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From: flink@umcp-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: meaning w/o G-d; first cause
Message-ID: <4056@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 24-Nov-83 00:49:17 EST
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.4056
Posted: Thu Nov 24 00:49:17 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 26-Nov-83 06:00:36 EST
Organization: Univ. of Maryland, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 43

I agreed with much of what Gary Samuelson said in his debate w/ Rich Rosen
(esp. GS's distaste for the rhetoric condemning "imposing beliefs").  But I
can't easily improve on what Gary said that I agree with, so I'm left with
criticizing what I disagree with.  Quotations are from GS.

	If this life is all there is, then what I do now will certainly not
	matter to me in a relativley short period.  That is what I meant by
	believing my life to be meaningful.  What difference will what YOU
	do NOW make TO YOU in a hundred years?

Since Gary's question is ambiguous, I'll interpret it in the way most
favorable to my own position (that oughta discourage people from asking
ambiguous questions! :->).  What I do now will make plenty of difference,
since it will affect people's lives; people that I care about.  Furthermore,
even if it didn't, that wouldn't remove the fact that it matters now, which
is entirely sufficient for life's being "meaningful".  (Actually, you really
mean "valuable", don't you?  I hate it when people say one word when they
mean another.  But that's one of my idiosyncracies, I guess.)

	Assumption:  The universe did not create itself.  Conclusion:
	Either the universe has always existed, or it was created.
	Observation: Evidence suggests that the universe has a finite age,
	be it ever so large.  Conclusion:  The universe was created.

"Assumption" is debatable.  Conclusion 1 doesn't follow unless you include
the universe just happening to appear as "the universe creating itself".
Conclusion 2 doesn't follow either.  In fact, given that current scientific
theory has it that time did not exist before the Big Bang, the proper
conclusion would seem to be that the universe has always existed.  I should
hasten to add here that that's consistent with the universe's being created.

As philosopher Kurt Baier has pointed out, it is not correct to extrapolate
the principle of cause and effect beyond its normal sphere of application.
In our everyday life, every event ( or so we generally believe) has a cause.
However, the existence of the universe altogether is a different story.  The
Big Bang is a special case by virtue of the fact that there was no time
before the Big Bang (i.e. there WAS NO "before the Big Bang").  We have
reason to doubt that ordinary principles of causation can be extrapolated to
this case.  Therefore, "why does the universe exist?" may be a misguided
question.

				--the aspiring iconoclast,
					Paul Torek (umcp-cs!flink)