(urth) The Key to the Universe

[António Pedro Marques]

Ryan Dunn wrote:
>
> 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.

And those are other ways out for scientism, albeit uncomfy ones.

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

I certainly agree they may be appealing, but personally I find them 
unfulfilling.