First, if there were a something (God, for example) that caused existence, that something would have to exist. Certainly something that does not exist is not the cause of anything. But, if that something exists, since you are assuming existence (everything that exists) must have a beginning, that something would also have a beginning. We must therefore assume, if your principle is correct, either an endless regress of "causes" of existence (a logical absurdity) or admit that something can exist without a cause. The theist says that existence-without-a-cause is God, with no evidence at all one exists; the Objectivist says that existence-without-a-cause is the material universe, with more than enough evidence that it exists.
Hi Regi.
As you gents have mentioned, you conclude an eternal universe, and this seems curious as the big bang model would suggested otherwise, it suggests at minimum, one creation/bang event.
Whilst I don't think science can ever explain "what" did the creating, it's the superior empirical model of the universes origin and unfolding, and it's that knowledge that makes me doubt the idea of an eternal universe.
Unless you can show me why the big bang was unlikely{given the evidence}, I can't really accept an eternal universe....in fact it seems as though it's absolutely necessary for your dismissal of any God concept that you support an eternal one.
As for God existing, this existence is of a conceptual kind where God is conceptually considered transcendent and doesn't have to conform to rules and regulations of the "Physical paradigm of reality", where reality is that which has physical content, and ideally measurable via some form of instrument{scientific/empirical bias}.
Second, the notion that something can be "caused" to exist is foreign to Objectivism. In everyday language we talk about cause in that way. We think of an inventor as the "cause" of the invention he "created." Philosophically, this is a mistake. Objectivists understand that cause is firmly rooted in the nature of the entities which act. What a thing does is determined by its nature and whatever relationships it has to other entities.
Well, it again comes down to whether one rejects the idea that feelings that have been logically justified have validity in "life"...IOW, the feelings/intuitions are the impetus for investigation, but they are honed along the way by reason and logic, and should be rejected if they prompt absurdity.
Btw, I started studying philosophy/science as an adult, and expected to dump all God concepts, but found that there was room for a creator, although not as expressed by ANY religious text, but rather by being reasonable about the whole process.
It seems to me that scientifically we can accept a big bang model, although we can't just accept the creation event as a brute fact, ie, a brute fact tells me nothing and is not a justification for atheism, it's knowledge content is shaky and necessary to support the rest of the show.
, it is not the other things that cause their behavior, but their own nature and properties. Within the physical paradigm perhaps, although scientifically, we still need the simple cause and effect relations, and successful predictions validate the process.
or an abstract concept logically derived from the observable, That's it, that's how I would phrase it....the observable being the universe and the concept being a transcedent entity.
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