If nothing existed, there would be, well, 'nothing' to explain.

[George Hannah]

The quintessential question is.....
Why?

Correct, we only know how and when. The why is forbidden fruit.

 

[mancity2012_eamo]

Correct, we only know how and when. The why is forbidden fruit.

No. I’ve looked in that thread and it’s not there either.

 

[lancs blue]

The notion that any human brain is able to process anything resembling a meaningful answer to the universe and its meaning is comically absurd.

For all the progress in scientific knowledge and reasoning I doubt that we understand even a tiny fraction of 1% of how the universe really works.

 

[KS55]

The basis of this debate is false. " The universe exists, therefore it has to have meaning". Nope!

 

[I'm With Stupid]

The basis of this debate is false. " The universe exists, therefore it has to have meaning". Nope!

Exactly. The way religions, and by extension plenty of other people, frame the debate is to assume a god. If you ask the question "why" then you're asking about purpose, and you can only ask about purpose if you have an intelligence, conscious being capable of deriving a purpose. The only legitimate question to ask about anything that happened prior to consciousness evolving is how, not why.

Of course the other issue is that people claim to be answering why when in fact they're answering how. The answer "God made it" is actually a question of how the universe came into being, just one without evidence, so to deal with the obvious fact that there is no evidence for their position, they claim to be answering the why question, when in fact they do no such thing.

 

[urban genie]

The quintessential question is.....
Why?

Why not?

 

[mancity2012_eamo]

Why not?

At crossed purposes here, but why not pull any thread then?
Confused?

 

[George Hannah]

Exactly. The way religions, and by extension plenty of other people, frame the debate is to assume a god. If you ask the question "why" then you're asking about purpose, and you can only ask about purpose if you have an intelligence, conscious being capable of deriving a purpose. The only legitimate question to ask about anything that happened prior to consciousness evolving is how, not why.

Of course the other issue is that people claim to be answering why when in fact they're answering how. The answer "God made it" is actually a question of how the universe came into being, just one without evidence, so to deal with the obvious fact that there is no evidence for their position, they claim to be answering the why question, when in fact they do no such thing.

I think you are mixing up the cosmological argument with the teleological argument. You are committing the same non sequitur you are complaining about, the objection could equally be countered by an agnostic who regards consciousness as a purely naturalistic pheomenon rather than evidence for an absolute. For such, the universe has meaning simply attributable to self consciousness.

 

[SWP's back]

To have anything existing demands some kind of explanation.
The biggest question of them all: why anything?

No it doesn’t:

 

[SWP's back]

Exactly. The way religions, and by extension plenty of other people, frame the debate is to assume a god. If you ask the question "why" then you're asking about purpose, and you can only ask about purpose if you have an intelligence, conscious being capable of deriving a purpose. The only legitimate question to ask about anything that happened prior to consciousness evolving is how, not why.

Of course the other issue is that people claim to be answering why when in fact they're answering how. The answer "God made it" is actually a question of how the universe came into being, just one without evidence, so to deal with the obvious fact that there is no evidence for their position, they claim to be answering the why question, when in fact they do no such thing.

So very true.