First Cause

[geo]

Just so you don’t think I’m only using Judeo-Christian theology, let’s look at how a great Muslim thinker argued for the existence of a Creator. Let me first quote from the Preface of “Tradition of Mufaddal”.
“All Praise is due to He Who Created, without Himself having been created.”
Here is a quote from a conversation Mufaddal had with Imam Sadiq.
[ Mufaddal said to Imam Sadiq: "Master, some men imagine that the order and precision we see in the world are the work of nature."
The Imam responded: "Ask them whether nature performs all its precisely calculated functions in accordance with knowledge, thought and power of its own. If they say that nature possesses knowledge and power, what is there to prevent them from affirming the eternal divine essence and confessing the existence of that supreme principle? If, on the other hand, they say that nature performs its tasks regularly and correctly without knowledge and will, then it follows that these wise functions and precise, well calculated laws are the work of an all-knowing and wise creator. That which they call nature is, in fact, a law and a custom appointed by the hand of divine power to rule over creation." ]

It's interesting to see how our idea of God has changed throughout history. From animism to polytheism to monotheism (although modern Christianity still retains its polytheistic roots with the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, and Mother Mary, all deities or minor deities). As human civilizations have changed so has our concept of God. And even now, we have thousands of religions, all with different notions of God and how we should worship him. For example, many religions baptize infants while others believe that only adults should be baptized. These obviously are human customs passed down for many generations. A ritual cleansing by water is something practiced by early humans, but that cleansing means something very different now then it did then.

Humans seem to have evolved a sense of something greater than us. Even as children, we naturally assume that rocks, rivers and birds have been created for a specific purpose. And we naturally come to believe the mind is separate from the body. Each cultures puts its own anthropomorphic stamp on this mystical entity, giving it the name of God and worshipping it in the way that is prevalent in that culture. There is no one true religion. There'ss only subjective belief, but it's based on our common evolutionary heritage.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 88208.html

[bionov]

Here’s a quote from Pope John Paul II given at a 1981 Vatican conference on cosmology.
‘Every scientific hypothesis about the origin of the world, such as the one that says that there is a basic atom from which the whole of the physical universe is derived, leaves unanswered the problem concerning the beginning of the universe. By itself science cannot resolve such a question….’ The pope then quoted Pope Pius XII as saying, ‘We would wait in vain for an answer from the natural sciences which declare, on the contrary, that they honestly find themselves faced with an insoluble enigma.’
P.S. By the way, Steven Hawking misquoted the Pope in his book, “A Brief History of Time” as stating; ‘it was all right to study the evolution of the universe after the Big Bang, but we should not inquire into the Big Bang itself because that was the moment of Creation and therefore the work of God.’

[johnson1010]

scientists have not answered the question.

But if anything has any chance of ever doing it, it's doing research on the real world, rather than making things up.

Cannot is a rebuff to further investigation. Have not is an invitation to try.