Timothy Birdnow

On Facebook I'm having an argument about the existence and nature of God with some atheists. Thought everyone here would profit from the discussion.

Helen Hamann asks
Who created god?

Tim replies:

I guess then the U niverse just created itself. Nice trick, especially as we see absolutely no evidence to support a spontaneous creation from nothing.

Helen Hamann snorts:

you are falling into your own logical trap. Existence exists, it was not created, it is.

I respond:

Helen Hamann In oyther words you have no explanation for it and so refuse to accept any. 'It just is' is no more valid than saying God created it - less so in fact. It requires the total suspension of all known laws of this universe.

The Universe had a beginning and will have an end and we know that from Science. But we also know that the laws of this universe are solidly against spontaneous generation from nothing. Hoyle floated that idea and was shot down; the Steady State made no sense and never did gain mamority in scientific circles.

So we are sTILL left with the issue of where it came from. Your hypothesis merely kicks the can down the road.

Now I would point out that every human culture, ever group of people, believed in God or gods of some sort. The only truly atheistic societies were the Communists, and even then they tolerated some religion. Of course they are largely gone, eliminated by the contradictions in their philosophy.

There is such a thing as Natural Law, and belief in God falls within that scope. Just the fact that we all seem to intrinsically grasp that there is a God is a strong argument for His existence.

There is the Anthrropic Principle too. Change one force in this universe by any degree and you get a universe where life is impossible. We just luckily live in a sweet spot that makes our existence possible.

When we find exoplanets we don't find them by seeing them; we see their effects on stars. God has no direct proof and yet we see His handiwork in so many ways. Now, an astronomer could deny an exoplanet because he hasn't seen it. But he'd be wrong.

Helen doesn't like that. She snaps:

you obviously know very little about philosophy. Existence exists is an axiom. Do you know what that is?

My reply:

And yet you try to claim God doesn't exist but the universe does. A created thing a-priori requires a creator. If not you mus tbe able to prove something exists for a reason in this particular universe. You are indulging in sophomore philosophy here.I am saying there is ample evidence for a Creator based on what we can infer from the nature of the universe. You are saying "like I don't see it dude" and then saying "it's all there is" which is a CONCLUSION not based on rationality or on logic but on a presupposition. The laws of this universe are that there si a cause for every effect, ergo there must be a prime cause or the universe violates it's own fundamental laws. That is an axiom. Do you know what that is?

Helen again:

"yet you try to claim god doesn’t exist but the universe does” — duh? You cannot prove the existence of god, but if the universe didn’t exist, you wouldn’t either. To prove the existence of the universe, all you have to do is look around you. Existence has not been created from nothing, it just is. The notion of a creator is the most primitive of notions, when savages couldn’t explain all the phenomena around them. Some men evolved from those savage notions, some others remain glued to primitive explanations of reality.

To which I retort:

Helen Hamann Sorry but that is both shallow and immature logic. It is the primitive explanation of reality, not the belief in a God who is seen through multiople aspects of this same universe. How do you explain the anthropic principle then? By all menas give me your sophisticated explanation. You do admit the unverse had a beginning, right? That is fairly well established. So if it "juist is" how did it have a beginning? What caused the Big Bang? Oh, it just happened. I guess everything just happened then? Life just spontaneously generated from chemicals because it just happened? You have in one comment completely dismantled all of science and Western thought. Kudos!

Little children say "BECAUSE" to explain reality they do not understand. That is exactly what you do by saying "it just is".

At this point a polite atheist named Dale Mullin interjects himself.
Dale says:

"I guess then the Universe just created itself. Nice trick, especially as we see absolutely no evidence to support a spontaneous creation from nothing."

Interestingly enough, many of us use that very logic to explain(?) the existence of God, whoever/whatever that may be "thought" to be.
Although I have my own thoughts, I really don't know what/who God is. Along these lines, the only thing I'm relatively sure of is, neither does anyone else although they are (or at least should be) allowed to form their own beliefs on what they personally experience.

Tim replies:

The universe inside of itself and MUST follow the laws to which it is bound. It had a beginning and will have an end. God exists outside of the perceptual universe hence He is not bound by the laws we observe here. We can't answer "who created God" because He is outside of any frame of reference to which we have any connection. All we can do is extrapolate from things we observe in reality. I pointed out a few of them here. And we have to assume God had a reason for creating the universe, hence He would try to endeav or to speak to us in some fashion to give us what we need to know and understand. I would add many of us Christians know God in a real, personal way that those who don't can't grasp. This is proof enough to us as individuals, but I understand it isn't proof to non-believers. But you don't have to have had a religious experience to see evidence of the existence of God in the Universe. As for forming their own beliefs, people can and do that all the time, most especially in free countries where you are not forced into a specific religion (as in the U.S.) BUT there are churches and bibles and the teachings of prophets and teachers who have had experiences that transcend the ordinary and who have bequethed to us knowledge outside of human reason that is consistent and helps lead us to a greater knowledge of God. My arguement is that God probably is best described by one of the great religions of the world, more so than by others, and that, as with any branch of inquiry, such religions advance with time. So I think it wise to pick one if you come to believe God exists. I further think Christianity is the best for a variety of reasons; it does not caricature God or diminish Him into a person with unlimited power but makes Him something beyond Human experience (the Trinity, for instance, is hard if not impossible for so many to grasp, just as we would expect from such an entity). Forgiving people who are abusing you is another supra-natural thing and suggests it is genuine. I could go on but the point is made. Other faiths such as Hinduism always seem rather pointless; the endless recirculation of souls through all of time strikes me as fruitless. But be that as it may, in the end everyone must choose. Free will is what it's all about and deciding your ultimate fate. You can choose not to believe at all and that doesn't make you a bad person but it's a big risk given the possible consequences. And it STILL forces you to make a big leap of faith in saying the Universe is all there is even though it's existence is entirely unexplainable.

BTW we have no way of knowing that we aren't in some big head-fake, a thing that is quite different than what we think it is. I would point to the holographic theory of the universe, which is a real theory albeit a bit fringe. It is based on Stephen Hawkings theory of black holes and how entropy gathers at the even horizon. The Universe may be seen as an enormous black hole that decayed. If that is so and if Hawking is right then all the entropy is bunched up at the edge of this universe. As we live in a region of space that is ripe with entropy (actually, all of space appears so) then we must be on the edge of the event horizon. If that is so then we live in a kind of borderland, a twlighlight area. In the center things are pure, stuff doesn't fall apart, etc. Only out here everything is falling to pieces. Now there is no evidence for this theory, or not much, but it's just one example of how we look at the universe and see we may not be seeing the real picture. And that is just in the universe, What lay beyond is anybody's guess, but it clearly is very, very different than here. We are in a closed system that is winding down. And if we are how can we explain it? Things don't run backwards, so the universe cannot explain our existence in any reasonable fashion. You can look at your own body and say "I'm alive, that is all" or you can say "my parents made me when they did consummated their marriage" and you will know you were produced from someone and something else besides yourself. To say the universe is all because it exists is to stop short of any real inquiry and defeats the whole point of philosophy or science or reason.

Dale responds:

Interesting points.

"God exists outside of the perceptual universe hence He is not bound by the laws we observe here."

Who said and should we believe him/her/it/they?

"I would add many of us Christians know God in a real, personal way that those who don't can't grasp."

That sounds like a very suspicious statement. Many of those we consider psychotic, make very similar claims.

"This is proof enough to us as individuals, but I understand it isn't proof to non-believers"

If it is real, then the proof is/would be available and very evident to any who seek to know. However, such a "claim" sounds very much like, "It's true because I said so."

"What lay beyond is anybody's guess, but it clearly is very, very different than here. "

By definition, isn't the "universe" everything that exists? "Beyond existence" has no meaning.

I really do hope that God exists. However, I sincerely hope that he/it is not the fool characterized in the Bible.
Having said that, the Bible really is a very good book and well written, considering how many people were involved, the thinking during the time of development of its major parts, and the numerous translations and subjective slants injected.


And I reply:

Thanks; I aim to please!

You ask "Who said and should we believe him/her/it/they?"

Well, human beings have believed in a God or gods for all of human history. Most have, not just a few. That suggests an inborn knowledge of the existence of God even if nobody is sure of His form or other specifics. So there has been a divurgence of types of religion even if there has been a general agreement in basics.

I have heard it argued that it is wish-fulfillment, that people fear death and so create a God to take them to a paradise. But that's not at all correct; in many ancient cultures - including the Greeks - the dead were NOT in a paradise but rather became half-alive entitites, ghosts in a dreary underworld, mere shadows of the persons they had been. Heaven is primarily a Judeo-Christian concept. Granted, many ancient cultures reserved a kind of paradise for special cases - mostly soldiers fallen in battle; the Viking Valhala for instance. But generally you wound up just dead, or wandering around in some miserable astral plain that was reminiscent of Detroit.

Also you may be reincarnated and have to put up with all of this again and again until you reach Nirvana, which is not Heaven in the Christian sense but a complete union, an anschluss, with the all-consuming spirit mind. You are then free of such things are happiness or enjoyment - you just exist in this ethereal entity as part of a super-organism (Gaia?) Not very appealing. I would add Plato thought more like the Hindus in his personal religious beliefs.

At any rate, over time religions evolve just as civilizations do, and this evolution of religions influences others. Certainly Judaism adopted some good things from Zoarastrianism. Does that make Zoarastrianism right and Judaism simply a copy-cat? Not at all. Judaism needed these aspects and God helped them evolve for a reason.

BUt in the end I believe it requires the test of time, and one must examine the fruits of the faith.Judaism preaches charity and love. Christianity doubled down on that. Now both have adherents who practice neither but these are apostates. But if one looks at, say, Islam, one sees right away that it is about "justice" and has been fierce and warlike for centuries precisely because the Koran admonished it be so. Judaism had some passages related to warfare and the like (such as the ban where they were told to kill whole tribes) but Christianity eliminated all of that.

So we have literature in all faiths that address the religions, and those pieces of literature may or may not be inspired by God. I would argue the Bible largely is. I would argue the Koran was a fugase', a knockoff written to support the teachings of Muhammed, who blended a number of Christian (and non-Christian) heresies.

But the point is God has to be the one to make contact with us; we have no way of doing anything more than verifying certain fingerprints of God on reality. Like atoms, there never was any direct proof. Einstein came as close as possible with his paper on the direct proof of atoms (he used Brownian motion in spores to suggest they were being hit by atoms)and of course we've used machinery since then which follows the rules set by our theories, but nobody has ever actually seen an atom. As of the time of Einstein nobody had any proof of them - but most believed in them anyway.

Dale, it is true those with psychological problems may hear voices or think someone is present when they are not. But many serious Christians have had the experience, not of voices or seeing visions but of a feeling of a presence and God speaks to them via a rather quiet series of minor events in their lives. I don't expect you to understand as you haven't experienced it, but it's true enough. It's like a muscle; you have to exercise it, trying to see God in life. If you work at it you will find it.

And it's not open to just anyone , any more than the Olympics are open to couch-potatoes. Or singing to the deaf. Or painting great pictures to the blind. You have to be able to see to understand color. You will only have an intellectual knowledge of the existence of such a thing otherwise; you won't GET it.

But it's not necessary to believe in God, this personal experience. Logic alone can lead people there. (Being Catholic that puts me at odds with many of my Protestant friends.) It's been true of other faiths too; the Indians spoke of the Ajna Eye, for instance.

Then there are other, more direct experiences some have had. Near Death Experiences, for instance. Those are universal and they follow a very specific pattern. Much effort has gone into debunking them but none really have proven them false. Or there are things like apparitions. People at places like Fatima or Medjugorje have seen Mary, and some Jesus. You may deny that but these are always accompanied by miracles, and a LOT of people have seen those. I personally know a number of people who have seen the "miracle of the sun" at Medjugorje. And there have been documented miraculous healings at Fatima and other such places.

These things are rare but they do happen and they form a witness' list for the existence of God. So do their inverse - demonic possession. Those also are ubiquitous the world over and some have been well-documented.

You don't have to believe any of these and I don't expect you to. I am merely saying there is a large number of people who have had supernatural experiences over the centuries, and many right now. Some of them are quite well-educated and not easily fooled or superstitious.

Look at all the scientists who have believed. Isaac Newton, for instance, was an Episcopal priest.

"If it is real, then the proof is/would be available and very evident to any who seek to know."

Was Relativity available to any who would seek it? Most people still don't even understand it. Dito quantum physics. We are STILL arguing over the Copenhagen Interpretation of QP. And that is something in our perceptual universe.

Is there smoking gun PROOF of God's existence? No, but that shouldn't surprise us. We suspect the existence of a lot of things without proof. For decades we believed in black holes without finding them - until we did. We believe in Dark Matter and Dark Energy even now with zero evidence - both are just tools to balance the books.

As God exists outside of space and time we shouldn't be surprised we haven't found absolute proof os His existence. And we can theorize why He set it up that way. Personally I think God wanted us to make a free-will choice about our ultimate destiny, who we are and what we will become, and to do that it is necessary He hide His existence so as not to color our decision overmuch. Drop clues, intervene in spots, but leave enough uncertainty that we are not constrained by our knowledge. If we want to be big jerks we can justify it in our minds. We couldn't do that if we believe there is a God and He is just and will judge us for really bad behavior. If Adolf Hitler believed in the justice of God would he have done what he did?

Again, it's not a matter of absolute proof. But I think a lawyer could win in court with the evidence we possess for the existence of God.

"By definition, isn't the "universe" everything that exists? "Beyond existence" has no meaning."

No. The universe is a huge closed system with a set of specific universal laws and a whole lot of nothing in between. We know it began with the Big Bang and will end in a problematic way - either through a Big Crunch or through Heat Death as the Universe simply spreads out too much. We also have a fair idea there are other universes. And with this universe if Niels Bohrs and Copenhagen are right we have multiple branches of reality as this universe endlessly splits into new time tracks. This is called "the Many Worlds Hypothesis" and is often used to get out of the Anthropic Principle (since there is a universe for everything and so everything then becomes random chance - something I disagree with but what they heck.) This is not to be confused with the Multiverse, which sees a big rubber sheet of reality with different universes on it like spots - each universe having their own physical laws but being part of this metaverse.

At any rate the Universe is all we know of the physical dimensions of reality. We can't imagine something like a place where physical laws are different. Imagine negative time, for example. You can't; it quickly causes your brain to cramp. Effect preceding cause! Yet there is no reason at all why time cannot be a negative vector. The math suggests it is so.

And it may well be a reality in some other universe. Antimatter is a prime example of such a thing; Relativity suggested a negative solution to the charge of particles and Einstein just dismissed that as a mathematical artifact. But Paul Dirac thought otherwise and predicted subatomic particles with reverse chanrges - and they were eventually found in particle accelerators. The positron proved there was zero reason for all matter to be "normal" and antimatter should be as ubiquitous as matter in this universe. But it's not - another of the many mysteries of this particular univese we inhabit.

None of this was known to people in 1900, I might add. So, the question is, did it not exist until then? Certainly If the proof were available for all things then we would have known of it before Dirac.
The point is as Shakespeare put it "there are more things in Heaven and on Earth Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy". And it seems to me as we learn more we find more evidence for something that created and steered the universe to it's point. NOT smoking gun proof, but evidence.

"I really do hope that God exists. However, I sincerely hope that he/it is not the fool characterized in the Bible."

Dale, you have to remember the Bible was written by human beings - divinely inspired but actually written by people - and it was written during the Bronze Age when knowledge was limited. Most people couldn't read or write, and how do you convey very complex topics such as we are discussing here to simple folk? We can't even get a lot of these concepts across to modern adults with a public school education.

The God of the Old Testament had to work with some pretty thick and stubborn people too. He had to first make them fear Him because otherwise they wouldn't take what He was telling them seriously. He may have come across as harsh but that was but a sign of the times. Certainly the God of the Old Testament was kinder and more generous than those of the national gods of the pagan peoples surrounding Israel. You can't go into a battle wielding daisies and lollipops. You have to have guns. That is rather analogous to what happened in the early days of Israel; they had to fight for their survival. I would add the Edomites were cousings to Israel and they had lived along the shore of the Dead Sea. They are gone now, erased from history, because they didn't set themselves apart as did the Israelites at God's command. God needed Israel to spread the word of who He was and to improve moral and ethical standards. These were hard times and the people were hard men. God had to be a bit hard Himself or would have been ignored.

And eventually He came down Himself to deal with the problem directly. As Soren Kierkegaard pointed out, God had a real problem; He loved Mankind but Mankind's love for Him was conditional. Like a king falling for a poor girl, He could only be sure of her love if He became an equal to her. So He became human and suffered as do we - in fact, suffered horribly, dying in one of the most painful and humiliating ways.

And He paid the wages. I am of the opinion there is a moral LAW in place that must be followed. It is like a physical law; break it and it will bite you. God set it up that way. He warned Adam and Eve "don't - you'll die" and the imbeciles did it anyway. So He set this plan in motion where He Himself would come and take the punishment, thus balancing the cosmic book. He could have just waived the debt, but then that would have violated justice. He had little choice; it was either do it this way or let Mankind exist eternally outside of His presence (Hell).

At any rate I'm glad you think that of the Bible. It is indeed an amazing collection of litarary works. You can always find something new in it when you read it.

At any rate Dale we disagree but I respect your opinion on this. I hope my lengthy diatribe here was helpful to your understanding of how I think on the subject. I came to orthodox Christianity after much study and contemplation of the alternatives, both philosophical and religious. The more I think about this (and I do mean think, pondering the latest science and our understanding of the universe) the more convinced I am of it.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:59 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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