Is morality objective or subjective?

[bahman]

Then it's not the First Cause. We can disregard the Singularity. It isn't relevant to the question. It tries to answer the question by assuming the question has already been bypassed.

I don't understand you.

It's very simple. We're asking, "What was the First Cause?" You say the Singularity WAS caused, so therefore, it wasn't the First Cause.

So what was the First Cause?

I said for the sake of argument we can agree that the first cause was the act of creating the singularity from nothing. Could we agree on that?

No, that's not a showing of it happening. That's just Einstein's formula for the equivalency of energy and mass. It doesn't say anything at all about complexity or substantive transformation.

Show an example of pure energy spontaneously becoming a horse, or a rocking chair, or a fistful of beans, or a fish, or a complex ecosystem.

Go.

That formula tells you that energy can turn into matter and vice versa.

No, it tells you that energy and matter are equivalent...not that they can decide to turn into each other, or do so spontaneously and without any action being taken, or that they can generate immensely complex systems like the universe.

That formula tells you that the energy can turn into matter and vice versa. To have matter out of energy, you need a very strong pair of photons that collide with each other to create a pair of matter and antimatter. That was possible in the initial phase when the energy from the singularity became cold enough.

Moreover, have you ever heard of nuclear bombs? Where do you think that the energy comes from?

[Alexis Jacobi]

What Christians think is that BOTH natural laws apply to physical things, AND that God can intervene whenever He chooses. There's no inconsistency in that. So you left out the third alternative.

He may have, but I didn’t. I recently referred to *glowing things appearing in the sky* etc.

See? I’m acutely dialed-in here.

[Immanuel Can]

You might say that God brought the universe into existence, but what, exactly, is God, and how, exactly, did God bring it into existence?

Good questions...but not the first question. If there was no God, then none of them are going to get asked at all. So I'd like to see if we can solve the first question first: and that's a very modest question, namely, whether whatever created the universe was intelligent or not. Once we've settled that, we can -- and should -- ask more questions.

But all I've said so far is that we can know for certain that there IS a First Cause.

You might have said it, but that doesn't mean it's true.

We know it is. It's one of the only questions we can answer with absolute certainty, because mathematics conclusively proves it. But as you point out, we haven't yet said anything about WHAT that Cause is.

I haven't yet tried to show what it is. Instead, I've pointed out only that we have two alternatives, if we want to figure it out: one is something unintelligent and impersonal, such as a 'force' of some kind, and the other is an Intelligence of some kind. And there, I've paused so far.

To say there are only two alternatives implies you know something that no one else alive knows.

Not at all. I'm not claiming anything for myself here: I'm just pointing out that in the matter of intelligence, there are two kinds of things in the universe: those that have some, and those that do not. Dogs and rocks. Fish and skyscrapers. Quantity surveyors and ice cubes. Take any two things, and they'll fall into one category or the other...unless you can propose a third category I haven't thought of. Go ahead.

But Bahman is stuck on an unworkable theory, namely that the Big Bang is the First Cause and itself uncaused.

It seems to me that bahman could respond by saying that whatever makes his first cause theory unworkable also makes yours unworkable.

Well, that would be premature: I haven't said anything about my theory so far. I think you're trying to guess at it from my comments in other contexts. But I'm not actually going the way you think.

Scientists think there are things that come before and produced the Big Bang, but Bahman just says science is wrong about that.

You usually approve of science being wrong about things, so I'm surprised if you are raising an objection to that.

What I was pointing out to you earlier is not that science is untrustworthy, but that people who want to make you believe they're "following the science" sometimes are. And that's something you should probably know about already.

So Bahman has a belief in a universe that is arbitrarily started by an impersonal 'force.'

I don't really know what you mean by "impersonal", but has bahman specifically said that the force must have been impersonal, and have you somehow managed to demonstrate how only a personal force could start a universe?

You'll get my real argument if you don't try to rush ahead of me and anticipate what you THINK I might be about to say. I haven't said any of it yet.

But I suggest that Bahman's explanation is not only unscientific, but is, even by the lowest estimation, nowhere near plausible as an explanation for the level of complexity and sophistication that is evident in our universe,

When you speak of complexity and sophistication, you are speaking in terms of what appears to be complex and sophisticated to a human brain, and in some other context the universe may well be quite simple and crude.

Not really. Complexity is an objective measurement. Something composed of only one element is, by definition, not complex. Something made up of two is more complex. Something made up of billions is very complex. That's all objective.

And likewise, things that are mostly unrelated are in simple relationship. Things that are in relationships like interconnectedness, interdependence, symbiosis, and so forth are manifestly in more complex relationships.

This is all easy and objective.

And I think it was the right thing to do, but this is nothing to do with the matter in hand.

It's a very clear case of how people with an agenda often try to use the word "science" to make the opposition shut up, rather than actually being responsive to science themselves.

The agenda was to deal with a public health crisis,

Fake crisis.

Are you still masking? Social distancing? Contact tracing? Did you get all seven vaccines? I suspect not. And if you did, that would be a massive overreaction.

...a lot of idiots were taken in by them.

Truer words were never spoken. We were fools to trust what they sold us as "the science." Clearly, it wasn't. It was, at best, a gross mistake; at worst, it was some sort of conspiracy. One thing we know, though, is that it wasn't genuine.

It's a scientific hypothesis...

Sorry, it's not. Not by any normal definition of "science." It's a mere speculation. It won't be anything close to "science" until a test is invented to locate and take measurements from these "universes."

Of course it's science, because the hypothesis is based on existing knowledge of quantum physics and mathematics, and is considered scientifically plausible by enough qualified people to give it some degree of respectability.

Ah, trust the people who claim to be "the science," again, eh? No tests, no data, no verification, not even a possibility of confirmation, and admitted speculations...all good with you?

As you say, it is unprovable, and may ever remain so,

Then it's not science. It's speculation.

[Immanuel Can]

What Christians think is that BOTH natural laws apply to physical things, AND that God can intervene whenever He chooses. There's no inconsistency in that. So you left out the third alternative.

He may have, but I didn’t. I recently referred to *glowing things appearing in the sky* etc.

See? I’m acutely dialed-in here.

Dumb. Hardly worth the dismissal.

[Alexis Jacobi]

What Christians think is that BOTH natural laws apply to physical things, AND that God can intervene whenever He chosoes. There's no inconsistency in that. So you left out the third alternative.

What IC believes, and what he tries to prove with verbal formulae, is simple: the complex, organized, intricate manifest world implies an Originator. How then could a singularity or an explosion or what-have-you — all chaos and disorganization — have produced all that is? Intuitively, a creative principle or an organizing power is necessary theo-philosophically. That’s what he means when he refers to God.

Before everything became manifest, it already existed in a certain sense — as the possibility of the organization that followed. It had to have been existent (on some level) at the prior point.

Really, this is all he wants us to see and to affirm. He cannot understand, and finds it logically untenable, those who refuse to see things in this way. Who will not admit the Prime Mover.

Dumb. Hardly worth the dismissal.

No. Not so. By your admission God can intervene in the mechanics of a determined world. In fact we are *divinity-sharing* because in us God has intervened. He intervenes in the sense that intelligence (intellectus) is not solely a material phenomenon, and that intelligence, however dim or obscured, resides in us.

In the 55th Chapter of The Course referred to earlier I include a snip of oriental poetry:

A crane calling in the shade.
Its young answers it.
I have a good goblet.
I will share it with you.

The crane is (in one sense) Logos which ‘calls out’ to what is related to it and which responds to it. The implication is wide and deep.

What you want to express is that God, the creator of all, communicates with us. Meaning, a message emanates and it is responded to, or not.

The Goblet to be shared is also a far-reaching metaphor that operates on as many levels as levels there are.

A ‘glowing thing’, and one especially appearing in the sky (celestial reference), refers symbolically to the intervention of God in his world, as He choses. It is consonant with your assertion therefore.

Really Immanuel, you would do well to see how dialed-in I am.

[Immanuel Can]

Really Immanuel, you would do well to see how dialed-in I am.

I can see you think a great deal of yourself.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Really Immanuel, you would do well to see how dialed-in I am.

I can see you think a great deal of yourself.

Given my gifts my revelations my unstated grandeur who wouldn’t?

So, I’m right then? Finally some recognition!

A crane calling in the shade.

[bahman]

I don't understand you.

It's very simple. We're asking, "What was the First Cause?" You say the Singularity WAS caused, so therefore, it wasn't the First Cause.

So what was the First Cause?

I said for the sake of argument we can agree that the first cause was the act of creating the singularity from nothing. Could we agree on that?

That formula tells you that energy can turn into matter and vice versa.

No, it tells you that energy and matter are equivalent...not that they can decide to turn into each other, or do so spontaneously and without any action being taken, or that they can generate immensely complex systems like the universe.

That formula tells you that the energy can turn into matter and vice versa. To have matter out of energy, you need a very strong pair of photons that collide with each other to create a pair of matter and antimatter. That was possible in the initial phase when the energy from the singularity became cold enough.

Moreover, have you ever heard of nuclear bombs? Where do you think that the energy comes from?

Please don't forget this.

[Immanuel Can]

It's very simple. We're asking, "What was the First Cause?" You say the Singularity WAS caused, so therefore, it wasn't the First Cause.

So what was the First Cause?

I said for the sake of argument we can agree that the first cause was the act of creating the singularity from nothing. Could we agree on that?

No, it tells you that energy and matter are equivalent...not that they can decide to turn into each other, or do so spontaneously and without any action being taken, or that they can generate immensely complex systems like the universe.

That formula tells you that the energy can turn into matter and vice versa. To have matter out of energy, you need a very strong pair of photons that collide with each other to create a pair of matter and antimatter. That was possible in the initial phase when the energy from the singularity became cold enough.

Moreover, have you ever heard of nuclear bombs? Where do you think that the energy comes from?

Please don't forget this.

I didn't. But if that's all there is to your explanation, I find it's totally inadequate to account for the complexity and variations of the phenomena we see. There's no evidence that raw, unintelligent energy spontaneously erupts, or that it does so into complex forms such as a universe. The whole thing is imaginary, it seems to me.

[Immanuel Can]

A crane calling in the shade.

A seagull screeching over a rotting cabbage.

[bahman]

I said for the sake of argument we can agree that the first cause was the act of creating the singularity from nothing. Could we agree on that?


That formula tells you that the energy can turn into matter and vice versa. To have matter out of energy, you need a very strong pair of photons that collide with each other to create a pair of matter and antimatter. That was possible in the initial phase when the energy from the singularity became cold enough.

Moreover, have you ever heard of nuclear bombs? Where do you think that the energy comes from?

Please don't forget this.

I didn't. But if that's all there is to your explanation, I find it's totally inadequate to account for the complexity and variations of the phenomena we see. There's no evidence that raw, unintelligent energy spontaneously erupts, or that it does so into complex forms such as a universe. The whole thing is imaginary, it seems to me.

Well, all the complexity and variations that you see are the result of matter interacting with matter.

[Immanuel Can]

Please don't forget this.

I didn't. But if that's all there is to your explanation, I find it's totally inadequate to account for the complexity and variations of the phenomena we see. There's no evidence that raw, unintelligent energy spontaneously erupts, or that it does so into complex forms such as a universe. The whole thing is imaginary, it seems to me.

Well, all the complexity and variations that you see are the result of matter interacting with matter.

Two problems: one, we're describing the origins of matter itself; but two, matter does not do that. Hydrogen atoms don't spontaneously "decide" to become fish or human beings. Plasma doesn't spontaneously migrate into beings and become "life." Ecosystems don't spring from mere elements. We have no instances of any such.

[bahman]

I didn't. But if that's all there is to your explanation, I find it's totally inadequate to account for the complexity and variations of the phenomena we see. There's no evidence that raw, unintelligent energy spontaneously erupts, or that it does so into complex forms such as a universe. The whole thing is imaginary, it seems to me.

Well, all the complexity and variations that you see are the result of matter interacting with matter.

Two problems: one, we're describing the origins of matter itself; but two, matter does not do that. Hydrogen atoms don't spontaneously "decide" to become fish or human beings. Plasma doesn't spontaneously migrate into beings and become "life." Ecosystems don't spring from mere elements. We have no instances of any such.

So to you, the act of creation was not perfect as God has to intervene to have the final result.

[Immanuel Can]

Well, all the complexity and variations that you see are the result of matter interacting with matter.

Two problems: one, we're describing the origins of matter itself; but two, matter does not do that. Hydrogen atoms don't spontaneously "decide" to become fish or human beings. Plasma doesn't spontaneously migrate into beings and become "life." Ecosystems don't spring from mere elements. We have no instances of any such.

So to you, the act of creation was not perfect as God has to intervene to have the final result.

God created the universe as good. Then man fell, and of course, his world with him, since it was a place made for him and under his authority. God intervened to prevent the worst results of that.

The fault's not with God or His Creation, but with man, who had the freedom to fall, and made a bad choice.

[Alexis Jacobi]

A crane calling in the shade.

A seagull screeching over a rotting cabbage.

I’ve carried forth the (inner) work you’ve begun:

A seagull screeching over rotted cabbage
Its young vomit assent.
I have a busted beer bottle with razor sharp edges.
If you pay me something I’ll share, asshole.

Yes! Yes! This is one way, albeit semi-deranged, to connect with the core meaning!

I’ll start you at that level if I must. We can build on it. Start from the Fall and up up up we will go!

Careful you don’t lacerate your lipsies!