Physicist Stephen Hawking very ill, admitted to hospital http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090420/ts_nm/us_britain_hawking Note this quote from him: "The universe is self-contained, and without boundary, in imaginary time. However, in real time, the universe will appear to begin at the Big Bang (the explosion thought to be at the origin of the universe)," Hawking has said. "The laws of physics will hold everywhere, so it is not necessary to believe that God intervened to set it going."
"The universe is self-contained, and without boundary, in imaginary time. However, in real time, the universe will appear to begin at the Big Bang (the explosion thought to be at the origin of the universe)," Hawking has said. Maybe, maybe not. No proof is given either way. The term creation causes lots of problems because of the Christians mainly. If someone eats some food, digests the food, and then craps out the waste material, do we say "The man created a turd.?" Not really, it was just a mechanical process. Clearly no one of sound mind is going to argue that there is not some purely mechanical system in place that governs the functioning of the universe. Things are "created" and then "destroyed" but from a larger picture you just have stuff moving around from one form to another, following the programming of the universe to do so. Nothing new, just following the programming. The issue comes when the concept of a Creator of the Universe is introduced. Say some architect draws up some plans and gives them to a builder. The builder follows the plans and builds the home. Did the builder create the home? Or did the architect create the home? Or did a Master Architect of the universe setup up and program all the laws of nature that generated everything that followed. Or is the programming of the universe and everything within it an eternal program which was never created, because it eternally existed? Questions that cannot be answered, so why do the atheists need to rule out a Master Architect when they have no way of doing so? Beats me... The only thing that makes sense to me is that they have daddy issues of some sort, and issues with theists who subscribe to a particular religion, because of their own childhood conditioning and wounding, and because they are western centric in their view of religion and life... Oh, and the big bang is an imagination without any means of verification. Not much different really than those who believe God created the universe. However, since God=Totality, and since everything happens within God, then it is nothing but God interacting with God which creates unlimited manifestations of God in unlimited forms... Those who do not realize this are ignorant, those who achieve this realization are the enlightened ones... No worry if you are one of the ignorant ones, you get the lifespan of God (who has unlimited existence) to try and get it right... "The universe is self-contained, and without boundary, in imaginary time. However, in real time, the universe will appear to begin at the Big Bang (the explosion thought to be at the origin of the universe)," Hawking has said. "The laws of physics will hold everywhere, so it is not necessary to believe that God intervened to set it going." Do the laws of physics exist prior to the so called imaginary "big bang?"
you speak of God in the Christian sense. (you capitalize IT) call totality god or "EVERYTHANG" there is, ever was and ever will be. whatever you wish. Doesn't change anything. doesn't add anything to our understanding. purely semantics
I am not a Christian, so if you hear what I say as God in the Christian sense, then your own Christian God programming is in play... Accepting that God is another word for totality makes God logically true... Unless you can show me logically how there cannot be a totality of all that is known to exist and all that could possibly exist... Semantics are important, they lead to accuracy in expression of ideas... Something you appear to know little about...
ok, for sake of argument let's call totality god. god=totality. totality =god. now, how am i better off? what 'more' do i have now that i didn't have before the assumption of equality? am i better off? do i possess more knowledge? ok, totality=god. so what?
So if you believe in totality, and you accept that God=totality, and the concept of a totality is logically true, then you believe in God, which kills your idea that you are an atheist. Get the point Gomer?