Skepticwithachainsaw

Umm, I'm new here so Hello.
Right this is a little Theo-Philosophical Problem I've been thinking about for quite a while now, I finally wrote typed it down and posted it in this <a href="http://www.carmforums.org/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi?az=read_count&om=40&forum=DCForumID3" target="_blank">Carm Post</a> to give it a baptism of fire, it was actually fairly well received (I think some Christians thought I was being complementary… ) and I had a great debate with a guy named Yoki, which appeared to end in an impasse. So I thought I'd see what fellow infidels think.

Right:
According to Christianity (and practically all forms of deistic belief&#8230 there exists an entity of some sort that precedes everything else in existence, “he” is eternal and perhaps “transcends” time and so doesn’t need a creator or something. This entity then creates everything else. He’s called God.

The question is, if God existed before anything else where did God get his sources of inspiration to create the world?

Either something inspired him, thus refuting the principle that God precedes everything or God doesn’t need inspiration. However this means he must have (a) already had the ideas or (b) that he can do what we can’t, create ideas out of no prior stimulation.
In the case of (a) we question where the ideas came from.
Now it starts getting tricky, because we are trying to separate the knowledge contained by the consciousness from the “self” itself, which may be a false move, so to cover my bases I’m going to argue from both:
Either
1) Information is separate from the “self”.
2) Information is part and parcel of the Individual.

However if:
1) Is true then this means that something else existed alongside God, what created the knowledge and gave the knowledge.
2) Is true this means knowledge can exist without a source, so logically therefore Cause and Effect is negated and anything goes. Logic is useless and the world (for example) and everything else doesn’t need a creator to exist.

In the case of (b), that God can create ideas with no stimulation we have to question what mechanisms God’s mind works behind, and as mechanisms imply some prior order, and we have to question where this came from (implying a “meta-creator&#8221 or we lead back to (2) above (cause and effect doesn’t apply) which basically means anything goes and logic’s out of the window.

There is also a deeper question of how did God even develop the capacity to be aware of his “self”, if he had nothing to compare himself with and determine that he was different he could not develop the idea of his individuality without some prior knowledge, which leads to the discussion above.

The principle could also be applied to God’s personality, what moulded and shaped it if nothing preceded God, where do concepts such as “love” originate from?

This isn’t perhaps in the best of words, bear with any faults, I’m only an 18 year old student from England.
What you think?

EDIT: Whats with all the ? Why doesn't it reconise "'"?

[ April 09, 2002: Message edited by: Skepticwithachainsaw ]</p>

Datheron

Skepticwithachainsaw,

Hallo! I'm 19 here, from US, so I suppose we're the young'uns of the bunch.

Anyhoo, I done a bit of searching to find something that I posted a while back:

<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=50&t=000016" target="_blank">http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=50&t=000016</a>

Which I believe goes along the same veins as your argument, just in a different form. Just another reference.

John Page

Hi!

Proving whether or not a theist argument is consistent with contemporary standards of logic or philosophical thought can burn a lot of time. Try this strategy:

Theist: God, First Cause blah blah blah.
Atheist: I can't refute that, I wasn't there.
Theist: God, First Cause, blah blah blah.
Atheist: Someone must have been there.
Theist: God, First Cause, blah blah blah.
Atheist: So, tell me exactly, how it is that you come to know this stuff?

From there it usually goes to a religious self-help book like the bible (discredited source full of conradictions and made up after the fact by fallible humans) or divine revelation/deep spiritual experience (You mean like the Heavan's Gate guys?).

Get the theist on the defensive, they don't have proof positive.

Cheers!

Skepticwithachainsaw

Thanks for the welcome Datheron.
That thread looks rather interesting, yes I think we were onto pretty much the same thing, although I sort of avoided any Latin terms and other flowery language (I'm doing an AS-Level in Philosophy and I know what it's like to be on the receiving end ), and I tried to set it out as concisely and clearly as possible so no one dodge the point by focusing on an inconsistency. Your's is more impressive to read though.

The basis is still the same, just where did he get the blueprints from…
Oh and I'm from Secularist England.

John Page, yeah you've got a point there, but then its always nice to hit the theists with something new...

[ April 11, 2002: Message edited by: Skepticwithachainsaw ]</p>

free12thinker

I've had theists argue that when I question the mysteries of god, it simply means that I don't get his awesome powers. His powers "far exceed" our understanding. This is a very convenient argument for religious types, especially since the most hardcore religionists benefit from the Mind of God. Tell me if this doesn't fit the typical bible guru:
Older Male or housewife
Machoistic or completely dependent

Why do these people generally follow the Mind of God? Because god says women (housewife) belong in the home and have nothing intelligent to offer the far superior (machoistic) man (older male). This makes life very good for the Older machoistic male who can spread the dominance of men, which will certainly lead to control in every aspect of life, especially over a dependent woman who doesn't give a crap about anything but the bacon being brought home. It makes it all very simple. Thus, the current Christian (among others) intolerance and dislike for our more open (read:smarter and tolerable) society that threatens the very fiber of the classic roles.