37 replies to this topic

[braveone2u]

"Can something come from 'nothing'"?

Of course! Our soul or spirit or "presence" is not a thing.

Edited by braveone2u, 05 February 2013 - 07:31 AM.

[libstaK]

notforgotten, on 03 February 2013 - 10:56 PM, said:

God creates something out of nothing.

markdohle, on 04 February 2013 - 12:07 AM, said:

Yes true, but God has no cause.

Peace
Mark

Actually, would it be more accurate to say that God is the Cause and all of his creation is the effect?  God didn't make something out of nothing, he created something from himself without him, the creation could not occur, so there was indeed a cause and something.

What is truly mind boggling is the manifestation of the first "thing".  God is also a "thing", if something cannot come out of nothing then where the heck did God spring from.

If there is no God and something cannot come out of nothing, then where the heck did the Universe spring from?

The same principle argument that works for atheists and theists alike from what I can see.

[braveone2u]

libstaK, on 05 February 2013 - 11:29 AM, said:

Actually, would it be more accurate to say that God is the Cause and all of his creation is the effect?  God didn't make something out of nothing, he created something from himself without him, the creation could not occur, so there was indeed a cause and something.

What is truly mind boggling is the manifestation of the first "thing".  God is also a "thing", if something cannot come out of nothing then where the heck did God spring from.

If there is no God and something cannot come out of nothing, then where the heck did the Universe spring from?

The same principle argument that works for atheists and theists alike from what I can see.

Hi libstak,

You said it: "What is truly mind boggling is the manifestation of the first 'thing.'" One's "awareness" (a thinking process which goes on after the physical body dies) has to be "programmed" or confused or given a choice to know or even believe that a "thing" (a concept that can be measured) is validly eternal or vice versa. For example, I choose to accept that things(?) are real, even though in reality, they are ephemeral and changing on earth. It's really the reason why I am a Christian because Jesus Christ offers what I want...which is the promise of paradise, a perfected reality of things(?) or "program." I want to be in a world of perfected moments with all of my senses intact. I certainly would not want to be in the Void, a reality of NO THING. Thankfully, we have the Blessed Trinity as a choice. True, in my belief system, both are valid: the perfected world of things versus the perfected world of no thing (via Nirvana). God the Father equals no thing. God the Son equals paradise/heaven (perfect world of "things" or program). Holy Spirit is right here, now, on earth, seen and unseen within the universe.

I've done the Void. Again, I want paradise -- this time. There is definitely God (without a single doubt in my being), but that's for an individual to find out. From what I've gathered, it's really not a black or white thing. God knows what's really in a person's heart, one's sincere desire. There is no right or wrong "home." It just happens that I'm not wild about merging with God. I love the idea of being with God via Jesus Christ. Third choice is back here again... (Yeah, dot  dot dot)  

Peace.

[redhen]

William Lane Craig is correct. It would be more appropriate to say that "matter can come from energy". Which we've already know since Einsteins theories were proven correct. I was guilty of using the virtual particle argument; it seemed so intuitive, "nature abhors a vacuum".

Still, the fact that matter can come out of non-matter, and vice versa is simply amazing.

[Seeker79]

Frank Merton, on 05 February 2013 - 07:05 AM, said:

The problem is that our thinking is surrounded by all kinds of boxes that limit our ability to conceive things.  This derives largely from our experiences when we are babies and learning the physics we need to know to avoid injury (such as "down" is dangerous, as is fire).

Almost everyone sometime around third grade goes through a period of wondering about people on the other side of the globe falling off.

One of the strongest lessons we learn as babies is causation -- that very very often when A happens it is always followed by B.  Stick your finger in a fire (A) and it burns (.  It takes a great deal of unlearning to know that this is not always the case and that two events happening one after the other, even over and over and over, does not necessarily imply any kind of causation (hence medical science requires placebo and double-blind tests and statistical analysis).

Hume made it clear, with close analysis of cases where causation seems undeniable, that the situation is really much more complicated, and that what you tend to have when you look at such things closely is an infinite regression of smaller and smaller associations that in the aggregate add up to what we perceive as causation.  He made it clear that what we call "causation" is a mental conclusion we draw when events seem to be tied to each other, but that we are not to draw any certainty that the next time we try it will happen again -- only that it probably will happen again.

That the universe had a beginning in time (that is, has not always existed) seems mathematically necessary (how did the universe get from infinitely far away to here?) and that this beginning was utterly uncaused is inescapable.  (Assuming a creator existing from infinity solves nothing).

There is a tendency to want to think of the beginning of time as happening in some sort of "super-time."  That would not be correct.  There is no such thing as "before" the beginning of time any more than there is a "north" of the North Pole.  There is no eternity to worry about -- the beginning of time is the beginning.

I totally disagree. The paradox of Infinite regression is a nice idea.... That's it. Time and time again nature prooves to us that it will not be confined to our ideas. Just because we think something is paradoxal dosnt mean that it actually is.

Also time. Human beings in our ever present drive to quantify and categorize need to see time as a thing and assign attributes to it because we beleive we precieve it. We don't. "Time" is merely a label we assign to perceived change. We search for beginnings and endings because we have beginnings or endings. In truth there is no such thing. There is only change and fluctuation.

[Seeker79]

If there was nothing before, then something had to have changed nothing so that it could be something. This means that there never was any nothing to begin with.

[Frank Merton]

Seeker79, on 05 February 2013 - 03:25 PM, said:

If there was nothing before, then something had to have changed nothing so that it could be something. This means that there never was any nothing to begin with.

That's the box you are in.  I guess almost everyone is in it, the idea that everything has a cause, even though both philosophy and physics long ago left it behind.

[Seeker79]

Frank Merton, on 05 February 2013 - 03:32 PM, said:

That's the box you are in.  I guess almost everyone is in it, the idea that everything has a cause, even though both philosophy and physics long ago left it behind.

Which philosophy? And in no way did physics leave it behind. I would ask how you came up with that one?  There is no cause in infinity possibly cycles or tangled hierarchies.

[libstaK]

Seeker79, on 05 February 2013 - 03:25 PM, said:

If there was nothing before, then something had to have changed nothing so that it could be something. This means that there never was any nothing to begin with.

Oh this can get so crazy.  How can there never have been nothing?  The first instance of something had to occur at some point *gets another drink*.

[srd44]

Question for the herd.

Why do some of you insist that ontology and metaphysics can be argued from literature? That's kinda like arguing for spiderman's ontological existence from a film.

Second, ALL biblical schoars are in agreement that both the Hebrew, especially the Hebrew, and the content of Genesis 1 IS NOT a creation ex nihilo
(a creation out of nothing). Before creation commences we are told that the earth was formless and void (tohu wabohu). We are also informed that the waters and the deep were present (1:2).

Lastly, this text tells us NOTHING about the ontological world, but rather about the way the author, his community, and their worldview, perceived the world.

[braveone2u]

Seeker79, on 05 February 2013 - 03:25 PM, said:

If there was nothing before, then something had to have changed nothing so that it could be something. This means that there never was any nothing to begin with.

Hi Seeker79,

You actually have "something" in your statement. People assume that because they are able to feel, see, smell, hear, and taste something, it is concrete, real. The interesting thing about the afterlife (the Void to be precise) is that a thing has no meaning. In the Void, everything one thinks about himself (or herself) will be erased; however, it's not an instant process. It's also freaky, the understatement for the year. In a way, one might want to think of oneself as a computer program, to a certain degree.

Thankfully, Jesus Christ came along with a promise of paradise. I definitely DO NOT want to come back in this world ever again. I'm also not ready for Nirvana (the process), to be "one" with God (the Father). Paradise is the only place to be...for me...someday.

Just sharing.

Peace.


=======================

"You know as well as I do that the DEAD don't stay interested in us living people for very long. Gradually, gradually, they lose hold of the earth...and the ambitions they had...and the pleasures they had...and the things they suffered...and the people they loved. They get weaned away from earth -- that's the way I put it, weaned away. And they stay here (the Void) while the earth part of 'em  burns away, burns out; and all that time they slowly get indifferent to what's goin' on in Grover's Corners.

They're waitin'. They're waitin' for something that they feel is comin'. Something important, and GREAT. Aren't they waitin' for the eternal part in them to come out clear?

And what's left when memory's gone, and your identity, Mrs. Smith?" THORNTON WILDER'S OUR TOWN

[pallidin]

Seeker79, on 05 February 2013 - 03:25 PM, said:

If there was nothing before, then something had to have changed nothing so that it could be something. This means that there never was any nothing to begin with.

Exactly! In my opinion anyway.

[White Unicorn]

This is a very hard concept to explain with the superficial perception of time and being and consciousness!

I'm trying to connect many philosophies and religions as well as a little quantum physics with many dimensions and times as interrelated to each other. (observer has effect on the outcome, something appears out of nothing, sub atomic things divided by space but are still connected) It's not an easy thing to communicate!

First keep in mind all the things we call natural laws which are within cycles of time, creation, evolution, death and birth. Energy is not destroyed it just changes like water is a liquid a solid or ice etc. Everybody is like a drop of water in a great ocean. The macrocosm of the universes work just like the microcosm of cells within a man. They all have there own cell consciousness and purpose but are still connected to the one as a whole. Cells live and die individually or as groups but the one man is still the same conscious Being both physical and has thought through the interaction of light energy to the neurons which come from a conscious soul to a physical body. (created in God's image) Man has a body and a soul of consciousness on different levels within time and the created dimensions of the universes. Time is one thing that creates the cycles which go in a circle, no beginning and no end just an eternal cycle which evolves from a the Life Being (Alpha Omega concept)

It is like the Cosmic Egg concept of something that is no-thing or a void. This void is everything but unmanifest yet it is the Being of Life itself. A fertile life yet unconsciousness of itself as it would be at it's maturity. Time and creation from the void is what gives our Being or soul a sense of it's place and a consciousness of the different universes through an evolution in cycles coming from an energy of different levels or energy "Light" that creates a motion and time. It all follows the natural laws that were placed within that cosmic egg that contains all the universes that are both manifest and unmanifest.

God is the Place the Being and the Consciousness united as one. (I shall be what I shall Be or I am that I Am) The Love or mercy is the harmonic unification of God's consciousness united as one whole being that is with all his creation, but He has many aspects just as we have many different body parts and levels of consciousness and sometimes they don't always work like they should. (free will)

The created evolve, learn then become more conscious and ultimately unify with these laws and each other and can connect to that original void who has become more alive through his creations that bring him to maturity. It is said once the cosmic egg matures it will go back to being a VOID but it still contains the fertile consciousness of wisdom and and the creative potential to create other universes, dimensions and experiences for other consciousnesses. So that Being of Life or highest one God is eternal.   He has many avatars, angels, prophets, etc that can connect to his consciousness which are only reacting to the higher Eternal One just as our neurons directs our thoughts through an electrical impulse or (light) to our body.

[SpiritWriter]

I would say its impossible.. I didn't watch the video though.. you definitely couldn't creat any tangible item without any tools or supplies.. so the nearest would be a new idea.. but this is also comprised of at least language. Perhaps if you were like that dude on a beautiful mind you could come up with brand new math concepts that just somehow appear in your mind.. that probably would be the closest to fulfilling this notion of something out of nothing.. but then again it must at least come from a mind..

Another close possibility is a parasite being formed from a small piece of bacteria which is pretty amazing (as all live which suddenly springs forth) but it is still not from nothing. The video probably talks about black holes and stuff.. nothing can be created here on earth from nothing because there is no place on earth that consists if nothing.

[SpiritWriter]

How about a melody... it comes from a mouth or instrument, but it doesn't have to be thought about... just let it out freestyle form..