Atheism and the Christian God.

[cheddarsox]

john doran:

you’re missing the point: saying that the “universe is an accident” is not saying that everything that occurs in the universe occurs randomly - it is, rather, saying that if the ***existence ***of the universe wasn’t the result of conscious causal efficacy, then it is random. and this includes the existence of the laws that govern matter and energy.

put another way, if the existence of the laws of the universe isn’t the result of divine agency, then why do they exist at all?

perhaps true, but beside the point: why does that inherent nature exist?

Again, I am not an atheist. I have not and am not arguing against divinity (if you read the thread, you’ll see) The original question was why people do not believe the CATHOLIC concept of God.

I do not pretend to know why things are the way they are, but the Catholic concept of God makes less sense to me than a great many other explanations.

When I look at the universe, in all it’s greatness, when I experience divinity in it’s awesome wonder, it was not fashioned by the being that is put forth as God in Catholicism. It was not fashioned by anything with any human like personality, or with the emotions and concerns that we (and that concept of God) make a big deal out of. It was fashioned by something grander, more pervasive, less petty, needy and concerned. That is what I see and experience.

I would rather offer no explanation, than one that insults the reality of what is.

cheddar

 

[john_doran]

AnAtheist:

I can provide a justification for it: It works in practice. Verification by divine revelation does not.

i don’t understand the notion of a “practically” justified self-defeating statement.

“if P is true then it is false”; how can that be pragmatically useful?

please explain.
AnAtheis:

ps: Self-reference often leads to such contradictions. Interesting to note, that when I try to apply self-references to God, which lead to a contradictory (thus impossible god-image ?) that is not “allowed”.

i have asked you numerous times on this thread to show these self-referential falsifications involved in the concept of god, and you have not; you simply continue to stipulate them.

stipulation without explanation is what’s not “allowed”.

 

[john_doran]

AnAtheist:

…thus those universes would co-exists in higher dimensions without ever interfering with each other.

whose model is this? it sounds like neither tryon’s vacuum fluctuation model (which, i believe, is the model against which nan was arguing), nor like linde’s chaotic inflationary model.

your reference to higher dimensions has the flavour of M-theory and/or brane theory.

could you elaborate?

AnAtheist:

As we can observe only 5 dimensions (if we count time as a dimension), that does not contradict our observation.

i assume you mean 4 dimensions…

AnAtheist:

In fact a multitude of universes with different parameters or even different natural laws could exist in such a “quantum vacuum”, our universe fits to us by the weak anthropocentric principle then.

where are you getting this from?

 

[Nan_S]

cheddarsox:

When I look at the universe, in all it’s greatness, when I experience divinity in it’s awesome wonder, it was not fashioned by the being that is put forth as God in Catholicism. It was not fashioned by anything with any human like personality, or with the emotions and concerns that we (and that concept of God) make a big deal out of. It was fashioned by something grander, more pervasive, less petty, needy and concerned. That is what I see and experience.
I would rather offer no explanation, than one that insults the reality of what is.
cheddar

It would seem you are saying the Catholic / Christian God, who is concerned with the little details of His every aspect of His creation, is “too small” for you. Whereas you imagine God on a grand-and-awesome pedestal and separate yourself from Him, like something one would gaze at from behind a museum barrier. That is the philosophy akin to Deism.

How is it demeaning for a god to be concerned with that which he creates? Does the personal touch make him less divine? Is there any reason to imagine that an all-powerful god would necessarily be pompous and distant?

Would an all-powerful, “grand” god be incapable of being concerned with the details of his creation? When I examine the world through a microscope, I am in awe of the extreme detail of creation. If the Christian God is concerned enough to make both the massive distant galaxies and the little flower petals perfect, should I infer He is so grand that He must be unconcerned about me?

Is your impression of a “petty” god driven by the human life of Jesus on earth, before His resurrection? Yes, Jesus got frustrated, angry, hungry, and tired. That’s part of being human, and Jesus “having emptied himself for a time and taken the form of a slave” personally experienced all of that. But direct human experience does NOT make our God petty! Jesus whole point was to show us how to transcend our limits and be all God wants us to be.

Before you dismiss our God as being “not grand enough” for you, you should read the Book of Job, Chapters 38 to 41. What an incredibly awesome God we have!!! Here’s a sample:

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind:
*Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements-- surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? *
“Or who shut in the sea with doors, when it burst forth from the womb; when I made clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed? *
*"Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all this. *
*"Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness, that you may take it to its territory and that you may discern the paths to its home? *
*"Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth? Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that a flood of waters may cover you? Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go and say to you, 'Here we are? Who has put wisdom in the clouds, or given understanding to the mists? Who can number the clouds by wisdom?”

 

[Nan_S]

AnAtheist:

You’r absolutely right except point 5.

So it would appear you agree with me that relying upon the quantum model to explain the origin of the universe has fatal flaws.

#4 btw does not contradict our observations.
“Point” is a spatial term only applying to our universe,…

“Point” as I used it was a figurative term, not a geographic one. And as to #4, if there are multiple universes, we have no evidence, empirical or otherwise, to show that. What #4 was demonstrating was that if someone DID take the position that a significant enough flux in the quantum vacuum could spawn a universe, it would happen more than once.

( * *Thanks, I won’t, I had cosmology classes back at the university. )

I know you would understand the difference. I wasn’t sure everyone else would, though, and made the comment to avoid spawning irrelevant arguments.

…thus those universes would co-exists in higher dimensions without ever interfering with each other. As we can observe only 5 dimensions (if we count time as a dimension), that does not contradict our observation. In fact a multitude of universes with different parameters or even different natural laws could exist in such a “quantum vacuum”, our universe fits to us by the weak anthropocentric principle then.

This is pure speculative theory, requiring a great deal of (gasp) Faith, because there is no emperical evidence whatsoever for dimensions beyond Time.

Furthermore, if you assume that significant enough quantum fluxes DID create universes, and therefore, over eternity, by necessity an infinite number of those flux-created universes would have to be created, are we to postulate that there are also an infinite number of dimensions to house these infinite universes? And that, by necessity, each universe would always get its own dimension? Where is the emperical evidence for that?

BTW, 5 dimensions? What are they? I know of length, width, height (the classic 3) and Time. What am I missing?

 

[cheddarsox]

Nan S:

It would seem you are saying the Catholic / Christian God, who is concerned with the little details of His every aspect of His creation, is “too small” for you. Whereas you imagine God on a grand-and-awesome pedestal and separate yourself from Him, like something one would gaze at from behind a museum barrier. That is the philosophy akin to
deism.

**I am a pantheist, I absolutely do not imagine the divine to be at all seperated from myself or any part of creation. I believe the exact opposite of that. I believe the divine (not God, because that is your deity) to be completely pervasive and constantly active in the universe I observe, and perhaps beyond it as well.
**
How is it demeaning for a god to be concerned with that which he creates? Does the personal touch make him less divine? Is there any reason to imagine that an all-powerful god would necessarily be pompous and distant?

**Again, it would not be demeaning for the divine to be active. I do not at all believe the divine to be distant, and pompous is not a word I believe the divine is even capable of being.
**
Would an all-powerful, “grand” god be incapable of being concerned with the details of his creation? When I examine the world through a microscope, I am in awe of the extreme detail of creation. If the Christian God is concerned enough to make both the massive distant galaxies and the little flower petals perfect, should I infer He is so grand that He must be unconcerned about me?

**Because I do not see the divine as being human like, it is not concerned in the way that the Catholic God is concerned. It does not worry over whether we had a smidgen of lust in our heart when we took our spouse to bed, or if I took the time to make the sign of the cross correctly before entering the church. Those are human concerns. And there are valid reasons for humans to concern themselves over such. How we behave matters…to us, and to those around us, and paying attention to our behavior and our intentions make a difference in our lives. I do not believe the divine cares over those types of things. I do not believe the divine keeps records of those types of things. I think it is demeaning for humans to claim that those are divine issues that matter in the ultimate scope of the universe. It is making the petty details of our lives so important that we think the divine must be paying the same ridiculous attention to them.
**
Is your impression of a “petty” god driven by the human life of Jesus on earth, before His resurrection? Yes, Jesus got frustrated, angry, hungry, and tired. That’s part of being human, and Jesus “having emptied himself for a time and taken the form of a slave” personally experienced all of that. But direct human experience does NOT make our God petty! Jesus whole point was to show us how to transcend our limits and be all God wants us to be.

**I am not sure what type of “direct human experience” you are referring to here. I am not basing my impression of a petty God on Jesus or his life. I am basing it on what I was taught about God while I was a Catholic. And my own direct experience with the divine, which was very different from what I was taught by the church. but not so different from what has been experienced by numerous Catholic mystics. Much of what makes up Catholicism, and we are told is God’s law, is very obviously human minutia. Again, I think it is fine for us to be concerned with such, It is good for the church to provide teaching that will help the members lead good and fruitful lives, I think it is wrong and dishonest to give God credit for much of the details that are clearly human details. It gives a false, and yes petty, idea of what the divine is.
**
Before you dismiss our God as being “not grand enough” for you, you should read the Book of Job, Chapters 38 to 41. What an incredibly awesome God we have!!! Here’s a sample:

**I agree, the divine is totally awesome. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people spent more time with this image of God than the one most of them do…big record keeping dad in the sky. My point exactly. The divine is so grand, and so many act as if it is just an angrier, more demanding father than the one we have on earth.

Unfortunately, it is the God at the beginning of Job, who rather sadistically bets with the devil and allows His beloved Job to be used as a pawn, that is the one most people are supposedly “worshipping”.

I’m sorry you are offended that I think the divine is even better than the church teaches.
**

cheddar

 

[AnAtheist]

john doran:

i have asked you numerous times on this thread to show these self-referential falsifications involved in the concept of god, and you have not; you simply continue to stipulate them.

How about these:
An omniscient being does not know, how it is not to be omniscient. If it lacks to know something, it is not omniscient. Therefore omniscient beings do not exist.
A time transcending being cannot change over time, thus it cannot know how a change is like. Therefore a time transcending AND omniscient being cannot exist.
An eternal being cannot terminate its own existence. An omnipotent being can terminate its own existence. Therefore an eternal AND omnipotent being cannot exist.

 

[AnAtheist]

Nan S:

This is pure speculative theory, requiring a great deal of (gasp) Faith, because there is no emperical evidence whatsoever for dimensions beyond Time.

It surely is. But it is a possible alternative to a creative god. Therefore a god is not absolutely necessary for this universe to exist.

BTW, 5 dimensions? What are they? I know of length, width, height (the classic 3) and Time. What am I missing?

The classic 3 are bend into a 4th spatial dimension by gravity. Plus time makes 5.

 

[john_doran]

AnAtheist:

How about these:
An omniscient being does not know, how it is not to be omniscient. If it lacks to know something, it is not omniscient. Therefore omniscient beings do not exist.

well, you have yet to define “omniscience” in a useful way. i define it as “knowing every true proposition and no false propositions”.

accordingly, what true proposition does god fail to know when he doesn’t know “what it’s like” to have certain experiences (anger, joy, lust, pain)?

AnAtheist:

A time transcending being cannot change over time, thus it cannot know how a change is like. Therefore a time transcending AND omniscient being cannot exist.

see above.

AnAtheist:

An eternal being cannot terminate its own existence. An omnipotent being can terminate its own existence. Therefore an eternal AND omnipotent being cannot exist.

i think you mean a necessary being can’t terminate its own existence. but it is unable to do that only because doing so is logically impossible.

how do you define omnipotence? for my part, an omnipotent being (roughly) can actualize any state of affairs, s, if there is some possible world where someone actualizes s.

of course, there are no possible worlds containing logically impossible states of affairs. ergo, an omnipotent necessary being’s not being able to commit suicide involves no self-contradiction.

got anything else?

 

[john_doran]

AnAtheist:

The classic 3 are bend into a 4th spatial dimension by gravity. Plus time makes 5.

are you referring to theodor kaluza’s attempt to unify general relativity with electromagnetism? if so, his theory conflicted with experimental evidence and was thus disproved.

if this is not what you’re talking about, can you explain where you’re getting this from?

thanks.

 

[AnAtheist]

john doran:

are you referring to theodor kaluza’s attempt to unify general relativity with electromagnetism? if so, his theory conflicted with experimental evidence and was thus disproved.

No, he used 11 diensions, didn’t he?

if this is not what you’re talking about, can you explain where you’re getting this from?

Directly from the notes I made during my GRT classes. How else can you describe a curvature of space, if not with another spatial dimension?

 

[AnAtheist]

john doran:

well, you have yet to define “omniscience” in a useful way. i define it as “knowing every true proposition and no false propositions”.

I define it as “not lacking any information”.

i think you mean a necessary being can’t terminate its own existence. but it is unable to do that only because doing so is logically impossible.

No, I meant “eternal”, meaning “without a beginning and an end”.

how do you define omnipotence? for my part, an omnipotent being (roughly) can actualize any state of affairs, s, if there is some possible world where someone actualizes s.

Ok, then let God actualise a world without him.

 

[john_doran]

AnAtheist:

No, he used 11 diensions, didn’t he?

no. he used 5. he was, in fact, the original proponent of extra spatial dimensions.

M-theory postulates 11 dimensions.

AnAtheist:

Directly from the notes I made during my GRT classes. How else can you describe a curvature of space, if not with another spatial dimension?

well, i think there’s something wrong with either or both of your notes or the class…

prior to GR, space was assumed to be euclidian in its geometry; the novelty of GR was to posit that, in fact, space possesses the inherent properties of gaussian/riemmanian/lobachevskian/bolyain non-euclidian geometry.

in other words, einstein’s insight was that the curvature of space is just the way space is.

extra spatial dimensions are typically hypothesized as being minuscule, which is why they have yet to be observed.

 

[john_doran]

AnAtheist:

I define it as “not lacking any information”

fair enough. so your definition of “omnisicient being” is self-contradictory.

what’s that got to do with catholicism?

AnAtheist:

No, I meant “eternal”, meaning “without a beginning and an end”.

same thing: it is logically impossible for a being who, by definition, is “without a beginning and without an end”, to cease to exist, whether by its own or by another’s hand.

where’s the contradiction? i still don’t see it.

AnAtheist:

Ok, then let God actualise a world without him.

there is no such world, at least not for catholics: god is a necessary being, which means that he exists in every possible world.

and herein lies the rub, for you: you need to demonstrate that the catholic concept of god is incoherent, not just that some arbitrary definition fails the test.

in other words, just because your definition of the divine attributes entails their non-compossibility doesn’t mean that our definition is similarly flawed.

 

[Philthy]

AnAtheist:

I am not happy with that. Truth is a meaningless term unless applied to a statement. Statements may be true or false (which is interchangeable by negation), but there are also some which are neither.

Such as?

AnAtheist:

Those would be part of knowledge by that definition, yet we can think them.

You’re talking about neutral statements? If so, I guess I will have to wait to see your example of a statement which is neither true nor false before commenting further.

AnAtheist:

Therefore knowledge would be a subset of thinking.
Thus omniscience would not encompass any thinking process. Is that a satisfactory definition then?

Knowledge is a subset of thinking. Is that your definition? That is not a definition, that is a mathmatical construction. Wondering is also a subset of thinking. But Wondering and Knowledge are not the same, even though they are both “a subset of thinking”. What is the essence of knowledge which uniquely distinguishes it from all other realities? Another problem with your “definition”, even as a mathmatical construct, is that you have assumed that we are capable of “thinking” all that is knowable. Is that part of your definition - man is capable of thinking all that is knowable?

AnAtheist:

A of course, as there is no creator.

Now who’s not reading the posts? The creator in choice B was not God(as you imply), it was the parents of the individual in consideration, scientifically recognized as the creator of the individual by the union of a spermatazoa and egg during sexual reproduction and subsequent cell division. So please go back and reconsider. If your answer remains A, no problem, just let me know…

AnAtheist:

To do some apologetics on my “contradictions”: I said an omniscient, uninvolved observer allows for free will. In a hypothetical world, where uninvolved observers could exist, that would be possible, ergo is omniscience alone and free will alone NOT mutally exclusive. BUT in our world uninvolved observation is impossible.

I guess you mean to equate observation with knowledge here, or at least as a prerequisite to knowledge?
Furthermore the Christian God is very much involved by His creation. You would agree I hope, that our decisions are not made out of thin air, we judge things with our experiences, which we draw from education and our own observation, thus the environment very much influences our decisions. And who set up the environment?
Now two remarks re knowledge “produces” causation:

1. Knowledge of something implies at least that there was a cause-and-effect-chain producing the event, one has knowledge about, but that is not the same as “producing” of course.

I agree that is the usual understanding of knowledge - that you understand WHY something is the way it is. But, again, this wouldn’t explain knowledge people have that does not follow cause and effect, but simply is an “awareness”. ESP would be one example - not that I necessarily endorse ESP, but some people do seem to have the ability to “know” things apart from a cause and effect chain. In addition, science per se would be incapable of verifying or refuting such a means of knowledge beyond attributing a statistical analysis of the likelihood of someone having such knowledge as compared to random selection (name the card, for example).

1. Recent scientific research really points to that direction. I have shown one experiment (empirical evidence!) that implies that.
   Yes, but understand we are talking about physical observation affecting the outcome, no? Kind of getting back to Heisenberg, right? One obvious problem I would have with such a concept is that it seems to imply that the LACK of knowldege of an event would leave that event as being without a cause. Or, if you say, “no it would still obey the laws of physics with cause and effect” then what you’re saying is that observation usurps those laws when it occurs to alter the event. I agree that this is what science shows us. The problem is that we don’t know if physical observation is required to gain the knowledge in all circumstances and as such may or may not apply to “God”.

Sorry this took so long - I was away…

Phil

 

[Nan_S]

AnAthiest: In fact a multitude of universes with different parameters or even different natural laws could exist in such a “quantum vacuum”, our universe fits to us by the weak anthropocentric principle then.
Nan S: This is pure speculative theory, requiring a great deal of (gasp) Faith, because there is no empirical evidence whatsoever for dimensions beyond Time.
AnAthiest: It surely is. But it is a possible alternative to a creative god. Therefore a god is not absolutely necessary for this universe to exist.

No, it is not an alternative to a creative god. You are simply speculating, without any legitimate basis, theory, model, or evidence, that an multitude of additional dimensions could exist.

Are you aware of any legitimate theory or model that makes a reasonable case for “n” dimensions? I’ve never heard of one. That speculation seems akin to a fairy tale.

AnAthiest: The classic 3 are bend into a 4th spatial dimension by gravity. Plus time makes 5.
john doran: are you referring to theodor kaluza’s attempt to unify general relativity with electromagnetism? if so, his theory conflicted with experimental evidence and was thus disproved.
AnAthiest: No, he used 11 diensions, didn’t he?
john doran: no. he used 5. he was, in fact, the original proponent of extra spatial dimensions. M-theory postulates 11 dimensions.

4 dimensions, 5 dimensions, 11 dimensions … these are still not enough.

From post #155, if you reject fatal flaw #4 and argue that the quantum vacuum COULD produce vacuum fluctuations significant enough to spawn universes, you would also have to accept that in an infinitely old quantum vacuum, an infinite number of universes would be spawned.

And if you reject fatal flaw #5 and argue that these alternate universes would avoid running into each other by each existing in their own unique dimensions, you would need an infinite number of dimensions for the infinite number of universes. As I said above, you would also need a legitimate theory that accounts for “n” dimensions.

Which still leaves us with fatal flaw #1 in using quantum physics to explain the origin of the universe: What accounts for the origin of the quantum vacuum?

When we’re all finished picking our theories apart, it still falls back on this: What accounts for the origin of the “origin”? I call it God.

 

[Nan_S]

cheddarsox:

I believe the divine (not God, because that is your deity) to be completely pervasive and constantly active in the universe I observe, and perhaps beyond it as well… I do not at all believe the divine to be distant.

It does not worry over whether we had a smidgen of lust in our heart when we took our spouse to bed, or if I took the time to make the sign of the cross correctly before entering the church. Those are human concerns… I do not believe the divine cares over those types of things. I do not believe the divine keeps records of those types of things. I think it is demeaning for humans to claim that those are divine issues that matter in the ultimate scope of the universe. It is making the petty details of our lives so important that we think the divine must be paying the same ridiculous attention to them.

I think it is wrong and dishonest to give God credit for much of the details that are clearly human details. It gives a false, and yes petty, idea of what the divine is.

I detect an inconsistency here. On the one hand the Divine is completely pervasive and constantly active; on the other hand, the Divine is neither pervasive nor active where we are concerned. On the one hand the Divine is pervasive about the universe, from the interactions between stars down to the tiniest inner workings of life at the biochemical level; on the other hand the Divine ignores details that are clearly human.

In other words is the Divine really unconcerned about our behavior, or only concerned about the “big stuff”? If the latter, where is the line drawn between important and unimportant matters?

Wouldn’t you agree that the Divine established in our being some kind of natural law, that He gave us the ability to distinguish right from wrong? If so, would not an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent (i.e., completely pervasive) Divinity be also concerned about whether we followed His natural law?

cheddarsox:

I am not sure what type of “direct human experience” you are referring to here.

Only that God wasn’t content to know theoretically what it is to be human but actually lived directly among us as one of us, personally experiencing human life, “a man like us in all ways except sin.”

cheddarsox:

I am not basing my impression of a petty God on Jesus or his life. I am basing it on what I was taught about God while I was a Catholic. And my own direct experience with the divine, which was very different from what I was taught by the church. but not so different from what has been experienced by numerous Catholic mystics.

I, too, was the victim of poor catechesis. It seemed to be very prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s, and is perpetuated by those poorly taught students now being the volunteer teachers in our churches.

I overcame it, though, by studying on my own. You might try it yourself. Have you ever read Karl Keating’s Catholicism and Fundamentalism or his What Catholics Really Believe ? The former book gets into real depth. The latter book is a particularly to-the-point and easy to read.

cheddarsox:

The divine is so grand, and so many act as if it is just an angrier, more demanding father than the one we have on earth. I’m sorry you are offended that I think the divine is even better than the church teaches.

So you are rejecting the Catholic view of God because we puny humans are not capable of fully comprehending His majesty, and some of us tend to focus on the details that are most relavent to our daily lives. And you misunderstand what the church teaches about God’s majesty. That doesn’t offend me.

It just makes me wonder why you reject that the Divine would be personally uninvolved in your life. Is it because of prayers that were not answered in your favor? Or is it because you are deeply enmeshed in petty sins of your own, and dismiss them as unimportant to the Divine because you don’t want to face that you will be held accountable for them?

You keep repeating that you are a pantheist. I answer that someone who tries to stand for everything winds up standing for nothing. Sad.

 

[cheddarsox]

I spent 40 minutes answering the above post,and then the computer/cyberspace ate it…So, I will have to respons another time, because I am off to church! That’s right! a pantheist in church. LOL.

cheddar

 

[AnAtheist]

Nan S:

And if you reject fatal flaw #5 and argue that these alternate universes would avoid running into each other by each existing in their own unique dimensions, you would need an infinite number of dimensions for the infinite number of universes. As I said above, you would also need a legitimate theory that accounts for “n” dimensions.

No, you need just one dimension more than the number of dimensions in each universe. Assuming that number is equal for any universe, the number of dimensions of that hypothetical multiversum is finite.

 

[AnAtheist]

Philthy:
You’re talking about neutral statements? If so, I guess I will have to wait to see your example of a statement which is neither true nor false before commenting further.
I was thinking of antinomies.

Another problem with your “definition”, even as a mathmatical construct, is that you have assumed that we are capable of “thinking” all that is knowable. Is that part of your definition - man is capable of thinking all that is knowable?

If knowledge is a subset of thinking - yes. See how it works? We come up with a definition, and think about the consequences.

Now who’s not reading the posts? The creator in choice B was not God(as you imply), it was the parents of the individual in consideration, scientifically recognized as the creator of the individual by the union of a spermatazoa and egg during sexual reproduction and subsequent cell division. So please go back and reconsider. If your answer remains A, no problem, just let me know…

We are endagered here to confuse “cause” with “responsibility”. The latter needs a moral context, the first does not. If there is a defined morality causation may impliy responsibility. Now, that’s interesting. Does the causation of the universe make the creator responsibe for it? The Christian creator is obviously not responsible for it. Because he has also “created” morality, which he is allow to break anytime he wants perhaps?

Oh, btw, I stick to A.