Physics breaks down before the universe began. But is consciousness reducible to physics, or is it something else? I think it’s something else, because nothing physical accounts for conscious experience. On that basis consciousness may precede the universe and space and time. That ultimate consciousness, or intention we call God. Everything in this world rests on something else, but the what that everything ultimately rests upon is God. Once you see this it is almost impossible to see the world any other way. There is no such thing as “evidence” for God, as such, it is simply obvious that he exists because how else could we exist?
slimboyfat
JoinedPosts by slimboyfat
-
38
“Lazarus, come out!”
by Fisherman inmany people here have expressed faith in evolution and in other theories—but in all honesty, do you have any hope whatsoever in your heart or in the back of your mind ?
truthfully..
-
-
-
38
What is your favorite EX- JW You Tube site and why???
by Balaamsass2 inthe mrs (third gen) and i have been on this site for a number of years now.
we appreciate simon's efforts to keep this site active and available.
i find a number of pimo jw friends enjoy youtube for some reason.
-
-
slimboyfat
Telltale has more patrons
-
38
What is your favorite EX- JW You Tube site and why???
by Balaamsass2 inthe mrs (third gen) and i have been on this site for a number of years now.
we appreciate simon's efforts to keep this site active and available.
i find a number of pimo jw friends enjoy youtube for some reason.
-
-
slimboyfat
Doesn’t Telltale do it full time? It’s a pretty big channel
-
38
What is your favorite EX- JW You Tube site and why???
by Balaamsass2 inthe mrs (third gen) and i have been on this site for a number of years now.
we appreciate simon's efforts to keep this site active and available.
i find a number of pimo jw friends enjoy youtube for some reason.
-
-
slimboyfat
Quite liked this interview
-
38
“Lazarus, come out!”
by Fisherman inmany people here have expressed faith in evolution and in other theories—but in all honesty, do you have any hope whatsoever in your heart or in the back of your mind ?
truthfully..
-
-
slimboyfat
That’s not what I said. I said:
if we had an infinite number of squares then one of them is bound to be a circle. It’s that the statement defies logic.
-
11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
-
-
slimboyfat
We had Tony Cain, can’t say he did anything remarkable here, or at least I never heard about it. Can you say what reason he gave for removing a whole load of elders?
And Kim you’ll be shocked to hear I never did apologise to LE for my audacity in having a different opinion to him. Maybe he’ll hunt me down yet.
-
38
“Lazarus, come out!”
by Fisherman inmany people here have expressed faith in evolution and in other theories—but in all honesty, do you have any hope whatsoever in your heart or in the back of your mind ?
truthfully..
-
-
slimboyfat
Would it be better if reworded to something like: we didn’t just get here by ourselves, somebody must have put us here. And whoever it was that put us here is beyond our ken?
I wouldn’t call “it just happened” sophistry, but it doesn’t make sense to me, because it’s like throwing hands up in the air, or, ironically, invoking a miracle, rather than an explanation.
-
38
“Lazarus, come out!”
by Fisherman inmany people here have expressed faith in evolution and in other theories—but in all honesty, do you have any hope whatsoever in your heart or in the back of your mind ?
truthfully..
-
-
slimboyfat
Yes, in a sense, because God is, by definition, that which does not require explanation. Unlike everything that exists, he does not have a cause, but is himself the ultimate cause. Because he is not subject to external conditions, we define him by saying what he is not: he is not temporal, spatial, caused, constrained, alterable, or limited. He is a category of his own, or he is outside categories altogether. Conceptually that is a kind of “placeholder”, but that is from our inability to fully conceive and describe God because we are finite beings. This doesn’t impinge on who God is in himself, which is independent of our ability to conceive or describe what it means for God to be God.
-
38
“Lazarus, come out!”
by Fisherman inmany people here have expressed faith in evolution and in other theories—but in all honesty, do you have any hope whatsoever in your heart or in the back of your mind ?
truthfully..
-
-
slimboyfat
I’m not saying it’s improbable that the universe arose by itself. I’m saying it doesn’t make sense. To say that existence arose by itself is, I suspect, a bit like saying that a square can be a circle. It’s not probability that’s the problem with the statement, as if we had an infinite number of squares then one of them is bound to be a circle. It’s that the statement defies logic. It would be a “miracle” of a sort if a square could be a circle, just as it would be a “miracle” if the universe could arise from nothing, not because it’s unlikely but because it doesn’t make sense conceptually.
To me what makes more sense is the view that a ground of all being, outside of time and space, caused our universe to come into existence. We cannot understand the nature of a being outside of the universe and outside the chain of causality, but the fact that we exist is evidence that there must be one. It is the nature of the reality we inhabit that gives evidence that there was intentionality behind the act of creation, and therefore God.
I like Krauthammer’s quip that “atheism is the least plausible of the theologies”. But again, not because atheism has a lower probability - if that could be worked out somehow - but because it doesn’t make sense, whereas belief in God does make sense.
-
38
“Lazarus, come out!”
by Fisherman inmany people here have expressed faith in evolution and in other theories—but in all honesty, do you have any hope whatsoever in your heart or in the back of your mind ?
truthfully..
-
-
slimboyfat
I’m not saying that it’s simply statistically improbable for me to exist in particular, or life in general for that matter. I’m saying it’s miraculous that matter, life, and consciousness should have arisen at all. Either that is a miracle of God or it’s a miracle that it just happened all by itself. Whatever way you look at it it’s miraculous - some might even say that the “it just happened” theory is more miraculous. You’ve probably heard the observation that materialism asks: “give us one free miracle and we will explain the rest”. The one free miracle materialism is asking for is that the universe, life and consciousness arose from nothing, out of nowhere, for no reason. That’s a pretty big miracle!
Animals have awareness too and that needs to be accounted for, as you say. But as far as we know humans are the only creatures able to contemplate the nature of ourselves and the universe, apparently with some success, as far as science goes. That the universe should produce a mind that is able to contemplate the universe is in its own way miraculous in addition to the miracle of existence. Materialists can keep on claiming that there is nothing miraculous going on here to produce the universe, life, consciousness, and accurate perception of reality, but it does seem pretty extraordinary, and does seem to call for an explanation beyond “it just happened”.