A Response to “A Wonderful Conversation”

This post is a follow-up to the one from November 11, 2021 which related a conversation I had with my friend whom I called Steve. A reader responded with the question below.

Sebastian Herrmann/Unsplash

Greg: Very interesting conversation. To me, the question of the possible existence of a God or god, or higher power vs. no higher power of any kind, is academic. Whether there is a God or not, don't we end up at the exact same place? The concept of God comes from our inability to answer fundamental questions. How did we get "here"? What is here? Where are we? What is this? The struggle is in our inability to conceive of the idea that something cannot come out of nothing. Yet, whether one chooses to believe in god or not, you're left with the same issue. Either human consciousness existed seemingly forever, or God/god/power, existed forever and he/she/it created us. If one chooses the creation idea, the question is, where did God/god/higher power come from? Eventually one has to conclude that we have a conundrum that is inescapable. Something appears to have come into existence out of nothing. I think that question points to the notion that our premise is incorrect. It's more likely that "something" existed forever. As difficult as it is to envision, if true, there is no need for a creator, because there was nothing to "create" in the first place.

Larry: Good point, Greg. The only thing I would add to what you said is that the nothing out of which something comes is actually everything. It's like my metaphor of the movie theater... you start with white light and you apply a filter (the film strip) which removes some of the information, and what you see on the screen is what remains. Conscious Being-ness is everything - it contains all possibilities, and we filter out what we're not focusing on.

Greg: Great point Larry. Thanks for the addition!