The laws of nature define the evolution of the universe. The purpose of the dust particles is to exist and to evolve. The reason they collided was because they were on a collision course. The dust particles exist as a part of the evolution of space and time just as you exist as part of the evolution of space and time.To exist and to evolve.It does, but not in the way you are describing.If the universe has a purpose then surely everything that happens in the universe must work towards that purpose.No. That's not what I am saying. Try again.What part of... "I'm not going to argue with you about this. If you don't want to believe that it is the nature of intelligence to create intelligence, then don't" did you not understand. I've made my case.I'm not going to argue with you about this. If you don't want to believe that it is the nature of intelligence to create intelligence, then don't.Right, but they simulate intelligence because man is obsessed with making smart things. Thus proving it is the nature of intelligence to create intelligence.Those are nothing but storage devices.We made smart phones. We made automation. We made PLC logic. We made AI.Is it an assumption that the nature of intelligence is to create intelligence?I am saying that the first cause cannot be matter or energy, so what is left?We know from science that space and time had a beginning. Specifically, red shift, cosmic background radiation, Friedmann's solutions to Einstein's field equations, quantum mechanics, the First Law of Thermodynamics, the Second Law of Thermodynamics and Inflation Theory.There's no absence of evidence.The universe and everything that has transpired since it was created from nothing being hardwired to produce intelligence is the evidence.I think you have to have an open mind and objectively look at all sides before arriving at objective truth on any issue.That's because you don't have a perception of God beyond magical fairytales, bro. So of course you don't believe belief in God is logical. I wouldn't believe in God either if I had your perception of God.There are logical reasons the sequence is God, country and family.Our first allegiance is to ourselves then our families. the country is a bit further down on the list for meAre religions that preach inequality for women and gays, traitors to their country?
Our first allegiance is to our countries.
Our laws and political leanings are moving us towards laïcité, a rather rigid form of the best religious freedoms/ideology, quirky or not, for all. Keep it to yourself will be the order of the day. Happy days. All within a Western style of freedom seeking governance.
Should our backwards thinking mainstream religions be asked to be more representative of good law?
Negative discrimination without a just cause is what Yahweh admits to doing in Job 2;3., when he allowed Satan to move him to sin against Job.
Christians should admit their sin and stop preaching that it is a good to be homophobic and misogynous, contradicting the law of the land.
Regards
DL
I don't think a belief is gods is logical.
Interesting,
Do I have to believe before my perception changes or do I believe after I see something that changes my perception?
I do have an open mind.
I just like to have some sort of empirical evidence. There have been many times I have changed my opinion when I was presented with sufficient evidence that contradicted my original stance on a subject.
Not really.
The absence of scientific evidence is not in itself proof of a god being the creator of the universe.
It is just as possible that we do not yet have the technology or the mental capacity to see or understand the process of the inception of the universe.
At the heart of this debate is whether or not the material world was created by spirit. If the material world were not created by spirit, then everything which has occurred since the beginning of space and time are products of the material world. Everything which is incorporeal proceeded from the corporeal. There is no middle ground. There is no other option. Either the material world was created by spirit or it wasn't. All other options will simplify to one of these two lowest common denominators which are mutually exclusive.
So we need to start from that position and examine the evidence we have at our disposal which is creation itself. Specifically, the laws of nature; physical, biological and moral. And how space and time has evolved. And how we perceive God. If we perceive God to be some magical fairy tale then everything we see will skew to that result. There won't be one single thing that we will agree with or accept.
There is no thing that can describe God because God is no thing. God is not matter and energy like us and God exists outside of our four dimension space time. In fact the premise is that God is no thing. That God is a spirit. A spirit is no thing. Being things we can't possibly relate to being no things. A two dimensional being would have an easier time trying to understand our third dimension than we - a four dimensional being - would in trying to understand a multi-dimensional being outside of our space time. The closest I can come to and later confirm with the physical laws is that God is consciousness. That Mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always as the matrix, the source and condition of physical reality - that the stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. It is Mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life, and so eventually evolves creatures that know and create.
So now that a realistic perception of God has been established we need to examine the only evidence at our disposal. It should be obvious that if the material world were not created by spirit that everything that has unfolded in the evolution of space and time would have no intentional purpose. That it is just matter and energy doing what matter and energy do. Conversely, if the material world were created by spirit it should be obvious that the creation of the material world was intentional. After all in my perception of God, God is no thing and the closest thing I can relate to is a mind with no body. Using our own experiences as creators as a proxy, we know that when we create things we create them for a reason and that reason is to serve some purpose. So it would be no great leap of logic to believe that something like a mind with no body would do the same. We also know from our experiences that intelligence tends to create intelligence. We are obsessed with making smart things. So what better thing for a mind with no body to do than create a universe where beings with bodies can create smart things too.
We have good reason to believe that we find ourselves in a universe permeated with life, in which life arises inevitably, given enough time, wherever the conditions exist that make it possible. Yet were any one of a number of the physical properties of our universe otherwise - some of them basic, others seemingly trivial, almost accidental - that life, which seems now to be so prevalent, would become impossible, here or anywhere. It takes no great imagination to conceive of other possible universes, each stable and workable in itself, yet lifeless. How is it that, with so many other apparent options, we are in a universe that possesses just that peculiar nexus of properties that breeds beings that know and create.
The biological laws are such that life is programmed to survive and multiply which is a requisite for intelligence to arise. If the purpose of the universe was to create intelligence then a preference in nature for it had to exist. The Laws of Nature are such that the potential for intelligence to existed the moment space and time were created. One can argue that given the laws of nature and the size of the universe that intelligence arising was inevitable. One can also argue that creating intelligence from nothing defies the Second Law of Entropy. That creating intelligence from nothing increases order within the universe. It actually doesn't because usable energy was lost along the way as a cost of creating order from disorder. But it is nature overriding it's tendency for ever increasing disorder that interests me and raises my suspicions to look deeper and to take seriously the proposition that a mind without a body created the material world so that minds with bodies could create too.
If we examine the physical laws we discover that we live in a logical universe governed by rules, laws and information. Rules laws and information are a signs of intelligence. Intentionality and purpose are signs of intelligence. The definition of reason is a cause, explanation, or justification for an action or event. The definition of purpose is the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. The consequence of a logical universe is that every cause has an effect. Which means that everything happens for a reason and serves a purpose. The very nature of our physical laws point to reason and purpose.
All we have done so far is to make a logical argument for spirit creating the material world. Certainly not an argument built of fairy tales that's for sure. So going back to the two possibilities; spirit creating the material world versus everything proceeding from the material, the key distinction is no thing versus thing. So if we assume that everything I have described was just an accidental coincidence of the properties of matter, the logical conclusion is that matter and energy are just doing what matter and energy do which makes sense. The problem is that for matter and energy to do what matter and energy do, there has to be rules in place for matter and energy to obey. The formation of space and time followed rules. Specifically the law of conservation and quantum mechanics. These laws existed before space and time and defined the potential of everything which was possible. These laws are no thing. So we literally have an example of no thing existing before the material world. The creation of space and time from nothing is literally correct. Space and time were created from no thing. Spirit is no thing. No thing created space and time.
If the universe were created through natural process and we are an accidental happenstance of matter and energy doing what matter and energy do, then there should be no expectation for absolute morals. Morals can be anything we want them to be. The problem is that nature does have a preference for an outcome. Societies and people which behave with virtue experience order and harmony. Societies and people which behave without virtue experience disorder and chaos. So we can see from the outcomes that not all behaviors have equal outcomes. That some behaviors have better outcomes and some behaviors have worse outcomes. This is the moral law at work. If the universe was created by spirit for the express purpose of creating beings that know and create we would expect that we would receive feedback on how we behave. The problem is that violating moral laws are not like violating physical laws. When we violate a physical law the consequences are immediate. If you try to defy gravity by jumping off a roof you will fall. Whereas the consequences for violating a moral law are more probabilistic in nature; many times we get away with it.
Morals are effectively standards. For any given thing there exists a standard which is the highest possible standard. This standard exists independent of anything else. It is in effect a universal standard. It exists for a reason. When we deviate from this standard and normalize our deviance from the standard, eventually the reason the standard exists will be discovered. The reason this happens is because error cannot stand. Eventually error will fail and the truth will be discovered. Thus proving that morals cannot be anything we want them to be but are indeed based upon some universal code of common decency that is independent of man.
So the question that naturally begs to be asked is if there is a universal code of common decency that is independent of man how come we all don't behave the same way when it comes to right and wrong? The reason man doesn't behave the same way is because of subjectivity. The difference between being objective and being subjective is bias. Bias is eliminated when there is no preference for an outcome. To eliminate a preference for an outcome one must have no thought of the consequences to one's self. If one does not practice this they will see subjective truth instead of objective truth. Subjective truth leads to moral relativism. Where consequences to self and preferences for an outcome leads to rationalizations of right and wrong.
Man does know right from wrong and when he violates it rather than abandoning the concept of right and wrong he rationalizes he did not violate it. You can see this behavior in almost all quarrels and disagreements. At the heart of every quarrel and disagreement is a belief in a universal right and wrong. So even though each side believes right to be different each side expects the other to believe their side should be universally known and accepted. It is this behavior which tells us there is an expectation for an absolute truth.
If there were never a universal truth that existed man would never have an expectation of fairness to begin with because fairness would have no meaning. The fact that each of us has an expectation of fairness and that we expect everyone else to follow ought to raise our suspicion on the origin of that expectation.
And how do you know the evidence we have regarding the inception of the universe is all the evidence there is?
And now you're bringing the spiritual into this? And we've already been over the morality and ethics argument and we do not agree so I see no need to rehash that one.
Red shift, cosmic background radiation and Friedmann's solutions to Einstein's field equations tells us that all matter and energy in the universe once occupied the space of 1 billionth of 1 trillionth the size of an atom and then began to expand and cool. The the First Law of Thermodynamics (i.e. conservation of energy) tells us that since that time matter and energy has only changed form. Which means that the atoms in our bodies were created from nothing when space and and time were created from nothing.
Red shift, cosmic background radiation, Friedmann's solutions to Einstein's field equations and the Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that space and time did have a beginning. If the universe is expanding then it must have a beginning. If you follow it backwards in time, then any object must come to a boundary of space time. You cannot continue that history indefinitely. This is still true even if a universe has periods of contraction. It still has to have a beginning if expansion over weights the contraction. Physicists have been uncomfortable with the idea of a beginning since the work of Friedman which showed that the solutions of Einstein's equation showed that the universe had a beginning. The problem with a cyclical universe is with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. For every matter to energy or energy to matter exchange there is a loss of usable energy. So while the total energy of the universe does not decrease, the usable energy of the universe does decrease. If it is a periodic or cyclical universe then the entropy will increase with each cycle. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is a fundamental law of nature which tells us that entropy can only increase or stay the same. Entropy can never decrease. Which means that in a finite amount of time, a finite system will reach a maximum state of disorder which is called thermal equilibrium and then it will stay in that state. A cyclical universe cannot avoid this problem. Since we do not see thermal equilibrium (good thing too because there would be no life) we know that the universe did have a beginning.
Inflation Theory, the First Law of Thermodynamics and quantum mechanics tells us that it is possible for matter to have a beginning. In a closed universe the gravitational energy which is always negative exactly compensates the positive energy of matter. So the energy of a closed universe is always zero. So nothing prevents this universe from being spontaneously created. Because the net energy is always zero. The positive energy of matter is balanced by the negative energy of the gravity of that matter which is the space time curvature of that matter. There is no conservation law that prevents the formation of such a universe. In quantum mechanics if something is not forbidden by conservation laws, then it necessarily happens with some non-zero probability. So a closed universe can spontaneously appear - through the laws of quantum mechanics - out of nothing. And in fact there is an elegant mathematical description which describes this process and shows that a tiny closed universe having very high energy can spontaneously pop into existence and immediately start to expand and cool. In this description, the same laws that describe the evolution of the universe also describe the appearance of the universe which means that the laws were in place before the universe itself.
But we don't know what happened the nanosecond before the beginning so all we know is the effect of the cause but not the cause itself.
You want to say the cause is a god. I am saying that we do not have enough information to say what caused the creation of the universe and the only thing we can see and measure are the aftereffects of the inception of the universe.
If we do not know what happened before the inflationary event we call the big bang we do not know the cause.
We don't know.
You are assuming it was some otherworldly being.
I am not making that assumption because I have no evidence of the existence of any otherworldly beings.
of course.
We think ourselves intelligent beings but have we created intelligence?
You like to attach characteristics to the universe because you have assigned a purpose to the universe. I don't assume the universe has a purpose.
I don't believe anyone would argue that we are obsessed with making smart things. Except maybe you.
Of course the universe has a purpose. It is an intelligence creating machine. You can only tell what something purpose is by its finished product. That would be intelligence for the universe. Everything that unfolded was leading to the universe becoming self aware. Despite your objection, you are a product of the universe.
They are not intelligent in and of themselves but rather run on a set of rules and algorithms that humans have devised.
And I never said I wasn't a product of the universe.
I can be a product of a universe that has no purpose.
You could be a product of a universe that has no purpose but that would be an astronomically incredible series of coincidences. It is much more likely that intelligence hardwired into the laws of nature for intelligence to exist than it is an accidental happenstance of matter and energy doing what matter and energy do because matter and energy follow laws of nature which in and of themselves are no things and had to exist before space and time because space and time were created according to the laws of nature.
We have not created intelligence. A smart phone isn't smart in and of itself. it can't do anything other than what we have told it to do.
And considering the size and age of the universe it is not unreasonable to think that we very well may be the results of trillions upon trillions upon trillions of random events over billions of years.
As for random events... I already explained this to you... If we examine the physical laws we discover that we live in a logical universe governed by rules, laws and information. Rules laws and information are a signs of intelligence. Intentionality and purpose are signs of intelligence. The definition of reason is a cause, explanation, or justification for an action or event. The definition of purpose is the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. The consequence of a logical universe is that every cause has an effect. Which means that everything happens for a reason and serves a purpose. The very nature of our physical laws point to reason and purpose.
You are saying that we created intelligence we haven't.
We have created storage devices that work very quickly and operate on a simple binary code. That is not intelligence but you are claiming it is.
So since you think everything that has ever happened has happened for some purpose tell me what is the purpose of a single collision of 2 individual dust molecules that happened 12 billion years ago.
You take what I wrote out of context. The definition of reason is a cause, explanation, or justification for an action or event. The definition of purpose is the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. The reason two individual dust particles collided was because they were on a collision path. So they did not just randomly collide.
You don't understand that no human creation up to this point is an intelligence. but back to your assertion that the universe and therefore everything that has ever happened in the universe has a purpose.
So then is it your contention that those 2 dust molecules were put on a collision course for some reason by some intelligent force or were they merely on that collision course because of an unknown number of other events occurring over an unknown time span? If it was the latter then it was a random event.
And how does that collision have any purpose?
Or since we don't know what 95% of the universe is made of or how it interacts with any of the 5% we do know are you just imposing a purpose on the universe?
so what is the purpose as you describe it of a collision between 2 dust molecules 12 billion years ago?
and who defined that purpose? The dust? and how does a dust molecule evolve?
There is no purpose to a dust collision. It just is what it is. Just like the universe it just is. it is neither perfect nor imperfect.
Humans like to see patterns where there are none.
The pattern is complexification and it cannot be disputed. Since space and time were created from nothing matter and energy has continued to complexify and evolve.