The Origin Of God?

[carrdero]

It has been spoken many times, many ways that GOD neither has a beginning or an end. Would it bother some people if it was found that GOD had a beginning? Would this demean the value of GOD? Would it interfere with any relationship we wanted to encourage with this BEing?

[Aloysius]

I wouldn't believe in him, it would be illogical to do so.

I believe in God because it is the logical necessity that there be a basis to existence which is existence by nature and causes all other things to exist. if there was any point when God was not, then there is no God, it's illogical. Any being similar to god who had a beginning I would approach the same way Kirk approaches all god-like species he ever encountered; I would resist them at all costs. I reject as unbelievable and illogical all gods and godesses as at best non-existence and at worst demonic; but logically based upon the insights of the Greek philosophers, they are at least non-existent.

[aalpha1989]

[quote name='carrdero' post='1337235' date='Jul 22 2007, 01:29 AM']It has been spoken many times, many ways that GOD neither has a beginning or an end. Would it bother some people if it was found that GOD had a beginning? Would this demean the value of GOD? Would it interfere with any relationship we wanted to encourage with this BEing?[/quote]


to have a beginning implies time. God created time. he is omnipresent in all time. if he is not then he isn't God. if God has a beginning then something else created him or began him or initiated him which implies something higher than him, and that something would either be a higher god or subject to a higher god. It is irrational to say that God had a beginning.

So in answer, yes it would somewhat demean the value of God. If one was worshiping something that had a beginning they wouldnt be worshiping God at all.

[carrdero]

Let us say that it wouldn’t be necessary for GOD to have a creator/boss.
If we can believe in a GOD that always was, how far would we have to go to believe in a “Poof! There He is” GOD?

Edited July 22, 2007 by carrdero

[carrdero]

[quote name='aalpha1989' post='1337239' date='Jul 22 2007, 01:40 AM']to have a beginning implies time. God created time. he is omnipresent in all time. if he is not then he isn't God. if God has a beginning then something else created him or began him or initiated him which implies something higher than him, and that something would either be a higher god or subject to a higher god. It is irrational to say that God had a beginning.

So in answer, yes it would somewhat demean the value of God. If one was worshiping something that had a beginning they wouldnt be worshiping God at all.[/quote]
Couldn't the understanding of time come first or maybe sort of the way that animals do not consider time in their existence?

Edited July 22, 2007 by carrdero

[aalpha1989]

[quote name='carrdero' post='1337272' date='Jul 22 2007, 03:04 AM']Let us say that it wouldn’t be necessary for GOD to have a creator/boss.
If we can believe in a GOD that always was, how far would we have to go to believe in a “Poof! There He is” GOD?[/quote]

nothing can come from nothing. this is obvious even in the nature of this nature which God has created. there is never a time when an animal or plant or person can just appear. Neither can planets or suns just appear. they all come from something. If you follow the line of reproduction all the way back, there has to be a beginning. That beginning cannot be 'poof there he is' because something caused that poof, which again would imply a higher being than God himself, in which case God is not God. Even in this world nothing happens without cause. laws themselves cannot cause events, there must be a material beginning.

[quote name='carrdero' post='1337277' date='Jul 22 2007, 03:16 AM']Couldn't the understanding of time come first or maybe sort of the way that animals do not consider time in their existence?[/quote]

The understanding of time could not come first. If there was a time when God was not then he did not create all and he is not God. if there is a time without God there is a place without God and he is not God.

[Aloysius]

[quote name='carrdero' post='1337272' date='Jul 22 2007, 04:04 AM']Let us say that it wouldn’t be necessary for GOD to have a creator/boss.
If we can believe in a GOD that always was, how far would we have to go to believe in a “Poof! There He is” GOD?[/quote]
I have no more reason to believe in such a being than I have to believe in Zeus or Apollo. The existence of such beings was disproven long ago as an illogical form of explanation of unexplainable forces of nature by peoples ignorant of science.

[carrdero]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1337524' date='Jul 22 2007, 01:29 PM']I have no more reason to believe in such a being than I have to believe in Zeus or Apollo. The existence of such beings was disproven long ago as an illogical form of explanation of unexplainable forces of nature by peoples ignorant of science.[/quote]
Aloysius, do you believe that GOD was ignorant at one time? Do you believe that GOD had to eventually learn to understand or eventually come into His Truths? If not, how did GOD become so knowledgable? Was He always wise and perfect? How did GOD get that way?

Edited July 22, 2007 by carrdero

[Aloysius]

No, He was not ignorant at any time, He exists outside of time.

It is his nature to be omniscient and omnipotent. God is the very basis of existence, the fundamental basis; everything that He is He is by nature; everything else that is only has existence because it is caused by Him. He does not change, He is the eternal standard, the eternal source.

Your version of a "god" is like pagan gods, and I don't believe in those, they were the explanations of ignorant peoples. You view God as some guy in the sky who just happens to be powerful and have created everything; but He's much more than that, He is the base force that causes existence, He is 'existence' itself.

[carrdero]

[quote]Aloysius writes: No, He was not ignorant at any time, He exists outside of time.
It is his nature to be omniscient and omnipotent.[/quote]
How did GOD get that way?

[quote]Aloysius writes: Your version of a "god" is like pagan gods, and I don't believe in those, they were the explanations of ignorant peoples.[/quote]

This would only hold true if GOD and I believed that He should be worshipped.

[quote]Aloysius writes: You view God as some guy in the sky[/quote]
I do not hold a specific image for GOD.
[quote]Aloysius writes: who just happens to be powerful and have created everything;[/quote]
Actually I believe that GOD had many assistants in creation. I do not believe that He was the only one to create everything. I believe that GOD may be powerful but I am not sure how this is meant to impress humans and there is reason for me to believe that GOD had to eventually acquire and understand how to become powerful.

[Aloysius]

whether or not you worship him, your philosophical grounds for a belief in god is equal, and your philosophical placing of where he is is totally the same as old pagan beleifs that have long been rejected by civilized people. it's absolutely barbaric to think of such a changing being as a cause of some things in the universe, it's totally contrary to all logical and philosophical thought and is based upon base superstition and blind beleif.

[quote]How did GOD get that way?[/quote]
He didn't get that way. That way is Him and He is that way, by nature, always, outside of time. There is no existence except for God, God is the very definition of Existence.

We don't believe in some powerful being that needs to be worshipped and fills in the gaps for where we can't explain things. We believe in a fundamental philosophical principal of unchanging causation from a force which is logically necessary in our ontollogical system. We believe that that force, which is the fundamental unchanging causation upon which all that exists rests, is personal because, since it causes all things, it also caused personality itself and thus must be the ultimate perfect Personality.

But you begin at its personality, seeing it as this powerful being which gets to change and decide and act much the way humans act. It is an absurd beleif, it has no logical basis, it is superstitous. Atheism makes more sense. You have no philosophical argument for why this being actually exists.

In fact, I think I'd like to take the atheist position in this argument: your god does not exist. Prove me wrong, show me how philosophically this god must exist. It cannot be done with your definition of him.

[carrdero]

[quote]Aloysius writes: He didn't get that way. That way is Him and He is that way, by nature, always, outside of time. There is no existence except for God, God is the very definition of Existence.[/quote]

This is not an answer but a non-answer.

[color="#000080"]EXAMPLE:
Q:Why does GOD exist?
A:Because[/color]

This is nothing more than the kind of reasoning some parents give their children when they are tired of their children's questioning or when they do not know the answer? Was this your intention?
[quote]Aloysius writes: But you begin at its personality, seeing it as this powerful being which gets to change and decide and act much the way humans act.[/quote]

I begin the existence of GOD as an entity who is alone and has yet to be aware of Itself, who has much to learn, understand and experience. An entity who (GOD forbid) has made mistakes but learned from them. I describe a GOD who does not have a human characteristic "bone" in His body. This is not a difficult understanding to follow unless one does not prefer or expect these qualities in their god. How can ignorance, inexperience, imperfection be attributed to human acts if there were no other entities with GOD in His beginnings to mimic?

Yet there are some religions that speak of a Biblical God who is vengeful, jealous, self-centered, insecure, illogical, judgmental, easily offended, favoring one entity (or group of entities) over another, impatient and yes, even changing. Are these clearly not human attributes? I may not believe that there is anything left for GOD to learn or re-learn but I would think that the opportunity for change should remain available to Him.

I am not sure of why you have such a resistence to change but I find change to be enlightening, comparative, challenging, reflective and necessary for growing in knowledge and wisdom. I would suspect that GOD experienced these same attributes in His evolvement.


[quote]Aloysius writes: Atheism makes more sense. You have no philosophical argument for why this being actually exists.
In fact, I think I'd like to take the atheist position in this argument: your god does not exist. Prove me wrong, show me how philosophically this god must exist. It cannot be done with your definition of him.[/quote]

If I was remotely philosophical or in the market of promoting or serving a god, I would probably enjoy the challenge but the GOD that I have come to know and describe does not need defending, believing, proving or worshipping to exist. But He may need a beginning and a god who has no beginning or a god who has always been, is a god who would probably prefer no logical or philosophical discussion but who would prefer (for some reason) to remain a mystery.

Edited July 23, 2007 by carrdero

[adt6247]

[quote name='carrdero' post='1338369' date='Jul 23 2007, 03:19 AM']This is not an answer but a non-answer.

[color="#000080"]EXAMPLE:
Q:Why does GOD exist?
A:Because[/color][/quote]
No, he is stating, as St. Thomas Aquinas did, that there has to be a First Cause. The first cause must be an "unmoved mover" -- that is something that is unchanging, and completely independent of everything else, to which all other things are dependent. This unmoved mover, which we call God, has to exist, otherwise nothing else does. God is existance.

[quote name='carrdero' post='1338369' date='Jul 23 2007, 03:19 AM']If I was remotely philosophical or in the market of promoting or serving a god, I would probably enjoy the challenge but the GOD that I have come to know and describe does not need defending, believing, proving or worshipping to exist.[/quote]
If that is the case, why did you start the thread? Why are you even on Phatmass? You asked a question, it was answered, quite well, and you basically said "well, you're wrong, and I'm right, and because I'm right, I don't need to defend my position, I just started the topic to get some silly Catholics riled up."

[Aloysius]

No, it's not a non-answer. All of these things are the very nature of God, God does not exist within time, God is what He is, by His very nature, God always is this because God does not exist within time.

I don't believe your god exists. Why should I believe that such a being exists? It's arbitrary superstition, no logical reason for it to exist. There might as well be no god, because your god is not necessitated by an ontological system.

I believe that existence exists, and that it causes the existence of space and time (and thus does not exist within space and time, but outside of them). And I believe that existence is three consubstantial persons. I have many logical reasons to believe these things on top of the historical beleif in divine revelation.

My God is necessitated by an ontological system. Everything (space, time, matter, et cetera) either exists or it does not exist. If we take for granted that it exists, then there must be a force which causes it to exist. That force must exist outside of what it causes to exist, thus it exists outside of space and time. If it exists outside of time, there can be no change, because change is by definition something which happens within time.

Your god is subject to time, and as such, no longer the necessary ontological cause of time. Yours is an atheistic system with some powerful beings in it, your gods are in the same philosophical place as pagan gods were to the greeks; a radical monotheistic revolution inverts all ideas about gods and makes God something transcendent over everything. But I would challenge your atheistic system by asking what the cause of time is. Your god cannot be the cause of time, because he is subject to time. He is not an ontological principal, he is just a powerful being. And that is why I call it silly superstition.

[Sirklawd]

God is.

Hence referring to himself as "I AM"

People misunderstand the afterlife as never ending time, when infact it constant. Constant, by definition is eternal, but it is without the change.

God is the originator of all that we know. To theorize a god having a beginning means there was once a [i]before[/i] for that "god" and therefore something that caused it to be - making it not all-powerful, all-knowing, making it notgod.

The TRUE God is the the sole independant. He needs nothing. He is his own existence. Everything in this universe exists because of something else, is dependant on something else. Follow this train of thought backwards. The start can only be God.