Why is There Anything at All?

[Guest]

Dr W referenced this thread and I think this post would be the one referenced with the comment:
"On that thread, Tarski provided a clear explanation of why the idea that some supernatural being created the Universe is absolutely incompatible with science."

I find Tarski comment straight forward and logical. However I cannot see in it any reason not to believe in God. Clarify?

That is just another example of an unsubstantiated lie by DrW (a.k.a. Sheldon Cooper). He possesses absolutely no scruples about making ridiculously untrue claims and misrepresenting other people's positions at the same time.

[_Tarski]

Philosophically, it would only do so if the idea of a creator is already assumed to be a part of the class "everything."

Obviously. I don't know what Fence Sitter and Tarski are doing over there splashing in the shallow end of the pool. Anyone who knows anything about philosophy knows that "everything" covers *everything* except the six-footish exalted "flesh and bone" human known as "The Father", his wives, his son, the intelligences of everyone/everything that would be born or "created", and whatever accomodations were necessary for them to live eternally before the point of creation of "everything". Boy, it's amazing how the gospel makes sense out
of everything.

laughed to tears.


Does he ever just listen to himself?

Pissssssst! Droopy. You are a Mormon and so believe in a god who is a glorified primate that didn't so much create as he did copy what was handed down to him by an eternal infestation of similar primate gods. Your god is part of an eternal pseudobiological hive created by no being at all and so.........oh never mind.

[_Kittens_and_Jesus]

Obviously. I don't know what Fence Sitter and Tarski are doing over there splashing in the shallow end of the pool. Anyone who knows anything about philosophy knows that "everything" covers *everything* except the six-footish exalted "flesh and bone" human known as "The Father", his wives, his son, the intelligences of everyone/everything that would be born or "created", and whatever accomodations were necessary for them to live eternally before the point of creation of "everything". Boy, it's amazing how the gospel makes sense out
of everything.

laughed to tears.


Does he ever just listen to himself?

Pissssssst! Droopy. You are a Mormon and so believe in a god who is a glorified primate that didn't so much create as he did copy what was handed down to him by an eternal infestation of similar primate gods. Your god is part of an eternal pseudobiological hive created by no being at all and so.........oh never mind.

You beat me to it.

The term "glorified primate" reminds me of my late father. He was a strict conservative Mormon and would become absolutely furious when he heard people classifying humans as animals. The really funny part is that he held a degree in zoology.

[_Tarski]

Tarski's not a particularly "deep" thinker, in case you haven't noticed over the last ten years or so. Tarski's more a cross between Bill Nye the Science Guy and Keith Olbermann.

Well, since I have very little in common with either of those individuals, and since you have supposedly observed me for a while, you have just demonstrated a very odd inability, almost autistic inability, to understand people.

Given that I had a PhD and had finished Heidegger's Sein und Zeit as well as Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie back when you were an uneducated sot, I think I have the right to ask for a little detail when you throw around phrases like "level of phenomenal manifestation" as you just did, and words like ontological, which you have.
Here is a tip for you now that you are in school: When you use words and phrases like that without a great deal of amplification and context, and then refuse to unpack what you are getting at when asked, people will rightly suspect you of affectation or worse.

Now, don't think that your having made a quip about the depth of my thought gets you off the hook. Everyone saw you use the phrase and then refuse to explain what you meant or its significance. I hope everyone also noticed that you are the one who doesn't realize that "anything at all" includes your hairy man-god as well as any sort of transcendent being or quantum field or what have you. If the meaning of everything in your question is less than comprehensive then we get down to plain old science where there actually are some pretty good answers to the question of where "things" (animals, planets, cupcakes and even fundamental particles) come from.

I am prepared to enter into an informed discussion of either the dubious theological/ontological question or the more limited and hence more tractable scientific questions. Are you so prepared?

So which is that puzzles you it? Ouk on or me on?

[_harmony]

I hope you can see that this is not a possibility since the willing being is one of the things that doesn't exist. Remember, the question is why is there anything at all?
Said differently, gods themselves fall under the categrory "anything at all".

Think how silly and self contradictory this is:
Once there was nothing. Not time nor space nor matter nor spirit nor thought nor gods nor devils. But then one day a god willed all these to exist. (huh?)

Dr W referenced this thread and I think this post would be the one referenced with the comment:
"On that thread, Tarski provided a clear explanation of why the idea that some supernatural being created the Universe is absolutely incompatible with science."

I find Tarski comment straight forward and logical. However I cannot see in it any reason not to believe in God. Clarify?

This still doesn't answer my question about how the first flash of the big bang was lit....

[_Sethbag]

But my initial point was not to prove God exists by showing that existence qua existence is a necessary condition, but that the fundamental ontological nature of existence itself - the actuality of the state of existent reality comprising anything within it - requires a question that transcends the old conception of first causes.

The hilarious thing, well, of the cornucopia of hilarity embedded in this quote at least one thing, if I'm understanding your point correctly, is that all of this "first cause" and other crap argumentation is contradicted by Mormon cosmology itself. If you manage to win your "something must have made it so anything could exist!" argument, you lose, because Mormonism posits that there were always gods, with nothing having been required to cause them to exist.

And if gods can always have existed, then why not the universe?

[_Brackite]

"On that thread, Tarski provided a clear explanation of why the idea that some supernatural being created the Universe is absolutely incompatible with science."

Where is that "clear explanation" by Tarski on this thread that God doesn't exist???

[_madeleine]

I think the logical answer for LDS, is that another God could/would do what their particular God has done. If you change your question to "if Gods did not exist", I don't know what the logical LDS answer would be to that.

For Catholics, and all mainline Protestants, the answer is: all of creation, including the universe, would not exist. It is also Christian belief that God keeps all of creation in existence. If God ceased to exist, so would our existence.

But that does not answer the question, rather it begs it.

How would a universe (imaginary or not) differ if God did not exist? I am not asking what would happen if he ceased to exist, which is another question begging in my opinion.

It seems to me the claim that existence is proof of God starts out by assuming he exists. Why not start out assuming he does not exist and look for how the universe would be different if he did exist? What differences would we expect to see in an universe that came into being all on its own versus one created by God? Can you point to any such evidence?

How about doing a little thought experiment? Lets suppose an alien being came to earth who was conversant in all our languages and sciences but completely unfamiliar with our concept of God. What evidence would you present to the alien that such a being as God even existed and was responsible for everything?

I've done both approaches. :) Having been Mormon, atheist and now Catholic. I see no compelling reason to forego a belief in God, or to dismiss science.

Believing what exists, only exists when it can be replicated, is very useful in very many ways. Applied to the human experience, you can see that belief in God(s) is replicated.

Should you believe because 3 or 4 billion people experience something call "faith"? I don't think so, but an experiment to see if you can replicate faith in yourself, is an interesting concept.

The evidence of my faith is in my experience. Can you lay experience on a table and dissect it? (Denying one's own experience seems a form of psychosis to me.)

Also, you would assume an alien has no belief regarding God. I wouldn't make that assumption. :-)

[_Droopy]

quote="Droopy"But my initial point was not to prove God exists by showing that existence qua existence is a necessary condition, but that the fundamental ontological nature of existence itself - the actuality of the state of existent reality comprising anything within it - requires a question that transcends the old conception of first causes.

The hilarious thing, well, of the cornucopia of hilarity embedded in this quote at least one thing, if I'm understanding your point correctly, is that all of this "first cause" and other crap argumentation is contradicted by Mormon cosmology itself. If you manage to win your "something must have made it so anything could exist!" argument, you lose, because Mormonism posits that there were always gods, with nothing having been required to cause them to exist.

And if gods can always have existed, then why not the universe?

Remind me not to ever attempt philosophical discussion with you in future.

[_Droopy]

Tarski's not a particularly "deep" thinker, in case you haven't noticed over the last ten years or so. Tarski's more a cross between Bill Nye the Science Guy and Keith Olbermann.

Well, since I have very little in common with either of those individuals...

Given that I had a PhD and had finished Heidegger's Sein und Zeit as well as Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie back when you were an uneducated sot, I think I have the right to ask for a little detail when you throw around phrases like "level of phenomenal manifestation" as you just did, and words like ontological, which you have.
Here is a tip for you now that you are in school: When you use words and phrases like that without a great deal of amplification and context, and then refuse to unpack what you are getting at when asked, people will rightly suspect you of affectation or worse.

In other words, you're utterly lost, or are pretending to be. Par for the course.

Now, don't think that your having made a quip about the depth of my thought gets you off the hook. Everyone saw you use the phrase and then refuse to explain what you meant or its significance.

"Level of phenomenal manifestation"? The level, plane or mode of reality at which any specific phenomena are manifest as perceptual entities, objects, conditions, states of affairs etc.

I hope everyone also noticed that you are the one who doesn't realize that "anything at all" includes your hairy man-god...

Temper, temper...

If the meaning of everything in your question is less than comprehensive then we get down to plain old science where there actually are some pretty good answers to the question of where "things" (animals, planets, cupcakes and even fundamental particles) come from.

No, just how they developed as understandable within the perceptual range within which science is epistemologically and methodologically relevant.

I am prepared to enter into an informed discussion of either the dubious theological/ontological question or the more limited and hence more tractable scientific questions. Are you so prepared?

I can hardly wait.