cardboard adolescent

the basic problem of causality is summed up as chicken/egg. aristotle says: causality implies a first cause, and since this first cause is the origin of the entire universe let's go ahead and call it God. the atheist responds: but what about God? doesn't he need a cause too? causality implies it... the theologian responds: but God is outside space and time, and therefore not subject to causality. the atheist responds: but God needs to be inside space and time to be the first cause.

the atheist has it easy since he's responding to claims made by the theologian. so now we can turn on the atheist and ask: if there is no first cause, how does causality work? as far as i can see, there are three possible responses here. the first is to do away with causality altogether, and say that it implies an absurdity (regression ad infinitum) and hence should be abandoned. this causes some serious problems, since most of our thinking is based on causality. i would suggest that a thinking not based in causality would probably be enlightenment (because there is no past or future) or at least what meditation aims at. the second possibility is that causality is a closed loop, that the big bang is the result of a big crunch or some other such device. however, if we postulate a universe in which the beginning is the end (alpha=omega) which is eternal, and in which everything comes from and returns to a single point, isn't this basically the worldview most religions have sponsored? (specifically the tao te ching, the kaballah, and hinduism). the third possibility is an infinite (linear) sequence of causes and effects, but this raises the question of how a universe with no beginning and no end could generate cycles with beginnings and endings, and what force is counteracting entropy. buckminster fuller and teilhard de chardin have both postulated a force counteracting entropy, which bucky called syntropy. syntropy is the tendency of matter to crystallize (evolve) and form structures, the most "complex" or "evolved" of which is probably the human mind. hence, the human mind should be able to introduce new energy into the universe to counteract the energy lost by friction. and isn't this essentially the function of religion: to introduce a unifying principle (love) which undoes the differences between people that cause friction? and the structure of syntropy (something out of nothing) is essentially the paradox of love: the more you give away the more you have.

so, to go back to the conversation in the first paragraph, the theologian can now say: God is the first cause and final effect, which puts him inside of space and time. however, since any given moment apart from the singularity is either a movement away from or toward the singularity, God is also outside of space and time, as that which they are moving toward/away from.

ultimately, the atheist will hopefully find that rather than standing for a threat to their personal identity, God really stands for the unity which underlies all the processes in the universe which bring us joy: meaning (signifier=signified) love (self=other) beauty (permanence=impermanence) etc