For some reason, I'm in the mood to have a deep discussion.

 

Which is harder to believe?

 

a) There is an all-powerful God who created everything, is everything and will always be everything. There's no explanation for where He came from but he created the Earth, created man, is overseeing the universe and has a heaven or a hell where our souls will live eternally.

 

b) Millions of years ago, two celestial objects collided, leading to the creation of Earth. As time progressed, conditions led to the development of life. Eventually, that life led to the creation of man. Here we are, thousands of years later, with a world of technology, millions of people, etc.

 

And the second question, what do you believe and why? Please don't answer that if you aren't comfortable, but I would like to have a discussion.

For some reason, I'm in the mood to have a deep discussion.

 

Sorry. Not today. I have a headache. :lol2:

Sorry. Not today. I have a headache. :lol2:

 

This discussion will give me a headache, but here goes nothing....

I believe in both.

 

I think the second one is hard to believe without the first one. How could those objects collide randomly? How did the collision create life? Has this happened elsewhrre or just on Earth?

IMO there has to be a first mover.

 

In the first one you say "There's no explanation for where He came from..." I believe he is existence, therefore never could have come from anything because He is everything. It is difficult (for me at least) to explain something infinite.

I believe in the first.

 

I give credence to the overwhelming scientific evidence in support of the second.

 

The first does nothing to help us more accurately understand the second. The second does nothing to discredit the first.

 

Edit: I'm going to amend that last sentence. The second does nothing to discredit the first unless you're a biblical literalist in which case the second is a dangerous proposition that flies directly in the face of the things you believe.

Does God have a God?

I believe in the first. Now how God decided to go about it, I have no idea...what's 6 days to him...well, you know where I'm going with that line of thought.

Does God have a God?

 

This reminds me of the question..."If God can do anything, can he create a rock that is so big that even he can't move it?"

I've always wondered, if God was the creator, who created God? I've never had anyone answer that question in a logical way. They'll say things like 'first cause', etc, but still never give a sensible answer.

To me the Big Bang, and everything that followed afterwards, makes as much sense as any answer. It still doesn't explain where the matter for the universe originated but one has to assume there is a logical answer that hopefully will eventually be solved. At least it makes more sense than believing it was caused by supernatural events and magic.

I've always wondered, if God was the creator, who created God?

 

Nothing created God. God always was. Knowing something about that fact would imply knowledge of things we can't begin to comprehend.

 

We believe the universe is shaped something like a rotated ellipse... or perhaps the donut-shaped curve of space-time some suggest. The deep-space readings seem to back that up. But you could never fly a ship to the edge of the universe because space-time itself likely has curvature. So the universe has a shape, but no edge. Scientifically we don't have a good idea of just how that works. What may or may not be on the outside our universe is a matter for speculation... or for faith.

I believe in the first.

 

I give credence to the overwhelming scientific evidence in support of the second.

 

The first does nothing to help us more accurately understand the second. The second does nothing to discredit the first.

 

Edit: I'm going to amend that last sentence. The second does nothing to discredit the first unless you're a biblical literalist in which case the second is a dangerous proposition that flies directly in the face of the things you believe.

 

Agree completely.

 

Does God have a God?

 

No, because God's essence is existence.

For some reason, I'm in the mood to have a deep discussion.

 

Which is harder to believe?

 

a) There is an all-powerful God who created everything, is everything and will always be everything. There's no explanation for where He came from but he created the Earth, created man, is overseeing the universe and has a heaven or a hell where our souls will live eternally.

 

b) Millions of years ago, two celestial objects collided, leading to the creation of Earth. As time progressed, conditions led to the development of life. Eventually, that life led to the creation of man. Here we are, thousands of years later, with a world of technology, millions of people, etc.

 

I'll add this to actually answer the question: I think choice B is the easier to wrap my head around. There is evidence for how things happened. The fossil record and the way cells develop tell us a lot about the development of life. The readings of cosmic background radiation tell us that the universe is constantly expanding, suggesting that at one point it was much smaller.

 

For me, choice A is much harder. There's something... someone... out there in the universe. I can't see him. He can't be explained by a couple of experiments and equations. The evidence for his existence is conjectural at best and despite being widely accepted across all of humanity, there seems to be almost no consensus for what exactly he is or how exactly he operates. It's faith; a belief that, while not completely blind, exists while facing a mountain of non-evidence. If there were evidence, we'd call it knowledge. While it's common, it's not easy.

Nothing created God. God always was. Knowing something about that fact would imply knowledge of things we can't begin to comprehend.

 

We believe the universe is shaped something like a rotated ellipse... or perhaps the donut-shaped curve of space-time some suggest. The deep-space readings seem to back that up. But you could never fly a ship to the edge of the universe because space-time itself likely has curvature. So the universe has a shape, but no edge. Scientifically we don't have a good idea of just how that works. What may or may not be on the outside our universe is a matter for speculation... or for faith.

 

Your first two sentences answers nothing in my opinion (for me anyway), unless you're just basing that statement on faith alone, which I have no problem with. But just stating something like that doesn't make it true. Can you see where a skeptical person would have problems with an answer like that?

Your first two sentences answers nothing in my opinion (for me anyway), unless you're just basing that statement on faith alone, which I have no problem with. But just stating something like that doesn't make it true. Can you see where a skeptical person would have problems with an answer like that?

 

It can only be faith, which I agree is certainly OK. I am like you that I just cannot grasp where anything started. I have to believe sometime in next 1000 years someone will figure it out either way. I am not hopeful in my life time.

 

I just have to base it on faith for me. It is puzzling and unanswerable to me.

 

Heck, I don't know anything for sure. I might come back around as some kind of animal. How do you really know?

Your first two sentences answers nothing in my opinion (for me anyway), unless you're just basing that statement on faith alone, which I have no problem with. But just stating something like that doesn't make it true. Can you see where a skeptical person would have problems with an answer like that?

 

As I said before, it is difficult for us, finite beings, to understand and comprehend an infinite being. For me this is what defines my Faith, as stated in Corinthians "Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."