Read Latest Entries..: (Post #21) by red flag on Jan 30 2007, 10:08 PM. (Line Breaks Removed)
I've always pondered that question as well. Who really did create him? That's one of the reasons why I kind of don't believe in god. It's strange. What's even more interesting is who created the universe or how was it created? and whatever created that, who did that? and so and so forth. Strange.... read more.
God has no beginning and no end because God is unimaginable. The beginning and the end must be also unimaginable for an unimaginable item. The beginning and the end of the cosmic energy or space or the creation are also unimaginable. Therefore, the beginning and the end are unimaginable for the unimaginable item like God and also for the imaginable item like space. Therefore, the two points, which are the beginning-less and end-less characteristics cannot help you in understanding the real nature of God. If you start recognizing the God by simply these two points (beginning-less and end-less), you may think that God is an imaginable item like the space or energy or the creation. In fact based on these two characteristics people have imagined God as an imaginable item like space or energy or creation. This concept has misled people to such a low level that people think that God is the very infinite space or infinite energy or infinite creation. Therefore, one should filter the concept of God at this juncture itself. One should think that God has no beginning and no end because the beginning and the end of an unimaginable item are also unimaginable.
I agree with u that God is no begin and no End but the Question is Who created God???
This question is inherently false and self contradictory. If we were to say for the sake of argument -that some one created God then they would ask who created the creator of the creator? Then who created the creator of the creator of the creator? And so on,................... This is irrational and impossible.
Quran tells us:
QUOTE
Say: He is Allah the One and Only; Allah The Eternal, the Absolute (The self-sufficient Master, Whom all creatures need, He neither eats or drinks); He begets not, nor was He begotten; And there is none co-equal or like Him.
I have the feeling one will be just thinking in circles when attempting to answer that question. I understand that people are curious, but personally I'm not really looking for the answer on such questions It doesn't seem to make much sense when you first say the he is the creator of everything. It would mean that he created himself aswell, and that doesn't sound 100% logical either. I'm rather wondering why it's a he instead of a she? Why does a gender have to be applied? And if it has to be one of either gender, why specifically male instead of female?
Chicken and the egg all over again. God is a paradox, and against the Law of Conservation of Matter (Matter cannot be created or destroyed) AND The Law Of Conservation of Energy (Energy cannot be created or destroyed), which defeats the two physical purposes of a god - creation and power. The idea of having a creator implies an infinite loop of creators, because to be able to create, you have to be created first. The only break from the loop is using "magic" as an explanation. It's like the whole nullity solution. There isn't an answer, so you make something up...it's not exactly conducive to reality. Religion's really crazy complicated to explain, so people don't try.
to answer your question, ink, god was assumed to have the male gender because of patriarchal ideology. when religion was created, it was created in a time where male is the dominant gender, or at least that's what they claimed it to be. in the catholic religion, the priests were male, and in establishing the religion (especially in creating the bible, by archiving all the texts that were written by their ancestors), everything was biased toward the male gender.
and since i've mentioned the bible, just take the "creation of man" as an example. man was molded in the image and likeness of god, which is also a man (and take note, it uses the word MAN and not WOMAN--which is also means in context as subordinate of MAN, thus WO-MAN). eve was only taken from adam's side, which also means that a woman is a part of a man, under his powers. and i think the bible also mentions that when eve was created, god told her that her task is to accompany adam and make him "happy", thus making her like a servant or something, which also depicts women in a lower status than males.
The origins of God are a curious concern. If one concludes that God has no beginning nor end and at the same time that God still exists, there is an easy method to show that God would be superfluous in the creation of the world. God has no progenitor; God has existed through all time, principally because God transcends time. The question of God's birth is irrelevant, then, since God was "begotten" rather than "born." There is no reason to believe that the universe could not have been "begotten" from itself without God.
Francis S. Collins brings up in his book, The Language of God (overall a very silly book for its intention, but there is some rationality to some of its points yet), the insult to reason that is stuffing every gap in modern knowledge with divine intervention. Dr. Collins calls this perspective on God as one who conveniently fills-in all the unknowns in science a "God of the gaps" perspective. Gaps include "missing links" in evolution (a major topic in his book), which he maintains is a very feasible, factual method of explaining the change of species over time. A God of the gaps perspective would apply God to anything that could not be explained rationally at that time. For another example, if one were confounded as to the migratory patterns of birds in trying to explain how the flocks reliably fly to the same places each year, that one may explain it with divine intervention: "God whispers the directions in the ears of the birds."
Creation is itself a "God of the gaps" situation. Anyone who believes in some degree of science perceives that at one time, all the universe may have existed in a tight ball of matter and energy. For the scientific believers, they may at this point posit that God created this volatile ball just so, so that a young cosmos might result a billion years later. The creation of the mass prior to "the Big Bang" is to-date unexplained by modern science, and perhaps its source may never be discovered. However, putting God at the foot of creation is still "God of the gaps." This could be another case where "I don't know" turns into "act of God." After all, is it more reasonable to believe that human ignorance keeps the origins of the universe off-limits, or that an invisible, transcendent, and supernatural being magically created everything from nothing? Occam's razor has faith-shattering implications.
Gods were created by people, as religion can be a pretty useful thing when used responsibly. It can be used to unite and/or control groups of people, and it gives the believers some hope and guidelines on how to live their lives. It gives them someone to blame when things go wrong, someone to help them when they're confused, someone to be with them when they're alone... and the list goes on. Its just easier for me to believe in the existence of people with voids to fill than a logical impossibility.
God.. well is god, depending on how you look at it. Well there are many other differing views..ie the monkeys and the scientology view on things, but lets not go there. A father figure like God gives something for the people to look up to, something to blame when things goes wrong, someone to turn to in a time of crisis and so forth. Of course there are the nutters (well virtually all religions have their outspoken people), but the majority of people in most religions would be pretty nice people.
My take on 'who created god' might surprise a few I think the ones who created god - were human
Well, it's just my private opinion, I understand that this is a controversial issue, so I put this forward as my personal view ONLY, and nothing more.
I think humans created god/gods to explain those aspect of the universe that they did not (or do not) understand.
For example, when there was an eclipse, the sun would look like a great bird of fire in the heavens, and this gave rise to one of the oldest 'gods' the phoenix, that symbol of death and re-birth.
Then we had the greek gods who controlled the various aspects of nature.
And now today we have a god who controls those aspects of human life and the cosmos that we cannot control ourselves
Perhaps when human knowledge is vast enough to encompass almost everything, humans will banish their gods.
Well, a controversial point of view, I know. Feel free to disagree completely, I surely can be completely wrong here, it's mostly conjecture on my part
I've always pondered that question as well. Who really did create him? That's one of the reasons why I kind of don't believe in god. It's strange. What's even more interesting is who created the universe or how was it created? and whatever created that, who did that? and so and so forth. Strange.
In my opinion not only is there no answer to this question but the question itself has no validity.
For example, take two separate spheres of energy. Since energy makes space, we now have two totally exclusive spheres of space, and since interaction of space makes time, each sphere has it's own time. Now presuming the balls of space-time have no connection, how can we try to ask will the two spheres are at the same point on the time-line when their time has nothing at all to do with each matter and would have no difference where in the time line they were for the answer. On top of that, connect the two spheres with a tunnel, then cut the tunnel, and reconnect it. Since there was no interaction after separating the spheres, you could technically reconnect before you attached the first tunnel.
So therefore I think the question of who created god has no merit since it has no physical connection with us mortals, or our time.
How was Earth created? How were animals created? Which came first, human species or animals? there is really no answer to your question as nobody ever saw/met him... we have no facts to prove it..but we know there is one, as we have our prophets.
On account of the great controversy surrounding all issues pertaining to religion, on account of vast digression of subject, on account of the same explanations (repeated many times over) not satiating the demand of the original question, and on account of the designated Christian fanatic having spoken, there must be a different approach to the issue.
Religion and science are fundementally disparate. Not in the sense that religious doctrine and scientific law cannot be compatible (for they can be, if you let them), but in the realm of subject. The two disciplines have differing opinions on what is true. As for science, empirical data and proven rational fact are true. Religion pursues an ethereal truth; what can feasibly explain the purpose and meaning of the universe is true.
Science is an explicit discipline, its nature is very evidential. That is to say, science justifies its truth with evidence, and that evidence is easily seen and understood by the senses. By compiling vast catalogues of evidence, science begins to construct theories on the relation between all the evidence, which then becomes theory, and theory into law. At that time, theories and models can explain what is true, giving birth to even more theories and laws. Science, at its heart, expands upon what is perceived directly by the senses. Therefore, science cannot ever deny nor confirm the existence of God, unless there is perceiveable evidence. Any proof for or against God is not scientific, but philosophical.
By contrast, religion is philosophy—or more specifically—metaphysics. Philosophy does not gather empirical evidence to be strung together into models, theories, and laws. Philosophy rather constructs worldviews, whose origins are not evidential nor even need to be perceiveable. These worldviews are the foundations for other things that one often finds in religion as well: morality, a liturgy, and a sense of purpose. No one sees science giving moral instruction, for that is not the place of science, just as no one sees the Dalai Lama processing proudly from his hut with the AIDS vaccine. Theology and metaphysics govern the highly-flexible laws of religion, which seeks unpretentiously to discover the meaning of life.
If one were to suppose completely hypothetically (as one must, since there is at least one here who would disagree that there ever was in fact such a time) that there was a time that the universe existed with life therein yet without human presence, then there would still be perceivable evidence that science would have otherwise used in its workings. Tangible objects exist with or without someone there to see it. However, this is not the case with theology and metaphysics. Because philosophy is not tangible, but the brainchild of humanity, philosophy exists only insofar as there are people. But if there is no person alive to contemplate theology and metaphysics, then there exists neither theology nor metaphysics. God for monotheists is the summation of theology; He is the metaphysics. Conceptually then, God appears at the beginning of human contemplation, and likewise He will perish upon the boundary of human perception.
To be fair, if one is going to theologize, one must theologize within the same theology. In the case of determining God's source, one must work within the rules and limits of monotheism. Monotheism holds that God is the culmination of metaphysics, that spirituality is necessarily relationality with God. God Himself then effectively becomes metaphysics in its essence. Recall that metaphysics is only the object of contemplation, and the problem is uncovered: how can one contemplate that which is, by the postulates of monotheism, outside cogitation? At that point one begins to look for the origin of not only his own, but all humanity's psyche. This of course cannot be found, since one can only think what there is available to be thought upon, that whose existence coincides with that of the tool (the psyche) that comes to analyze it, and no more.
If anyone denies the origin of God altogether, then that one is not working within the monotheistic boundaries, which prohibit a definite answer, though the very purpose of monotheism is to affirmatively propose a single deity. Denying God is accepting another philosophy, such as mine, which holds the universe itself as infinite rather than a deity. Concrete responses to the question of God's origin can only be reached through extra-monotheistic philosophies.
[1]Science can only study what is visible/detectable/etc, obviously. It has been proven that this dimension of time had a beginning. Since we're bound to this dimension of time, everything within it must have had a beginning, also. Everything outside our dimension of time doesn't necessarily have to have had a beginning.
Well said, and I disagree with none of this. But why this statement:
QUOTE
Since we ourselves have been created, we cannot fathom how something could have always existed.
Cannot fathom? My point was that I think people can indeed "fathom", in some sense of the word, an object standing outside of time (God). What exactly is it about our being created, that makes it impossible to fathom a creator? Why does one make the other impossible? I suspect the answer has much to do with what you meant by that word. Do you mean "fathom" as in some materialized itemization, some scientific observation?
QUOTE(truefusion @ Jan 23 2007, 03:02 PM)
[2]If one can see a pattern in design, how can one say there is no designer behind it? Is randomness logical? If there is no randomness, then there must be a Designer, or else there would be no way to pick up these "natural" laws.
I was worried this side note might get incorporated. I was just further elaborating on the kind of "fathomable" things people can comprehend and why such immediate material comprehension is different from "fathoming" a God and that most people make that distinction. Pretty much related to the first point. I honestly had no intention of going into that watchmaker debate (i.e. everything implies a designer) when I mentioned this. Different subject.
QUOTE
[4]Perhaps you misunderstood what i meant by "it is only clear to the believers." I meant that when they say "everything," it does not include God--this is what is clear to us. Not that it is clear that something has always existed. Do you understand what i mean, now?
That distinction is not my hang-up, I'm afraid, as my point addresses the same issue whether its about something always existing or whether its about God being different from the "everything" he created. Why should it necessarily be any less clear to atheists? It sounds patronizing or at best, beside the point. Maybe some atheists are mistaken about this, maybe some aren't. Maybe some believers are also. Clear suggests enlightened, informed, knowledgeable and this is what your believers have but the atheists don't.
It doesn't seem to make much sense when you first say the he is the creator of everything. It would mean that he created himself aswell, and that doesn't sound 100% logical either. I'm rather wondering why it's a he instead of a she? Why does a gender have to be applied? And if it has to be one of either gender, why specifically male instead of female?
