• JackGreenEarth
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    5211 months ago

    If God can exist without being created by something, why can’t the universe?

    • @[email protected]
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      2611 months ago

      The argument I’ve heard is “It must stop somewhere, and whatever it stops at, we’ll call that god”. It’s not a good argument, because it then hopes that you conflate the Judeo-Christian deity with that label and make a whole bunch of assumptions.

      It’s often paired with woo that falls down to simply asking “Why?”, such as “Nothing could possibly be simpler than my deity”

      • @[email protected]
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        1811 months ago

        What is this stop business? I have it on good authority that it’s turtles all the way down.

      • JackGreenEarth
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        1211 months ago

        So if it stops at the universe, the universe itself is called ‘God’?

        • Nougat
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          911 months ago

          To which I would ask, “Why are you using the word ‘god’?”

          • @[email protected]
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            1411 months ago

            Everybody asks what is god, why is god… Nobody asks how is god.

            …and it’s pronounced “jod” BTW.

        • @[email protected]
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          511 months ago

          Yeah exactly, though then you’d generally get arguments pushing you towards “But it’s actually totes Jesus”.

      • @Kyyrypyy
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        311 months ago

        If I remember correctly from my hazy years of school philosophy classes, it was Thomas Aquinas who suggested it. Who was a friar, so that’s why the assumption of the religion.

        Also, I understood the core idea being that God isn’t what IS the beginning, but that the point where human mind can’t comprehend beyond is God. Which, back then, and even now, I considered to be a lazy copout for a philosopher, as the point of a philosopher is to test the limits of our understanding.

        Then again, for friar to state that the end solution is not god for their thinkings, at that time and place, would’ve probably result in being positioned as a centerpiece of a bonfire.

      • @[email protected]
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        311 months ago

        It’s also a bad argument, because the concept of things being ‘created’ is an entirely human one. It’s us who decided that if a pile of pre-existing atoms are moved into the shape of a chair, we’ll say that chair was ‘created’.

        Aside from this conceptual creation, nothing is ever created in the universe, as far as we know. Atoms don’t ever just pop into existence out of thin air.

        I have heard the argument that the universe was just as well ‘created’ in the conceptual sense, so everything existed beforehand, it was just moved into a shape that we recognize as ‘universe’ today.
        But that would still mean there’s no argument for a creator and of course, this is simply not what most people mean when they talk about the creation of the universe.

  • @[email protected]
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    2111 months ago

    I hate to tell you but philosophy has its own branch of basically math (logic). You need math to prove things :(

  • Yardy Sardley
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    1911 months ago

    Having a hard time finding the average velocity of a car is definitely a sign from the universe that you should switch majors.

  • @xkforce
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    1411 months ago

    First year physics students asking the important questions for the 10th time that day

  • Johanno
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    511 months ago

    The question should be shifted.

    If there is a god, does it matter?

    Ok so now let’s assume a god like sentient creature formed our universe. Maybe they even intentionally created us.

    We have no indication that they even once interacted with us in over 2000 or rather several million years.

    Let’s go further and assume the god like creature is indeed the Christian God.

    We have an immortal, allknowing and allmighty God who doesn’t care about innocent dying, suffering and other cruelties. So if the Christian God exists he is an asshole!