Well um I don't necessarily want to drag up this discussion again since I've been kind of aggressive in the past.
But I got a lot to talk about and my views have changed- perhaps just typing them all up as one big explanation of my beliefs will be best.
I'm going to say that this is all my opinion, and unless explicitly stated I have no proven fact to back up any of my claims here. I don't consider you stupid, close minded, or anything else along those lines if you don't agree with me, and I wont get angry at people so long as their responses are at least as calm as my perceived conduct, for good or ill. Because overall I don't care so much for the debate and it's doubtful that I'll ever really change my mind in any significant manner in the subject, and besides my beliefs kind of hinge on their being LOTS of beliefs.
You'll see what I mean.
Well, with that said, lets get started.
By the way, I use the generic term 'christian' and I will make references to Christianity strictly as Christianity, but just assume that I generally refer to most god worshiping religions- even including ones who worship multiple gods and such- when I talk about them.
So as a kid I was surrounded by Christianity a lot. I was a bit thick so it wasn't until I was older that I noticed that, say, most of the songs I used to sing in school assembly were about god and such. Yeah I wasn't the smartest kid. Not even close.
But before I bring this to a point, I'll say that I have one hazy memory. My grandma had just finished reading me a story from a heavily dubbed down version of one of the new testament stories- it had pictures and definitely wasn't as wordy. At least, I think that's what they were...
Nonetheless, bible stories.
Essentially, in the following conversation, I said something to my grandma along the lines of:
"Good story, but I still don't believe in god."
"Really?" Responded my grandma in surprise.
"Yeah. They've never been more than that to me."
It's odd, then, that despite everything around me I seemed to view religion as something no different to any other book or TV show I internalized at the time.
Maybe I should give my younger self more credit.
So what was the point in that? Well, it may have more relevance later but...
All I'm trying to say for now is that I was never, at any time a true believer. I don't think I was even baptized.
As I got older I started to think about things more.
In bed, I'd ask the age old question-
What created god?
The standard answer is faith and 'he's just that good.' of course but it didn't stop me from fantasizing.
A larger god?
Well then what created it?
An even bigger god?
How far does it go? Is reality just an infinite layer of universes stacked on top of each other, each one trying to justify the existence of the one below it?
Then, where does it end? A one, true entity? Amongst a sea of nothing?
No, because something needed to make it...
It jut feels incomplete. Impossible, nonsensical. It would take me many years- in fact, I only just realized a few days ago this fact- that perhaps I was approaching this from the wrong angle.
I guess I'm a man of fact, perhaps not science, but fact. Well, perhaps science for the time being. These days I'm emotion based, using science as a means to an end. But of course this did lead me to adopt atheism- the big bang seems to make much more sense.
But then what created the big bang?
Gases?
Where did they come from?
And the same damn thing happens...
Atheism and Christianity really aren't that different, are they? In both instances God and the big bang just need to be taken as a given that they were always there, which doesn't satisfy me.
Damn atheists... at least Christians admit that they work off of faith, now that I think about it. But whatever. I guess there is slightly more ground in atheism, which is why I was attracted to it, but the route problem sill remains for me.
It wasn't long after considering the mind blowing conundrum of infinity that a silly thought popped into my head- that perhaps god went back in time and created himself and the universe? Or the universe or whatever.
I don't see why not.
For example, say myself from the future comes back in time to give me a ball. He got it from his future self, when he was me, meaning that in order to keep time in order, I have to go back in time and give it to him, completing the cycle.
Of course, the question is, where did the ball come from? It should surely be a paradox. Conjured out of literally nothing for no reason.
Well, I guess in relation to the universe, that would make 'me' god and the ball the universe. It made sense to me, for whatever reason. I suppose it didn't really explain god or his time traveling abilities, so I wrote it off and continued as an atheist.
I later refined the theory however. What if god created the universe, which created me, which allowed me, or, to be more accurate, humanity, to create him? That actually appeared to be far more complete to me, as it justifies every existence.
But, how would WE create god?
As far as I'm concerned, we did it the moment thought of the very concept, even before we had a name. If we tried to provide an explanation for the beginning of everything, then that would justify ourselves. It also seemed rather perfect- no one entity would be able to survive without each other.
No god with no humans.
No universe with no god.
No humans with no universe. Or, by humans, maybe I should say sentient life.
Humans came much later though. The universe wouldn't be able to exist before then, time pradox!
Not if we have a closed time loop...
Well, yes, combined with the time loop, to me it makes sense for the universe to have began not when the universe began (Yes I just said that) but when sentient life first observed the universe. And of course, when our ancestors first observed, it would obviously be a place perfect for sustaining life.
The universe is infinite, and life can only be born in very specific conditions.
So, naturally life would begin somewhere where every need is accounted for.
No real relevance behind earth being suspiciously perfect for holding life...
it was just inevitable, when you do the math.
I still wasn't entirely satisfied I guess... Ok, it did for a while, but now I've got a couple of facts and a far more concise argument.
Just what is god anyway?
I mentioned that we created him the moment we put him to concept.
But did I mean the christian god, or any other god for that matter?
I referred to all of them, yet none of them.
For I believe that 'god' a term which is becoming increasingly clear to me wont work for the current depiction I am about to bring up, isn't actually 'sentient' in the strictest sense.
I don't believe that god is god, but I DO believe that god as A CONCEPT is god.
Cultures used god to explain the unexplainable- but why are they all so different? Well, circumstance and culture of course. It's all religion has ever been, a narrative to inspire and uphold a society. No one believes in any of the Greek gods, for instance, and eventually maybe even the major religions of today will be discarded and studied.
Heaven and Hell. Upholds rules, even if bad things happen to you, remain loyal and you will receive a reward.
It all upholds law and order- not a bad thing, in fact its a great thing. The Greeks had many similar things, such as the hero culture which promised the fields of Elysium to great warriors. Yes, not good or loyal people, but valiant warriors, promoted in order to entice the young men to take up arms and fight for their country. Sort of like making Uncle Sam into a deity I suppose.
I'm going a little bit off track. So what does it all mean? Well, I guess the punchline is that it doesn't matter. Made for ulterior motives or not, each religion ever, even stuff like the big bang, have at least one thing in conman-
They are all NARRATIVES.
Narratives and religion have always been the same to me. And the only difference between the two as far as I'm concerned is the degree of seriousness people take it. Every fictional character, from Mario and Sonic, Lelouch and Light, even bland people like master chiefs and other non entities are characters, just like Jesus, God, Zeus, Allah.
Even now, people take fiction kind of seriousness don't they? Take the life lessons of any tale and they could easily be applied to the real culture. Stomp on some goombas, save a princess! Even something as basic as that could probably be applied to something like the previously mentioned greek military culture. You know, just switch it around a bit.
And don't make me bring up Haruhism and The Chruch of Madoka. Facebook religions claiming to be 'Jedi' This is already happening, Jedis have ideals, and so does Haruhism and Madokism. They could easily be made deities, and too be honest since I've connected with them socially, I'd much rather follow any one of those (Madoka would be my first choice) than any other world religion right now. You know, if I had the choice.
Heck, going back to the Greek comparison, people have already compared super heroes like superman to the likes of Greek heroes such as Hercules.
I've had my far share of debates over which anime or game was better than the other- maybe we're slowly beginning to realize that religion and fiction are the same thing? And that they are both EQUALLY important in the creation of the universe?
Lets dig further. Narratives also have at least one thing in conman- they are all created by people. Artists.
So think about it- if narratives were gods, what would that make us? We don't just create gods, we technically dictate their every action. No free will. Even video games tend to have a set narrative and a specific amount of alternate endings.
Wouldn't that place us... above god? Without even being nearly so powerful?
God. A collective imagination.
Except that is an incorrect name, since the concept already exists. Thanks to Virtues Last Reward which I played recently, I came across a real life idea put forward a long time ago called the
Morphogenetic field.the idea behind it is slightly different to what I have in mind, and I'm likely not going completely accurate here, but the idea is the same-
Essentially, the field is supposed to be a 'database' of all human knowledge. Not just fiction and religion, but actions, science, language, you name it, and everything ever known by everyone is stored in this invisible field. Not everyone can access it of course, but I think there's an idea here.
My views are perhaps a tad more extreme.
That perhaps the morphogentic field is the basis for the entire universe.
Something we create, filled with not only knowledge, but endless imagination.
It would be so easy for something like that to be the ground work of reality- imagination knows no bounds. It could create an infinite number of universes in a heartbeat, I guess. It exists on a separate plane of course, no physical connection, but it certainly has the energy as far as I'm concerned. Enough to eventually cause a big bang perhaps? maybe that simply bogs everything down to Atheism again, but since gods and much more are included in the morphogenetic field, wouldn't it be feasible that literally every piece of knowledge and imagined fiction and religion ever created the universe? Like maybe the fiction is the energy creating a gun, and the evidence and explanations are like the bullet firing upon the truth of the universe's origin. Simultaneously, this would surely make everyone correct in their beliefs and wrong in their beliefs.
Ah, a paradox. Can't be wrong and right now can we? Well this is where I realized that I had been phrasing the question wrong.
"What created god?" Was my initial question. Putting aside the idea of 'us' I realized that I had been trying to explain it using something much larger than god, ie, another god, growing larger.
But now I realize that I was moving in the wrong direction. The answer lies in what is smaller than god, smaller than us and dust even.
I recall back to when Steve talked about his beliefs. That everything, in order to 'move' needs an action causing it to move. Well, yes, cause an effect is a scientific theory that has been around for a long while.
However, 'cause and effect' has been proven to have a few holes as time has marched on...
Specifically, the further we move downwards and into the quantum level, the less clear cut everything becomes.
The idea that there may not be a fixed order of events, and
quantum superstition.I'll let you make of those what you will and I don't desire to use them as definite proof, however to me that suggests that god may not even need to straight up time travel. That an action in the future, ie, creating the morphogenetic field, can effect an event in the past, such as the morphogenetic field creating the entire universe and by extension us. With this in mind, it doesn't even need to be a conscious decision that is required in the future to go back in time at some point to create the universe, in fact we do it every day, whenever we theorize or speak or whatever, I mean heck even lying is it's own form of narrative.
Science is something based on observation and calculation, and I have used the results of science to back up my argument somewhat. However, science in itself is a faith, requring that some facts which are true but otherwise unprovable will be required in order to keep up the very foundation of science's own logic. That means that there is a very real possibility that I, and indeed everyone else, could be very, very wrong about everything. And I'm ok with that if what breaks down my very logic is indeed a provable truth, or rather something that I just knows feels right... it will have to depend. Until then though, what I have discussed today makes the most sense to me.
There may be flaws and problems you can point out, as there are with all things.
But as far as I'm concerned, this has the least amount of giant holes of any explanation of the universe I've ever encountered, as it (perhaps very cheekily) works downwards into the unprovable, and the unknown, of course based on my very own sort of logic, that something larger than god explaining god makes no sense.
It has to be us, all of us. And I will believe that until proven otherwise. Until then, I would fully expect the rest of you to keep up your chosen faith, like I had any chance of swaying anyone's faith here anyway.
Simply...
I believe Imagination keeps the universe from collapsing in upon its self into a paradox of WTF!
(P.S seriously play Virtues Last Reward sometime most of I came up with today had a basis in that game. Well, how I refined it using quantum physics and the morphogenetic field anyway. It simply solidified concepts which I was already thinking of, and I can't thank it enough for contextualizing some of this stuff for me, even if some of it's theories aren't necessarily perfect.)
That's my take on it, anyways :3
But if something really great is made from something really simple, doesn't that make it more amazing? I mean, like, if someone built a normal skyscraper, not too many people would care. But if someone built a skyscraper out of Cheerios, everyone would be like WOAH LOOK A SKYSCRAPER MADE OUT OF CHEERIOS 
(Keeping it within the bounds of forum rules, of course 
Yeah, I'm not a scholar so sorry if none of this text wall made sense but hopefully it may have cleared things up a little *sweatdrop*
