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Discuss the Christian Faith.
Bruv
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Post by Bruv »

fuzzywuzzy;1453011 wrote: Bruv the whole argument is superfluous. ;)


Don't say that...................this is my longest thread yet..............must be doing something right.

Most of it is waffle and stuff.......but........give us a beak will ya?





And I only repeated what sheep said, in another thread, and set the challenge, most of FG greatest brains have chimed in, this could be a stayer.
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Post by fuzzywuzzy »

Bruv;1453014 wrote: Don't say that...................this is my longest thread yet..............must be doing something right.

Most of it is waffle and stuff.......but........give us a beak will ya?





And I only repeated what sheep said, in another thread, and set the challenge, most of FG greatest brains have chimed in, this could be a stayer.


I'm losing the will to live again ..must be contagious. anyway that bonbasity called me 'common'.
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Post by LarsMac »

Bruv;1453012 wrote: I let you have the stubbies cos you colonials keep changing to keep ahead of us.......but I surreptitiously edited the whinging bit, because I know you lot say it more than we do.......about us, so bow to your better knowledge.


Beer is Beer, regardless of what you drink it from.
The home of the soul is the Open Road.
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Post by Bruv »

Is bonbasity another Aussieism ?
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Post by gmc »

The Moody Blues: In The Beginning- Lovely To See You - YouTube
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Post by fuzzywuzzy »

LarsMac;1453017 wrote: Beer is Beer, regardless of what you drink it from.




Oh no no no no no !!!!! That's not right Lars...



it's okay Bruv I'll begin a new thread and you can get back to church, whilst the others and I go discuss some serious business at the pub.
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Post by High Threshold »

Bruv;1452096 wrote: "I think I can show it is more reasonable to believe in God than to believe in the world you actually see."

The above statement from a member called 'sheep'.


Nothing further to add, Bruv?
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Post by fuzzywuzzy »

dear god!!! I hope not.
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Post by High Threshold »

fuzzywuzzy;1453966 wrote: dear god!!! I hope not.


"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity."
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Post by fuzzywuzzy »

High Threshold;1453969 wrote: "The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity."


yes but there are limits
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Post by High Threshold »

fuzzywuzzy;1453970 wrote: yes but there are limits


Oh. :-3
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Post by Bruv »

High Threshold;1453962 wrote: Nothing further to add, Bruv?


Every thing that could be said, has been said.

I am now spending my time discussing holidays with another deep (as in inaccessible) thinking member.
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Post by High Threshold »

Bruv;1453973 wrote: I am now spending my time discussing holidays with another deep (as in inaccessible) thinking member.


Well, if you've decided to hang this one out to dry .... where is this holiday discussion then?
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Post by Bruv »

High Threshold;1453977 wrote: Well, if you've decided to hang this one out to dry .... where is this holiday discussion then?


It's not me that hung it out to dry, things have a natural life, you can only flog a dead horse so long before enough is enough.

Holiday thread.....fill your boots.

I am bored with this one too, underneath it all Mickiel is a good guy..........shame really ennit?
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Post by High Threshold »

Bruv;1453980 wrote: .....

Holiday thread.....fill your boots.


That deep is it?



Bruv;1453980 wrote: I am bored with this one too, underneath it all Mickiel is a good guy..........shame really ennit?


Don´t know him well enough to say.
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Post by High Threshold »

Bruv;1453980 wrote:

Holiday thread

I am bored with this one too ...


Ah! I see what you mean.
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Post by sheep »

High Threshold;1452773 wrote: This has been stated before:



If you can not prove the source of something you can see, and don't really know if it even exists in the first place, then proving the source of the uncertain existence of something will be even less likely to be proven by a source that is not only questionable but cannot be seen nor proven to exist. Can a sane person reading this post deny the lack of credible effort in trying to prove that a non-proven entity's source is an un-seen, un-proved, un-provable, illogical contributor to the fabrication of an object of uncertain existence?

Since you cannot, I continue to assert that it is far more prudent to dépêcher pour la pub before last call than to repeat your same old non-sens that no one is buying anyway. :yh_loser


The problem is that you can prove the source of the seen is consciousness. The only thing in question is were consciousness originates. And the problem with your argument is that consciousness is unseen but not unprovable. On the contrary it is all that is provable and since the only provable fact is consciousness and it is unseen, would it not make sense that its origins would also be unseen?
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Post by sheep »

Bryn Mawr;1452819 wrote: Axiomatic



Implicit



Totally unproven



Implicit



Totally illogical jump - that you exist could just as well be the result of a freak and temporary state of affairs of which we know nothing



Whilst nothing can be proven to be real, degrees of probability can be assigned based on internal self consistency of the evidence perceived - to jump to an assumption that has no support from the evidence that does exist just because that evidence is not absolute is not viable.





Clarity has not been provided.


Permit me to change this last statement to say this instead... all we are conscious of including dreams are real to us. But again they are only real in consciousness and the world is no more real than a dream is real and what takes place after our conscious awareness of this present state will also be rel to us but again I state that only conscious awareness is a provable fact and not what we are conscious of. Can we deny the existence of what we are conscious of? No, no more than we can deny our our existence, but what we are conscious of is only real to us and the world is no more real then a dream and to deny the realities of that dream is to deny your conscious awareness at that moment: which one cannot ever can properly do. So what is real us or the dream? We are and it is more probable that we (our consciousness) derived from God, then that the world created consciousness seeing that our conscious state embraces other worlds besides the one we are currently aware of.

You said: "Whilst nothing can be proven to be real, degrees of probability can be assigned based on internal self consistency of the evidence perceived". To this I concur: conscious awareness is a only provable fact to a conscious being. And therefore I made the claim: it is more reasonable to believe in God (the originator of consciousness), than a world which may only exist as a small part of one's consciousness and which very existence cannot be proven outside of one's conscious mind.
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Post by sheep »

Bryn Mawr;1452842 wrote: You not only claimed that the thought came from a conscious being (which goes without saying) but also that the conscious being was necessarily finite (which cannot be proven) and that the "fact" that the conscious being was finite (unproven) proved that an infinite being must exist. There can be no logical basis for this last claim.


What I can know is that I am learning and that would be an attribute of a finite consciousness. So I think we can agree that that is not assumed, although I will agree that an infinite conscious being may have the ability to suspend its knowledge (I am saving you the response...lol). Things like time, which is a measurement of beginnings also speaks to the finiteness of our existence.

Using your argument "Whilst nothing can be proven to be real, degrees of probability can be assigned based on internal self consistency of the evidence perceived", I again make the claim that an Eternal Consciousness is the only "assumption" that has its bases in fact and that fact is consciousness. I maintain that a belief in a God is more reasonable than any belief in anything seen, as everything seen is not based upon any other "fact" than one's consciousness. Consciousness is a provable fact, while what is seen is and cannot be proven.
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Post by sheep »

gmc;1452844 wrote: I wasn't talking about the physical world I was talking about god. You exist it does not follow that god must also exist. You can postulate that god made you but you can;t prove that he even exists.

I can go on from my own existence to satisfy myself (note myself not anybody else ) that the physical world exists and get on with life to my own satisfaction.

But the question was does god exist as the one who created it all. I don't need to imagine a creator and I can't prove that there is one. I don't need to prove that there isn't but you do because you claim that there must be one. It is not a more reasonable belief it is just the one you have chosen because reason does not come in to it. You cannot prove there is a god just saying it makes more sense to believe that there is one is actually nonsense.

It is intuitive to think that we are doing the thinking, but what if we do not create these thoughts-what if these thoughts come to us? If that is the case, then we have no proof that an "I" exists.

We simply believe our intuition that we exist or live as true skeptics that cannot even be sure of our very existence as sentient beings. In either case it makes no logical sense to assume a creator. Who created the creator and I'm sorry but god always was and has been just does not cut the mustard.



that's merely the way the sophistry of the religious trying to stop people thinking about it because the inescapable conclusion is that you believe in god because you want to not because there is a shred of evidence. You have faith because you don't have any reason for your belief.


First let me state, even if thoughts were projected into our being would not change our existence, it would just mean it is controlled, but we would still exist just as a computer exists: despite its/our limited abilities.

As to God having always existed, it might be that to a finite existence, the infinite is beyond the limits of one's comprehension. But things like time, which is experienced by all finite beings, would not exist to the infinite and so to you it is just beyond your thinking and experience, but that does not make it a improbability, on the contrary, a first cause has always been assumed and is still assumed, although today science is trying to state that things just pop up out of nowhere because they cannot understand or "see" the things that are creating the particles that are being created. One day they will say oh yea, those particles where being created by the speeding up of particles from the laser and the molecules that were before not visible to them.

Have you ever seen a burger pop up out of nowhere? If you have you might want to check yourself into a psych ward. There is a first cause and that first cause must be eternal and for that reason consciousness actually can properly be understood as how the eternal can exist, while the universe does not have eternal qualities; things like time are not qualities of eternal characteristics, as time is a measurement of a beginning and whatever is eternal must just exist and all must exist within its current state. Past, and future are byproducts of finite entities and seeing into the past from a current position does not make the past present. Consciousness actually can explain how what we see exists and how it can exist. The universe fails to provide us with how all can exist: without just giving us more theories and no actual facts.
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Post by Bryn Mawr »

sheep;1459512 wrote: What I can know is that I am learning and that would be an attribute of a finite consciousness. So I think we can agree that that is not assumed, although I will agree that an infinite conscious being may have the ability to suspend its knowledge (I am saving you the response...lol). Things like time, which is a measurement of beginnings also speaks to the finiteness of our existence.


Whilst it could be an attribute of a finite consciousness the situation where an infinite consciousness partitions off (a) small portion(s) of itself to provide a sandboxed area for experiment or, in the case of an isolated entity, alternative personalities to relieve the loneliness cannot be discounted. Given this I don't think we can agree that it is not an assumption.

sheep;1459512 wrote: Using your argument "Whilst nothing can be proven to be real, degrees of probability can be assigned based on internal self consistency of the evidence perceived", I again make the claim that an Eternal Consciousness is the only "assumption" that has its bases in fact and that fact is consciousness. I maintain that a belief in a God is more reasonable than any belief in anything seen, as everything seen is not based upon any other "fact" than one's consciousness. Consciousness is a provable fact, while what is seen is and cannot be proven.


You'll have to take this one slowly. What "fact" is the assumption of an eternal consciousness based on? The fact of consciousness proves existence, not eternal existence but existence for the fleeting moment that is now - it "proves" nothing more.

Using my argument we can correlate the sum total of our sensory input and check its internal self consistency, balance this against a concept with no basis in direct evidence and a very shaky basis in logic (at least, as far as the logic you've provided so far) and I have to disagree with your statement that belief in God is more reasonable that belief in the perceived world.
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Post by sheep »

Bryn Mawr;1459537 wrote: Whilst it could be an attribute of a finite consciousness the situation where an infinite consciousness partitions off (a) small portion(s) of itself to provide a sandboxed area for experiment or, in the case of an isolated entity, alternative personalities to relieve the loneliness cannot be discounted. Given this I don't think we can agree that it is not an assumption.


I find it interesting that in your response you argue consciousness from the position of an eternal consciousness, as oppose to one popping out of nothingness (which would be a total absurdity), but I do agree that the possibility of what you have suggested above does exist.



Bryn Mawr;1459537 wrote: You'll have to take this one slowly. What "fact" is the assumption of an eternal consciousness based on? The fact of consciousness proves existence, not eternal existence but existence for the fleeting moment that is now - it "proves" nothing more.

Using my argument we can correlate the sum total of our sensory input and check its internal self consistency, balance this against a concept with no basis in direct evidence and a very shaky basis in logic (at least, as far as the logic you've provided so far) and I have to disagree with your statement that belief in God is more reasonable that belief in the perceived world.


The original argument is that "it is more reasonable to believe in God then the world we actually see". Seeing that consciousness is a provable fact and that what we see is not, the issue becomes is it more believable to believe in a first cause, or no cause, and since what is seen is in question and what is not in question is consciousness, then is it more reasonable to believe that consciousness popped out of nowhere, or that it has a first cause. I affirm that since it is more reasonable to believe that something is the continuation of something else, that came from an ultimate first cause, then to believe that something came from nothing, it is therefore more "reasonable" to believe in God, than to believe in the universe which we cannot prove exists outside of consciousness.
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Post by FourPart »

How can you define 'thought'? It can't be 'seen' in the physical sense, although it may be monitored with specialised equipment, such as EEG & MRI, but even in the days before we had such technology no-one could deny its existence. Eventually electricity was discovered & the link between electricity & the brain was made, yet electricity cannot be seen in its own right - only the effect it has on the things around it.

When you look at something black, in actual fact the only way you can see it is by recognising that something is missing from the items around it that you CAN see it, due to the fact that you can only see reflected light, and black absorbs light. We know that Black Holes exist, not because we can see them, but because we can't see them, but we can see the effect they have on things around them. This, however, does not make it some sort of supernatural occurence.

Either way, as I've already said to Pahu, the claim that you can't disprove that something exists is not evidence that it DOES exist. We are still very much in the infancy of understanding the Universe & its mysteries, but we are amassing evidence that explains a little more every day.
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Post by Bryn Mawr »

sheep;1459541 wrote: I find it interesting that in your response you argue consciousness from the position of an eternal consciousness, as oppose to one popping out of nothingness (which would be a total absurdity), but I do agree that the possibility of what you have suggested above does exist.





The original argument is that "it is more reasonable to believe in God then the world we actually see". Seeing that consciousness is a provable fact and that what we see is not, the issue becomes is it more believable to believe in a first cause, or no cause, and since what is seen is in question and what is not in question is consciousness, then is it more reasonable to believe that consciousness popped out of nowhere, or that it has a first cause. I affirm that since it is more reasonable to believe that something is the continuation of something else, that came from an ultimate first cause, then to believe that something came from nothing, it is therefore more "reasonable" to believe in God, than to believe in the universe which we cannot prove exists outside of consciousness.


You are equating consciousness with God but you have not proven that equality.

If you wish to say "it is more reasonable to believe in consciousness then the world we actually see" then I would totally agree with you but given the phrasing you use I cannot agree at all.
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Post by sheep »

Bryn Mawr;1459547 wrote: You are equating consciousness with God but you have not proven that equality.

If you wish to say "it is more reasonable to believe in consciousness then the world we actually see" then I would totally agree with you but given the phrasing you use I cannot agree at all.


Dear Bryn, I am really glad to have had your input in this thread, often I felt as though I was making arguments, but failing to see responses that were based upon arguments that had sound foundations. Before I make my argument, I want to thank you again for taking part: with your input.

Isn't saying it is more reasonable to believe in consciousness than the world we actually see, really saying that consciousness is provable, while the world we see is in question and isn't making that statement affirming that it is more reasonable to believe that consciousness is therefore the first cause, rather than what is seen: seeing we cannot be certain that what we see exists outside of consciousness?
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Post by FourPart »

sheep;1459590 wrote: Dear Bryn, I am really glad to have had your input in this thread, often I felt as though I was making arguments, but failing to see responses that were based upon arguments that had sound foundations. Before I make my argument, I want to thank you again for taking part: with your input.

Isn't saying it is more reasonable to believe in consciousness than the world we actually see, really saying that consciousness is provable, while the world we see is in question and isn't making that statement affirming that it is more reasonable to believe that consciousness is therefore the first cause, rather than what is seen: seeing we cannot be certain that what we see exists outside of consciousness?
The thing is, as I have said, consciousness IS provable with the use of EEG & MRI, etc. That is, unless you want to enter into the world of fantasy, philosophy & sci-fi, where the storyline is that we are all really only in a state of suspended animation, living out our lives by way of an induced dream state in order to keep our minds active. Although, even if this were the case, the simple fact that we had been put into suspended animation would mean that a condition of consciousness would have had to exist, be it by us, or whoever put us there in the first place.
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Post by Bryn Mawr »

sheep;1459590 wrote: Dear Bryn, I am really glad to have had your input in this thread, often I felt as though I was making arguments, but failing to see responses that were based upon arguments that had sound foundations. Before I make my argument, I want to thank you again for taking part: with your input.

Isn't saying it is more reasonable to believe in consciousness than the world we actually see, really saying that consciousness is provable, while the world we see is in question and isn't making that statement affirming that it is more reasonable to believe that consciousness is therefore the first cause, rather than what is seen: seeing we cannot be certain that what we see exists outside of consciousness?


What do you mean by the phrase "consciousness is therefore the first cause"?

Consciousness is an (¿the only?) absolute provable fact without reference to any outside data - it is not the cause of any other fact or event and the fact that consciousness exists does not prove anything other than that *something* exists to hold that consciousness.
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Post by sheep »

Bryn Mawr;1459593 wrote: What do you mean by the phrase "consciousness is therefore the first cause"?

Consciousness is an (¿the only?) absolute provable fact without reference to any outside data - it is not the cause of any other fact or event and the fact that consciousness exists does not prove anything other than that *something* exists to hold that consciousness.


Now that is all based upon assumptions... Seeing that outside data might all be only inside of consciousness, we haven't proven outside data to actually be real beyond consciousness. Just as dreams, or what might happen after death, might all be only a part of our conscious mind, so this continual state of conscious life may only be a part of our conscious mind and it may have no other existence except for it being in our conscious mind.

To say that something must exist to hold our conscious mind is an assumption, for all we know our conscious mind creates what we see to exist in this state we call life, including our bodies, just as it does in dreams and not the other way around: which is what Robert Lanza's book on BIOCENTRISM claims the data from quantum physics points to and what I am claiming is actually true.
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Post by recovering conservative »

sheep;1459541 wrote: I find it interesting that in your response you argue consciousness from the position of an eternal consciousness, as oppose to one popping out of nothingness (which would be a total absurdity), but I do agree that the possibility of what you have suggested above does exist.





The original argument is that "it is more reasonable to believe in God then the world we actually see".
I'm glad you're referencing the beginning of this long thread, because I don't have the time, nor inclination to review all 28 pages. Over the first couple of pages, I was waiting to see a definition of God, or how certain we can be of evidence provided through the senses.

If 'God' just means some sort of creative force that has to exist prior to the world, then the claim that our world has to be 'created,' already begins on a false presumption from how we understand the forces at work in our everyday world. We don't see things pop into existence...everything that exists has to come from some other source. But, that's not how things work at the subatomic level, according to the physics that best explains particle interactions - Quantum Physics, informs us that "virtual particle pairs" pop into existence from the fabric of space-time, and instantly annihilate each other when they come together...and this apparently, makes it possible to transmit energy like light or other electromagnetic radiation through space.

Does this make any sense? Of course not! And that should be a clear indicator that the way things work at the very small/and very large scales, does not follow our commonsense wisdom which has allowed us to evolve and function in what some physicists refer to as the world of "middle dimensions," where we have solid objects and space is straight dimensions, and time is separate and unchanging as it progresses etc.

And, if particles can pop into and out of existence, so can entire universes, according to the same principles of physics that are used to make lasers and microprocessor chips! I don't have Lawrence Krauss's book - "A Universe From Nothing," which he wrote a couple of years ago to present this concept to the general public....Krauss's idea is not new or revolutionary; it's something that many physicists have been advancing for years.

I have no idea whether they are right or wrong, but if a plausible scientific argument can be made that universes can come into existence and evolve and eventually vanish without the need for outside creative forces, then we have to accept the plain fact that belief in a creator is simply an act of faith, that may or may not have any bearing on how and why we and our world exist in the first place.



Seeing that consciousness is a provable fact and that what we see is not, the issue becomes is it more believable to believe in a first cause, or no cause, and since what is seen is in question and what is not in question is consciousness, then is it more reasonable to believe that consciousness popped out of nowhere, or that it has a first cause. I affirm that since it is more reasonable to believe that something is the continuation of something else, that came from an ultimate first cause, then to believe that something came from nothing, it is therefore more "reasonable" to believe in God, than to believe in the universe which we cannot prove exists outside of consciousness.
Here we have another concept - 'consciousness' that we believe we understand, since we feel self-aware and function in this world; yet we have no evidence to prove basic facets of consciousness:

is our consciousness continuous, or is our sense of continuity of consciousness one more indication of self-generated illusion? There are a lot of neuroscientists and philosophers who lean towards the latter.

What we "see" with our senses are merely maps created by brain function, NOT the actual phenomena itself. Our brains have to create internal maps of the terrain around us and present it in a way that makes it possible for us to function as a united organism with a sense of self-preservation....and that may be all that there is behind how and why we are conscious in the first place.
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Post by Bryn Mawr »

sheep;1459611 wrote: Now that is all based upon assumptions... Seeing that outside data might all be only inside of consciousness, we haven't proven outside data to actually be real beyond consciousness. Just as dreams, or what might happen after death, might all be only a part of our conscious mind, so this continual state of conscious life may only be a part of our conscious mind and it may have no other existence except for it being in our conscious mind.

To say that something must exist to hold our conscious mind is an assumption, for all we know our conscious mind creates what we see to exist in this state we call life, including our bodies, just as it does in dreams and not the other way around: which is what Robert Lanza's book on BIOCENTRISM claims the data from quantum physics points to and what I am claiming is actually true.


That is not an assumption, it is provable fact. That fact that consciousness exists means that something exists to be conscious - in your statement you call it "mind" but we do not know what form it takes, just that it exists.

All we know is that "something" exists in the brief moment of "now". We do not know whether it existed a second ago nor whether it will exist in a seconds time, neither do we know the extent of its knowledge or its power - just that it exists. To make the jump from this to "God exists" is a leap of faith that cannot be supported by logic.
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Post by sheep »

recovering conservative;1459612 wrote: I'm glad you're referencing the beginning of this long thread, because I don't have the time, nor inclination to review all 28 pages. Over the first couple of pages, I was waiting to see a definition of God, or how certain we can be of evidence provided through the senses.

If 'God' just means some sort of creative force that has to exist prior to the world, then the claim that our world has to be 'created,' already begins on a false presumption from how we understand the forces at work in our everyday world. We don't see things pop into existence...everything that exists has to come from some other source. But, that's not how things work at the subatomic level, according to the physics that best explains particle interactions - Quantum Physics, informs us that "virtual particle pairs" pop into existence from the fabric of space-time, and instantly annihilate each other when they come together...and this apparently, makes it possible to transmit energy like light or other electromagnetic radiation through space.

Does this make any sense? Of course not! And that should be a clear indicator that the way things work at the very small/and very large scales, does not follow our commonsense wisdom which has allowed us to evolve and function in what some physicists refer to as the world of "middle dimensions," where we have solid objects and space is straight dimensions, and time is separate and unchanging as it progresses etc.

And, if particles can pop into and out of existence, so can entire universes, according to the same principles of physics that are used to make lasers and microprocessor chips! I don't have Lawrence Krauss's book - "A Universe From Nothing," which he wrote a couple of years ago to present this concept to the general public....Krauss's idea is not new or revolutionary; it's something that many physicists have been advancing for years.

I have no idea whether they are right or wrong, but if a plausible scientific argument can be made that universes can come into existence and evolve and eventually vanish without the need for outside creative forces, then we have to accept the plain fact that belief in a creator is simply an act of faith, that may or may not have any bearing on how and why we and our world exist in the first place.



Here we have another concept - 'consciousness' that we believe we understand, since we feel self-aware and function in this world; yet we have no evidence to prove basic facets of consciousness:

is our consciousness continuous, or is our sense of continuity of consciousness one more indication of self-generated illusion? There are a lot of neuroscientists and philosophers who lean towards the latter.

What we "see" with our senses are merely maps created by brain function, NOT the actual phenomena itself. Our brains have to create internal maps of the terrain around us and present it in a way that makes it possible for us to function as a united organism with a sense of self-preservation....and that may be all that there is behind how and why we are conscious in the first place.


May I suggest that the idea of particles popping in and out of existence is not to say those particles are coming from nothing, but rather that the particles are just concentrations of energy and because the size of the energy is not measurable on a particle scale that currently exists the minuet energy particles are not recognized as particles. But once the energy is stimulated with a source, it causes such friction that a particle (convergence of concentrated energy) appears, where no particle appeared to exist before. Lasers are used to stimulate particles in a vacuum and we know that vacuums have energy, so if that energy is stimulated to cause the appearance of a particle it is not because something came from nothing, but rather because something is created from something else.

I noticed you mentioned black holes and was reading an article where Stephen Hawkings now states that the theory behind black holes is flawed. I am amazed at how many theories/assumptions are eventually proven to be wrong, as they are often based upon other assumptions that were incorrect.

If we stick to what we can prove and build from there slowly, then we might be able to make some good assessments about truths, and that is my hope here.

So far all we can know for sure is that consciousness exists and that what we see in the physical is questionable.

Anyways, I don't know why people are opposed to the idea that God exists in conscious form and that all we see may be a form of consciousness and that it may be all that really exists, when the only thing we can know for sure is that consciousness is a fact and that what is seen is questionable.

I continually make the point, in a round about way, that it is more reasonable to base what we believe on facts and the only fact that we can be sure of is consciousness, and therefor it is more reasonable and to believe in God then what we see: as we have absolutely no proof (factual evidence) that what we see is real beyond our consciousness.

I remember once seeing a documentary which showed what appeared to be microscopic crabs, now before we had the microscopes to see those tiny crabs, we might say, the smallest crab that is known to exist is maybe an inch in length (this is just a statement I am making upon no factual evidence), but none the less these microscopic crabs exist and I am willing to bet that they are the same biological makeup as the crabs we can actually see with our eyes and I am also wiling to bet that energy is made up of particles that are microcosms of particle energy, it is just that we don't have the technology to measure energy on such small levels.

The idea that something actually comes from nothing is one that is totally stupid, in my mind, as everything that exists must originate from an eternal first cause. The question is, what is that first eternal cause and consciousness makes sense, from the sense that it has all the necessary requirements to embody "eternal attributes", while nothing else that I have been made aware of does.

*eternal attributes would have to include existing in an unchanging state, without either growing or diminishing in state: as change is an affect of external forces imposing themselves upon other things and therefore anything that actually changes would and could not be an eternal first cause.
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Consciousness exists.

Imagination exists in the conscious.

God exists in the imagination.

In that sense only can it be stated that God exists in the conscious.
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Bryn Mawr;1459615 wrote: That is not an assumption, it is provable fact. That fact that consciousness exists means that something exists to be conscious - in your statement you call it "mind" but we do not know what form it takes, just that it exists.

All we know is that "something" exists in the brief moment of "now". We do not know whether it existed a second ago nor whether it will exist in a seconds time, neither do we know the extent of its knowledge or its power - just that it exists. To make the jump from this to "God exists" is a leap of faith that cannot be supported by logic.


I use the term "conscious mind" as one entity: consciousness.

All I am saying is that we cannot prove the world we see exists "outside of consciousness" and therefore it is more reasonable to believe in the ultimate first cause being conscious, than to believe in something that, for all we can tell, is a small part of our consciousness.

In the end we are conscious of the world, but is it real? Sure, it is real to us, but is it real outside of us? To that we only can say, I have no idea. But we cannot deny our own consciousness and that there must be an ultimate first eternal cause: most will agree to; but seeing the world we see does not have eternal qualities, while consciousness can exist with eternal qualities, I maintain it is therefore more reasonable to believe in an eternal consciousness than to believe in an eternal physical world: as the physical world we see does not have the qualities necessary to be eternal.

I am not supporting the following, but here is a link to a book that challenges the idea that a vacuum is empty and shows flaws with Krauss' theories on something being created from nothing: Physicists Vs. Philosophers: Something May Come From Nothing, But Creation Isn't An Event - Forbes.

The idea that something came from nothing is a theory/assumption that is based upon absolute nonsense, in my opinion, and one which contradicts the idea of an eternal first cause, which is the only "legitimate" way to explain were all things came from, unless you believe that something can come from nothing, which is not only not provable but it is an idea that would have landed you in a loony bin not so many years ago.

I find it funny that people can have a hard time believing in God and yet have no problem in believing that matter can pop out of nowhere: talk about gullible.

*change, which the world we see goes through, cannot be an eternal quality: as change assumes external forces, time, distance, etc., all of which demand past and future as qualities. I know that qualities of the eternal is probably not something that many people have considered, but it is something that must be considered, in a original first cause not appearing from nothing.

To claim that something can come from nothing has absolutely no grounds for bases, either in science, or in reason, or in experience, to any provable degree at all. I will now add that any person that thinks it is possible, or reasonable, to have a universe come from nothing maybe you should consider the words expressed at the end of this video: Quantum Physics Proves Something Can Come From Nothing? - William Lane Craig, PhD - YouTube
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sheep;1459641 wrote: I use the term "conscious mind" as one entity: consciousness.

All I am saying is that we cannot prove the world we see exists "outside of consciousness" and therefore it is more reasonable to believe in the ultimate first cause being conscious, than to believe in something that, for all we can tell, is a small part of our consciousness.


There is the non-sequitur in your argument. You have shown no evidence for this and no logical progression from one to the other.

sheep;1459641 wrote: In the end we are conscious of the world, but is it real? Sure, it is real to us, but is it real outside of us? To that we only can say, I have no idea. But we cannot deny our own consciousness and that there must be an ultimate first eternal cause: most will agree to; but seeing the world we see does not have eternal qualities, while consciousness can exist with eternal qualities, I maintain it is therefore more reasonable to believe in an eternal consciousness than to believe in an eternal physical world: as the physical world we see does not have the qualities necessary to be eternal.


Again, give your logic to show this to be the case

sheep;1459641 wrote: I am not supporting the following, but here is a link to a book that challenges the idea that a vacuum is empty and shows flaws with Krauss' theories on something being created from nothing: Physicists Vs. Philosophers: Something May Come From Nothing, But Creation Isn't An Event - Forbes.

The idea that something came from nothing is a theory/assumption that is based upon absolute nonsense, in my opinion, and one which contradicts the idea of an eternal first cause, which is the only "legitimate" way to explain were all things came from, unless you believe that something can come from nothing, which is not only not provable but it is an idea that would have landed you in a loony bin not so many years ago.

I find it funny that people can have a hard time believing in God and yet have no problem in believing that matter can pop out of nowhere: talk about gullible.


There are two possible areas that you are questioning here, the Big Bang and the evaporation of Black Holes. If you look at the theory then the Big Bang does not specify that the material came out of nothing, it states that the material came form a source that we cannot define because it is the other side of an event horizon that we cannot see through. With the creation of matter at the event horizon of a Black Hole again this is not creation of matter out of nothing as there are equivalent anti-particles on the other side of the event horizon the remain within the Black Hole.

sheep;1459641 wrote: *change, which the world we see goes through, cannot be an eternal quality: as change assumes external forces, time, distance, etc., all of which demand past and future as qualities. I know that qualities of the eternal is probably not something that many people have considered, but it is something that must be considered, in a original first cause not appearing from nothing.

To claim that something can come from nothing has absolutely no grounds for bases, either in science, or in reason, or in experience, to any provable degree at all. I will now add that any person that thinks it is possible, or reasonable, to have a universe come from nothing maybe you should consider the words expressed at the end of this video: Quantum Physics Proves Something Can Come From Nothing? - William Lane Craig, PhD - YouTube


See above.
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This is the same as the ongoing argument with Pahu. He states time & time again that nothing can come of nothing, but that God has always been there, before there was anything, and therefore had to have come from nothing. Now, I could be mistaken, but is there not a contradiction there?

Furthermore, the initial spark of the Big Bang would have been that of energy, rather than matter, bearing in mind that Matter & Energy are interchangeable. It would, therefore have started as pure energy & then transformed into matter during that first moment of reaction.

I admit that I find it difficult to get my head around the concept of there not having been anything at all before the Big Bang, but I also find it difficult to get my head around the concept of an expanding Universe (or more to the point, what is beyond the edge), which has been proved to be the case, but by plotting the progress of events as we can observe them happening, it's a fairly logical progression to map the point of origin. i.e. If you draw a straight line along points B, C, D & E, it's not difficult to see where A's likely to have been.
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sheep;1459623 wrote: May I suggest that the idea of particles popping in and out of existence is not to say those particles are coming from nothing, but rather that the particles are just concentrations of energy and because the size of the energy is not measurable on a particle scale that currently exists the minuet energy particles are not recognized as particles.
"Energy" is just the description of the type and amount (expressed in joules) of force, both as potential and as applied...and how that force can be transferred from one form of energy to another, but cannot be destroyed...according to laws of thermodynamics. So, when we talk about 'energy', what are we really talking about? Same goes for other descriptions of nature that we have. If we want to be technical, there is no substance as we understand it, in "particles" and we don't understand the nature of "space" either. Except that, according to laws of quantum physics, space cannot be empty in the sense that we would intuitively understand emptiness. Energy being transmitted by virtual particle pairs within the fabric of space-time, means that our yardsticks for defining the world around us, do not apply at the subatomic world!

So, when we ask age-old questions like "where did the universe come from?" We are just asking nonsense questions; because, according to the rules of physics, nothingness is the condition that cannot exist/ not universes.

But once the energy is stimulated with a source, it causes such friction that a particle (convergence of concentrated energy) appears, where no particle appeared to exist before. Lasers are used to stimulate particles in a vacuum and we know that vacuums have energy, so if that energy is stimulated to cause the appearance of a particle it is not because something came from nothing, but rather because something is created from something else.
I've read some cosmology theories...specifically the multiverse theories - which really get into how 'false vacuum energy' causes expanded universes at 'heat death' to "snap back" or somehow lose all of the expanded space-time and return back to their primal existence and reacquire their heat energy as they become part of another 'big bang' expansion in some 11 dimensional multiverse framework....I believe this explanation, which I read some time ago in a summary by Neil Turok, hinges on M-Theory...which is losing favour in more recent times. But, at best, these "cosmological theories" come across as the most advanced and brilliant physicists and mathematicians trying to grasp at the nature of the cosmos we live in. And, it may end up that the real cosmology is too difficult and too strange for any human mind to develop into a theory.

So far all we can know for sure is that consciousness exists and that what we see in the physical is questionable.


What we do know is that our sense of consciousness is based on self reports, and just as information from the senses can lead to illusions and delusions about the external world; it seems exactly the same with our sense of self identity as well. If self identity is what we mean by consciousness (I'm still not sure how you are defining consciousness) then our sense of unified, continuous self is an illusion created deliberately for us to navigate and survive in our world of middle dimensions. Our sense of self does not have to be accurate or based on a real understanding of nature to allow us to obtain food, interact positively with other people and survive attacks from predators. Most of what we do...including how our desires motivate us to action, occur at an unconscious level, and away from our conscious awareness...everything that we are consciously aware of has to be transmitted to one of the cortices of the brain. The sub-cortical levels where our emotions, instinctive reactions are generated, may cause action (and do most of the time) without us even being consciously aware of them. And, this should be obvious to anyone who has learned an advanced skill through repeated practice...as most of the actions of that skill - whether it's martial arts, playing basketball or playing a musical instrument, are made at the intuitive unconscious level. conscious awareness only comes into play when something more than repetition and instinct are needed, and the human organism has to weigh in acquired knowledge and reason through towards a new and hopefully better solution to a problem.

Anyways, I don't know why people are opposed to the idea that God exists in conscious form and that all we see may be a form of consciousness and that it may be all that really exists, when the only thing we can know for sure is that consciousness is a fact and that what is seen is questionable.


I'm not opposed to God...only the notion that God exists is a statement of fact! We don't understand the nature of this universe and its forces, and how and where it comes from, and we don't even understand what our own sense of identity and awareness and consciousness really is...I could have added all of the evidence against understanding our nature through introspection, just from the evidence against from the study of damaged minds...people who had the corpus collosum (nerve bundle connecting left and right cortex hemispheres) act and behave as two separate conscious minds are inhabiting the body, and yet when asked to explain simple problems like why their dominant side (right hand) would cause them to remove a pen or a fork from the left hand and control it...they not only provide an answer, but it's one that maintains their illusion of unitary self...they never say something like 'I can't control my right hand' or 'I had to take the fork from my left hand,' they just reply nonchalantly that they made a mistake, as if they made both decisions together - the first one in error, and the 2nd one correcting that error.
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recovering conservative;1459698 wrote:

So, when we ask age-old questions like "where did the universe come from?" We are just asking nonsense questions; because, according to the rules of physics, nothingness is the condition that cannot exist/ not universes.


Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to argue the case for a God - Far from it. It's just the question of being able to accept the non-existence of 'nothing'.

As we know, the Universe is expanding, like a balloon. The question is, though, is what's beyond the skin of that balloon. Is that 'nothing', or is it just a growing less of 'something'. As with a sealed balloon in a bell jar, as you evacuate the air from the jar the balloon inflates, yet with a finite amount of air within the balloon - just a changing of pressures. Or perhaps the outer Universe is the Bell Jar, with the 'something' in it being evacuated by Black Holes, leaving our own Universe (the balloon) to expand. But then, that returns to the other question of what is there beyond the Outer Universe (the Bell Jar).
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FourPart;1459699 wrote: Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to argue the case for a God - Far from it. It's just the question of being able to accept the non-existence of 'nothing'.
I look at it as God being an attempt to anthropomorphize our world...a father or mother (which was more common in early times) figure makes the world we live in...end of story! Except for those who want a little extra help along the way, or want the maker of the universe to grant them immortality through resurrection of the body or give them some immortal essence that lives eternally with God.

I'm fine if people want to believe these things...they certainly do comfort some people who don't like the concept of being lost in an uncaring universe...especially in the times we live in today! My objections only come in when God intrudes into how nonbelievers live their lives. I'm not a humanist or an antitheist, because I don't have something better to offer from my atheism...it's just the way things look to me is pretty much the end of my speech if someone asks me why I don't believe...and doesn't press the issue.

As we know, the Universe is expanding, like a balloon. The question is, though, is what's beyond the skin of that balloon. Is that 'nothing', or is it just a growing less of 'something'. As with a sealed balloon in a bell jar, as you evacuate the air from the jar the balloon inflates, yet with a finite amount of air within the balloon - just a changing of pressures. Or perhaps the outer Universe is the Bell Jar, with the 'something' in it being evacuated by Black Holes, leaving our own Universe (the balloon) to expand. But then, that returns to the other question of what is there beyond the Outer Universe (the Bell Jar).
The problem here is that the "expanding balloon" analogy is just that - an analogy to try to help us conceptualize space-time as the 4th dimension....with no center of the expansion (as there would be in a 3d universe), and how expansion of the universe just makes everything farther and farther apart. The balloon analogy should not be taken as a description of how four dimensional universes expand because our brains conceptualize 3d objects/ not 4 dimensional things. Physicists can do the math and prove it is happening...with varying degrees of acceptance from their colleagues, but since it doesn't describe what our universe looks like, the expansion has no edge where a void of some sort lies beyond it! All we are left with is having to accept (even if there are other universes) that we are limited to the space-time fabric of our universe, and have no ability to look at what is just outside or beyond its expansion.

According to physicists who study Einstein's work on relativity closely, Einstein himself did not propose a space-time dimension, except as an analogy, which later physicists and teachers adopted as a fixed part of relativity theory. Some physicists of late have been trying to detach the notion of a time dimension...because it hasn't been working too well in attempts to harmonize relativity and quantum mechanics, or develop cosmology theories any further. I can't find the link I was going to post...an article I noticed yesterday on a new approach..but here's some food for thought from the physicists who want to erase the blackboard and start over:

Physicists continue work to abolish time as fourth dimension of space

A physicist at the Perimeter Institute - Lee Smolin...who I came across a few years back when he tried to create an evolutionary theory to explain how multiverses would lead towards greater abundance of life...I think he gave up on that one...but if I have the time, I'll some day get around to reading his book on time, and why he is a skeptic of how it has been incorporated as part of space-time dimension:

Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe [Kindle Edition]
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