Date sent: Sun, 23 Jan 2000 15:48:34 -0500
From: Robert Owen <rowen@technologist.com>
Organization: The Orion Institute
To: extropians@extropy.com
Subject: Re: Vital Essence
Send reply to: extropians@extropy.com
> EvMick@aol.com wrote:
>
> > By the way.....
> >
> > If a person beleives in god...then who made god?
> >
> > and who made the god maker?
> >
> > and who made ...............(ad infinnauseum)
> >
> > My experience is that theists refuse to address that question...they dodge it
> > in all kinds of intersting ways. (Smoke and mirrors to my way of thinking)
>
> [1] If "God" is defined as "That principle which enables all things to be" the
> scope of this proposition includes both "God" and "That principle", and
> infinite regress is precluded.
>
> [2] If "God" is defined as "That Being whose essence is existence" infinite
> regress is precluded.
>
> [3] If, more simply, we define "God" as "Sui Generis" infinite regress is
> precluded.
> |
> |
>
> [N]That which causes the event "Creation" is logically prior to all particular
> created ["made"] things and as such infinitely self-subsistent.
>
> N.B. If we define "God" as "X", then it is precisely X which prevents the
> unlimited regressivness of all cosmogonical arguments. The is just
> the central problem of the "Big Bang" theory. It does not begin at
> the origin of the scale "O". It is like a ruler whose first mark or
> origin is "1" instead of "0".
>
> It is entirely unnecessary to be an element of any ideological set to make
> these statements. The only membership needed is in "The Set of All
> Rational Things".
>
Yes, but we have known since the Middle ages that it is impossible
to define an entity into existence (remember the "God is a being no
greater than which can be conceived" argument?).
>
> =======================
> Robert M. Owen
> Director
> The Orion Institute
> 57 W. Morgan Street
> Brevard, NC 28712-3659 USA
> =======================
>
>
>
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