I agree with Devon's ...nothing more to say is there? — 3017amen
Yes. As I reached adulthood, I became an Agnostic because I no longer believed the Bible was the inspired revelation of an omniscient deity. But I could never go all the way to Atheism, because I had no better explanation for the temporary existence of our contingent world. Augustine saw the logic of Aristotle's First Cause argument, but used it to defend his faith in the Christian Jehovah. My current position on the god-question is Deist, remaining Agnostic about any personal traits of the Creator of space & time; which scientists called "The Singularity", and I call "G*D".Causality appears to be a feature of time - everything in time appears to have a cause - so for something to be uncaused, it seems it would have to be external to time. — Devans99
The Cause of space-time is "first" in the sense of "ultimate", not merely the first of a series. Logically, the Creator of our evolving universe must be prior-to the big-bang emergence of space-time, hence Eternal, and external to the Physical universe, hence Metaphysical. Prior, not in time, but in logical order.But if cause and effect hold universally there cannot be a first cause, because that first cause would, by definition, be outside of cause an effect, and so it's no longer universal. — Echarmion
Your "wider" universe is what scientists postulate as The Multiverse. My problem with that "more-of-the-same-forever" speculation is that it doesn't address the primary concern of philosophers today : how could Life & Mind arise by natural evolutionary processes? Atheists take it on faith, that physical Science will eventually answer "the hard question". But, I'm skeptical.I imagine a wider universe somehow containing spacetime. Causality as we know it, dominates spacetime, but in the wider universe, causality as we know it may not apply, so an uncaused cause would be possible. — Devans99
In my worldview, the First Cause is not Real, but Ideal, Metaphysical, not Physical. And it's permanent in the sense of existing necessarily, outside of the space-time world it created.It - the first cause - has to be something real (physical) and permanent: — Devans99
My Deist notion of G*D is all of the above, including "omnipresent". But, it's not an ancient anthro-morphic interventionist King in heaven, because we now know that our world is on automatic pilot --- it seems to be programmed with laws & constants & selection criteria to handle all contingencies via adaptation.Yes a fair point, I should clarify what I mean by God:
- not omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient
- capable of independent action
- inteligent
- able to create spacetime
- benevolent
- timeless
So not exactly the God of christianity! It could be flying spaghetti monster (within the above limitations). — Devans99
I suspect that Amen was assuming you'd Google those names if you were really interested (not just dismissive) in how their expert theories "might apply". But we can get into more detail here, if you want to know about some "authoritative" alternatives to Atheism, that don't depend on ancient scriptures. :nerd:An appeal to authority. Dropping names without explaining were and how they might apply. — Banno
My current position on the god-question is Deist, remaining Agnostic about any personal traits of the Creator of space & time; which scientists called "The Singularity", and I call "G*D". — Gnomon
...how could Life & Mind arise by natural evolutionary processes? Atheists take it on faith, that physical Science will eventually answer "the hard question". But, I'm skeptical. — Gnomon
Saying the same thing over and over, coming to the same asinine conclusion over and over again, may be something or other, but it sure as hell ain't philosophy. If I seem harsh, it's only because one gets tired of banging one's head against the same wall of conventional, sclerotic thinking. — Gary M Washburn
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