God doesn't explain why there is not nothing.

Well, I mean, it gets a bit complicated to word, but basically, what does it mean for us humans to understand something? It seems to me that's not quite clear, and as far as I know, it could easily be a fully mundane process, and given that it is very useful, I would expect evolution to select it and hone that ability.

 

I find it hard to believe that Leibniz was the first to say it.

I doubt it. Basically the same idea was considered by Thomas Aquinas, and I would imagine the fact that most religions include a creation story indicates that people have been thinking about it for much longer than since Leibniz. He might have been the first to write it down in a certain form, but the idea is not that young.

Thomas Aquinas said that. That's the point of the entire thread, if you don't talk about that, what are you talking about?

I make my points in response to arguments I have seen here on this forum.

I'm not suggesting an answer, I'm merely saying the answer supplied by others does not resolve the issue.

You wrote "Only because all people, who believe in god, are able to see a sense in the existence of the universe". Those are the they I was referring to, all people who believe in god.

I see meaning in everyday life. Preparing for the future is important, but so is enjoying the moment and helping others enjoy theirs.

I have not claimed to have given an answer. My argument is only that God does not resolve the question of why there is something rather than nothing.

I have no idea what any of this means.

 

Since creation created ALL things, there is nothing that exists that wasn't created by creation.
The holographic universe.....
http://www.crystalinks.com/holographic.html

 

I'm sure you will be able to construct something else, although this is not a question of belief.

Thomas von Aquin? ... What said he in this context? ...

How old, do you think, is the "Eiserne Jungfrau" ... one moment, difficult to translate: This torture instrument, which is looks like a sarcophagus and is full of nails? "Dark" ages? Wrong. 19th century. We made it for tourists.

I spoke not about Thomas von Aquin. You speak about him with empty phrases.

Okay: it makes no sense to speak with you. You use the words of your enemies like weapons - and destroy the context.

Let me use the German formula, how to end senseless discussions. We say normally in such cases:"You are right. I am wrong. Bye bye."

 

... except the creator. And without creator: "Why is creation?"

 

Religion was created to explain things we did not understand and apparently still serves this purpose for some. Creation was invented to explain a Universe and life we did not understand and even though we understand much of it now some people still cling to the concept and avoid accepting knowledge gained.
Our species in general has moved beyond ancient ways and tribal/primitive society but retains some of the trappings of it. Eventually this too will fade into our history.

 

Why do you think this? I would say you suffer the standard prejudices of the atheists of the English speaking world. What explains for example Göbekli Tepe, the first of all temples, to the people of the stone age who made it? We do not understand how and why they made this house of god, but we know it changed the way to live and the history of all mankind. Religion was not a result of the civilizations - it was the cause and effect of culture and civilization at all. The Sunday created all other days of the week. We don't have any explanations for why this had happened, or do we?

 

The creation of the universe is not an idea. It's reality. Everything started to exist and we also don't know why and how, or do we? Do you?

 

The USA is dominated from drugs, alcohol, violence, crimes, weapons, prisons, social inequality and wars ... and a lot of nonsense in context with sexuality. This English civilization mass murdered their so called "tribal/primitive societies" still in the last two centuries. So what for heavens sake do you really speak about? And even in a well dressed homo neanderthaliensis would no one be able to see anything else than a human being - and not a member of another species. What you say is racism, nothing else. Everything what you are able to call "ancient human beings" are always only "human beings", the same human beings as we are today.



PS.: Question: Is "Tecoyah" a name of the Cherokee?

 

@tecoyah

Is "tecoyah" a name of the Cherokee language? Did you lose your own roots? Perhaps time to win back the orientation in your own ancient roots. No wings without roots.

 

Because creation is...Creation is the purpose....all that is. Nothing from nothing is nothing.

 

Creation is a what? A purpose? It's exactly in the opposite: "Purpose" is a part of the creation. Your confusion here shows you seem slowly to understand the real existential problem of the question of Leibniz: "Why is something at all - and not only nothing?".

 

His second proof of God is the argument from a first cause.

Just find the page on german wikipedia and then press English. It's an Iron Maiden. Like the band. Not sure what it has to do with the question at hand though.

This thread is about an argument which was made by Thomas Aquinas.

What context was I missing then? If there is context which is important, write it out, or we might not pick it up.

I'm happy with that.

 

The existence of a first cause is still plausible.

A strange article and he's wrong. The name means literally in German "iron virgin" and not "iron maiden". Iron maiden is the English name. And it never was used for heretics as he said here. It was never used at all. This instrument was made for tourists. Same with the girdle of chastity for example.

Who hears music from a band with such a name?

I doubt in general about the quality of knowledge in the English speaking word.

Aquinas was not his name. Thomas was born in the near of Aquino. So I used the German expression "Thomas von Aquin". In the future I will use "Tommaso d’Aquino."

I don't see any sense in using empty phrases for serious problems. Sure it might be interesting to think about the arguments of Tomasso d'Aquino - but why? He thinks about the physics of Aristotle and postulates a "primum movens immotum" - something what's starting a first cause - but to see this as a proof of god is wrong: a first cause is uncaused - so it makes no sense to ask "What was before the first cause?". There was nothing - specially nothing what we are able to think about, if we use our daily logic of time: the logic of causes and effects. Perhaps we have to accept - what everyone before and after Tommaso was able to know too - that god had used - or was and is - another form of timeless logos, when he had created (and creates) worlds with his timeless words.

 

That may be so, but the point is that the argument made is not persuasive.

For the purposes of this discussion, I do not care at all what the German word for an iron maiden is. The english word is iron maiden, and on this forum, there is a rule that we write in english.

My guess is hundreds of millions of people have heard Iron Maiden music.

That's harsh, given your language skills. You seem to misunderstand reasonable sentences and your language is very hard to follow.

Many people used their home town as a last name. Thomas Aquinas is a perfectly valid way of putting it.

You've been going on about the word choice of Aquinas and iron maidens, which have nothing to do with my argument, and you're accusing me of empty phrases?

Not sure how the rest of this addresses my arguments.

 

Bye bye.

 

Creation exists, and therefore is the purpose of everything. Without creation there is nothing. Creation is the positive energy....ignorance is the negative energy that gives the illusion of destruction. Energy can't be destroyed, only transmuted. Because creation exists, there is nothing that exists that creation didn't create.

 

A senseless sentence. What's the difference between creation and everything? So "purpose" is part of the creation. No so the Creator. But in his case we don't know his reasons to create me and you and the rest of the universe.

Exactly. And within the creation some things evolve, others not.

I would say creation is the sum of all positive and negative energies. I could imagine the sum of all this energies is in total "0". I find it interesting to think in every point all around us could exist a universe too and we would see nothing from this universes because they are "outside" without energy. I think about physical energy in this case and not about psychological energies. On the other side said the physicist Prof. Zeilinger it looks like "In the beginning was the word". But it is very complex what he thinks about in this context and needs a lot of knowledge about physics.

What you are thinking about here is the energy we - and the universe or god - need for construction and destruction. The positive energy in this case is love - and the negative energy in this case is hate. "Construction" and "destruction" are a picture about, what's the most important difference between love and hate: Love creates life - hate destroys life. Life is the highest "construction". We say also: God is love. God is life. The problem now is our own spirit and the communication with the holy spirit, the universal spirit. We are only able to chose life if we chose god and if we would be a cat for example, then we would not only be able to see a steak in a mouse - we would also be able to see the wonder of gods creation in this mouse. We are able to see this universal component of love and life. Ignorant people eat something - not a mouse but another wonderful nice steak for example - and do never think about that a living creature had to die to give us the energy to be able live on our own. They are not thankful and don't try to give back something to the wonderful creation full of life. Some people seem to be even negative ignorant (=¿evil?) as for example the godless Islamists, who are even murdering in the name of god.

Energy is creation. It was suddenly here including the here itself and some other things as for example the real natural laws. Before was nothing (what we are able to say anything about with any provable plausibility). You can see very good that there must be a difference between a creator and creations because no one and nothing is able to take energy away or to create energy. We live in a world where a "perpetuum mobile" is impossible. All energy comes from god.





Translation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Es_ist_ein_Ros_entsprungen#Lyrics

 

As long as you believe this, you aren't getting it.....
"for example the godless Islamists, who are even murdering in the name of god"
God created Islam when Abraham impregnated his wife's hand maiden, which created Ishmael.
They worship the God of Abraham, just like the Jews and Christians. Demonizing them as "godless", gives you the same judgement that you gave.

The Christians committed genocide on the Native Americans in the name of God. The Catholics committed genocide on Jews and Muslims during the Crusades. Nazis were Christians that killed six million Jews and many millions of others. Christians have killed many more than Muslims in the name of God. The KKK claims to be Christian, ISIS claims to be Muslim....neither are.

 

What do you not understand? The word "Islamist"? Islamists are godless murderers - godless murderers are my enemies.

Ahem. Your orthography has problems too. Gold is written with an "l": Go-l-d.

The real history about the "Frankish wars" (indeed a war oft the Normans, who had conquered England, against the Seljuks, who had conquered Jerusalem and Mekka) is a little more complex. But the scum of the so called 1st crusade, which came from England and moved through Germany, murdered indeed everywhere in the holy empire Jews. And I guess we can see indeed the beginning of Anti-Semitism in this first crusade - but lots of people in the Orient were Christians too in those days. Maybe Muslims were even only a minority in those days in the whole Orient (=the South and East of the Roman empire). Bernhard of Clairvaux (2nd crusade) made by the way clear that every hate against Jews is obsolet for Christians.

No. The leading Nazis were not Christians.

I fear the Normans were a little sarcastic when they cried "Deus lo vult". This way to see the world came from Muslims. Christians ask normally what the will of god could be. The word "crusade" means by the way exactly the same as the word "djihad". We could do a "djihad against drugs" or a "crusade against drugs" this would be the same. And the result would also be the same: The drugs will win - except god will win.

Christians don't burn crosses.

¿neither are? ... That's now a good joke. Did you think I spoke about Muslims, when I used the word "Islamists"?

 

Nobody knows why there is not nothing. It is a mystery. You didn't know that?

 

well I think what you are saying is the fact that there is something doesn't point to the existence of God. am I right? I assume I am. Yes our existence points to something that is eternal immaterial omnipotent and omniscient did create the universe.

According to the Principle of Sufficient Reason, anything that exists any act or any event must have a cause something must have happened to bring something into existence.
If PSR were not true then objects would be popping into existence all the time for no reason. However, this doesn't happen nor can we even conceive of it happening.
So since PSR is True then there has to be a reason for the existence of the universe. (Scientists point to this being the big bang)
However, now we must ask what caused the big bang?
to find this out we have to move outside the universe and outside any laws we understand.
for even if you were to come up with some infinite contingent string of events that caused the creation of the universe according to PSR you still have to come up with a cause for that infinite contingent string.
So there must be one or at least one necessary being to cause this contingent string and this being would have to be non-composite and in a dimension greater than ours.
We would label such a being as God.
So God exists.

Athiest will respond by saying. "Well, who created God? If PSR is true then something had to create God." However, PSR is a principle that applies to our 3-dimensional universe and with PSR we showed that it had to be something outside our 3-dimensional universe so since we don't have access to higher dimensions we can't even begin to speculate the rules of those dimensions.

In conclusion, whatever created our universe and caused its existence has to be something supernatural of a higher dimension, and we call this God.