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From: speaker@umcp-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: meaning w/o G-d; first cause
Message-ID: <4080@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 26-Nov-83 20:24:32 EST
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.4080
Posted: Sat Nov 26 20:24:32 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 27-Nov-83 07:32:15 EST
References: <4056@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: Univ. of Maryland, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 33


	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.

Philosophers have been debating along these lines for eons (well
maybe not THAT long).  True, you probably can't take ordinary
rules of causality beyond the Big Bang (if there was one).
Time itself (actually the sense of time passing is an illusion)
may not have existed if there was no causal structure.

Its not at all a misguided question though.  Its a basic
problem in metaphysics, such as "If there's a God, who created
God?"  I think its misguided to wave your hands about and say...
"Well, nothing like the universe existed before the Big Bang
so questions like this don't wash."  That doesn't really
answer the question, it just avoids it.

Yet the universe is still here, and people want to know if
it always has been... if it always will... where did it
come from... did a God create it... why are people born...
why do they die... and why do they spend so much of the
intervening time wearing digital watches?

To say that there must have been a creator, because all things
have a begining is bull.  This was one of the first "proofs"
for the existance of God, but it doesn't hold up well at all.
One can just as easily ask the same about God.
-- 

					- Bessie the Hellcow
					speaker@umcp-cs
					speaker.umcp-cs@CSnet-Relay