I am reading the Anti-Dühring by Engels, in it he proves the false arguments of the person who the book is named after. Engels goes from a varied array of subjects from philosophy, to biology, chemistry, physics, and so on.
At some point, Engels, while correcting Dühring, speaks about the theories of the beginning of existence and points out that Dühring is a supporter of creationism, e.i.: that there was a point where there was only nothing (absolute rest) and that out of this nothing, something came to be (motion). The only logical conclusion to an outlook like the one proposed is the existence of a God, which Düring rejects.
My question would be as following, what is the Marxist take on this, because if we assume the previous mentioned, we need to either accept the existence of God, or to believe there is some sort of unknown scientific law that allows the creation of motion out of absolute rest. Both seem very unlikely.
A third option is that time and matter have always existed since infinity, and that they will keep on existing until infinity. Which is the option that makes the most sense from the point of view of dialectical materialism.
From my understanding, though, neither of these three theories can be understood as “bad infinities” (in the Hegelian jargon), since they do not represent a contradiction in itself.
Do we have scientific proof that further discredits any of these three possibilities?
I also arrived at that conclusion, but forgot to mention it, by the way I did not mean to say Engels said that, but rather than that’s the logical conclusion you arrive by following Dühring’s logic. I just thought that time and matter being infinite was more sound, but I think that is also a very intelligent take.
Sorry to not make a better response, my knowledge in physics so far is reduced to basic movements and that kind of stuff, I kind of get what you are saying but not in a way to reply with coherence.
Forget me if I commit a mistake, I am not trying to say God exists, if anything I am trying to find the logical conclusion why it doesn’t, I’m just trying to understand all of this better, I am not trying to “disprove” dialectical materialism.
I just completely discarded the idea of God existing and went with the idea of time and matter being infinite, which I guess it’s also a mistake.
The idea of time and matter (or more precisely energy) being infinite is definitely not a mistake, and there is nothing i know of that excludes either possibility: a backwards infinity of time or a “something from nothing” scenario both seem like perfectly viable options that are so far consistent with all scientific observations. Yes the Big Bang is fact but that can’t tell us if there was or wasn’t anything “before” it. There is nothing in science that requires the existence of a god, it all makes just as much sense without one.
On the flip side if someone really wants to i’m sure they can find a way to insert a “god” (whatever that means) somewhere in the theory without causing too many problems if it makes them feel better, it’s just that they would need to be careful to not have this “god” act in such a way that it would ever have an impact on the universe that would deviate from the laws of physics/random chance.
I just don’t think it’s productive to either try to prove or disprove the existence of a god or gods. I think even just the concept of “God” is very ill defined - by necessity if not even deliberately so! Because if it were ever to be defined in a rigorous way that would mean it would be falsifiable and testable and that defeats the entire purpose of belief in the supernatural.
For me this line of thinking is a dead end, i am not able to discern any way to gain any real knowledge about the world from this intellectual excercise. What i am more interested in are the material consequences of people believing in a god or gods. And those can range from mildly positive or at least benign to actively and aggressively harmful depending on the belief system.
As with most things it’s not the conceptual idea in itself but its function in the real world that matters.