Tuesday, 16 March 2010

The First Cause Argument

I have, as long as I can remember, been a fan of this simple piece of logic.

We live in a finite world. We live for a finite time. And the further we journey away from this finite world and finite timeframe (if, indeed, we could do so), who knows what we may find, but we may understand what has caused our current finite situation to be.

So what caused the Universe? And what caused the thing that caused the Universe? etc ad nauseum.

Now this could go on for quite some time, but the theory is that eventually some kind of infinite would be reached. Perhaps a God, though not necessarily anything like a human conception of God. Or perhaps we would find that energy existed for infinity as per the first law of thermodynamics, in which case we are all made of 'God'.

Today scientists discuss a 'prime mover' that may have set all energy in motion. While I am hardly a scientist, it seems that science is still grappling with similar ideas. And then there are legitimate scientific ideas about different dimensions, paralell universes, and so on. Which again could go on indefinitely, if indeed they exist. Apparently, quantum physics, now we're waaay out of my league here believe me, I'm no expert in the white coat department, but apparently that raises doubts about the nature of our reality too.

A little error I made earlier today was when I remarked that 'atheism puts people in a smaller box'. I did not mean atheism in the broad sense, I realise I specifically meant 'materialism', the doctrine that many but not all atheists subscribe to. The belief that the material world a) exists in physical form, and b) is all that exists. So, near death experiences, out of body experiences, any scientific ideas like the holographic paradigm, must not be even possible, because "the material world is all that is, hail Darwin, shut up creationist." Now that's a religion if ever I saw one! And it's my least favourite religion too, 'cause it doesn't even have a nice story to go with it.

In any case, we are where we are and we're not getting any divine assistance anytime soon, better make the best of it...

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