Nope. A case for spirit creating the material world can be made by examining the evidence that we have at our disposal.
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 Thermodynamics. 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 her tendency for ever increasing disorder that interests me and raises my suspicions to look deeper and to take more seriously the proposition that a mind without a body created the material world so that minds with bodies could create too.
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.
The is no logical argument for supernaturalism.
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. Whereas if we were trying to objectively analyze the evidence for spirit creating the material world we would listen to the whole argument and not look for trivial things to nitpick.
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. George Wald
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.
That long cut and paste is rather odd as you are attempting to make a case for magic and supernaturalism with references to the natural world. There is nothing in the natural world that has been shown to have supernatural or magic as its cause.
Science is amenable only to investigations of repeatable phenomena. Religion is amenable only to supernatural phenomena. This is the philosophical bias of religion. Trapped by its own subjectivity.
But insofar as the world around us is natural, science remains our best tool for investigating it. The methodology used by investigators employing science is presently the best that life on earth has yet devised. In contrast, any attempt to see the origin of our natural selves through the theistic accounts is doomed to fail due to its supernaturally bounded nature.
There's no reason
not to conclude that existence could simply be an ongoing process infinite in both directions. BTW, this is a naturalistic explanation for something religionists are quite content to accept supernaturally, i.e., that their gods exist as an infinity. So there's nothing about the naturalistic paradigm that the religionist doesn't already embrace. There is no evidence though that requires one to add sentience and other anthropomorphic attributes to the infinite nature of nature. Therefore, the theistic worldview unnecessarily complicates a simple concept in order to assign the infinite nature with a quasi-comforting personality.
It is the process of science that explores and discovers. Now, it's possible that science could be stymied and could hit the wall so-to-speak at finding a purely
natural cause but that still wouldn't prove a
supernatural causation and it still wouldn't prove god(s). How do we discern the truth? By faith? By assertion and stepping away and accepting untested and anecdotal claims to magic and supernaturalism? Or do we assiduously test our truths, hold them up to scrutiny and demand they be accountable at some level?
In fact, the
only model I see that opens up the possibility of nature gone awry is the theistic one. How often does nature simply allow a sea to part, or a dead man to rise? How many natural pillars of fire, burning bushes, or global floods are there? How often do virgins spontaneously impregnate? Where else do angels and demons fly about with abandon or men ascend golden staircases to heaven?
Suppose life exists elsewhere? That would be utterly devastating to the religious articles as "creation" is uniquely an earthly event. Although, you and I both know that some obscure Bible verse would eventually be "discovered" as describing the event. Ah, see, science "proving" the religious texts. Send a probe to Mars, and prove life developed off the planet Earth. This we are doing. What theists are doing to establish their suppositions... well, forgive the irony, but, gods only know.
That long cut and paste is rather odd
Winning arguments don't change.
you are attempting to make a case for magic and supernaturalism with references to the natural world.
No. I am discussing 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.
There is nothing in the natural world that has been shown to have supernatural or magic as its cause.
Wrong. A case for spirit creating the material world can be made by examining the evidence that we have 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.
Science is amenable only to investigations of repeatable phenomena. Religion is amenable only to supernatural phenomena. This is the philosophical bias of religion. Trapped by its own subjectivity.
I am using science to study what was created and no more. The only subjectivity is yours by calling allegorical accounts of ancient man fairy tales. If you start from the belief that the first eleven chapters of the Torah are an allegorical account of world history before the great migration from Mesopotamia - which was an actual historical event - then the first eleven chapters of the Torah takes on new meaning. Seen in this light these accounts should be viewed less like fairy tales and more like how important information was passed down in ancient times. Just as the Chinese used well known history and everyday things as symbols in their written language to make words easier to remember, ancient man used stories to pass down historical events and important knowledge to future generations. Interspersed in these allegorical accounts of history are wisdoms that they deemed important enough to pass down and remember. Such as man knows right from wrong and when he violates it, rather than abandoning the concept of right and wrong he rationalizes he didn't do wrong. Most people don't even realize this wisdom is in the Torah because they read it critically instead of searching for the wisdom that ancient man knew and found important enough to include in his account of world history.
We have to keep in mind that these accounts are 6,000 years old and were passed down orally from one generation to the next for thousands of years. Surely ancient man believed these accounts were of the utmost importance otherwise they would not have been passed down for thousands of years before they were recorded in writing. We shouldn't view these accounts using the context of the modern world. Unfortunately, we are so far removed from these events that we have lost all original meaning. If you were to ask almost any Jew what the Tower of Babel was about he would have no clue that it was the allegorical account of the great migration from the cradle of civilization. That is not intended to be a criticism. It is intended to be an illustration of just how difficult a task it is to discover the original meaning from ancient accounts from 6,000 years ago. We read these texts like they were written yesterday looking for ways to discredit them and make ourselves feel superior rather than seeking the original meaning and wisdom.
But insofar as the world around us is natural, science remains our best tool for investigating it. The methodology used by investigators employing science is presently the best that life on earth has yet devised. In contrast, any attempt to see the origin of our natural selves through the theistic accounts is doomed to fail due to its supernaturally bounded nature.
Wrong. There are two possible options; spirit created the material world or the material world created spirit. These are the only two. A case for spirit creating the material world can be made by examining the evidence that we have at our disposal.
There's no reason not to conclude that existence could simply be an ongoing process infinite in both directions. BTW, this is a naturalistic explanation for something religionists are quite content to accept supernaturally, i.e., that their gods exist as an infinity. So there's nothing about the naturalistic paradigm that the religionist doesn't already embrace. There is no evidence though that requires one to add sentience and other anthropomorphic attributes to the infinite nature of nature. Therefore, the theistic worldview unnecessarily complicates a simple concept in order to assign the infinite nature with a quasi-comforting personality.
Wrong. The Second Law of Thermodynamics precludes an infinite acting universe.
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.
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.
Chapter 1 and 2 of Genesis is the allegorical account of creation. Specifically, that the universe did have a beginning and that man is a product of the universe and matches the observations from science. Nathan Aviezer agrees with me too.
Similarly, Bar Ilan University’s Professor Nathan Aviezer, author of the book In the Beginning, told The Times of Israel, this discovery “isn’t going to make anyone who wasn’t a believer in God into one, or vice versa, but one thing the announcement does do is make it clear that the universe had a definite starting point — a creation — as described in the Book of Genesis,” said Aviezer. “To deny this now is to deny scientific fact.”
“Without addressing who or what caused it, the mechanics of the creation process in the Big Bang match the Genesis story perfectly. If I had to make up a theory to match the first passages in Genesis, the Big Bang theory would be it,” said Aviezer. “It’s an example of Divine irony that it took atheistic scientists like [Nobel laureate Paul] Dirac and all the others to point out the truth of the Torah. At this point I think we can say that creation is a scientific fact.”
Could New Scientific Discovery Support Creation?
Nathan Aviezer - Wikipedia
It is the process of science that explores and discovers. Now, it's possible that science could be stymied and could hit the wall so-to-speak at finding a purely natural cause but that still wouldn't prove a supernatural causation and it still wouldn't prove god(s). How do we discern the truth? By faith? By assertion and stepping away and accepting untested and anecdotal claims to magic and supernaturalism? Or do we assiduously test our truths, hold them up to scrutiny and demand they be accountable at some level?
How about through logic? Science and the Bible both agree that space and time were created by no thing and that man is a product of that creation.
In fact, the only model I see that opens up the possibility of nature gone awry is the theistic one. How often does nature simply allow a sea to part, or a dead man to rise? How many natural pillars of fire, burning bushes, or global floods are there? How often do virgins spontaneously impregnate? Where else do angels and demons fly about with abandon or men ascend golden staircases to heaven?
If you perceive God to be some magical fairy tale then everything you see will skew to that result. There won't be one single thing that you will agree with or accept. Whereas if you were trying to objectively analyze the evidence for spirit creating the material world you would listen to the whole argument and not look for trivial things to nitpick.
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.
Suppose life exists elsewhere? That would be utterly devastating to the religious articles as "creation" is uniquely an earthly event. Although, you and I both know that some obscure Bible verse would eventually be "discovered" as describing the event. Ah, see, science "proving" the religious texts. Send a probe to Mars, and prove life developed off the planet Earth. This we are doing. What theists are doing to establish their suppositions... well, forgive the irony, but, gods only know.
Not at all. The purpose of the universe is to create beings that know and create. We aren't special in that regard. In fact, I will go so far to say there is nothing special about any of us. We're just creatures.
