Jobar

Trebaxian Vir:
"If all material had to be created by something, who, then, created the Creator? "

There is an obvious language problem here. The word 'create' implies both a creator and a creation; using the word creation as a synonym for existence leads directly into this seeming paradox. Don't use dualism on a singular universe!

case

Huh?

squiddy

RJS wrote:

"You are all so burdened by this silly concept of time."

Which reminds me of another idea concerning time:

"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."-- Douglas Adams

~Squiddy

Synaesthesia

"Well why is anything here/moving at all?", frequently posed as a challenge to science.

Science cannot, and probably never will provide an account for the universe in terms of "why", that is to say in terms of classical causation, teleology and nothingness. It is quite clear that these concepts quickly break down as useless when used to plumb the very extreme extents of the universe. We cannot conduct our investigations if our intellectual toolbox is entierly inappropriate for the purpose.

Many argue that the question of "where it all came from" is answered better by God than it is by materialism. Aquinas invokes an inscrutable prime mover to respond to the question. So satisfying is this account that most people never realize that Aquinas' position is not even an answer to the question that was posed -- it is a rejection of it.

Most people realize that our common-sense notions of causation and structure have to break down somewhere. When it comes to philosophical debate, this knowledge *whishhhh* evaporates and we get the good ol' first cause argument.