GeddyBass2112 |
08-24-2011 11:55 AM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by RVCA
(Post 1098062)
I'm sorry but Paine is simply using mathematics as a guise to fancy up his real argument: God must exist because there has to have been a "first mover", and this is something I have already addressed by quoting Carl Sagan. Perhaps God was the "first mover", but then where did god come from? If we decide that this is an unanswerable question, why not save a step and conclude that the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question? Or if we say that god always existed, why not save a step and conclude that the universe always existed?
If "God" must be an immutable "first mover", why not save a step and conclude that physics does not need a "first mover"?
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Physics merely explains the properties which matter holds and how things in this world interact with each other. It cannot explain anything outside of these things.
Every process we know requires initiation by some outside force. Even the most basic of processes require this.
As to the origins of God, this is a trick question. The deist God is a relatively simple (but effective) Creator. This question to my mind is only applicable when you get the prayer-answering, sin-punishing, humanity-judging God of the Bible and Qur'an. Why do I think this? Because much of this is completely and utterly against what we know to be possible in the real world (through scientific principles). IF you take away all these impossible elements, nothing about the idea of a Creator God goes against any sensible scientific and rational mindset.
Indeed, Stephen Jay Gould actually proposed this same theory, that of a miracle-free religion, and Thomas Jefferson was of a similar opinion (see the Jefferson Bible for example).
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