[heythereguy]

This is how I see it. I’m actually open to a creator of our simulation or our reality simply because it’s the best explanation we have right now. Existence coming out of nothing is ridiculous. We really have no clue how we even got here. Maybe our existence could be proven scientifically down the line, but right now creation is actually the most feasible to my mind, strange enough.

So with that the problem of evil comes up and I gotta give it up to the late great Epicurus. And I quote:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

The other stance you can have are God’s plan is unknowable to us. His mystical plan is not for us to know and grasp. Which is a huge leap of faith and so wishy washy I can’t bring myself to adopt it.

[pmoriarty]

"Existence coming out of nothing is ridiculous. We really have no clue how we even got here. Maybe our existence could be proven scientifically down the line, but right now creation is actually the most feasible to my mind, strange enough."

But if God created the world then what created God? If you're ok with the answer that God always existed, why wouldn't you be ok with the universe always existing (thereby having no need for a creator God)?

[heythereguy]

To me a "being" with power able to create reality is different than physical matter just always existing.

I'm not saying it's right, it's just more convincing than saying that matter has always been here that doesn't make any sense at all. Example: Something coming from nothing. Everything has a primary mover.

The only way to reconcile it to me is there is some supreme thing that can transcend our time and physics and everything else.

[pmoriarty]

"To me a "being" with power able to create reality is different than physical matter just always existing. I'm not saying it's right, it's just more convincing than saying that matter has always been here.."

Why is it more convincing to you? They seem equally preposterous to me.

What difference does it make if one is physical and the other not? Saying that one or the other of them always existed seems equivalent to me.

[heythereguy]

Because every physical thing has a start.

Some time-bending supreme being that creates time and existence itself can overcome that "start" because of it's super powers.

That sounds dumb but it's more convincing than saying yeah it's just always been here. How has it? I'm too dumb to wrap my head around that. Everything has a primary mover unless it has the super power to transcend that.

[pmoriarty]

"Because every physical thing has a start."

Does it?

Everything we know about the world is either due to observations or inferences from our observations. We have not observed what was at the start of the Big Bang, nor prior to it, so for all we know whatever that was was qualitatively different than what came after, and really did have no beginning.

"Some time-bending supreme being that creates time and existence itself can overcome that "start" because of it's super powers."

That's the claim.. but that claim seems to me to be no more convincing than saying "because magic" or "just because".. might as well say that about the "physical thing" at the start of the universe.

A being that creates time has its own additional problems besides.. such as how could there be anything before time? What does that even mean?

[heythereguy]

Eh fair enough, I'm not satisfied with either side. Too bad either of us will ever know.

Do you have any good reading on the idea your postulating?

"A being that creates time has its own additional problems besides.. such as how could there be anything before time? What does that even mean?"

I can't answer. I have to go back to there being some all powerful god that had the power to create everything, so he has the power to transcend time. Or God could be an instantaneous and motionless creator, and could have created the world without preceding it in time.

[breuleux]

In Greek cosmogony (well, one version of it) there is one supreme being called Chaos from which everything else proceeded. If you think of it simply as a being of pure creative energy that created the laws of physics at random (and possibly infinitely many other random universes we have no access to), would that fit the bill?

It's little more than a reification of "just because" as an actual being, but I mean, why not.

[paulryanrogers]

> I’m actually open to a creator of our simulation or our reality simply because it’s the best explanation we have right now.

This was my position as I was leaving Christianity. Now though I think it's more likely that matter and the laws of physics have just always existed, possibly an infinite amount or to an infinitely small scale. While that may seem difficult to comprehend I think it's much simpler than omnipotent turtles all the way down.

[smeej]

It is omnipotent turtles all the way down, though. "Matter and the laws of physics" is "turtles" just as much as "God" is "turtles."

Choosing to believe the turtles are impersonal doesn't alleviate the problem of the turtles.

[paulryanrogers]

Except the turtle of matter and physics aren't creators and don't need themselves to be created if they always existed.

Mass and physics aren't sentient or acting with purpose.

[smeej]

Everything that exists comes [X]. [X] causes all that happens. Nothing happens apart from [X].

It doesn't matter whether [X] stands for "matter and the laws of physics" or "God."

All you've done is make the turtles impersonal. The stack is still there, and it's every bit as inexplicable as it was before.