God of the gaps argument

[lemondiesel]

There is too much speculation in your posts. It seems that you hardly have a solid answer to anything.

Here’s how to prove DNA, stars, planets, etc. existed before we did:

1. The universe was created before we were around to say it did
   Agreed, and if we never came to be, we would never say it did
2. Therefore, it exists and existed before we came around and said it did
   Therefore, a cognitive perspective decides whether something exists or doesn’t exist.
3. Therefore, DNA, stars, planets, etc. existed before us. We, as humans, merely classified and organized it, discovered it, and learn about it. But it was there before us. Just ask the dinosaur fossils.
   I am pretty sure I was saying this, do not know why you criticize me for speculation then.

Hmm, I feel like I am explaining these pretty clearly.

Here’s why we know those things existed before we did:

1. Perception is based on the present
2. Cognitive thinking builds a past.
3. A past builds a beginning.

As bad as this sounds, God is different. God can ‘just be’ because God is existence itself. He must be, for without Him, there would be nothing.

Now you are understanding me! This is why I said Existence. I do not acknowledge a personal God.

But this is getting off topic from my original question, so I suggest that if you want to continue this discussion, you start a new thread.

Create the thread and post the questions. I will be there.

 

[edwest2]

They would if metal could reproduce and undergo small incremental changes over very long periods of time that could be selected by environmental factors.

You’re making another false analogy here – now you want to compare non-living things to living things.

Nonliving things cannot become alive.

God bless,
Ed

 

[coolduude]

So, back to the original question.

How does one respond to the God of the gaps argument?

 

[lemondiesel]

So, back to the original question.

How does one respond to the God of the gaps argument?

well… why must it be God?

 

[coolduude]

well… why must it be God?

This is my answer; answers from others will probably vary.

It must be God because there was nothing else around.

That statement excludes M-theory (aka the multi-verse theory). That statement also infers that gravity was created at the Big Bang, which it most likely was.

 

[lemondiesel]

This is my answer; answers from others will probably vary.

It must be God because there was nothing else around.

That statement excludes M-theory (aka the multi-verse theory). That statement also infers that gravity was created at the Big Bang, which it most likely was.

I just think nothing can never exist. People seem to think there was a time before time, and try to say there is someone who always was. Time is a cognitive idea, and easily mistaken.

When the universe was created, that is it, that is when time started. Our minds are too influenced by cycles. In order to even have cycles you must always have time. The universe provides that time. Nothing can never exist, it exists as a singularity.

This is why I believe non conscious matter can form consciousness. Matter pre-existed the mind, always being. It finally evolved a way to interpret senses, recognizes existence.

 

[reggieM]

So, back to the original question.

How does one respond to the God of the gaps argument?

First, I think it’s good to help people recognize the gaps in knowledge.

The multiverse speculation is an attempt to fill a gap with something.

Whatever happened before the universe was created is a gap.

Why we exist, why we were born, why human beings seek purpose, what truly happened in the past, what will happen in the hereafter … these are all huge gaps.

Some imagine that these gaps are being filled up. But the universe itself cannot explain its own origin or what happened before it began to exist.

It’s impossible to fill an infinite space – and the gap is infinite.

 

[edwest2]

I just think nothing can never exist. People seem to think there was a time before time, and try to say there is someone who always was. Time is a cognitive idea, and easily mistaken.

When the universe was created, that is it, that is when time started. Our minds are too influenced by cycles. In order to even have cycles you must always have time. The universe provides that time. Nothing can never exist, it exists as a singularity.

This is why I believe non conscious matter can form consciousness. Matter pre-existed the mind, always being. It finally evolved a way to interpret senses, recognizes existence.

That is the fourth most ridiculous statement I’ve ever read here. I’m putting my baloney detection meter in the next room. I don’t want it exploding on me.

“Pardon me, sir. But do you know that rock over there will eventually become conscious?”

God bless,
Ed

 

[lemondiesel]

"Pardon me, sir. But do you know that rock over there will eventually become conscious?

The rock is conscious because you are conscious.

 

[edwest2]

The rock is conscious because you are conscious.

This reminds me of my Art Indocrination (supposedly Appreciation) Class. Students were shown a slide with a picture of a rectangular piece of plastic that had metal rods sticking out of it. The instructor then said, with great drama: “This is a man’s life!” Shortly after, I dropped out of college.

I should have taken Industrial Design.

God bless,
Ed

 

[lemondiesel]

This reminds me of my Art Indocrination (supposedly Appreciation) Class. Students were shown a slide with a picture of a rectangular piece of plastic that had metal rods sticking out of it. The instructor then said, with great drama: “This is a man’s life!” Shortly after, I dropped out of college.

I should have taken Industrial Design.

I just think you are misunderstanding what the UNIverse actually is. Perhaps because you think of it as finite.

Another thing to know is that anything is the center of the universe. Non conscious matter may not be able to acknowledge it’s being in the center, but at the same time you can look at any object around you and say for example “that desk is at the center of the universe” and it is. At the same time, both you **AND **the desk could be at the center of the universe simultaneously. Me and you are both in the center point of the universe. Our galaxy is.

 

[edwest2]

I just think you are misunderstanding what the UNIverse actually is. Perhaps because you think of it as finite.

Another thing to know is that anything is the center of the universe. Non conscious matter may not be able to acknowledge it’s being in the center, but at the same time you can look at any object around you and say for example “that desk is at the center of the universe” and it is. At the same time, both you **AND **the desk could be at the center of the universe simultaneously. Me and you are both in the center point of the universe. Our galaxy is.

Uh, what?

???

Or to put it another way:

???

You have no way of knowing any of that for a fact. I have to go now. My baloney detection meter is overheating.

Peace,
Ed

 

[lemondiesel]

Uh, what?

???

Or to put it another way:

???

You have no way of knowing any of that for a fact. I have to go now. My baloney detection meter is overheating.

Peace,
Ed

There is always a rational ‘being’. We do not create self-consciousness, we have evolved the brain to be able to harness it. Most can only recognize this self consciousness through it’s physical expression in other beings, but it permeates everything. That is how ‘God’ is omniscient and omnipresent. The universe is a God’s dream, an illusion, the same way your own dreams are nothing but an illusion yet you can touch solid objects having no material makeup to them, you can judge distances and move about, yet purely imagination. There is only one ultimate reality.** The higher states that man is yet to evolve his mind into are as high above the normal man as normal man is above an insect**. Every generation thinks we are at the absolute peak, but how wrong that is proven with the passing of time.

My example of dreaming seeming real is a comparison to how the physical creation is an illusion, a product of a “God dream/meditation” so to speak. And yes, the level to which we can evolve is beyond normal comprehension because of the makeup of what consciousness truly is in it’s purest essence, not dampened by the gross material brain. There are saints living today who have no need for food or water to survive, nor need for sleep. These things are ridiculed in the west because of our straying from the path off into the realms of materialism, but in the east, such as India, these saints and sages are far more prevalent, some even having been tested in clinical settings in the past. A yogini (female yogi) was kept in a room and observed for a period of 2 months, where she neither drank nor ate, and had not done so for 50 years. Incredible huh?

There is energy underlying every atom that keeps the universe in constant motion and change. When you eat, it is not the food itself that sustains you, but your body converting its “dead” material makeup into living energy. One can draw this same energy from the very essence permeating all things.

Sorry, got a bit out there lol, perhaps I spoke under inspiration.

 

[edwest2]

I have no idea where you are getting these ideas from but they are not good ones.

Ask yourself: Why doesn’t the electron going around the atom ever run down? What keeps it going? Trust me, there is no reliable answer. And one possible answer points to something outside of our present ability to confirm.

God bless,
Ed

 

[lemondiesel]

I have no idea where you are getting these ideas from but they are not good ones.

These thoughts are from the ancient Egyptian’s school of thought, or “Initiates to the Mysteries.” It is a very ancient school of thought, influecing such writers as Plato, who studied these Mysteries.

Ask yourself: Why doesn’t the electron going around the atom ever run down?

The same reason planets orbiting our Sun never run down.

What keeps it going?

Gravitational pull. Personally, I believe that the center of an atom is a tiny singularity of gravitational attraction. This is not the type of singularity that created the universe though, it is much more easy to understand. I would be skeptical of this belief if I were you too, as we all have different opinions.

Trust me, there is no reliable answer.

Or are you unwilling to hear reliable answers?

And one possible answer points to something outside of our present ability to confirm.

Our universe is but a mirror image of atoms. Deep inside between the smallest parts of the atom, there is just empty space. And when you were standing on one of these small parts, this space would feel like a endless universe.

 

[ValdezG]

I was approached on the God-Of-The-Gaps idea this way.

God is used to explain the things we do not understand. For example, the evidence on Evolution explains how our species came to be from the smallest of organism to Homo Sapiens. From there, we can deduce that a complex organism like humans didn’t just appear but evolved from less complex organisms. This discovery is an example of science successfully closing one of many gaps that people plug God into when they don’t understand.

I responded this way.

I’m going to let you assume for a second that Evolution is fact even though it is only a theory. Say a man comes from a place where he only has knowledge of cars that must be propelled with his feet, let’s call him Fred Flintstone. Someone leaves a car behind with a note saying that Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir made created this engine drive this vehicle without the driver having to run and even stops without the drivers slamming his feet into the earth.

Fred drives the car and it is amazing, a miracle but one day it stops. The key downs make the engine does not start. Fred takes a closer look and discovers that there is a large reservoir that leads to the engine. Before, he thought that the power of Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir moved the car but now he understands that his new car needs some kind of fuel. Should he think…

A) Ah. Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir had a design about his engine that would allow it to take fuel and run and I was not aware of this before. What an amazing discovery about his idea.

or…

B) I used to think that Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir powered this engine with his idea or mind, now I know it requires fuel. I suppose that Jean Joseph’s idea was really a Person-of-The-Gaps so Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir does not exist. This must be the next evolution in cars, nothing more. (Rock, Foot Propelled Car, Internal Combustion Engine Car.)

My point: Just because you know how a mechanism works does not mean the maker or a complex machine or his idea does not exist. It means, the mechanism in question serves a purpose and you are just smart enough to understand it.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Hi all,

In a nutshell, the God of the gaps argument tries to refute (among other things) the first cause argument. The theist says that 1) the universe was created and 2) God is it’s creator. The atheist says that this is a God of the gaps argument- something else could have caused the universe, why must it be God?

If I’m wrong here, please correct me

How does one go around refuting the God of the gaps argument as I have described it?

Thanks,
Coolduude

It is not a " god of the gaps " argument. It is a logical and philosophical necessity. The universe cannot explain its existence. Therefore, something that is not a part of the universe, that is simple, uncaused, intelligent, and all powerful caused it. Those who label this as a " god of the gaps " argument do so because they do not want to be reasonable, they do not want God to exist.

Linus2nd

 

[polytropos]

Hi all,

In a nutshell, the God of the gaps argument tries to refute (among other things) the first cause argument. The theist says that 1) the universe was created and 2) God is it’s creator. The atheist says that this is a God of the gaps argument- something else could have caused the universe, why must it be God?

If I’m wrong here, please correct me

How does one go around refuting the God of the gaps argument as I have described it?

Thanks,
Coolduude

I think there are better “first cause” arguments that appear less ad hoc. Take Aquinas’s. Aquinas argues that changes have causes, and (therefore) if those causes themselves change, then they will require causes as well. So the notion of causal series naturally arises. But if every element of such a series itself changes, then the change in the series is unaccounted for, since each element only acts insofar as it is acted upon, and there is no activity the causal efficacy of which is underived. So there must be some entity that does not change, a first cause, which accounts for the possibility of change.

This is not a god of the gaps argument. It doesn’t gesture toward something and claim that it must have a god as a cause. It takes a phenomenon and argues that that phenomenon, in principle, implies the existence of a particular sort of being (an unchanging one). With the right metaphysics in place, you can also go on to argue that this unchanging being possesses the divine attributes (unity, simplicity, intelligence).

It’s a bit argument, but I think it’s not open to the same objection.

People who do defend arguments like the one you cited (William Lane Craig, for instance) do argue that they can say that it’s God reasonably. But I think it’s tougher.

 

[Bahman]

Hi all,

In a nutshell, the God of the gaps argument tries to refute (among other things) the first cause argument. The theist says that 1) the universe was created and 2) God is it’s creator. The atheist says that this is a God of the gaps argument- something else could have caused the universe, why must it be God?

If I’m wrong here, please correct me

How does one go around refuting the God of the gaps argument as I have described it?

Thanks,
Coolduude

Causality is false since it cannot explain itself hence all arguments based on causality are false.