My Faith

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====== Who created God? ======
===== The problem =====
Since we weren't there, we don't know, or at least we can't prove, how the universe was created. So, when we say that God did it, aren't we just kicking the can down the road? Who or what created God?
===== My answer =====
The simple answer to this question is that the God that I believe in wasn't created. He has always existed, so he was not created and therefore does not need a creator.

I understand that this answer may not be very satisfying to a non-believer though. Let me try it another way.

These ideas will make the most sense to someone that plays computer games that simulate worlds to some extent. I am thinking specifically of Role-Playing Games (RPGs), Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs) and First Person Shooters (FPSs).

For those unfamiliar with these types of games, I'll give a brief explanation. All of these games simulate a world, and the more ambitious ones may even simulate a universe or some portion of one. Some of them attempt to model our own world to some extent, but for others, the world being modeled exists only in the designers' imaginations. All of these worlds have their own rules and laws that govern them. Within the framework of the simulation, these are just as real as our rules and laws are to us in our world. They have their own laws of physics, their own concepts of real and ethereal, etc. Within these worlds, there are two main types of beings, those that are controlled by someone from our reality that is "logging in" to the simulated world and those that exist entirely within and are fully controlled the simulation. The ones controlled from outside are called Player-Controlled characters (PCs) while those controlled by the game are called Non-Player Controlled characters (NPCs). There is a lot more that could be said about these games but for the purpose of this answer, the concept of the framework of the simulation and the PCs and NPCs that inhabit it are all that we really need.

So, let's say that the NPCs in this simulated game world become conscious and start to wonder where they came from. They might, through scientific exploration, begin to understand that they lived in a digital world that was governed by a programming language. Their understanding of and access to this computer code would be limited and their overall perception of it would almost certainly be inaccurate. I can imagine though that they would wonder where this code came from, was it created and if so, who created it? It would even be possible, depending on the world programming, for these NPCs to get glimpses of our reality through artifacts in the simulated world or through interactions with PCs. This might lead the NPCs to believe in a creator that exists outside of the framework of the simulation that they exist within. They might even begin to wonder who created the programmer. However, within the framework of their digital world they would not be able to understand or probe the framework of ours.

I believe it is like that for us. We live within a time-, energy- and matter-based framework of reality. Our creator lives outside of that in what we may refer to as a spirit-based framework. It is impossible for us to understand this framework from within our own. We think of all things inside our framework as being created and therefore having a creator. This is because we live inside of time where everything has a cause-and-effect relationship where cause always precedes effect. This makes it difficult if not impossible to think of an existence outside of time where perhaps there is nothing like cause and effect. However, one can imagine that where there is no cause and effect, there could exist something that was not itself created.