That presents a few difficulties, but it is interesting to consider.
If the universe always existed, that would allow the other side of eternity (the infinite past) for the creation of us. I mean, 4 billion years is a long time, an eternal past is even longer.
Most problematic is entropy. Energy seems to flow downhill only (warm to cold), how an eternal universe could not be totally flat by now (after an infinite amount of time to lose its fizz) kind of strains the imagination. Unless it has something to do with dark energy or something.
Everything we know of has a point before which it did not exist and a rather high probability of a point after which it will not exist. It is difficult to imagine a thing that never did not exist and always will. Of course, it seems just as likely that the universe is not a “thing”.
Personally, I find the idea of creation no more logically plausible than the idea of eternal presence. Why should the universe ever have not existed?
Of course you’d be considerred kooky, even though, come to think of it, I could not prove you wrong. You may be a prophet of your Cattiness - supposedly this rarely happens, if at all. Most people imagine their cats to tell them different things.
However, come on, you can do better than this strawcat argument. The vast majority of people that believe in some kind of God will not claim any “psychic” or other type of contact. And of course that those who claim God talked to them tend to have other claims as well - and therefore are hospitalized (at least in countries that have a functioning psychiatric system).
I think, in truth, that you brought this argument so I could see your cat. I would love to.
I don’t think it’s fair to label someone mad for believing ridiculous shit if it was indoctrinated into their skulls when they were young, along with instructions to never ever doubt it.
Now, if they come across it as an adult, and think “this whole thing about god sacrificing himself to himself to change rules he himself made - that has the ring of truth to it!”… That person should probably be denied access to any weapon more lethal than a crayon.
a) I give you lekatt and kanicbird
b) there are plenty of folks that go around “praying for answers” that claim to get them and that ‘god talks to them’ all the time
c) even if (a) and (b) do not fit “the vast majority” - the religion/faith itself WAS FOUNDED by folks that claimed they did. It is the downfall of ALL ‘revealed’ religion - it requires a ‘kook’ to “hear it from god” and for idiots to believe them.
So - if you would not believe - and would even institutionalize - folks claiming direct contact with GOD today - why in the frack do you give any credence to a book filled with writings by people that claimed they had that same contact 1800 years ago? That was then compiled centuries later - by more people that claimed divine direction and then re-compiled by yet more people claiming divine direction claiming the parties of the first divine direction got it wrong somehow?
To be fair, there are many, perhaps a majority of, religious people who are not mad in any discernable way, but who simply (and cynically, to the extent that they think this ethical issue over) want the privileges of belonging to a category of people who are respectable–i.e. Christians. These “religious” people scoff at most major tenets of “their” chosen religion, using birth control when their church outlaws it, or having abortions when their church calls it murder, or correctly labelling the text their sect bases its beliefs on as improbable nonsense invented by Bronze Age fiction-writers–I don’t think such people are mad, so I don’t excuse them as I do the true madmen, who after all, can’t help themselves. I think such people are more blameworthy for religion’s ills, because they know better and perpetuate the divisive and pernicious nonsense for their own perceived advantage. The worst of these are evil, and the best of them are small-minded feebs. It’s hard to imagine someone who describes hinself as “religious” who is not mad, evil or a feeb.
Social norms are determined by consensus – if I managed to get enough other people to believe me then it would be less kooky and more socially acceptable… it still wouldn’t provide any proof or make it more real, but it would be perceived as less odd.
As I’d suggest do most people who claim to hear / speak with / communicate with the divine. It’s not like the prophets and believers over the years have presented a single unified voice.
It wasn’t intended as total straw… which is why I chose “kooky” and that the message be the positive one; I’m not tying to demonize believers, just suggest that in other circumstances a similar claim would be viewed with significant (and justified) skepticism.
simster covers this pretty well.
Which oddly enough seems to lead to the argument that the people who claim to believe without any proof at all are more functionally sane than those with personal experience / personal proof.
If anyone has anything to say to our ‘friend’ pchaos, you better say it now. The latest developments in his pit thread indicate that our ‘friend’ may not be posting here, much longer.
Pseudotriton - you are right in the distinction between madness and evilness regarding religion and perhaps this was my (unstated) position. Religion, as a meme, can be adapted to the social environment more or less successfully, but one cannot deny its vitality and influence in human thinking and society, and also as a “comforter of last resort” for individuals. In fact, research shows that religious people are healthier, both mentally and physically than those who are not.
Now, looking at supernatural belief through the glasses of “How can those guys believe in all this illogical crap” is just puerile. Belief is not about external reality, but internal symbolism and representation, however badly some religious groups describe it. It is also about social cohesiveness and conflicts. Religion is complex because humans are complex; whoever is interested in understanding humans, and human societies must also understand their symbols and beliefs a.k.a. religious systems.
Now, I’m saying all this as an atheist. I have never in my life believed in supernatural powers or gods, and neither my parents, grandparents and most of my social group. I take it as a given, maybe similar to a sexual orientation.
I would also happily answer Apollion too, but I have to hit the sack. It’s really late and I am in a different time zone. He still owes me a cat though.
What created Existence? There had to be a place before any being(supreme or other wise) could exist, there fore existence had to precede any Being or God.
Are you saying you fully understand GOd! Boy, that is just egotism! Your posts are not helping your cause.At least from my reading, and understanding of them.I have noted that since you came on the board you have changed your beliefs many times;there is nothing wrong with that in my opinion, but any one on the board or anywhere for that matter, can come up with a lot of said experiences if they chose to. There is no doubt that you feel you have had experiences, but it proves nothing. Because you say it, it isn’t proof.
At the scale involved – cosmology and cosmogeny – this isn’t entirely certain. For one thing, God could be the universe. The cosmos could be his “body,” and thus his existence and the existence of “all that is” might be one and the same.
Otherwise, the same argument could apply against natural explanations for the origin of the universe: some kind of “existence” must have been around, for the Big Bang to happen “in.”
The trouble with things of this nature is that they don’t accord with our common sense, or even with our ideals of philosophical necessity.
(I love reading philosophical rejections of the Trinity; if God were composed of separate parts, then he cannot be “all powerful” or “all knowing,” because this kind of universality cannot be divided. Either all of the power is only in one part – God the Father, perhaps – or it is split up among the persons, and thus no one of them is really all-anything. The trouble, of course, is that this is pure sophism, pure word-play. It isn’t based on anything solid.)
Ok, I didn’t find the original papers I’ve read, but I found many others, this seems to be a thriving area of research. I include links to some reputable journal papers:
These do not pertain to religious people per se, rather it is based on attendance. It does not indicate that belief improves your health: believers who skip church are less healthy than believers who do, the factor is church more than belief itself.
