What are the odds of God existing?

Am I understanding you with this paraphrase?You can't conceive of Existing, that is Isness coming into being from no being whatsoever. The question then is about the quality of the initial eternal Isness or existing.Was the initial Isness an intentional consciousness? or was the initial Isness insentient stuff that only latter evolved into consciousness?lfen

Why? You are the one who says that nothing can come from nothing. I just want to know why not. You made the assertion, so must you defend it.And don't say: "there is something standing in the way of something coming from nothing: no causal agent", because I would retort that if the absence of a causal agent is a problem for something coming from nothing, then it is also a problem for something that exists eternally.

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.

The usual model is of space and time and things move in this space/time.A very long time ago I got to thinking about this. That in order to measure space we need some unit of time because we can't measure instanteously. And in order to measure time we need to have space such as the swing of a pendulum.If there was no motion there would be neither space not time in any measurable sense. As soon as there is a change, a movement, space and time can be measured. So what if movement was primary and space and time are just abstracted aspects of movement?In the beginning would mean the first movement, the first change. But how could something start moving that wasn't moving? This gets to Hawkings first notion of singularity. It is in perfect equilibrium. The "miracle" that starts the Universe is that somehow this balance is broken. Imperfection is introducted and the Universe falls out so to speak.So here is the singularity existing before time and then time and space starts as it loses symetry and begins to expand.Is the singularity conscious? Was the loss of a symetry because it had a thought? Did something else intervene?If eternal means timelss rather than infinitely extensible time. The singularity in symetric equilibrium was timeless hence eternal.lfen

What you are asking me to do is comparable to me asking you to "prove" some axiomatic assumption. Would you say that "every effect has a cause" is an axiomatic assumption?--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nothing is essential though. You know those puzzles with either numbers or letters that slide around in a frame with one empty space. Typically they are 4 by 4, or 5 by 5. With out the empty space nothing would happen.One way of looking at the "self" is that it is the essential empty space for stuff (thoughts, feelings, perceptions} to take place in. The very emptiness of the self is why it functions.You seem to be using nothing not in the sense of "no thing" but in the sense of abscence of everything. Buddhism talks about the fertile void. Voidness is very important and gives birth to the ten thousand things.lfen

You are assuming that whenever there are possibilities each has an equal probability, thus when there are two possibilities the odds of it being one is 50%. I'm not sure there is any justification for this assumption.

I don't think it's a trivial question. The answers can get trivial but the question seems to me to get very close to dilemmas of conscious life and our experience of paradox. Our notions of time and beginning seems to have some sort of flaw that we can't see that leads us to these paradoxs.For me the first value of this paradox is to awaken me from the mundane tasks of my life to remember the fundamental mystery of it.lfen

Would you agree that "every effect has a cause" is an axiomatic assumption that we both agree to accept?abe: I was just asking about how something could come from nothing: I thought maybe you had some inside information that I didn't know about.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 04-28-2006 02:13 PM

Well, yes, but I don't think I'd call it "isness." That's an abstraction. It was either a being or a thing.

No. But I would agree that every cause has an effect.{added by edit:} That's OK.This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 28-Apr-2006 08:19 PM

Why won't you agree that every effect has a cause? It's definitional.

do things and beings have any properties in common?
What distinguishes them?lfen

I agree with you, ifen--only I have no desire to experience paradox. I want to experience clarity.Jar wants to experience his head in the sentimental sand.

a cause? Can you give an example of an effect that has at most one and only one cause?The number of causes are greater than we can account for. There is also the question of how to discriminate an effect from a cause.lfen

Beings are conscious; things are not. That's the only difference.