Cosmologic philosophy: Egnor on Big Bang, etc. (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, July 29, 2021, 17:15 (1002 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: The paper included a bunch of mathematical formulas I can't follow. It is fully accepted by all the cosmological theorists I know of. No negative papers ever followed. […]
dhw: So thanks to a set of mathematical formulas you don’t understand, relating to a subject that remains undefined, you accept their conclusion that there was nothing before the BB, although they can’t possibly know that. I have a magic potion here containing globypatumethulin, which will ensure that when you die you will go to heaven. It only costs a million bucks, so please send me a cheque and the potion will be yours.

You are poo-pooing a widely accepted peer-reviewed paper stating that time started with the BB.

dhw: If he exists and if he never thinks of anything new, then time must have existed for ever, and not merely after the BB. Your image of God is already contradictory if you say he is eternal and all his thoughts from the beginning are the same. How can there have been a beginning if he is eternal?

DAVID: He is the beginning, always eternally there.

dhw: Eternity cannot have a beginning.

Obviously. God always there, first cause, didn't have to begin. But time does begin when it does in spacetime, not before.

dhw: If he’s been there for ever, do you think he thought of the earth and humans an eternity before he actually produced them? I wonder what made him suddenly create a BB after an eternity of thinking about BB, a universe and humans.

DAVID: Who knows how many universes He has created before ours???

dhw: Excellent question. So who knows when time began?

Obviously with spacetime, not in God's eternity.

dhw: Thank you for confirming that although yesterday your God “IS NOT HUMAN IN ANY WAY”, today once more “He may well have attributes similar to ours”. But apparently you are not on a mental swing – you just change your argument day by day. My different theistic theories present different possible human attributes (e.g. interest in experimentation, ability to learn and to get new ideas, enjoyment of creation, preference for the unexpected over the predictable) from those you believe in (e.g. total control, good intentions, single-mindedness). I note that you have ignored the other contradictions I have listed above. One problem with mental swings is that the swinger sometimes doesn’t realize he’s swinging.

DAVID: I don't change my arguments. My view of a non-human God is consistent, and as you admit above you generally humanize Him by having Him try on human attributes, bolded.

dhw: Why didn’t you bold the human attributes you have given him? You can’t possibly describe God’s nature without endowing him with human attributes, and you can’t possibly know that he doesn’t have any, or which ones he does have. All we can do is examine what might be his works and extrapolate our humanizing conclusions.

The bold is exactly what I think. We cannot really know His personality. As you say , we look at His works and conclude.

DAVID: Try imagining Him as all-knowing, all purposeful without any need for self-gratification in any way. You obviously can't or won't. Your attempt at theism are feeble compared to those who believe.

dhw: Why is it feeble to imagine God as experimenting, learning, getting new ideas, enjoying creating, being interested in what he creates etc? My different theories cover an all-knowing, all-purposeful God anyway, and as for self-gratification, I know of many believers who think God wants us to love and worship him – and even you have him wanting us to admire his work. But if you think that he is as unemotional and impersonal as a block of ice, that’s fine (though oops, I nearly forgot: you know he has good intentions).

Your same humanizing approach. I simply apply thoughts to Him as above. The personality of your God and mine are diametrically opposed.