Why does there have to be a Creator, or anything created?

I briefly read through the last 4 pages of this thread and didn’t see anyone mention the documentary “ WHAT　THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW?” I highly recommend it.

It is a documentary filled with professionals including PHD Theologians, Master Enlightenment Teachers, Physicists, Bio Chemists, Psychologists, Psychiatrists, Meta Physicists and a whole lot more of others with a lot of letters at the end of their names answering or trying to answer most of the questions listed on this thread.

I state you may need to watch it a few times to get SOME of it.

This was “my” understanding of some of it:-

-There are different possibilities and dimensions to everything

- Matter boils down to consciousness.

- Observing “A” supposed reality can change it.

-Thought affects consciousness and possibly other people’s consciousness

-We are all “part” and interconnected of the one “whole”.

One Professor of metaphysics said “ If you want to go down the rabbit hole (meaning these questions) you only end up with more questions and if you don’t come out a little crazy then before you really didn’t understand a thing.”

Good luck with it all people

Hi folks... thank you all for your replies

I will try to answer as many as possible, but monday is a particularly busy day for me, so it might take me a while to get round to it. Please bear with me.

Cheers

Yeah what the bleep was pretty good.
It's a general summary of the latest ideas/findings of quantum physicists.
How they come to these conclusions mathematically I'll never know.
Probably novel size amounts of equations or something.

Originally posted by Dock6

And what we're left with is an OP which posits (thanks to your much more comprehensible summation) that energy and matter (from which all else derived) have 'always existed' Ias is suggested is the case with Time/Space] ... and as such, *because of this* ... had no source.

To me that is the entire basis of the conversation - the "no source" point that exists for both the fully scientific explanation of the universe as well as the theological explanation of the universe. Both go back to the common unanswerable question - the original, originating point...no matter how many layers you have to go back, you get to that point.

This is what I say is common to all on this topic, no matter what they believe about the creation of the physical/material universe we live in today. And this is the point I was referring to that if everyone on both sides of the topic are intellectually honest, they will admit they cannot conceive of there not being a beginning - whether it be a purely scientific beginning, or a supernatural Creator. They may decide to accept it on faith (and that would require faith on both sides by the way), but they cannot conceive of it. It's beyond our mental capacity.

This common unanswerable question is the TRUTH (i.e. the historical FACTUAL EVENT that took place). And because neither side knows what that true answer is, we should realize we're all asking the same question. Therefore we should not fight for OUR answer (because we don't have one we can conceive in the first place), but continue to seek THE answer. Maybe that answer doesn't come until after death (which is what I believe), or maybe it truly is an answer that generations beyond us will be able to scientifically CONFIRM (I don't see that myself), but either way, it is a question worth spending some time on and sharing our thoughts.

I don't think it's worth spending a lifetime on though - i.e. becoming obsessed with. Because, as some one who believes in a Creator, I believe He is awesome enough to have pulled it all off in a manner that either could: 1. make us all right, 2. make us all wrong. With all things being possible, none of us should feel we've got a "one up" on the situation.

[edit on 2-11-2008 by Valhall]

Why not? have you ever learned how to do math? in math it's the same idea. you need nothing to make something. x and y. and in order to come up with those numbers you need to predict or understand where those numbers come from. God is part of the equation of creation. he's like the X. you need to fill in that space in order to know the outcome and understand where it comes from. therefore, Math proves that there is a creator of all things. he created you and me. he's the unseen and that doens't mean he doesn't exist. he's out there but lost in the equation. he's the invisible number in math.


if you want to know god. I will give you the secret. simply it's the number 36. I hope you apreciate this because this is the first time I reveal this on a website and I won't do it again. thanks.

Originally posted by Valhall

To me that is the entire basis of the conversation - the "no source" point that exists for both the fully scientific explanation of the universe as well as the theological explanation of the universe. Both go back to the common unanswerable question - the original, originating point...no matter how many layers you have to go back, you get to that point.

Those are the two sides most commonly taught. But there is a third side.

Side 1: We all arise in a chain of coincidence from dead matter. (no creation)
Side 2: We all arise from God. (creation).

Some choice

One is scientific thinking, the other religious thinking.

What is often not factored in or considered at all is the thinking of the mystic. According to mystical teaching, space/time (and therefore the idea of "a beginning" are illusions of earthbound perceptions. Instead, all-that-is (what religions call God) has no end and no beginning....infinity.

This common unanswerable question is the TRUTH (i.e. the historical FACTUAL EVENT that took place).

According to what was just said, neither a big bang nor a creation took place.

But thats neither speaking against science, nor against religion. The idea instead serves to unite science and religion in going beyond the concepts of duality.

why does there have to be a Creator or anything created?

my understanding from reading scripture is that the creation was made for G-D's pleasure and that we were made in Their image temporarily physical with the potential to be metamorphized into actual G-D Beings capable of living forever as They do and sharing the same creative powers They have.

where did They come from?beyond our present limited intelligence to comprehend (in another dimension where time doesnt exist/stands still ?)that They have always Existed=I Am (english)----Hayah (hebrew)

Originally posted by Skyfloating

According to what was just said, neither a big bang nor a creation took place.

But thats neither speaking against science, nor against religion. The idea instead serves to unite science and religion in going beyond the concepts of duality.

Thank you for that! Yes, I have been focusing on two paths to the unanswerable question, but I'll just state here that when ever I say something it applies to ALL paths to the unanswerable question. Again, the path you speak of, leads to the same unanswerable question because we cannot conceive of an infinite. Just because the mystic chooses to call it "consciousness" versus God or versus "energy/matter required for the Big Bang" doesn't negate the unanswerable or change the fact you have arrived at the exact same question. Once the explanation becomes inconceivable, the next step is faith - no matter what path you are on.

reply to post by Valhall


I guess thats true. No matter what path you follow...a leap of faith and imagination are required.

I personally hesitate to invest too much faith in any path though, because it blinds me toward understanding/noticing/acknowledging other paths. I guess thats why they invented the term "agnostic".

Nice post Dagar, I've question this as a child, and I probably still do once it a while now, but when it comes down to it, "what the bleep do we know!?" lol you know. I mean

I mean as a Catholic, I believe that god is the creator of all in which we perceive and beyond, only because it find structure in it. What I mean is, I've been follow quantum physics/membrane theory a tad bit, since I'm a science geek by heart. And one thing that struck me is, there is no definite beginning, before the universe there was the big bang, before the big bang there was the membrane, before them were pure energy?!

It seems like every year scientists comes up with another "theory" to explain what created the last. This isn't the Catholic me saying, but I just think its funny to assume that we humans are arrogant enough to believe that we can have a definite answer for something as complex as the origin of everything, but I do enjoy the show. At least the belief in God could me a simple answer, and I'm not saying that these theories never happen, I just like to sum all the event up with that word God, and live on with life, but still...lets go back to what Dagar said..because like the arrogant scientist I've ponder the same questions so many time.

It's as Dagar said the definition of a creator implies that something that had not exist just simply existed, it just mean he/she was the first. But then like many scientists we will begin to question well who created the creator, and the cycle repeats. But then we can get all Philosophical and ask what does it really mean to exist.

Quantum Physicist say its its possible for an object to spontaneously appear into existence without a significance source of energy, but it just get messy after that, because then they would question next HOW?! Parallel Universe, Teleportation.....it still doesn't give us a concrete answer...And I'm positive no Religious people will try and go beyond God. Even Buddhism, one of the most prominent religion doesn't beyond the point of creation. Buddhism is so ahead of its time, Buddhist believe in the concept of the multiverse, they believe that the Buddha watches over it, and there isn't just one Buddha there could be millions, each single one watching over a 1000 universe. But still these Buddhas took responsibility of them, no so much as created them, which means there is something beyond that?!

So this leads to the last concept, maybe the universe or maybe everything has always existed, that there is no past, no present, no future, that it all existed, all I just know is I guess we have to find out when we die. But it does make sense and could explain alot...

P.S. Last I would just like to say the differences between my perception of God and what I said before, is I don't really think God is merely a concept to explain everything that is created, I believe God goes beyond that, I believe God is consciousness, omnipresent, omniscience, everything and anything. And it might goes with what you said Dagar about how everything is currently exist at this single moment.

Well Hope I presented myself well enough to not be scourge by both Atheist and Religious Individuals....I don't think my heart could take it...lol...I guess the last thing I want to say is, we will never know, but there is nothing wrong with believing and pondering, but there is a point where we have to say is it even worth it. Life is to short and mess up to ignore for such impractical questions, Carpe Diem!!

P.S.S. I agree with what you say man, but religion or faith doesn't really need to restrict/limit individual from other path or knowledge, I like to see it as more of being the laying foundation in which the individual could develop and grow from, could search of other paths and answers.

[edit on 11-2-2008 by skyblueff0]

Originally posted by Skyfloating


I personally hesitate to invest too much faith in any path though, because it blinds me toward understanding/noticing/acknowledging other paths. I guess thats why they invented the term "agnostic".

That's very interesting. I'll share with you how I see it - I have not ever seen a single non-Creator path that could not have happened via the Creator.

*snicker*

This topic is so amazing, and if we expand our hearts and minds, it becomes uniting. No matter what path we're on.

Originally posted by Dock6


Dagar ... I DO know what you're proposing.

But do you understand your own theory ?

[If I did I wouldn't be here trying to bounce my ideas of other people, and feeling like a small dog that's been thrown of a ship into the middle of the atlantic ... Instead I'd be in Sweden receiving a Nobel prize

Or are you proposing a theory which doesn't make sense .. and bolstering it by claiming it's 'non-understandable' because of the way we perceive ... everything. Would that be a fair analysis ?

Almost but not quite. The reason I'm suggesting and discussing my thoughts on a 'permanent' universe, is that a universe that itself requires causality to exist, just doesn't make sense.... to me, at least... more of that later

In fact, your theory has been around for a long time, in one form or another. But they way you posit it doesn't hold water, in my opinion. I know it sounds exciting and you believe you've had a eureka moment. But you can't have it both ways, I'm sure you realise that.

I'm sure that everyone and his mother has had the same or similar thoughts to mine, at some point or other in their lives. I don't pretend to be positing anything new or original. I'm just trying to discuss it with others in the (probably vain) hope that it might help me either crystallize my ideas, or dismiss them totally as 'so much doo-doo... I'm up for eithyer option and anything in between ... The only thing I do realize EVERYDAY is that when we think about this things we create more questions than answers... hehe

So ... (1) Are you claiming that 'nothing' exists and has always existed as 'nothing' ... always has, always will, always 'is' ?

Or (2) Are you prepared to concede that some things *do* exist ... again, let's call one of those things 'chalk'.

Please confirm if you accept the existence of 'chalk'.

I'm not claiming anything... to claim inplies knowing, and the only thing I know is how little I know.... I'm suggesting, wishing to discuss the possibility that EVERYTHING and EVERYTIME exists.... even chalk

Then please explain how chalk 'is' ?

If you wish to claim that chalk didn't 'come' into existence, or originate in something.someone .. then I'd appreciate a lucid explanation for the 'is-ness' of chalk.

Chalk!

Check exists, but it has a creation point and point where it ceases to be chalk.

Chalk is a name we give to a particular configuration of matter/energy. The matter that constitutes chalk, it's sub-atomic components, and the dimensional spaces within which it resides are another matter (no pun intended) altogether. THey are part of the total universe that we are trying to determine whether it had a creation point, or just was.

If you could look at that piece of chalk within it's timeline you would see the entirety of it... what it was before it became chalk, when it became chalk, and what happened to it after it ceased being chalk.I'm suggesting that that timeline (as well as all the other timelines of ALL matter/energy states simply exist. We experience those different states in the context of past present and future, but that's because our view of reality is limited by the 3 dimensional nature of our material existance... And so we are back to the hypothesis of whether as conscious all knowing beings we have deliberately limited our consciousness so we can experience what we refer to as 'life'

Otherwise, I'm afraid I'll have to consider your theory to be nonsensical.

Go right ahead!. I'm sure you'll have LOADS of company.

I suspect you underestimate people's intelligence and grasp of such concepts as Past-Present-Future possibly being 'one' ...

Nope!

Your theory seems far less sophisticated: it seems based in your belief that people are bound by concepts of Time and Space.

I never pretended my thoughts or theories were sophisticated... so it's no shoch to me that others find them simplistic... they probably are!

It appears you then leap to the assumption that if there is no Time and Space, then there needs exist nothing created, no any creator.

Quite the contrary... I'm thinking that there IS time and space, and there ALWAYS has been

In the process, you've neglected to explain the 'is-ness' of anything.

So, having touched on chalk, let's try this again... maybe using a slightly different tack



First...AS Valhall mentioned in an earlier post, regardless of which route you take when you ask questions about the subject we're discussing, we are always going to arrive at a point where the answer is 'I don't Know'

Suggestion 1/
Everything has to have a starting point, a creation moment... nothing can simply just 'be'

Question... What was there before the creation and who created it?
Answer... A singularity, and I don't know who created it
Question... How did the singularity come to exist
Answer... perhaps it was a another universe that collapsed into a singularity
Question...and who/what created the other universe?
Answer... it was created by the same process,a process which has happened an 'infinite' number of times
Question... so what/who started these processes
Answer (Athaeists).. I don't know
Answer (Religious people)... The Creator
Question... Who created the Creator
Answer (by religious people)... The Creator just IS, he/she cannot be created

So basically, after building a complex theory of numerous cause and effects, we arrive at two answers (depending on your viewpoint), these being 'I don't know' and the 'creator just IS'


Suggestion 2/
Everything just is. The universe simply exists!

Question... But what caused it to be?... there must have been a creation event or point.

Answer... You're asking the equivalent of 'what happens when an immovable object meets an unstoppable force'.

Question...but how can the universe just be?

Answer... I don't know


run out of posting space so continued below

[edit on 11/2/2008 by Dagar]

Continued from above....

Suggestion 1, on the face of it, seems a sensical approach to viewing the universe. However, as soon as you start describing the universe itself (as an entity, not what goes on within it) in terms of cause and effect you get into very deep nonsense territory very quickly... and the answer invariably is 'I don't know' or 'it just is'

Suggestion 2, on the face of it and unlike the initial impression of suggestion 1, seems like complete nonsense. HOw can something just 'be' . The universe doesn't work like that. Observation tells us that everything has a cause and effect. Perhaps defining what happens within the universe requires causality, but I would suggest (when defining the universe itself as an entity) that it's far simpler to say 'The universe just is' rather than create an infinte and complicated loop of causality to which the answer ALSO is 'I don't know' or 'It just IS'

To add and reiterate to the above... If 1 is a flawed concept (infinite causality), then you have to consider 2 as a possibility. If 2 doesn't cut it... well, then we're back to 'I don't know', and the answer lies elsewhere and probably totally beyond our understanding.

scripture says:
1.that what we see now is temporary(in other words there was a time when the universe did not exist and i'll speculate this includes a starting point before which time as we know it did not exist)the decay of radioactive elements over time indicates everything is running down in our physical universe.

2.that what we see is made of that which cant be seen(atoms cant be seen---just the blurr of their movement so far)

3.that what is G-D's spirit (energy) lasts forever

Originally posted by Skyfloating


Those are the two sides most commonly taught. But there is a third side.

Side 1: We all arise in a chain of coincidence from dead matter. (no creation)
Side 2: We all arise from God. (creation).

Some choice

One is scientific thinking, the other religious thinking.

What is often not factored in or considered at all is the thinking of the mystic. According to mystical teaching, space/time (and therefore the idea of "a beginning" are illusions of earthbound perceptions. Instead, all-that-is (what religions call God) has no end and no beginning....infinity.

I just knew it!!...

The minute I decide to mention there are two possibilities, and anything else is beyond our understanding, someone comes up with a third

This is known as Murphy's Law ... which is probably what created the universe in the first place

Originally posted by skyblueff0
Nice post Dagar, I've question this as a child, and I probably still do once it a while now, but when it comes down to it, "what the bleep do we know!?" lol you know. I mean

Thanks skyblueff ... and I reckon there should be a plaque over every church and scientific laboraory with that motto "what the bleep do we know!?" ... It might6 help people keep an open mind... hehe

I mean as a Catholic, I believe that god is the creator of all in which we perceive and beyond.

I too was brought up as a catholic, but I kinda ended up rejecting it at a very early age...NOT because I don't think there is a God, but because I found the whole catholic structure way too limiting, simplistic, unbending, and dogmatic (sometimes to the point of foolishness). I really wasn't too popular a kid with the Christian Brothers who taught at my school. They definitely didn't like some of the questions I asked ... lol

Now, I'm not really what people tend to think of as a 'religious' person... I'm more of a 'possibly but I don't know' kind of fellow. I find it keeps me open-minded to most things. It might sound like a contradiction to my statement that I rejected my previous faith, but I rejected it precisely because it didn't allow me to remain open minded about things

It seems like every year scientists comes up with another "theory" to explain what created the last. This isn't the Catholic me saying, but I just think its funny to assume that we humans are arrogant enough to believe that we can have a definite answer for something as complex as the origin of everything, but I do enjoy the show. At least the belief in God could me a simple answer, and I'm not saying that these theories never happen, I just like to sum all the event up with that word God, and live on with life, but still...lets go back to what Dagar said..because like the arrogant scientist I've ponder the same questions so many time.

It's as Dagar said the definition of a creator implies that something that had not exist just simply existed, it just mean he/she was the first. But then like many scientists we will begin to question well who created the creator, and the cycle repeats. But then we can get all Philosophical and ask what does it really mean to exist.

It is precisely because our current view/understanding of the universe ends up at a creation event, which in turn gives rise to the question what came before (ad infinitum), that I think we have to get away from the creation/creator model and start thinking differently.... Even if we don't immediately understand a proposed alternative proposal because 'it doesn't make sense'.... Neither does our present one.. hehe

Quantum Physicist say its its possible for an object to spontaneously appear into existence without a significance source of energy, but it just get messy after that, because then they would question next HOW?! Parallel Universe, Teleportation.....it still doesn't give us a concrete answer...And I'm positive no Religious people will try and go beyond God. Even Buddhism, one of the most prominent religion doesn't beyond the point of creation. Buddhism is so ahead of its time, Buddhist believe in the concept of the multiverse, they believe that the Buddha watches over it, and there isn't just one Buddha there could be millions, each single one watching over a 1000 universe. But still these Buddhas took responsibility of them, no so much as created them, which means there is something beyond that?!

So this leads to the last concept, maybe the universe or maybe everything has always existed, that there is no past, no present, no future, that it all existed, all I just know is I guess we have to find out when we die. But it does make sense and could explain alot...

It's most certainly much simpler. Both models lead us to the 'I don't know' moment. So why complicate getting there

P.S. Last I would just like to say the differences between my perception of God and what I said before, is I don't really think God is merely a concept to explain everything that is created, I believe God goes beyond that, I believe God is consciousness, omnipresent, omniscience, everything and anything. And it might goes with what you said Dagar about how everything is currently exist at this single moment.

Your thinking about who/what God might be is very close to mine. I don't think God created the universe, I think God IS the universe... and that's why I think the universe simply IS

Well Hope I presented myself well enough to not be scourge by both Atheist and Religious Individuals....I don't think my heart could take it...lol...I guess the last thing I want to say is, we will never know, but there is nothing wrong with believing and pondering, but there is a point where we have to say is it even worth it. Life is to short and mess up to ignore for such impractical questions, Carpe Diem!!

P.S.S. I agree with what you say man, but religion or faith doesn't really need to restrict/limit individual from other path or knowledge, I like to see it as more of being the laying foundation in which the individual could develop and grow from, could search of other paths and answers.

Your post was superb skyblueff, and I enjoyed tremendously both reading and replying to it

[edit on 11/2/2008 by Dagar]

Originally posted by MuLongQun
I briefly read through the last 4 pages of this thread and didn’t see anyone mention the documentary “ WHAT　THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW?” I highly recommend it.

It is a documentary filled with professionals including PHD Theologians, Master Enlightenment Teachers, Physicists, Bio Chemists, Psychologists, Psychiatrists, Meta Physicists and a whole lot more of others with a lot of letters at the end of their names answering or trying to answer most of the questions listed on this thread.

I state you may need to watch it a few times to get SOME of it.

This was “my” understanding of some of it:-

-There are different possibilities and dimensions to everything

- Matter boils down to consciousness.

- Observing “A” supposed reality can change it.

-Thought affects consciousness and possibly other people’s consciousness

-We are all “part” and interconnected of the one “whole”.

I think I have a dim recollection of having seen that some years back, either on BBC2 or Ch4 ... but it is simply that... a dim recollection.

One Professor of metaphysics said “ If you want to go down the rabbit hole (meaning these questions) you only end up with more questions and if you don’t come out a little crazy then before you really didn’t understand a thing.”

Good luck with it all people

Brilliant quote... and so, SO true!

A few things we need to keep in mind in this. We don't have to 'prove' something to hold that it is probably true. We have good reasons to suppose a creator.

Again the universe is contingent.


We should ask ourselves these questions.

1. Is it more reasonable to conclude that reason arose purely from non-reason, or that reason arises from reason?

2. The Laws of Logic are neither conventions of the mind, and they don't exist materially. So what is their source? The universe? Are we to suppose that Logic arose from Non-Logic??

3. The "stuff* of the universe lends itself to our creative imaginations.
(think of it this way, our minds which are said to be products of the universe are able to take the other "stuff" of the universe and create things like "telescopes" and other instruments that can study the universe!"

4. The universe unfolds intelligently and has laws. This implies laws that come from a law giver.

5. If the universe was its own cause then we should see the effect being equal to the cause. We don't see this.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
Those are the two sides most commonly taught. But there is a third side.
Side 1: We all arise in a chain of coincidence from dead matter. (no creation)
Side 2: We all arise from God. (creation).
Some choice

I prefer to think that what we understand as time doesn't necessarily move in a single straight line from the past through the present to the future. I think that's only a convenience we have evolved to perceive because it helps us as animals live in the physical world.

I also go along with the notion that consciousness and observation are vital components necessary to bring the virtual aspects of the Universe into reality. Collapsing the wave function, and all that.

And from there, I like to think that the existence of the Universe is in a kind of expanding time loop, where it was created in the "past" by consciousness either in the present or future. So, in essence, the Universe (and possibly the molecular construction that is life) "bootstraps" itself into existence.

So there's another option, not popularly considered. It helps eliminate a lot of those sticky cause-and-effect difficulties, and doesn't require a single Creator entity (we pretty much all pitch in). On the downside, it's essentially impossible to prove. Oh, well.

Originally posted by Nohup
So there's another option, not popularly considered. It helps eliminate a lot of those sticky cause-and-effect difficulties, and doesn't require a single Creator entity (we pretty much all pitch in). On the downside, it's essentially impossible to prove. Oh, well.

A typical remark I used to make: "It cant be proven, but it can be experienced. Meditate".