I think you will agree that the physical 'you' didn't begin to exist, so you are probably referring to some immaterial 'you', like a soul? In which case, we're just adopting whatever philosophical position that is most appealing to us.
So...beyond this, is there anything that could be considered to begin to exist if the scope is the material (perhaps I'm wrong, but I always thought the "whatever begins to exist..." statement was about existence in the material world, since the context was of creating the material universe)?

Ok, well I didn't intend to draw generalised claim from the more narrow claim. I've seen an argument for why there can't be an infinite regress from WLC (see below) so I thought that followed on from 4). I can't answer the question yet because I don't understand why 4) is true?

I was trying to explain why my question isn't a 'response' to the Theist arguments (i.e. some kind of counter or objection). It's a genuine request for the logic that supports the Theist argument that God terminates the regress. What doesn't seem to be clear though is whether or not it's a pertinent question.


Thanks, but I'm not sure if we can go much further with this as I still fail to understand why the examples I've presented don't have the flaw. I understand that arguments can be presented that show that an infinite regress can actually be finite and be terminated and that termination can be called God, but it's the way the regress is becoming finite that I'm struggling with.

It's a trite argument that I read somewhere while trying to research the 'simple god' argument. Philosophy sometimes surprises me with the apparent simplicity of some of the arguments that turn out to have greater depths. Seriously, I just threw it out there to see what kind of responses I'd get. Ignore it if it's going to cause a huge digression.

No (although that might possibly be a consequence of whatever answer I receive), my goal, as stated above, was/is to understand the logic that Theists use to terminate what should be an infinite regression, with God. What this has turned into, is an examination of why I think it's an infinite regression.



I'm not being funny but aren't you taking a narrow claim and turning it into a more generalized claim here? I was referring specifically to the answers I've had that cause God to be immune to the infinite regression.

This is not an accurate reflection of the situation. I started the thread with what I thought was a pertinent question. It was a simple request for help to understand the logic used to terminate the infinite regression with God.

What followed was an unexpected challenge to the claim that there is an infinite regression and much of the thread has been me feeling my way through various arguments to try to get back to my original question. I'll happily accept that those posts have been somewhat haphazard, but that's because I've been responding to each criticism as it came and trying to form counters to them on my feet. Since I'm a total beginner at this stuff, it's no surprise that I'm not making the best job of it.

My mistake, see my response to OrP.

Sure. I thought these arguments were still being relied on though. The argument from Design and the Cosmological arguments both have the flaw IMO and are still current aren't they?

If my argument relies on a complex God, then why isn't 'actually god is simple' a valid counter claim? That's what I was referring to.

This makes me wonder if you're reading or seeing all my posts. I've already responded to you showing that I know what the argument from ignorance means and showing how I wasn't guilty of it the last time you suggested that I might be.

I'll say again that since I'm not basing my claim on there being a lack of evidence to the contrary, I'm not using the argument from ignorance. I'll also say again that I'm not intending to make any claim, the OP is a simple request for an explanation.

Well, I think the position 'Any God capable of Intelligent Design must be at least as complex as us' is a reasonable position. It's supported by other reasons, such as that God is capable of listening to and understanding billions of individual thoughts, feelings and prayers. Creationists use the apparently irreducible complexity of the Eye to show that Evolution couldn't possibly have resulted in the Eye but a simple God could have made it? It doesn't seem to follow. Of course if they want to retract the idea of ID, I would then have to retract my counter.

The 'simple' God theory seems like an afterthought to counter the 'The designer must need a Designer' flaw in their Design argument.

I'm not accepting that. The 'simple' God undermines my argument that God is complex and therefore, by the Theist logic, must have a designer too. Theists posit the Designer theory, I'm simply using it too. again, if they decide their logic is flawed, I would retract my claim as equally flawed.

When did you start to exist?

You are assuming a "me" that started to exist.

Also, if you believe that you have an eternal soul, and that you are that soul, then you didnt begin to exist, because you are eternal.

Instead of starting to exist, all that happened was that currently existing stuff got rearranged into a new form, a new bunch of processes. Nothing started to exist when you were born.

even in a purely materialistic metaphysics, there is still something about which it makes sense to say that it began to exist when jibninjas was conceived. Even if it doesn't have an ontological reality separate from all those particles. For one thing, all that existing stuff is getting rearranged into new forms more or less continuously, but we still refer to him as jibninjas regardless of whether or not his constituent particles have changed, or even when they change quite dramatically. "jibninjas" beginning to exist (or even continuing to exist) is quite a complex philosophical topic afaik, but dismissing the idea that he began to exist on the basis of reductionism and conservation of energy/matter would mean giving up the ability to say a lot of things that are clearly quite useful, since "a bunch of stuff just got rearranged into a new form" would lead you to conclude that nothing at all ever begins or ceases to exist.

I agree its convenient to refer to him as jibninjas. This has no bearing on the truth however.



I agree that concepts and ideas are useful, again they have no bearing on the truth

Well, does anything ever begin or cease to exist?

all of the above has "no bearing on the truth" only if you are defining existence in a very narrow way, i.e where only irreducible things are said to exist. Otherwise "jibninjas began to exist" is a true statement, even though both "jibninjas" and "exist" become more complicated

My point was resorting to such a narrow definition is kind of like using philosophical skepticism to try to refute an argument. You might win in some philosophical sense, but it's not very useful in terms of actually understanding anything.

Come on.

When you are essentially talking about arguments that use sweeping claims about the start of the bleedin' universe, it is patently bizarre to claim that questioning intuitive understandings of "beginning" is too narrow and specific.

Essentially if someone says "God started the universe like I start my car", and I say "but your car doesn't begin at ignition" - I'm suddenly narrowing the discussion into useless philosophy?

Which makes it the perfect response to the 'argument' that also meets your description of not being useful: Whatever begins to exist....

I was only talking about whether or not jibninjas has a beginning, not the start of the universe. Which I realize is a digression. That's why I wrote "even assuming materialism"...

I agree that the various cosmological arguments are not very compelling, but I disagree with arguing that jibninjas had no beginning (or that he began to exist at the same time the universe began to exist) as a consequence of conservation of energy, even granting materialism.

For those who think that nothing began to exist beyond the initial creation of the universe:

1) Are you rejecting the spontaneous creation of particle/anti-particle pairs in a vacuum?
2) Do you reject the claim that a compound such as H2O could come into existence as the result of a chemical reaction? That is, there's no sensible way in which to understand the combining of various elements to create a new object?

I'm curious what these people have to say as well. Since they are essentially holding untestable opinions about an unknown, I would also like to know how they plan (if at all) to argue against the Kalam argument for doing the same.

Maybe there was no initial creation of the universe?

I dont know enough about the process to reject or accept. I agree that this spontaneous creation could mean that I am wrong about nothing beginning or stopping to exist.

H2O doesnt come into existence, its just the rearrangement of already existing stuff. Conventionally though, to our divisive human minds, it is useful to identify between different things .

With reference to the bolded. Isn't this the argument that Stephen Hawking is using in his new book (The Grand Design) to suggest that we don't need God to explain where the universe came from? In QM, it's apparently possible for Quantum fluctuations to cause particles to spontaneously appear, thus it's possible that the universe spontaneously appeared. If you try to pull me up on the physics I'll simply link you to Hawking's site. I'm not a Theoretical Physicist and don't claim to understand the theories involved here.

So the universe may have appeared from nothing because of Quantum Gravity. Of course, say the Theists, but where did Quantum Gravity come from? God, is the answer. God, the first Cause of whatever chain of events we can imagine or even prove. And so the regression past the point where Science has provided theories once again terminates at God.

Other than 'God had no beginning', 'God exists outside of time' etc etc (not acceptable because they're arbitrary and unsupportable), what logic do Theists use to support that the regression ends with God?

I don't think we have a quantum theory of gravity so I'm no sure we can reference this as yet.

As for the quote I've left intact if you approach these questions already excluding certain position because they are arbitrary and unsupportable then I'm not sure you're being entirely fair.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_gravity Best I can do.

I think I'm starting to understand why this is such a contentious issue. When I started the thread I simply wanted to hear an argument for the termination being God. what I got was objections to the idea that there's a regression at all. I hadn't thought past getting the argument, I just wanted to catch up with it.

I think I see now that should Theists be unable to show that any regression terminates with God for a logical and supportable reason (or reasons) it means that the termination is as likely to be anything else as it is to be God. That has significant negative implications for monotheistic religions.

Really, it's an impasse. I can't accept 'god has no beginning' and 'god is outside time and above the laws of nature' because they seem entirely arbitrary and Theists don't seem to have anything else to offer up as justifying reasons.

See I don't think it has any significant implications for monotheistic religions firstly because the congregations aren't as interested in trying to justify god through logic.

Also these arguments have been around a while, Hume deals with both the uncaused cause and the argument from design in the Dialogues concerning natural religion and the issue remains far from settled.

One point I will make is that if you want theists to be clear about how they answer questions you have to be clear as to how you ask them. Also if you're really interested in learning their position then don't anticipate their arguments let them make them and take them from there.

It has significant implications whether or not it 'interests' the congregations and the lack of interest is somewhat typical of the average Theist (the theists on this forum are not average). In fact religions positively encourage a lack of engagement with anything that challenges what they teach. A topic for another thread though don't you think?

I never claimed to be original, I read about this in a book and thought that someone on here could help me understand it.

Well, can I refer you to my OP where I asked the question and then didn't put forward any arguments, any objections, any anticipations of Theist arguments. I asked the question and left it at that.

Now I don't think that you're being entirely fair, which is to assume that anticipating arguments is a habit to be discouraged and I'm not sure I actually agree with you there. OR perhaps you're not aware that those arguments have been made in the course of this thread and I wasn't even anticipating them, I was listing them.

Did you read the thread?

What significant implications has it given that A) most theists won't care and B) religions have survived hundreds of years since these questions were initially posed.

You're not putting any arguments in the OP didn't really help the thread though and that's not my point, you are either interested in what theist arguments are or you anticipate them and exclude them

This is such a pointless exchange, can we just stay on topic now please.

If you have an opinion on whether or not there actually is an infinite regress that is terminated by God, which seems to be the sticking point, I'd like to hear it.

sound you're ridiculous and have just made it back on my ignore list which although won't be in anyway concerning to you places with you with cwocwoc and nooberftw.

Please take a minute to google it and read up briefly.

So you believe that there is NO sense at all in which H2O can "come into existence" through a chemical process. That is, it is meaningless to say "before the reaction, there was no H2O" and "after the reaction, there was H2O"?

This isn't about a human conception of something. This is talking about a specific (naturally described -- and not defined by humans) arrangement of molecules that did not exist before, but exists after a chemcial reaction.

Let's push this further. Let's say we have a block of metal that is heated up so that it glows. Did those photons "come into existence" or were they photons that merely existed since the beginning of the universe? (Edit: Or have existed for eternity...)

Your stubbornness on trying to frame this conversation in this way shows a lack of willingness to learn anything new. You will remain ignorant until such a time as you change your intellectual approach to the conversation.

I have the general idea of what it is. But googling and reading up briefly will not qualify me to state whether things are beginning to exist or not.


It is your human conception that is saying "water came into existence"

It will inform you of the particular issue being presented to you. Because you're clearly defending a position about whether things are beginning to exist or not. You're not presenting your position on the matter as being neutral.

So there's no sense in which there was a moelcule of H2O is different from its constituent parts? Or that the sun creates new elements through gravity to change hydrogen atoms into helium atoms?

At this point, I'm really just pushing you to see how far you are willing to stretch your concept. I think your position is clearly false and that your definitions are at best vague and shifty in order for you to continue to defend your position. The fact that you won't even try to address the topic of spontaneous particle/anti-particle creation and photons from a heated object suggests that you're just burying your head in the sand now.