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From: wex@ittvax.UUCP (Alan Wexelblat)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: GOD?
Message-ID: <951@ittvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 19-Aug-83 10:33:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: ittvax.951
Posted: Fri Aug 19 10:33:03 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 19-Aug-83 17:38:02 EDT
References: hplabsc.1306
Lines: 36

Whew!  You don't ask for much, do you?  I can't *prove* to you that God
exists.  But I can relate the thinking which convinced me that some form
of eternal Is had to exist.  (Note, I use Richard Bach's "eternal Is" here
to avoid steeping on the toes of anyone's god-conception.)

If we leave aside human thought for the moment, every event in the universe
seems to have some sort of cause.  Some causes are more complex than others,
ans some are still not understood, but all events in our universe have some
deterministic set of causal influences.

Now, if current cosmology is correct, the universe was formed as the result
of a "big bang."  This bang is the first event in the universe.  In some 
causal way, all events we see are related to that first event.

Human thought, however, seems to be somehow outside the chain of causality
(yes, I know this is a huge issue in itself, but leave it go for now).  In
other words, humans, as a result of their cognitive processes seem to be
capable of causing events without the humans' thoughts being determined by 
outside causes.

So, if we accept that cognition is the only thing (other than physical causes)
which can produce physical effects, we need to posit a cognition which
caused the first event (see above).  I call that cognition the eternal Is.

I think that this reasoning holds, no matter what your universe-view.  Somewhere,
there needs to be a first event, and that event requires a first cause.  Now,
I'm sure you'll get lots of responses telling you that God is alive and well,
and that He sent His son here to die for us, or that he gave Moses the ten
commandments, or that he inspired Mohammed, his greatest prophet or some
other equally unprovable thing.  THOSE you have to take on faith.  The
eternal Is, however, seems to be a logical necessity.

--Alan Wexelblat
decvax!ittvax!wex

P.S. Note that nothing is said about religion, worship, or any similar idiocy.