[iggymcfly]

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The attempt to imagine a "force outside of time" that created time is really just an attempt to reframe the issue in a temporal context. The human mind looks for causes, and we want time itself to have a cause - but a cause is an event that precedes another event in time. It's meaningless to speak of causes "outside time." And even if a "beginning of time" does imply a force, there is no reason to conclude that this force is a god of any sort.

Time is one of the great mysteries of the universe, and it's a mystery we may never solve. Physics shows us that the workings of time and space are confusing and counterintuitive, so we may not be able to conceive of an appropriate answer. But just because something is unexplained doesn't mean God is responsible for it. This has been a common error of humans in the past.

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Well, I guess my point is that it seems like time has to have a beginning and if time just started at some point that implies an outside force. I was an astronomy minor for a while and they actually have a date that they estimate is the "age of the universe" based on the expansion that is currently taking place. The idea that the universe started X years ago does seem to imply an outside creative force.

I guess it comes down to what you define a 'god' as. I certainly don't think it's possible for anything approaching the Judeo-Christian or Islamic definition to exist. Does God just mean a creative force from another dimension? Or does it have to be sentient? I don't know, that's an interesting question. Actually, the idea of our universe being created by a non-sentient force from another dimension where time doesn't exist is something that I hadn't really though of. That's very interesting indeed.


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Still, I don't have a major issue with the deist position here. There's nothing inherently illogical about it. My problems with religion have to do with its effects on the real world.

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I definitely agree that the issue of the creation of the universe has little to do with organized religion. The only time they even bring that up is to argue with atheists or occasionally to try to inspire a little extra awe or guilt. The central focus of religion seems to be not on "God" but on controlling people's lives and using some kind of carrot and stick system to do so.

I mean think of this: according to Christianity, God created the entire universe yet the whole focus of the religion is on Jesus's trip to earth where he inhabits a human body and gets killed. How crazy is that? That the creation of millions of star systems across an expanse that's kiloparsecs across in every direction is overshadowed by some trivial story about a guy who gets in trouble with the Jewish authorities. Just shows how the focus of Christianity is really all on human behavior.