Kurt asked:

This maybe a very convoluted question...earth is in a solar system, our solar system is in a galaxy,
our galaxy is one of many galaxies contained within a very large universe. What is that universe
filling? and if god (be it man/ woman or both or neither) made all of this who are god's parents and
who are their parents etc?

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Your metaphysics have led you immediately into, what is called in philosophy, an infinite regress. To
make any progress this line of questioning will have to be abandoned. The range of empirical
statements you make up to "universe" can be dealt with by the sciences of astronomy, physics and
mathematics. The problems arise when your sequence enters into the metaphysics of space, time
and God; problems that philosophy has battled with since ancient times.

Deducing from your knowledge of the empirical world, you have fallen into the trap of making God in
the image of man, hence God requires parents, and so on. The absurdity of this line of reasoning
becomes obvious when you require to house, clothe and nourish God, to say nothing of his
involvement in sexual activity!! Even religion does not make such claims. Taking the religious line that
God is a 'spirit,' although I have only a hazy notion of what this means, I can tolerate it because it
seems to have possibilities beyond what I understand. However, being a physiologist I know more
about humans than most people, and to propose that God is a human would be a self-revealing
absurdity.

You have actually touched on the frustrating problem of origins, a problem which defeats science and
opens up a range of difficult to prove philosophical and religious theories. Both physics and biology
are held suspect simply because they have had to invent their own ideas of origins, the Big Bang in
the case of physics, and the accidental formation of proteins in mud pools in the case of biological
origins. Neither of them to my mind is very convincing. Even when we put aside the origins and start
half-way up the ladder, as both physics and biology do, to say that there is such a thing as an
evolutionary process which depends on a sequence of fortuitous accidents seems on the face of it an
absurd proposition. As for the Big Bang, where did the first primaeval atom come from? Unfortunately
science is tied to the matter myth and all its theories are blinkered by this. Whereas philosophy can
offer a range of possibilities beyond the paralysing confines of alleged material reality. Scientists are
not mystics and they will always seek to explain strange phenomena in terms of empirical/ material
solutions. They are reluctant to admit that answers can be obtained from anything other than naive
reality, and if answers to phenomenal events cannot be produced, they are simply suspended in the
confident belief that there will eventually be a 'natural' solution to the event, whatever that means.

You ask what the universe is filling, again, there is something here to do with naive reality in your
concept. Stated simply you seem to be making the suggestion that there is a vast amount of matter
which has to be contained in something, a bit like a gas filling a spherical flask. The question is
asking: What is the flask like? What is the flask made of to be able to contain all this matter and
restrict its expansion? Again, such a question is based on empirical evidence drawn from everyday
experience. The problem does not seem to be about containers, but space and time, or space-time
as we now understand it. Events in the universe occur within space-time, not within some mysterious
container. Space limits the universe within three dimensions. An event is identified by a 'world point'
in a four dimensional continuum. The four points are, three points of space and one of time.

Given that science has had to admit that when we try to study material reality by reduction, i.e.
looking at smaller and smaller constituents, we enter a reality very different to the common concept,
away goes cause and effect and we find ourselves in a universe of random events, an unpredictable
world of quantum events where matter seems to pass in and out of existence. MATTER?!! Whatever
am I talking about.

John Brandon