first, please read this thread for arguments on this topic, it should clarify a few things. please posit some positive arguments for your position in this argument, i see none. your question of how can something be immaterial is answered by one word "mind", that is immaterial yet you wont deny it exists as a seperate reality.also, your begging the question of how something could exist outside of time is like asking how does infinity remain boundless, it's not even worth commenting on. nighttop's post is very good.
http://www.avantlabs.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=23897secondly i know what vacuum fluctuations are, they would contain zero-points theoretically, hence have some electromagnetism etc.. so they are not really nothing as it is a vacuum, nothing truely cannot be described were nothing could occur. vacuum fluctuations are great, still arent nothing creating something however. even atheists agree on this point.
"I was quoting you"
i left out the not, i thought you were arguing my actual statement.
"You're going in circles. You state that infinite regress is impossible because nothing would exist if everything needed a prior cause. Why? Why would nothing exist if the casual chain went back ad infinitum?"
i dont know how to explain this simple accepted nugget of wisdom any clearer, please show the opposite to prove your point, how could everything need a cause, hence always require a prior cause, allow anything to exist. your not making any sense, its like you dont understand what im saying.
"You didn't answer my questions. You just said "no it doesn't" and then changed the subject. Please answer the question to the "reason" behind this "eternal being" existing as well as explain the physics behind said being. Pantheistic or not."
the reason or contingency for this being existing is so anything could exist at all, in which his essence is to exist. God would be above physics, or is physics according to me so explaining the physics of god is not possible in theory. if he is the creator of physics, its logical he doesnt operate with physics, nor in time, nor is material.
also, how does my theory have more entities? the others, string, loop quantum, multiverse have just as many with just as many presuppositions. according to string theory the big bang was two branes slamming together to create our universe with our properties, this may be correct, but im not about to list the "entities" within.
"This is false. It assumes that there must be a "cause" to all things, which is demonstratively untrue not only from a logical point (If nothing exists, nothing can prevent something from appearing) but also from a scientific standpoint (in quantum electrodynamics various particles, electrons, positrons and photons can spontaneously emerge in a vacuum)."
first what definition of nothing are you using, because a true nothing as best as can be conceived wouldn't have the propensity to do anything, it is a void for all intensive purposes, void of potential. thus something could never come from it, and better yet for NO REASON. your logical standpoint is a position of inferiority. also, ive already showed that a vacuum is something, electromagnetic radiation is something, energy is something not nothing. please show me how nothing creates something both logically. and refute all those people on the thread. your also making the assumption that particles in a vacuum just began to exist, and didnt already exist, perhaps in an alternate universe, as some have proposed.
"As above, It doesn't necessarily need a cause. And even if it did need a cause, You're making the assumption that this cause had to be eternal, and I see no argument in support of that."
well read up then, something would have always had to exist, it isnt logical any other way.
"The claim that the casual chain can't go back forever. He doesn't back this claim up. He just asserts that the first cause (if there were such a thing) is the cause of the middle causes and the middle cause is the cause of the ultimate cause. This doesn't show how an infinite chain of cases isn't possible. He claims that without a "first causes" there would be no "ultimate causes". This just equivocates the argument and doesn't answer anything.
Why ascribe the "first cause" if we even assume a thing to be "God"? Why not stop at what we know and not assume anything until we know more? Historically speaking, the whole "God of the gaps" argument has failed. A thousand years ago it was God who caused the rain, until we found out the real cause. Five hundred years ago it was God who made humans as they were, until we found the real causes. Today it is God who made the big bang occur, until we find the real causes. Your "God of the gaps" is getting infinitely smaller. Historically we have always proven that "God" played no role in what people previously assumed to be caused by God. We will do the same for our unanswered questions"
first, thats only one of his arguments, he wrote many, read some of his work. god could be everything, say we lived on a planet with hills and mountains, and we know at dawn a new mountain will form, we explain it all, from every angle. however, what we dont see is god shooting bullets at our planet creating the mountains. hence, we think its natural and that everything acts according to law, yet why have laws, why does mathematics work at all? its just as likely they should not work. he is the sustainer, or better yet to me everything. there is no god of the gaps here, to assume science will solve everything is science of the gaps, with no room for god. this could also be wrong, to withhold speculation on metaphysical questions because science might solve it, is an item of faith.
"If something is "outside of our time" then it can't act upon our time. This would be logically impossible. It would be like me trying to change the past."
first why?i see no logical reason why something could operate both within and without time. secondly, it is both logically and scientifically possible to change the past, or move in the other direction of time.
"You're contradicting yourself. If conditions don't change themselves unless an outside force is acted upon them, then why was the condition of God doing nothing changed into doing something? Why did God decide to make the universe? His existence without creating things was a condition. So what caused the condition of him making the universe? What forced acted upon him that inspired him to do so?"
you dont understand what i wrote. non-sentience cannot change conditions, gas cannot change to water without an outside force, gas cannot choose to change. however, sentience can choose, as its self-acting, or a prime mover if you will. i can make choices, rocks or conditions cannot. god being sentient, by my estimate can choose.
however, i will admit that if he is eternal why now, perhaps he has been creating for eternity. NOW is a temporal term that doesnt apply to the eternal, it is somewhat of a moot question.
"How am I wrong? You have failed to answer my questions, and without answers, your hypothesis breaks apart.
Have I read any philosophy? Of course.'
your wrong because all your arguments if i could even call them that have been false, and you have provided no evidence for your side, if you even have on.
id read more.
whoogy boogy