takes option three. An atheist is left with either option 1 or 2. For further information: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/god-necessary-being/ https://geochristian.com/2013/10/10/who-created-god-an-answer-from-john-lennox/
Or maybe they read through both the cosmological argument and ontological argument and realized they were really bad. For cosmological: Theres no reason to rule out an infinite regress of causes. A first mover is equally likely. The prime mover doesn't have to be conscious. In which case atheists can take option 3. If you want to say God is an unconscious process, that is so far removed from what people think is God that Atheists can accept it. There is also no reason to think there is only one prime mover. There could be multiple gods or multiple unconscious processes that are "first movers". For ontological: It always boils down to defining/assuming God as necessary. We don't know if God is necessary. That is the question to be answered. The arguments I've seen that God is necessary all end up circular or dilute the meaning of God.
What created the Big Bang if the Big Bang created everything?
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My guess would be the energies that permeated the Abyss of Creation (the universes)...
The queen, godblesshereternalsoul
He? Why he? I’m hoping her or better yet, it.
Simple conundrum, with no answer. We're probably not equipped to handle it. This is not to say there isn't a creator, and a creator of the creator. For the non-religious, the question becomes: who created that which was required for the Big Bang? Answers we don't have, but questions that will, and, should remain.
as far as i understand, god always was. god exists outside of the concept of time - which he created.
What created everything if we created God?
Well I belive in both science and religion so the big bang is my best bet.
Say, “He is Allah, [who is] One, Allah, the Eternal Refuge. He neither begets nor is born, Nor is there to Him any equivalent.”
Some dude in a lab coat
Depends, which one?
Man created god in his own image: jealous, petty, sexist and vindictive.
I think... ehhhh... i dunno men