(urth) The Key to the Universe

[Ryan Dunn]

On Aug 14, 2010, at 5:16 PM, António Pedro Marques wrote:

>>> That's begging the question, in the original sense. Somehow intelligence had
>>> arise for the first time in the universe, unless you have a steady state
>>> universe where intelligence has always existed. There is very strong support
>>> for the Big Bang, so the steady state model is not convincing locally.
>> 
>> Of course, theism begs the question in an isomoprhic way; it ignores
>> the question, "And where did God come from?"
> 
> It doesn't, because it posits something extraneous to the universe(s) and hence not accountable to observed processes such as space, time and causality. Or as it's usually put, 'not contigent'. Whereas 'scientism' makes a leap of methodological faith and says contigent things may ultimately need no justification. That's why the idea of infinite universes appeared: rather than overcome contingency by justification, one tries to overcome it by infinite supply.

If you are Pantheist, then you believe the Universe is equivalent to God. If you are Panenthiest, you believe the Universe is connected to God, and that God is above the substantive Universe.

I find these trains of thought more appealing in terms of "religions" myself.

...ryan