Concepts of God (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by BBella @, Saturday, April 23, 2016, 07:03 (2897 days ago) @ dhw

Dhw:I started out from my existence as a human being, which would have to mean a mixture of material and immaterial. The reincarnation aspect of my “explanation” allows for me to have existed in immaterial form before my birth as the present me. But how far back does the pre-“me” go? According to current scientific calculations, at most about 3.8 billion years. My “lives” could not have begun before life began! -Keeping in mind the challenge, you would be right. Your material lives could not have begun before material life began - that's logic. But your immaterial life could have preceded your material life by eternity...or longer lol. Meaning, your immaterial existence could be eternal (think how boring that would be!). ->So there I am, stuck with the usual chicken and egg dilemma - in this case, which came first: the bacterium me or the intelligence me? (A question specially for you, David!;-) ) Could the one have come into existence without the other? -I always assume intelligence existed first (maybe not). As an intelligent being, I do not necessarily think I would choose to become a bacterium (unless I just wanted to experience that level of conscious(?) existence - which, who knows, at that point in eternity, bacterium existence might sound very exciting - like a night on the town with a hangover ending - lol- something different anyway). That thought aside, I would think bacterium and all material life may have had to be incubated in order to evolve to a state that we intelligent, immaterial beings would want to choose to inhabit it. Thinking of eternity, what's another 3.8 billion years anyway? ->You are right, though, my “explanation” of an afterlife and reincarnation demands that ultimately matter becomes energy, which can go on existing independently of matter. That does not mean that life, identities and consciousness existed before matter. What happened before the universe began remains as unknown as what will happen after the universe ends, but that was not part of BBella's challenge!-Bringing together the two constructs does make perfect sense (within this challenge): an ENDLESS eternal existence and a timed existence within material life that always has an ending. Any cracks come to mind we can fill while we are at it?


Complete thread:

 RSS Feed of thread

powered by my little forum