Some people accept our existence without the need of a diety to explain it.
If there is a diety responsible for our existence, doesn’t there need to be a meta deity to explain his? And a meta, meta diety to explain the latter, and so on? Take the movie “Tron.” The computer character had a creator, the programmer. And the programmer of course has God. It is comfortable enough for us to acknowledge subset creations below, why would it be blasphemous to imagine them above? Would the Tron character be in a world of shit for imagining that his programmer had a God?
Cheech & Chong:
I think you’ve missed the point of the “uncaused cause” argument. It’s not that everything which exists needs a cause. Rather, it’s that everything which begins to exist needs a cause.
This is covered in the Kalam cosmological argument, which Dr. William Lane Craig cites here, and in many of his writings.
Now at this point, some would interject by saying “Wait a minute! Objects can spring into existence without a cause. That’s what virtual particles do! They come from fluctuations in the quantum vacuum, which means that they are uncaused and come from nothing.” The thing is, that’s not how virtual particles come into existence.
The quantum vacuum is not “nothing”; indeed, if it were, then it could not have any fluctuations, could it? As John Barrow and Frank Tipler said,
That thought can only rule out the existance of Meta Gods if you limit our Local God to our time scale. I would have no problem asserting that Local God operates in four dimensions, and experiences time along another, fifth dimension. Under that assumption, our universe is static as far as Local God is concerned (which would explain His supposed omniscience – He can see everywhere and everywhen all at once), and He is neither eternal nor immortal when examined outside of our universe. Thus, Local God has a beginning, which necessitates the need for a Meta God.
I’m not saying that it rules out the existence of a metagod. It is entirely possible, based on this argument, that the universe was created by a god who was in turn created by a meta god.
What I am saying is that it makes metagods unnecessary. The OP assumed that the theistic contention is that all things require a creator. That simply isn’t so. The Kalam cosmological argument is that all things which come into being require a creator. Thus, this allows for an ultimate uncaused cause, which in turn eliminates the necessity for these metagods of which you speak.
By this same train of thought, you can rule out the necessity for our local God, as well, simply by stating that the universe itself is uncaused. Sure, we have the Big Bang, but the BB created time and space. Cause must temporally preceed effect, yet the effect in this case was at the very beginning of time, and so nothing could preceed it. Thus the universe is uncaused, and God is unnecessary.
I don’t think you’re paying attention. That “same train of thought” explicitly states that everything which begins to exist needs a cause. The universe began to exist at the Big Bang. Ergo, according to that train of thought, the universe requires a cause.
Now, you may choose to reject that train of thought (fallaciously, IMO), but you can’t claim that the Kalam cosmological argument allows for the universe being its own uncaused cause. It simply does not.
Also, there’s ample reason to believe that the universe WAS caused. Even if you say that the Big Bang created time and space, the question remains – what triggered the Big Bang? The only arguments I’ve ever seen appeal to either a Creator, fluctuation in the quantum vacuum, or one or more prior universes. As I pointed out, fluctuations in the quantum vacuum do NOT constitute uncaused creation. As for prior universes, that would simply push creation back to some previous cause, and would not eliminate the need for an ultimate uncaused cause. (I shall address the issue of time below.)
First of all, this assumes that the Big Bang DID create time – a popular notion, but still unproven, and not accepted by all. (Those who postulate prior universes would reject this notion, for example.) Second, it assumes that cause MUST be temporally rooted, which is not necessarily so.
Moreover, the Kalam cosmological argument (to which I linked earlier) provides multiple reasons WHY the universe can not be its own uncaused cause. Remember, my point was merely to point out the need for an ultimate, uncaused, uncreated cause. Further digging is necessary to determine if the Big Bang would meet the necessary criteria, and for multiple reasons, the Big Bang alone is an insufficient explanation. (See Bill Ramey’s summary of the Kalam argument for more detail.)
And finally, even if we accept your claim, my point in addressing the OP remains. There is no need for “metagods” in order to accept the notion of theistic creation. since it is only the things which begin to exist that need a creator.
Einstein’s equations, where da/dt is the rate of change of the scale factor a with t, that is the expansion or contraction rate of
________________2___2
spacial sections; da / dt denotes the rate of change of da / dt, that is, it is the acceleration of expansion; G and c denote, respectively, the gravitational constant of the speed of light. Finally, k is a number which takes the value of 0 for Euclidean three space + 1 for the three-sphere, and -1 for the three-dimension hyperboloid.
____/
______/d_a_______2_______2 3|---------|=8_pi_G_pa-_3kc
_______d_t/
_____/
If the spatial surfaces are three-dimensional spheres as would be the case in a closed universe, the volume goes to zero at the time of the big bang. In the case of hyperboloid geometries, as in the case of an open universe, the volume of the universe is always infinite.
But in all cases, the matter densisty and curvature of the spacetime become infinite at the time of the big bang. This is known as spacetime singularity. **Thus time did not exist prior to the big bang. **This is accepted science based on verifiable measured observation of the expansion of the universe.
Please enlighten us if you know of a theory that refutes Einstein’s findings and has been verified by observational data. Theophilosophic pot thoughts of “what if?” and star trek episodes don’t equate as a legimate theoretical model.
I don’t know how likely you are to accept this as a cite to argue that time existed prior to the big bang, but work with me here. Assuming this article has merit:
I think it is reasonable to argue that time could have existed prior to the big bang, but not in our (at the time) non-existant dimension.
While it doesn’t refute Einstein’s findings (as Einstein’s equations only take into account this universe) it shows that the beginning of everything is still up for debate.
True. In fact, frithrah’s analysis assumes a particular model of the origin of the universe, when in fact, there is no single model – and such models are undergoing continuous revision, as the “brane storm” model demonstrates.
Anyone who’s familiar with the quantum fluctuation or successive universe models will know that the question of “time before the big bang” is not a closed issue. In fact, some prominent atheists use the concept of pre-universe time to support their views, as seen here.
Moreover, this is ultimately a huge red herring. There is no reason to assume that all causality is temporally bound in a monodirectional manner. Such an assumption makes sense for temporally bound phenomena (though even then, quantum mechanics suggests that cause might not always precede effect, contrary to the claim made earlier). In particular, if we are to talk about the creation of time itself, then such reasoning obviously breaks down.
