Quote:
Originally Posted by KnifeMissile
First of all, people ask the question "then who created God?" as a response to the Ontological argument. If everything has a beginning then what was God's beginning? If God doesn't have a beginning then not everything has a beginning... |
Everything within our universe
has to have a beginning. However, since God is not contained within our universe, He does not has to have a beginning.
Thus, the question "Who created God?" is wrong-headed from the get go.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KnifeMissile
All the constituent particles that make you up have been around long before you were born and will be around to be many other things long after you're dead. Those other things will even be other people. Hell, that will happen long before you're dead too, so what's all this about everything having a beginning?
|
You're being obtuse. Everything within this universe does indeed have a beginning. My beginning was in my mother's womb. Sure, the particles that I'm made of, existed a long, long time before I was born, and will continue to exist for a long, long time after I die. But, so what? It wasn't until those particles were brought together and formed into me, that I became "me".
The same can be said about you and every other living being on this planet. Why, the same can be said about
everything within this universe; every rock, tree, mountain, river, ocean... every planet, moon, and star... and so on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KnifeMissile
The entire Universe is a complex and continuous system that is constantly changing. There are small patterns that we find meaningful and so we say that those begin and end but the Universe is one long continuum of moving energy in one form or another and the beginnings and endings we assign in it are arbitrary. Really, there was only one beginning and that is of the Universe itself.
One example hardly makes a pattern...
|
I've encountered lots of people who focus so much on the little things, they can't see the big picture. Now I'm encountering someone who's so focused on the big picture, he can't see the little things. Either extreme is wrong-headed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KnifeMissile
By definition, the Universe includes everything, even God.
|
Oh, really? You don't even believe God exists, so how can uphold
any absolute statement about His existence in the positive?
Quote:
Originally Posted by KnifeMissile
By definition, the Universe includes everything, even If you're making statements about God, you're making statements about a Universe with a God in it...
|
So sorry, that you cannot imagine a God who exists outside the universe.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KnifeMissile
Why do you say that there's an entity that is not constrained by reality or logic?
|
I said that God is not constrained by the laws and limitations of this universe, i.e. space, time, creation, decay, etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KnifeMissile
Your statement that God is such a being is just bare assertion. It's a claim that doesn't even make any sense.
|
Well, it makes perfect sense to me. And, according to many of the scientists and Biblical scholars and theologians and philosophers I've read, it makes perfect sense to many, many others.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KnifeMissile
Ironically, in your attempt to support the original poster, you've just denigrated his main point: omnipotence without qualification is meaningless.
|
My purpose here is not to support the original poster, but to share my beliefs regarding the question posed by the original poster.