Don't go away angry. That's not my intention. Maybe consider the possibility that you are and always have belonged...to something much larger than your ego. Best wishes, Bowser
And from responsibility for their own lives, which is unfortunate. People "surrendering to God" is one of the reasons we have such a victim society these days,
Then the question becomes, "who was the Father of the Father"? And we end up with an infinity of fathers begetting fathers.....Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
A society that tends to blame external events out of their control (i.e. God, luck) rather than blame their own poor decisions for their plight.
At some point expect to invoke some special pleading Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
There may only be one father... I only have one father... But I do/did have two grandfathers. And four great grandfathers.
:raises hand reluctantly: Actually, that's the exact same problem we face today with the Big Bang Theory. If the BB creating everything we see, then what created the BB? And what created whatever created the BB? So, it's not a conundrum specious to God, but to all of existence itself.
Yes, that does pose a conundrum, but I would rather consider a hierarchical dynamical ordering resulting in fields of virtual particles, which combined can form into matter, than the formation of a sentient and motivated intelligence, which then just creates matter from nothing (Let there be light). It's that intelligent and motivated part that bothers me. It's an extra step that is really not neccessary in the self-assembly of a mathematical construct and philosophically just complicates matters.
Not necessarily, it may be a hierarchy of orders. But indeed all things do have one common denominator, Potential. But potential needs not be intelligent. It just needs to be dynamical to become creative. It converts a state of possibility to a state of probability. As Bohm so nicely put it in "Wholeness and the Implicate Order." http://www.gci.org.uk/Documents/DavidBohm-WholenessAndTheImplicateOrder.pdf And I believe this is a logical follow up to Bohm theory. See Causal Dynamical Triangulation; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causal_dynamical_triangulation
I see it as a dynamical collapse causing a compressed energy singularity, resulting in a mega-quantum event. Banggggggggggggggggggggggg! Creating the fields from which matter emerges. The term "void" conjures a picture of implosion and that's all that is necessary for a dynamical (energetic) process of compression.
Actually you may have millions of grandfathers, from single celled mindless micro-organisms to every species on the branch that led to homo sapiens.
In a great many cases, yes. Someone who decides to drop out of school, then later suffers a life of poverty and unemployment, has created his own misfortune. Someone who smokes two packs a day, and is later diagnosed with lung cancer, has created his own misfortune. Someone who lives with his Mom, stays on the couch all day and watches TV, then complains that he can't meet women, has created his own misfortune. There is a strong tendency today to be a victim rather than owning up to the consequences of your decisions. The high school dropout, for example, might blame fate, or the evil capitalist system, or the greedy rich people, or an uncaring world for his plight. The couch potato might become an "incel" and blame the Stacys and Chads of the world for his inability to meet women. There are plenty of good things about religion for many people (community, charity, a moral compass for a rudderless person.) But one of the bad things is a tendency to blame God for everything that happens. "Well, I will get a job, God willing. No, I can't go to school; it's too hard. But if that's in God's plan for me I guess it will happen somehow. If not, who am I to question God?"
As Carlin said: If God has a Divine plan why do people expect him to change is plan because they have a two dollar prayer book.