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[Jenifer]

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In the past, we have had several debates about the existence of God, or a creator. 

I thought I'd began to break down some of the philosophical proofs of God's existence. 

The first theory I'd like to take into consideration is Paley's Watchmaker Analogy.

Basically what Paley is saying is that the intelligent design of the universe is proof that it has a designer.  Or to put it more simply, creation is evidence of a creator. 

For example, we may see a painting and know that someone had to paint it.  It couldn't just have appeared on its own in completion, as an actual picture.

Darwin countered this theory with the theory of natural selection, but I don't think it even needs to be that complicated.

As I see it, there can be no creator justification for the existence of the universe because by that theory, the creator of the universe is evidence of its own creator.

And if the creator had a creator, that creator had a creator and so on and so on, because it would follow that an creator who created a universe with intelligent design would have to be assumed to be an intelligent design his or herself.  So the creator of the universe would have had to been created by a creator capable of intelligent design.

Either way, we always land in the same place.  Who created the creator? 

[Jenifer]

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http://www.titane.ca/igod/

[Father Luke]

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Again I ask, who created the creator?

There are three main arguments to your question:

The first is that existence does not, in fact, require a designer, but can and does arise from "mindless" natural processes (as in the "monkeys with typewriters" analogy).

The second argument is that creation is a faulty analogy.

The third argument is that the creator is arguably far more complex than the created, and if such complexity proves intelligent design, then the question arises: who created creation?

Which shall we discuss?

[Jenifer]

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Well, my original question in regard to intelligent design, or the idea that if something is so complex as to obviously have required a designer, is then, who created the designer?

I don't think the watchmaker theory can hold water on account that, based on it's own theory, there would then have to be an infinite number of creators, or makers.

[Father Luke]

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Or simply one creator.

The argument is called a teleological argument, and is an argument for the existence of a creator or a evidence of a creator based on perceived purpose, and design in nature.

Like, for instance, when Darwin was stumped by the eye.

[Mr_Laurent]

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Hey, I woke up a thread!

I never cared who created the creator because that's a never-ending circle of inquiry.  The question itself arises from our human way of thinking.  We have beginnings and ends so we assume everything else does too.

The eye is an amazing piece of work but given the fact of photosensitive cells on the back of a rare lizard and the obvious advantage of this sensitivity in a world without sight, I'd say the evolution of increasingly functional light-gathering apparatus is perfectly within reason.  We just can't trace it because eyes don't fossilize.

[redperil]

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Again I ask, who created the creator?

Microsoft

[Jenifer]

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laughing.  i love you, Red.

thing is, even if there is one creator that does not tell us how that one creator came into existence... problem being that my mind, anyway, cannot wrap around the idea of infinity.  the idea of infinity being that it would go forward into the future, but also backward into the past. 

then we have this whole time/space issue to grapple with. 

[Ġakbu]

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The teleological argument is the 'most appealing', I find, of the possible arguments for the existence of a God-being, a Creator. That said, I for one do not subscribe to a belief in this Creator-being, and like Jenifer, I cannot grasp, my mind cannot grasp, the concept of infinity; whenever I try, a large blackness comes to my mind, but I always end up saying: how is it possible that there was a time in which nothing was in existence? but then how did it come into existence?

That being said, even though I am not a hardcore atheist myself (but with a hardcore anti-religious institution kind of mind-set), if there is a creator, or a group of creators, divine beings, call them what you will, then I believe that they would be malevolent or uncaring or uninterested in our fate, but I guess that is another question; the first question is already difficult to cut.

[Father Luke]

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then we have this whole time/space issue to grapple with. 

When you are reading this you are, what you would call, "Here". It is being read "Here".

I am writing this in a certain space, and in a certain time.
You are "Here" and I am "There".

Here comes the fun part.

Where are you experiencing me?

Well, you could say you are experiencing me in your mind. Or, you could get rather
chić and say you experience me through a series of events, or through your "spirit"
or soul, or some such. Or get scientific and say in your brain. You experience me
in your head, in what is known as the brain.

But if I ask you "Where" specifically "Where" you are experiencing me, and this writing you are reading, when you get honest, you are experiencing me, not "Here"
where you are, but "There" where I am. The brain really has nothing to do with it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noupHDxmUTE

So, in essence, you are experiencing me in a different time and place from where you
actually are. In that regard, time and space exist as tools to serve you, not limit
you, and you are traveling to the time and place I am, and you carry that experience
back to where you are.

To ask a question like: "Who created the Creator", is to open yourself up to answers
which are outside the context of of the question.

You created the creator.
You are the Creator.
You are the Created.

You really have much more power than the question allows for.
Time and space are tools which serve you, not limit.

Hope that helps.

[Sana]

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ok let's not forget aliens. there probably is no 'god'. just an illusion of one created by the extra terrestrial beings.

[Jenifer]

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I totally believe that we could have been brought here by aliens... I mean why not?

[Father Luke]

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I totally believe that we could have been brought here by aliens... I mean why not?

Alien to whom?

One Universe one people. Puhlease.

[Jenifer]

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alien to us, of course. 

[Father Luke]

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The Watchmaker Theory - Creation as Evidence of a Creator