Do you believe in God?

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He says that in order to find God you have to get rid of any prior concepts you have of God. He is not saying that you need to abolish belief in God. He is trying to teach orthodox Christians the wisdom of the eastern traditions... not trying to espouse atheism in any sense of the word. If you studied Alan Watts you would understand this.

Belief in God is a concept. You can only believe in the idea of God.

Just watch the video.

Quantum mechanics explains the big bang, not our own existence.

I have barely scratched the surface of this subject, but the main idea is that events are capable of happening on their own with no cause. And matter and gravity are polar opposites of each other, therefore the universe obeys the law of energy conservation by having a net energy of zero. Einstein and Hawking knew more about this than almost anyone, so I'm going to take their word for it.

As for consciousness, I never said QM created that (but until proven otherwise, it's a possibility). Our consciousness formed through evolving a larger brain, and theories by Harris and Pinker suggest that our consciousness is just an illusion that our large brains have evolved to cope with evolutionary stresses, just like eyesight is an illusion of moving pictures and thinking is one as well.

My question: if God exists, then where did God come from? (who created God?) If it always existed, then it contradicts the notion that "something can't come from nothing". And if it's possible God always existed, then it's possible for a near infinite number of other possible things/events to have always existed or had caused itself.

1. If God is the first cause, then what caused God? If something can't come from nothing, then it's impossible for God (something) to have come from nothing. If God is all-powerful and omnibenevolent, then it must be able to convince us of its existence immediately and to answer this question.

2. If evolution was guided by theistic influence, then this deity really enjoyed the suffering and death that had to have happened in order for evolution to take place. Natural selection is a much more believable scenario. The thing about some theists is that whenever we discover how something really happened, they like to retroactively attribute the process to "God" being in control of it.

3. That is circular reasoning, and doesn't make sense even if one didn't know what circular reasoning was.

These videos deal with some of the issues you raised. There are brief introductory animations, and there are also more extensive investigations in the form of multi-video lectures from William Lane Craig. (you have to watch the lectures in their entirety to rigorously study the arguments) If you want the good stuff.. skip the "shorts."


Who created God?



Did the universe begin to exist?



What is the best explanation of the the fine tuning we observe?

Oh and since you bring up the ontological argument... I will post an explanation of it as well. This is also a multi-part series ...

The cognitive dissonance of believing William Lane Craig and Alan Watts must be painful.

Maybe that is how it appears to someone who has studied neither. As I say, you are confused on Alan Watts.

Out of curiosity, what all have you read/listened to/watched of Alan Watts?

Enough.

Which is?

I got to a blank page in chapter one or two of "The Way of Zen", and that was all I needed. I don't know if he put that page there on purpose or not, but it was the best thing he ever wrote.

That is great.. you should host a symposium on him.

I like the blank page notice.
Before I gave up on death by powerpoint presentations I used one blank slide.
I preficed the slide by saying
"This is all I know for sure on Teenagers."

May God continue to bless you and your gifts of debate and writing skills.

Zvi
"Reader and Righter"