Do you believe in God?

Post Reply New Topic

I'm glad you two had a good conversation.

A quantum vacuum is not nothing.

Quote from internet article, relating to last post:
"Quantum mechanics tells us that there is no such thing as empty space. Even the most perfect vacuum is actually filled by a roiling cloud of particles and antiparticles, which flare into existence and almost instantaneously fade back into nothingness."
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141106 ... ist-at-all
But it seems I talk to myself on this forum, maybe it's my asd problem

It seems to me this "nothingness" is its own god of the gaps fallacy.... It seems physicists are equivocating on the meaning of the word nothingness. Nothingness in the context of quantum vacuums is not "non-being" in the philosophical sense of the word nothing. The nothing from which quantum fluctuations "spontaneously" occur is not nothing as in "non-being or non-existence."

Last edited by NoahYates on 25 Apr 2016, 10:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

I've thought about this quite a bit, and have concluded:

There could not, ever, be such a thing as pure "nothingness."

Even seeming "nothingness" is "something."

i believe that there is a reason behind existence which is incalculable by any level of intelligence, so yes i do believe in God.

Exactly! Which is the first step in many of the arguments from natural theology.

Just because the "reason behind existence is incalculable" does not prove the existence of a sentient, knowing "god" who created the Universe.

We also have to consider the possibility of the existence of a non-sentient "superior force."

Or even that all this occurred at random.

I will admit the possibility that its all "random" and we "luckily" inhabit one of an infinity of universes, ours just happening to be "barely" finely turned for life"... but for me this has the same level of plausibility as some form of radical skepticism such as solipsism or brain in vats theory. Sure it is possible... but I do not find it to be plausible. Given the nature of infinity and probability theory, when you combine them to the mechanics of our language, people postulate that monkeys blindly banging away on typewriters, given infinite time, would produce the complete and flawless works of William Shakespeare. I find these thought experiments involving "randomness" and "infinities" to be wild, abstraction... phantasms, perhaps in the same way that the atheist views my concept of God. I guess it comes down to whether your conviction is that of an intelligent universe or a mindless universe. The only thing I know of with certainty is my own intelligence and consciousness, so at the most fundamental level, nodding to Descartes, I know this is a quality of reality.

the problem is that before you were born, there was an infinite of amount of time in which you did not exist, and you experienced none of it. that is nothingness.
oh god i can just hope that when i die that i am not forever in non existence.

i live now after a forever of non existence to ask this of you.

According to my own ontology, as currently cultivated, we are God pretending not to be God. So try to examine your conundrum in the mode that would assume what I uttered is true. Allow it as a model and see where it takes you. Maintain skepticism as you open your mind to what a universe in which the one, necessarily existing substance, unimaginably powerful and intelligent is playing a game in which it loses itself in a dance... a narrative in which it is author, actor, and spectator would look like.

OK. How does that change anything?

Maybe you would like to explain how god can.

Here, have fun with this free on-line app. Choose your own constants and create your own universe!
http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vste ... onkey.html

Who made this program? I can see that it utterly ignores dark energy expansion, the gravitational constant, and low entropy conditions among other things. The three factors that I mentioned are extraordinary well balanced.