Either you are misreading something or I am and I'm fairly certain that I'm not. As far as I can tell the page your refencing says that ONLY nothing can come from nothing which more or less states that the same thing as something can ONLY be created from something which is no different then what I have been saying. — dclements

Fabulous, while it's conceptual truth that only nothing can come out of nothing, the opposite such that only something can come out of something is however false because nothing can come out of something as well as something.

In essence a GOD or unmoved mover requires something that can only be on the order of "supernatural" — dclements

Which is the only reasonable explanation of "natural something" out of "natural nothing".
Because, the opposite such that natural something come out of natural nothing (in absence of supernatural) is false because it would violate the "unmoved mover" theory.

In any case I'm not sure whether "natural" and "supernatural" are appropriate words to differentiate.

But do you still need some common sense in order to correctly interpret what others say or write? — Cidat

My personal error (even in real life) is, I express my self often wrong because of haste.
So I assume same may happen to others.
I think a solution is to take a bit more time to get the meaning (common sense), and if you can't ask for clarification.
In real life however It's better to ask for clarification right away and skip taking any time.

We do not directly experience god, so science can not define god. It is what is written about God that demands our scrutiny. — Athena

I agree that the most that can be done is to challenge what is written about God. — Jack Cummins

To find fallacy in scriptures is as impossible as "disproving" God, one of the reasons why for example are contradictions that are subject to interpretation and then you're are subject to opinion of others.
Also I don't think anyone can rely on it's own interpretation only, because then there is no guarantee to be free of fallacy.
Since ancient times understanding of scriptures was always accompanied by someone who understands them.
So where is the proof?
Even if you somehow manage to find it who is going to believe you anyway? (Your sect right?)

I also wonder what is meant by 'nothing' because it does not appear to us but, perhaps, there is more to 'nothing' than what it appears because as it cannot be observed it may be hard to know how or in what way to describe — Jack Cummins

Agree, I think if it's not absence of a thing that exists in reality then it's fake, as @Gnomon said:

We can turn light into subatomic particles, but even the best scientists can't create something out of nothing.

It is the height of arrogance to think that our ability to imagine nothing somehow transmogrifies it into something — James Riley

lol yes, it's not even possible to imagine :up:

If you ever hear of the unmoved mover theory (ie the idea that "God" created everything from nothing) the process theory, first law of thermodynamics, and more or less the Münchhausen trilemma as well state that the unmoved mover is IMPOSSILE from what we know about the world around us and in all likely hood based on pure fiction and not fact. — dclements

I was able to grasp all 3, but unmoved mover makes me go crazy because I can't see anything that would contradict God, mainly because Aristotel seems to be focused on material kind of "cause" as if the "mover" has to be both material and stationary.

For example:

"nothing comes from nothing". The cosmological argument, later attributed to Aristotle, thereby draws the conclusion that God exists. However, if the cosmos had a beginning, Aristotle argued, it would require an efficient first cause

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmoved_mover
Implies that for God in order to create something out of nothing needs matter to do so. :confused:

Similarly the process theory and first law of thermodynamics both require such condition.
This requirement(s) contradicts God, but the key why is because as you said:

IMPOSSILE from what we know about the world around us

I don''t know if this answers your question but I hope it helps. :D — dclements

Indeed interesting, thanks!

To me, describing "very little" as nothing is an attempt to jump the theistic gun, hoping there's no room for God in "very little — theRiddler

No on contrary! God doesn't need something to create something because it would depend on something, which is then no longer God.

That's the problem with Krauss' theory of a "Universe From Nothing". His so-called "nothing" paradigm omits the metaphysical Bible-God, but retains such metaphysical "non-things" as Space-Time & Natural Laws & Quantum Fields. Those are all imaginary human ideas about the world, not empirical things in the world. So, he is attributing miraculous creative properties to those immaterial concepts, even as he dismisses the god-theory as a discredited ancient paradigm. — Gnomon

Indeed, I find it simply put biased, it begs infinity which by it's nature can't lead to finite conclusions no matter how far you go.

Assume, assume, assume — theRiddler

Assume nobody assumes. :smile:

"what is Truth" — Gnomon

The truth is there can be only one truth, and no matter what one may think the truth is, it will take belief that's truth :100:

Think of it as an unscientific motive :wink:

Because why would scientist be bothered by God? as if the ultimate goal is to disprove God rather than discover creation - unscientific.

Anything else you want to know? — Gnomon

No but thanks, It appears not easy to verify credibility of your sources :meh:

PS___BTW, what does this have to do with "Maleus Scientia"? — Gnomon

Likely none, looks like this whole discussion ran out of context :gasp:

Is there is nothing at all, then this is outside of something and is worthless unless it does something to something. — Gregory

Well said, so nothing is not something and as such can't do anything to produce something.

The physicists' references are to the 'vacuum', whose zero-point rest energy is not zero. This Permanent thing — PoeticUniverse

I can understand vacuum to be "nothing" because that's absence of matter, but why would zero-point energy be considered "nothing"?

I suppose that energy is necessary for creation, in any case it sounds more realistic than "infinitely dense mass"

Among Hebrews, their tribal-god was merely a member of a god-family, Elohim — Gnomon

Yahweh was originally a lightning-spear-weilding weather-god — Gnomon

I see, what you're referring to are "traditions" (English is not my native but here's hopefully accurate translator output), relevant traditions are:
1. Yahwistic tradition
2. Elohistic tradition
3. "Priesthood" tradition

First key difference for this discussion is that Elohistic tradition starts from Abraham onward, while Yahwistic tradition starts from garden of Eden.
Second key difference is that neither of these 2 include legal texts, legal texts belong to priesthood tradition.
To make things even more complex, the garden of Eden is made of 2 intertwined reports from 2 different traditions, Yahwistic and Priesthood. (Gen 1-2,4a;2,4b+)

All these traditions and reports however have same roots (ex. use same sources), but to say that Elohim and Yahweh are 2 different Gods or to say that they are deities is incorrect.

I don't know what to comment on the rest of your post because it would take a lot of investigation so I'll abstain, but it sound interesting. :up:

How is that paradox if there is no certainty nor self-contradiction?

Let's now ask, where did existence begin? I would not reduce the beginning era to nothing, but rather a fraction or a partial state. — Varde

Theory of nothing and creation to my understanding say that something come to be out of nothing.
The key to understand how something come out of nothing is in that nothing itself is something.
Nothing is absence of everything, so that's something.

To anatomize something rather than nothing, you have to ask more detailed questions such as:
Why are there physical laws rather than no laws?
Why is there matter rather than matter and antimatter?
etc.

The more of such questions you analyze the easier it becomes to understand broader picture which is why is there something rather than nothing.

Morality is about restricting our freedom - we can't go around doing anything and everything we want. — TheMadFool

Agree, but this doesn't answer martyrdom question.

Does it make sense to be willingly tortured in the name of morality?
Even after knowing the "secret knowledge".

I don't think so, and this tells me there really is no secret knowledge or morality alone thereof that would be worth it.

Sadly, Wikipedia reports that almost all Ngostic texts were destroyed by the Church and its henchmen. I guess we'll never know how much wisdom or truth they did or did not contain — TheMadFool

There are valid reasons why gnostic texts do not contain any truth or wisdom.
Gnostic texts (unless I'm wrong) originate around 1st century AD, mostly concerning the life of Jesus and his teachings.

If we draw hypothesis that there were gnostic texts that somehow "annul" belief of Jesus' divinity, this still does not rule out God or scriptures written before that time which depict that event.

Apocryphal book of Enoch for example is not destroyed but it's story predates times of Jesus, so it makes more sense to destroy something that is older rather than younger because it makes no theoretical sense for older text (older by content) to contradict newer one.

My understanding of why it is not part of cannon is because the book was not old enough rather than because of contents of the book.
You can read it here if you wish and see for yourself, a good understanding of the bible will surely help to decode it.

Also a lot of logical (but not obvious) information that cancels out "secret knowledge" of gnostic texts is contained within the bible as well, for example in Galatians 1,6+ St. Paul said:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel - which is really no gospel at all

Therefore logical conclusion here is that Paul and other church leaders knew these gospels and they surely wanted to know what these gospels are about, what's so powerful about them.
What I'm saying is that they surely knew that "secret knowledge", and that's where one interesting question arises:

If they knew, why would they accept martyrdom? as if dying alone isn't worst thing in human life.
I think because that truth just wasn't powerful or true enough and as such there must be some other motive behind to write them, which is the key to the question that you asked:
Why did the church burn these books?

I take the point about it being based on experience but my life experience is reasonably typical of a white male and yet I have never understood why the music of U2 is so popular, I have no emotional engagement with it whatsoever — TheVeryIdea

subconscious.

We also have dreams, dreams are subconscious, they usually do not make any sense compared to reality that we experience from day to day.
However if we tell dreams to psychiatrist he will definitely "unlock" them at some point because in dreams we "see" things which we suppress in reality. That's how brain "takes a rest"
We can't suppress dreams because during sleep we have no control over our mind.

Symbols however are reality, unknown feelings that you describe toward symbols is I would say a blend of subconscious and awareness.

What is it that gives symbols meaning? — TheVeryIdea

It must be past experiences, not necessarily memorized.

Consider an extreme, a person living in a white room since it was born (something like madhouse)
That person has no experiences, symbols mean nothing to such person.

Nice comparison but fundamentally incorrect:

1. It makes the serpent redundant and insufficient.
2. It's not in line with the story of garden of Eden, and not even whole scriptures.

Basically if I would be to compare yin yang to the garden of Eden (or even whole bible) then God would be yang and the serpent would be yin.

However if we remove the serpent such that this applies to God only, then same should be valid for the serpent which is doesn't because if the devil is yin (evil) then where is his good side? (the devil is insufficient)

The Creator is assumed to be Omnipotential, in addition to Omniscient. But not necessarily Omni-benevolent, since that is a matter of opinion for those affected by such super-human powers. — Gnomon

And the opposite of that would be, the Creator is assumed to be omnipotent in addition to omnibenevolent. But not necessarily omniscient, since that is a matter of opinion of those affected by modern day science which is as limited as our understanding supernatural.

Interestingly enough though! we can not apply same semantic to God's omnipotent nature because scientific theory of big bang claims infinitely dense mass of matter as the creation of the universe.
So infinitely dense it even exceeds the laws of physics!
Well God also exceeds the laws of physics so what's the point?

I don't this such rhetoric is useful for this discussion.

And how do you differentiate the two when practicing cognitive hygiene? — TheQuestion

I would say, emotional health is a branch of mental health.
ex. mental disorder (broad, any mental issue) and Personality disorder (specific, it deals with emotions)

Having said that, Adam and Eve, before having taken the disastrous step that doomed them, were innocent - they didn't know what morality was. Why did God then punish the hapless couple? — TheMadFool

I would call them helpless only if God didn't command them not to eat, in which case there would be no reason to punish them. ex. only serpent should have been punished in that case.
That command could also be interpreted as protective.

The only logical explanation is God was ticked off by Adam's & Eve's disobedience. This suggests to me that evil inheres in disobedience. To be good is to be obedient. Why? — TheMadFool

Good question, I'm not entirely sure whether I know an answer to this.

I think the answer lies in free will but more importantly in motive behind giving the free will.
If God didn't gave free will then we would have master-slave relationship.
Since God did gave free will then we have master-servant relationship.

master-servant relationship is more compatible with God's omnibenevolent nature than master-slave so it's a valid choice.

As for motive behind giving the free will, surely there must be reasonable answer.

To be good is to be obedient. Why? — TheMadFool

Why not rephrasing as:
To be obedient is to do good deeds, because commandments are there to protect from evil that is lurking .

Free will, but also cause and repercussion.

God gave Adam and Eve free will:

You are free to eat from any tree in the garden

but also told:

You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die

Using same rhetoric we can conclude:
They disobeyed but didn't die, doesn't that make God a liar?

Because he said:

you must not touch it, or you will die

This evil being God’s own Original Sin. — PoeticUniverse

Contradictory statement.

God is omniscient so he knows good and evil therefore that's God's own original sin and thus makes him evil.
Which is contradictory to God being omnibenevolent.

EDIT:
Basically this leads to omniscience and omnibenevolence being incompatible which begs the question.

Or simply put you are what you know, God knows good and evil so he's both of that.

philosophy of nothing — tim wood

Thank you for input, very useful!
I found some definition of philosophical nothing as follows:

It’s a state in which everything is not self-identical. If for all x, x is unequal to x; that sentence in logic describes a state of nothingness. It doesn’t help the imagination, but it doesn’t give rise to any contradictions. It can only be true if nothing exists, because if anything exists, it equals itself.

Therefore philosophical nothing is not limited by absence of material things but anything that can be described, while scientific nothing deals strictly with material things.

If so, can we say absence of God is valid for philosophical nothing but not for scientific nothing? (Since God is not material thing, but it could be)

What I'm suggesting here is that imagination could be more logic-attuned
How did God attain such power? Is there a logical lock that prevents power reaching the wrong hands?(A logic question based on an imaginary scenario). — Varde

In same or similar way one could question the question of any of the great questions.

But does that actually make sense?
Just because there is no answer to great questions that doesn't mean the question is invalid or that it should be undermined.

What risks you refer to? I can't see what kind of risk one runs if he make a change in belief — DecheleSchilder

I'm suggesting to use reason rather than faith(or lack of it) to weight risks of 2 choices where each choice has equal chance of probability.
Agnosticism is not an option.

Does anyone here believe the bible does indeed have divine authority? — Robbie84

That depends on whether one believes in God or not.

Consider 2 persons, one believes in God, the other does not.
One which believes in God is struggling with "what if there is no God?"
Other one which doesn't believe in God is struggling with "what if there is God?"

Doubt is inevitable regardless of whether one believes in God or not, therefore it takes prudence to make your decision, so it's all about risk as follows:
1. If I don't believe in God then what risk do I run to start believing in God if there is no God?
2. If I do believe in God then what risk do I run to stop believing in God if there is God?

God is supposed to have endued us with free will. That's the solution to the problem of evil. — TheMadFool

But we still have free will, it was not taken away from us, I don't see anything evil in that.
It would be evil to be slaves of God's will, to worship him even though we don't want that, however God made us free to choose which is good.

Otherwise, I think free will depends on why God created people and everything else in the first place.
Theologically God is love, to express his love he gave life, out of his love he creates people.

However if all that God cares about is being loved and worshiped in return, then he could simply create robot-like people that say "I love you, I love you...", but that's no longer outward (creational) love then.
It's rather preprogramed self love or self worship which is contradictory to love toward creation.

I think that's the reason why free will is necessary, to rule out self love, not because of hatred toward it's creation.

has a zero tolerance policy towards disobedience. Either God is evil or God should be ok with disobedience. — TheMadFool

Zero tolerance policy would mean to kill Adam and Eve, destroy everything and possibly start over.

Why should the devil give this knowledge to Eve? What did he gain? — DecheleSchilder

Devil's biggest sin is rebellion against God, the devil doesn't want to serve God, instead he want's to be grater than God and to be worshiped as God.
Hence first God's commandment is "I am your God, don't have other Gods..."

God made people, and the biggest sin people can do is to rebel against God and to take the job of a God akin to be Gods them self.

The devil is basically telling Adam and Eve to rebel against God (like he did), and is telling them "and you will be like God", but that's just his pretense to seduce them.
Neither Adam and Eve nor the Devil were able to become Gods, but just like Gods.

It's important to keep in mind that knowledge of good and evil is proper to God because he is a judge, God didn't give that knowledge to people because he didn't want them to be judges.

For example, if I'm judge and you're judge but we don't agree then who is right? or who is God? There can be no 2 Gods. either I'm God or you rebel against me.

What the devil gained is rebellion of people against God and to take judgement into their hands, which is proper to God.

Why giving the knowledge of the good too? — DecheleSchilder

2 explanations that come to my mind:
1. If you don't know what's good then everything is evil and vice versa.
2. God being just judge, may use good deeds to annul evil deeds of same weight.

If something is fact, then there could be no alternative fact.
If there are multiple facts then which one is true?

Pragmatic use of a fact is therefore take it or leave it, use it or don't use it depending on whether that fact is useful or not rather true or false, because a fact already is true.

Death is best understood if watching people die and listen to what they have to say.

I know I'm dying but I feel no pain except regret.

Death itself is not painful, but rather the regret that I left no legacy that would keep me remembered for something, for not doing more in my life, for not enough love with those who are most close to me like family.

And we'd have to listen to a metric shit-ton of wailing and whining and crying about "socialism" and "communism" from a bunch of anti-intellectual, uneducated, conservative Republican stupid fucks who wouldn't know socialism, communism, or representative democracy if it hit them over their pointed little heads. — James Riley

I don't see any problem with democracy, socialism or imperialism.
All of these are compatible and not mutually exclusive, so why being populistic by defending democracy vs socialism knowing that communism to socialism is the same evil as capitalism to democracy.

All it takes is democracy, socialism and imperialism to run a better country.

You mean I play the devil? Should I make others know? — GraveItty

Absolutely not! by exposing the secret you lose the power of knowledge because you make competition and thus lose monopol.

Notice what serpent said to woman:

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

There is only one God, and knowledge of good and evil is proper to God hence why serpent said and you will be like God, because that knowledge is divine.

Knowledge of good and evil lets you judge, you can't judge if you don't know what are you judging.
God is the only judge, but now you're like God and you can do the job that is proper to God which is judging.

I already told you, when the story of garden of Eden was written, in that time letter was already discovered, human civilization is therefore already advanced and there is a lot of knowledge around.
Think again, how was "judging" used in that time? or how is it used today? or how it was used before that period?

Who is your judge for example?

I think knowledge of good and evil can be taken either literary or figuratively.

Literary, If you know what's good and what's evil then aren't you able to judge?
According to church teachings, knowledge of good and evil is proper to God, and so is judging.

That's essential, now consider nobody has this knowledge except you, it's secret, how would you use it to your advantage?

There was a whole lot of knowledge! That's what science is about: knowledge. How else were houses built, roads constructed, or wine be packed? — GraveItty

It's not secret that this story was written somewhat later than other books that chronologically follow it but still not before discovery of letter.

Pentateuch for example is older, therefore the story of Adam and Eve must have been transmitted orally from generation to generation.

Surely there was error during that transmission hence we have 2 versions of the garden of Eden both of which are part of the Bible.

Knowing that Genesis was written much much later than Adam and Eve become to be, there is no reason to reject presence of some knowledge, therefore you're correct.

But what is your approach to discover what that is?

However, a philosophical discussion is supposed to accept each postulated opinon as fodder for rational discourse. — Gnomon

Indeed, you're correct.
And you position is "the Garden of Eden myth seems to be intended as a warning against "evil" Science..."
But that doesn't hold because:
1. It doesn't fit into the rest of scriptures
2. In time when this story was written there was no science.


What you ask requires theology.

I see, but we are here talking about specific God, God in the garden of Eden is Abrahamic God which has all the properties that wiki defines.
Also let's keep in mind that God ≠ deity.
Therefore changing the definition of that specific God would distort the meaning of the garden of Eden as well.

@TheMadFool said it is relevant to know whether God can go or do wrong, since that specific God has property of being omnibenevolent, I think is therefore irrelevant to argue over something that is already known, there is no assumption or personal position here.

So why don't we just focus on the knowledge of good and evil?

Carthage was a Phoenician colony, but Tyre never controlled it. — frank

Nice example but outside my knowledge of history.
Mars or portions of it's land however AFAIK isn't claimed or controlled by anyone.

We have a colony on Mars. — frank

Good joke but, colony without sovereignty is not a colony.

Recognizing emotions in live (having the person in front of you) is mush easier than trying to sense or dig out emotions from written text This is why emoticons have been invented! :smile: — Alkis Piskas

Cool, I never thought of emoticons for the purpose of EQ :smile:

Faking emotions, hypocrisy and lying make the recognizing of actual emotions impossible sometimes. — Alkis Piskas

This is where psychology can help :wink:
Best weapon to detect hypocrisy is to ask questions to which you already know the answer from previous conversation such as suggestive, closed or loaded questions.
But taking care interlocutor doesn't spot your attention, for example by spanning your question across days or weeks, this works even online where we don't see face reactions.
Most important factor is time needed for interlocutor to respond, since you know he knows the answer, the response should be quick, otherwise you poked something. :cool:

BTW, what does "behind keyboard" mean? I couldn;t find it in the Web. — Alkis Piskas

We are now talking "behind keyboard", we are literary behind a keyboard which is needed to write posts.

BTW #2, what does all that have to do with my "Imagine all this taking place in a live discussion"? :grin: — Alkis Piskas

Imagine we discuss this stuff in live, we could better exercise our EQ.

If God is omnipotent, he can turn himself omni-disabled and omni-stupid. — GraveItty

Hahah :grin:

Which is contradictory to God also being omnibenevolent.

You can smash a vase into your face, yes? Does that mean you will someday? — Bartricks

I think he would just to prove you wrong lol

No, but it sounds interesting.

But this, I think, is a result of thinking that change essentially involves time. Which it doesn't — Bartricks

Without time as 4th dimension change is said to be instant, which is unreal in real world.
Your position goes against general relativity.