Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (17001)	4/6/2004 3:26:05 PM
From: Greg or e	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

"To propose an effect without a cause, that is a miracle without mechanism,..." I agree that all effects must have a cause even though it is a tautology. That is one reason that I know that universe did not just pop into existence out of nothing with no fist cause. So why in your opinion, can't the cause come from outside of the universe; and would not the effect, caused from outside, appear to be without a mechanism from our standpoint? If the universe itself is one large effect which has an external cause, then what's the problem with the same thing happening on a smaller scale? In other words, a miracle. "...violates the necessary conditions for our universe to have a history." I don't think an effect that has a cause which is external to the physical universe violates history at all. In fact it becomes part of that history. "Without a past, the present is meaningless, which is more or less the definition of nihilism." I think your premise is unfounded so I disagree with the conclusion of Nihilism.

To: TigerPaw who wrote (17001)	4/8/2004 5:14:20 AM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

"If there is anything fundamental to our universe it is cause and effect" And for anyone to posit a material "effect" without acknowledging a material cause is to spout nonsense. A cause and its effect must be related by some action--not by no action. And action is a material phenomenon. No natural event is a miracle as imagined by fundamentalists. And no effects occur which are not the consequence of an event. Of course, one could simply assert that ALL effects in their entirety are caused by God but that is simply begging the question and inventing a belief out of thin air. Rational people understand that natural laws are never violated. Our knowledge of laws is, of course, incomplete. But reality will always be what it is and not what it ain't. All logic and all ability to exist must begin with this fundamental law of identity: that A is A and that A is dependent on other than itself. All phenomena have certain requirements.