jondeval

Yup. I see what you mean and I do think in practice conversations may proceed this way. And I think you are illustrating well the point I made above.

The key idea though is that if you make a dispassionate analysis of what this base reality must be, you find that it has certain 'attributes'. So for example, anything that has horns would not be good candidate for base reality since the contingent concept of 'horn' would need to be explained by, and derive its very existence from something much more simple. So that simpler thing would be the less bad candidate. Etc.

Not quite. Although I fully understand the feedback. There are 2 equally valid senses in which the word creator can be used. Both conform to standard definitions but each used in a different sense.

I tried to add clarity in the response above. Thanks!

Sure. I'll try.

There are two senses to understand the word creator. I'll illustrate both by analogies to the way 'we' create as people:

(1) A violinist is creating the music that you are currently hearing. Here and now in the present. (2) A painter created a painting in the 19th century, and you can see the artifact on the wall in a museum.

In the case of (1) the creator brings the song into being out of nothing. More or less, don't squabble over sound waves. :^). When the violinist stops playing, the music stops. Here and now in the present.

In the case of (2) the painter finished the work 'at some point in time' and we can have all sorts of interesting conversations about when exactly the artifact was created. Did the painter really paint it in the way some book said that he did? Does the painter maintain any connection to the painting after it's finished? etc.

You see, if the proper sense of the word creator is actually (1). Then all discussions about (2) are distractions.

So, it's important to remember that, for example, knowledgeable Christians refer to God as the creator in the sense of (1). There may or may not be some interesting discussions to be had about whether God is a creator in the sense of (2) but they are conversations about secondary causes, and very much irrelevant to God's existence and the role as the primary cause.

This is an interesting and important point. I'll attempt to rephrase your point slightly differently:

Everything we observe in the universe has a sequence of linear causes stretching backward in time. However we can't be sure from these observations that Universe (or multiverse or something similar) itself has been caused in a similar way. -- I hope I got that right.

But is the physical universe (or multiverse or something similar) that we experience a good candidate for the uncaused base reality that just exists?

A good reason to think not is that universe is composed of stuff and parts that change relative to each other. If something changes, ie goes from potential to actual, then there is something that is more actual, or more real, from which we should be able to explain the change.

Another way to say it is that we may not know what base reality is, but in order for it to be a good candidate for 'the' base reality, it should be completely simple. And the universe as whole, by all appearances, is quite complex.

I don't follow you. Can you elaborate?

My strong opinions, weakly held:

* God is not a good hypothesis for any secondary cause. The creation of space-time as we currently understand it must have had a secondary cause. Let's patiently keep looking for a scientific hypothesis (theoretical or empirical) that is an incremental improvement on what we already know.

* Religious people who conceive of God as the creator, believing that the word 'creator' refers to the creation of the universe at some point in the past, are completely misunderstanding the use of the word and need to do some more homework.

* Non-Religious people should stop conflating 'metaphysical' statements with religion. Can we agree that we need to make metaphysical statements from time to time if we are having a conversation to understand something 'about physics'?

> My pet theory: Something has always existed. There was no beginning. No origin. No first cause. No t=0. No start. It's always been there. What was before that? That. And that. And that. Always that.

Your pet theory is the view of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and the Roman Catholic Church. The mistake that people make (you can even see it in this thread), is that they start with some preconceived conception of God, with all it's baggage, and then they attempt argue for, or against, this concept.

The more productive approach is to recognize and acknowledge the necessary existence of a base reality. Then you simply assign the English word 'God' as a reference pointer to this base reality.

const God = (the one base reality that exists necessarily)

There are obvious tradeoffs with stability that are being noted. These concerns are well expressed here: https://xkcd.com/1428/

But I think the more insidious downside of this mentality in practice is that it tends to absolve the product management of their responsibility to form a strong opinionated vision of what needs to be built over the course many months.

Tactical engineering speed is important, but I would much rather work for a company that obsesses over building the right thing and knows how to communicate a view of what 'great' looks like.

It would seem that G.K. Chesterton had a sense of the implications of these overly inward looking practices:

"Even when I thought, with most other well-informed, though unscholarly, people, that Buddhism and Christianity were alike, there was one thing about them that always perplexed me; I mean the startling difference in their type of religious art. I do not mean in its technical style of representation, but in the things that it was manifestly meant to represent. No two ideals could be more opposite than a Christian saint in a Gothic cathedral and a Buddhist saint in a Chinese temple. The opposition exists at every point; but perhaps the shortest statement of it is that the Buddhist saint always has his eyes shut, while the Christian saint always has them very wide open. The Buddhist saint has a sleek and harmonious body, but his eyes are heavy and sealed with sleep. The mediaeval saint's body is wasted to its crazy bones, but his eyes are frightfully alive. There cannot be any real community of spirit between forces that produced symbols so different as that. Granted that both images are extravagances, are perversions of the pure creed, it must be a real divergence which could produce such opposite extravagances. The Buddhist is looking with a peculiar intentness inwards. The Christian is staring with a frantic intentness outwards. If we follow that clue steadily we shall find some interesting things."

There seems to be a few speculative discussions around what the author identifies as a toxic addiction to righteousness and the spread of Christianity. When considering that this phenomenon touches the whole of humanity I can't help but wonder if Christianity has been an enabler, or has in fact acted as a massive check and moderating force against some of these darker impulses that are embedded deep inside of each of us.

Having read and enjoyed the article, it seems to me that the topic is very closely related to what a practicing Christian would call the sin of pride. There are some nuances to the definition and it's worth a refresher on the details of the teaching. A good primer can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PvcynQD-ag

Also, Jesus himself has some quite direct words on this topic: https://www.bible.com/bible/compare/LUK.18.10-14