About the existence of a creator :
http://www.confidentchristians.org/resources_jesus/30%20Second%20Proof%20for%20God%20article.pdf
This logic applies to many things. However, the source which An
Eternal Now has read from actually denies this logic and in a
sense, contradicts itself. You have a box of lego, you pour them
out. they are unassembled. They don't move by itself. You don't see
that they will build themselves up into a castle or a model of a
building. The claim that living things originated from non-living
matter is FALSE.
In Buddhism, unlike materialists, do not claim that life and
consciousness derives from matter.
As my wise forum moderator Thusness said in the past to someone
else who said "
Consciousness exists with the human brain, that is clear...",
Perhaps if we were to live in the 17th centuries
applying the Newtonian viewpoint, what you said might still be
acceptable in the scientific community. Unfortunately, we dont. In
light of quantum mechanics and neuroscience, I think that is a bold
statement and you may want to substantiate it with some valid
scientific findings.
Loppon Namdrol states:
There are no merely five principles that govern empirical
reality in Buddhist theory, but rather six: solids, liquids, gases,
heat, dimensionality, and consciousness.
Hence, Consciousness too play an important role in shaping our
experiential universe. Karma, etc, in Buddhism are important also.
They are not mere byproducts of things. But there is no 'creation'
or 'creator' in Buddhism which are involved, only a seamless
interdependence and relativity.
• I exist.
• If I exist, then something must have always existed because
something doesn’t
come from nothing.
In Buddhism we do not hold on to the view 'I exist'. Because a
fixed entity called 'I' cannot be found. What we call "I" is simply
a convention, just like the word "weather" is just a convention,
but does not refer to a truly existing eternal identity. What we
find instead is a flux of sensations, feelings, thoughts, nothing
graspable, nothing that is truly 'I' or 'mine'. This does not deny
that we are conscious beings, but it denies that consciousness is
identical with something unchanging, static, etc -- it is something
totally dynamic, unfixed, empty of any independent or inherent
existence (consciousness dependently originates) yet vivid and
alive. This is something we can realise for ourselves when we
practice meditation, mindfulness, by clear light of awareness of
our moment to moment experience. The realising of the true nature
of reality called enlightenment.
Toni Packer explains well:
http://www.springwatercenter.org/teachers/packer/articles/whatisme/
Excerpts:
A somber day, isn't it? Dark, cloudy, cool, moist and windy.
Amazing, this whole affair of "the weather!" We call it "weather,"
but what is it really? Wind. Rain. Clouds slowly parting. Not the
words spoken about it, but just this darkening, blowing, pounding,
wetting, and then lightening up, blue sky appearing amidst
darkness, and sunshine sparkling on wet grasses and leaves. In a
little while there'll be frost, snow and ice-covers. And then
warming again, melting, oozing water everywhere. On an early spring
day the dirt road sparkles with streams of wet silver. So — what is
"weather" other than this incessant change of earthly conditions
and all the human thoughts, feelings, and undertakings influenced
by it? Like and dislike. Depression and elation. Creation and
destruction. An ongoing, ever changing stream of happenings abiding
nowhere. No entity "weather" to be found except in thinking and
talking about it.
Now — is there such an entity as "me," "I," "myself?" Or is it
just like the "weather" — an ongoing, ever changing stream of
ideas, images, memories, projections, likes and dislikes, creations
and destructions, which thought keeps calling "I," "me," "Toni,"
and thereby solidifying what is evanescent? What am I really,
truly, and what do I think and believe I am? Are we interested in
exploring this amazing affair of "myself" from moment to moment? Is
this, maybe, the essence of retreat work? Exploring ourselves
minutely beyond the peace and quiet that we are seeking and maybe
finding. Coming upon clarity about this deep sense of separation
which we call "me," and "other people," without any need to condemn
or overcome.
Most human beings take it totally for granted that I am "me,"
and that "me" is this body, this mind, this knowledge and sense
about myself which so obviously feels separate from other people.
The language in which we talk to ourselves and to each other
inevitably implies separate "me's," and "you's" all the time. All
of us talk "I" and "you" talk, we think it, write it, read it, and
dream it with rarely any pause. There is incessant reinforcement of
the sense of "I," "me," separate from others. Isolated. Insulated.
Not understood. How is one to come upon the truth if separation is
taken so much for granted, feels so common sense?
• Modern science has ruled out the possibility of an eternal
universe.
• Since an eternal universe is not possible, God exists.
In Buddhism, universes have beginning and end, but at the end
begins another new universe. It goes in cycle ad infinitum without
recoursing to a first cause.
http://www.mahindarama.com/e-library/whybuddhism2.html
"To those who talked about the
first cause of this world, the Buddha responded by saying that it
is impossible to find a first cause since everything is changing,
interdependent and conditioned by other things. Something that acts
as the cause in the present may become the effect in the future.
Later that same effect may again become the cause. Such phenomenon
continues ad infinitum. It is called the universal law of Anicca or
impermanency."