It's settled. Mr. Rogers is God.

The principle of PSR states "cause or explanation." God does have an explanation. He doesn't exist exist in time and therefore not requiring beginning. That also means God having a beginning isn't logically possible.

So that data has been demonstrated. We took two universally accepted truths ("The Principle of Sufficient Reason" and "time/space had a beginning") and deduced the necessary qualities the agent involved in creating time/space.


It's a fully valid deduction, and currently, it is the best explanation concerning the agency behind the universe. To slap around the cosmological argument, you would at least need a competing explanation.


In other words, an act of nature. That by definition isn't a first cause, so the cosmological argument wouldn't even be referencing that.

The first cause is not conjecture because the alternative isn't mathematically possible. See below for more on that.



If personhood is a necessary quality for the agent who created space/time, then we have the creator. Otherwise, you'd have to explain why a completely static entity created the universe. Even arbitrary events need causes, and if this transcendent entity is being caused from without, then it isn't the first cause.


If cause/effect is something that started after the creation of space time, than that means space/time wasn't caused. Unlike God, that actually is a violation of Principle of Sufficient Reason.


This hamster doesn't have the luxury of infinite time. As a matter of fact, not even God has that. Concrete infinities do not and cannot exist. If that was an option, we could just say space/time always existed. However, if we did that, that would also mean there exists an infinite amount of necessary events in the past. In other words, the present moment wouldn't exist. Any theory that leads those kind of absurdities needs to be immediately abandoned.

During teenage years never thought much about it. After those years I reevaluated some ideas and nowadays, I find it ridiculous how sane modern educated people can believe in old fairytales, that brought so much evil and hatred upon human race.
Religions must disappear, otherwise people will still continue to be slaves of imaginary friends and outdated superstitions.

I feel for you man but I follow Jesus.

My thing is this:

I feel like the world has made a turn for the worst. I see all the twerking, pregnant teens, terrible musicians i.e. Lil Wayne. People have just not thought for themselves they've let politicians and pop culture dictate to them what is right or wrong.


I feel that I can't be a democrat or a republican or apart of any political party to say the least. Both sides being hypocritical and both sides failing with disastrous results. I've done my research on both sides and I can't just understand why people would vote anyway.

The world is too intolerant, in America voting is too much of an illusion, and people gracefully allow the system to fuck them every day in the ass. No one is willing to change anything in this world. So I took it upon my self to speak publicly and help people who need it most. After, college I joined the navy so I can go across to help people all over.

It's sad to me what we've become, but deep inside my love for mankind is everlasting because I know we have that special ability to change. But, will it be too late is the question.

Aside, from my rants I've chose to be a follower of Jesus because he seen our condition and what we've become he understands human nature and has never given up faith for us to change and no matter how many times we fall he is there.

So at the end of the day I've chose to see the good in people instead of looking at all the bad that I've outlined in my post. We know our condition but will we ever change?

Putting aside the question of wether there was an intelligent agency behind the creation of this universe, there is another point that I think that a lot of people don't talk about:

moral reasons. I simply do not find the christian/islamic/semitic deity to be moral. And Jesus is quite odd himself, some of his teachings have moral ground, most of them not.

I am sorry, but a morality based on the hammurabian Lex Talio laws of bronze age sheperds is not up to date. Especially if its holy book contains inaccuracies contrasted tyo reality itself.

I don't have much hope for humanity. After learning a bit more about history it seems that humans always were the same: cruel, ingnorant, intollerant, supersticious and the like. And humanity tended to survive somehow, which I find quite strange.

Also, I agree with Riyakou: if women were in control of civilisation, i believe, humanity would have been better. Men think too much of themselves.

Cause and effect didn't exist before time. Time is the direction that entropy flows, without time there is no entropy, without entropy there is no before and after, without before and after, there is no cause and effect. That's not an argument, that's a fact (not a theory) of the universe (it can be measured).

You also state PSR. Which is: Nothing is without causation. So, if everything has a cause, and you state God does not have a cause, then God is nothing. In an effort to prove your case, you single handedly nullified your argument.

I'd like to point out. I remember a long time ago. Where, if we started a topic like this, on this site. People would over react and be so immature about others and what they believe in. So. With that being said. I am happy that we have all come further on here(and in life) and can talk about such a topic, without the rudeness and that we are able to talk about this, in a professional and respectful manner.

There's no contradiction. Cause and effect can be simultaneous. All you need prior to time/space is the cause itself anyway. The universe is itself the effect, so there's no problem to resolve here.



That's a watered-down version of PSR. The accepted definition of PSR is that everything must have a reason or cause. Those are not my words: that is straight out of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Cause is reserved for events. God was not caused, but he does have a sufficient explanation for his existence.

If one argues that God is the first cause the original starting point, then that directly contradicts the position of Everything must have a cause. You are making an absurd reductive argument.

Two things: it's special pleading, and a logical fallacy. Also, how does that specify the semitic god? Also, it still fails to not only specify a god, but wether the original starting point was a god at all.

Genesis fails hard.

Yet zero evidence that can be demonstrated.

Chrome... I LITERALLY address that point directly above your post.


The cosmological argument is used to defend the agreed-upon concept of theism. Philosophers conventionally don't use it to defend theology-specific details. It wasn't meant for that purpose. We use different arguments for different parts of Christian Theology.


The alternative is a logical impossibility. Propose a competing explanation that equally explains all the data.

Are you using the Kalam cosmological argument? Because that is one that hasn't been torn apart by it's many failings. Also, it is not a logical impossibility. We simply do not know yet how the universe came to be. There is no shame in not knowing something.

Also, curiously why one cause?

On another note, Carbon 14-12 decay has no cause-effect scenario, and is perfectly random.

Technically, it's a contemporary update of the Aquinian cosmological argument. The one I actually subscribe to is the Leibniz's cosmological argument, but it would take way too long to write out in full and WAY more premises.


But it DID come to be, did it not? Some philosophers try to argue that if there are an infinite amount of events in the causal chain, then there are an infinite number of causes. Hence, every event has a cause and PSR remains intact.

The problem is that the infinite chain isn't a viable concept, and it sounds like you, me, and Shoe all agree on that part. Time/space did begin, but the questions is how.




I agree. However, the cosmological argument is grounded in two premises IMO are uncontroversial. The deduction hinges on things I don't think anyone really disagrees with at heart.


I'm reading your question in two ways, so I'll try to answer both.

If you mean "why is a first cause even necessary?", it's because an infinite number of causes leads to mathematical contradictions.

If you're asking me "why just one agent?", well, the answer is complicated, but to put it briefly, if there are other agents that predate time/space other than God, they would have their own individual natures and wouldn't be able to interact with each other (that's a huge over-simplification, but hopefully I conveyed the idea mostly). And Shoe wasn't entirely wrong: time doesn't exist yet, so conventional interactions (as we understand them) can't happen. In theory, if they're all omnipotent, they might be able to establish a common nature and choose to be co-agents, but I don't even think one would know the other existed (God's omniscience of the universe extends from his role as creator; again, that's a HUGE oversimplification, but I don't want to over-write).




This is outside my territory, but even if there's no observable cause, I imagine there is still a posited explanation.

I like how people WANT to completely bend and brake their minds to prove that there is "someone over there".
What's so hard about accepting, that universe appeared just because and move on? Or is it diminishing importance of humanity somehow?

A lot of things actually happen without causes, particles can come into existence without any reason. People like to refer to that as creation, but there is no observable creator. Quantum level virtual particles pop in-and-out of existence.



Since we are not going to solve the question wether there is a creator since we have no demonstrable evidence for it, and the Bible in my eyes is nothing more than a late construction made of ancient stories.... let's skip it.

I think it is a lot more important to talk about other reasons why I left Christianity, and that is morality. or the lack of in the Bible.


Harsh but necessary: you have finite time.

Ah yes, those damn virtual particles. Didn't Stephen Hawking theorize that the universe more or less came from nothing?

Regarding the Bible and creation, I have to agree with those that say the Bible (at least going by Genesis 1) doesn't teach creation ex nihilo. It's more like the universe was "filled", which if I'm not mistaken, makes sense with ancient Near Eastern thought.

As for morality and such, I do feel that the Abrahamic religions are fundamentally problematic. If we just have this one life on Earth before going to the afterlife, why should finite deeds lead to infinite punishment? If there is particular important to us humans, why did it take so long for us to emerge in the universe? Furthermore, why did it take so long in human history for the creation of divine laws?

The problem with Genesis being unreliable is not that it would describe a from nothing creation. It's the order and sequence of things being created that is fundamentally false.

God is.... problematic to put it mildly.

As a punishment in any shape or form, an eternity of suffering, may it bedetachment from God (vague in itself), or darkness and grinding of teeth is MORALLY WRONG.

You cannot apply such punishment to any kind of finite wrongdoing. If the Bible's (and I am purposefully skipping the Torah, as Jewish afterlife is WAAAY different) statements are true, dishing this out is way overboard. Oh, any kind of: you do not/can not comprehend God's will, etc...

Well, God then purposefully created us in a way that is not efficient for him to get us into heaven. Why didn't he make us comprehensive enough? Was it out of its power? Did he deliberately make us so and then expect us to make the most important decision simply on blind guess/faith?

Why on earth would a God invested in spreading the evangelium chose a culture that is a backwards-ass desert nomadic people, when in China they were writing books at the same time?

Also, condones slavery. NOT indetured servitude, SLAVERY.
Also, accepts human sacrifice. Four documented cases in the KJB.
Also, orders his chosen people to kill other tribes for their women.

Truly praiseworthy. And no, New Testament doesn't get to overwrite this. It is clearly the same god, and Jesus himself notes that he is not here to change the original commandments. As there were more than the 10.


Something else - - - >

Also, intelligent design, what about stupid design? Do you know how flawed and inefficient we are structurally? The wondrous and complex human eye? Downright pitiful compared to species who can se electromagnetics or the infrared spectrum. We have an entertainment complex right newt to our waste-disposal exit.

One man's trash?

Two things here.

First off, cause is not directly observable. We infer it from experience and regularities. So if these arbitrary events were indeed completely without cause or explanation, how would we know it? Causation in principle can't be directly observed anyway, so it doesn't really make sense to utilize it's absence in an argument. All you can really do is deduce the lack of a cause. No one has done that successfully.

More importantly, you're shooting yourself in the foot by trying to eliminate PSR. If PSR is false, you do away with far more than just transcendent agency. You'd be pulling the rug out beneath logic. No one wins if that happens.


Logical demonstration is the highest form of demonstration. Unless someone can knock out one of the foundational premises, the case is closed.

Now whether that creator is the Christian God, that's another debate that requires another argument.


If you're going to criticize Biblical morality, I'm assuming you have theory that explains knowledge of object moral laws. What moral theory are you using to criticize the Bible?


"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

How is that not ex nihilo?

I know exactly what you mean, Chrome. As for the creation story in Genesis, one of the big problems is that there are contradictions between the first two chapters. As for the sequence of things being created, you're absolutely right. Personally, while I don't believe in the Bible, I do take the viewpoint that there are a lot of metaphors in the Hebrew scriptures. A lot of the stuff cannot be taken literally unless you're someone who is naive or insane.

In addition to the Chinese, the Greeks, Babylonians, and ancient Egyptians could have also been chosen instead of the Hebrews. The way I see it, had the Jews not been influenced by Greco-Roman thinking later on in their history, there could have been as much "radical Judaism" as there is "radical Islam".

It's just not consistent with ancient Near Eastern thought. Hebrews were from the ancient Near East. It has been argued that they are a sub-group of a Canaanites just like the Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites. Even the Hebrew Bible hints at it, such as Hebrew being referred to as "lashon kana`an" (literally "tongue/language" of Canaan). To give a better example, look at Shir HaYam (Song of the Sea) in Exodus 15. That is so parallel to Canaanite war hymns.

What you presented is one of the fundamental problems with most Christians, especially ones in the West. The problem lies within not going back to the Hebrew (Aramaic in some cases) of the Old Testament. Furthermore, due to influence of Greco-Roman thought, the way certain Hebrew words are translated reflect a more abstract thought as opposed to the more concrete (as in being related to the 5 main senses) of ancient Near Eastern (or...at least Hebrew, I guess?) thought.

By no means am I any kind of expert on the Bible or on Hebrew or any of that stuff. But from what I do know, the Hebrew verb "bara" mainly means "to fill" or "to fatten". When it's translated as "to create", it gives more of an abstract idea. But to even overlook that, look at verse 2, where it is stated that the Earth (literally "land/ground", not necessarily referring to planet Earth) was formless and void.

If we get angry at another country, we'd just ignore them, not find some ridiculous reason to send troops over.

Joking aside though, I too agree.

To Chrome: I find it disheartening whenever I hear that somebody has lost their faith. I almost see it as a person losing their last little bit of innocence. This world is indeed a rough one to navigate, but if the thought of there not being a god makes it easier for you, and you even end up happier than before, than I think that's all that matters.

If there is a god(and I like to think there is), I think you being happy is all he/she/it would want anyway.

I'm. A born again Christian. I belive that Jesus Christ. is Lord and Savior. However I do not belive in shoving it down peoples throats. I want to see as many people going to heaven with me as possable. But telling somebody that you are better then them or telling them they are going to Hell is no way to treat somebody I have many friends from diffrent religons and we accept each others diffrences. As for losing faith. Don't be closedminded to the idea of God. And and don't make any rash dicesions they are many cults out there its much better to belive in nothing then to belive in something thets currupt.