I think the Gnostic notion is that the demiurge was acting without God's authorization, and screwed up.

I think Schope would agree. But regret doesn't serve a useful purpose, and things overall are distinctly entirely good.

Michael Ossipoff

Times were hard back then...

It might not be an exaggeration to attribute our experience-stories entirely to our own will, meaning that we have no to blame but ourselves. ...instead of speaking of a demiurge that created it.

I've said that each system of inter-referring abstract implications is quite independent of anything else in the describable realm, outside its own inter-referring context. That's consistent with attributing our life-experience stories to nothing other than ourselves. So it can be said that all this started because of our own (at least subconscious or emotional) needs, wants, or will-to-life.

Michael Ossipooff

Our universe seems to have a absolute beginning of space-time, so that means causality must extend beyond time. — Devans99

All known instances of causation entail a cause that is temporally prior to the effect. How can something that is causally efficacious exist "beyond time"? This is a key premise and is in need of support.

photons are timeless yet they change.

Photons (which are quanta of the electromagnetic field) don't change. Rather, the energy of the field ripples across space.

There must be a timeless realm in which our universe was created:

1. Something can’t come from nothing
2. So base reality must have always existed

No problem with #1, but #2 is more precisely written as: base reality exists at all times.

3. If base reality is permanent it must be timeless (to avoid an actual infinity of time)

Non sequitur. An initial state, with a potentially infinite future is not timeless.

4. Also something without a start cannot exist so time must have a start

The initial state constitutes a "start".

5. Time was created and exists within this permanent, timeless, base reality

non-sequitur.

Why think anything that is causally efficacious can exist timelessly? Abstractions (if we regard them as existing at all) exist timelessly, but they aren't causally efficacious. The universe is not "timeless" - it experiences time.

No problem with #1, but #2 is more precisely written as: base reality exists at all times — Relativist

I don't think time existed initially: that implies time did not have a start; would the rest of the week exist if you take Monday (the start) away?

So time has to have a start and there has to be something causing time to have a start; hence timeless base reality.

"So time has to have a start and there has to be something causing time to have a start"
Monday cause Tuesday, Tuesday causes Wednesday...So what's wrong with an initial Monday? Just like any other, it will still cause a Tuesday.

Abstractions (if we regard them as existing at all) exist timelessly, but they aren't causally efficacious. — Relativist

That's right, but specifically what else do you think that there is, other than abstract facts? What do you think that there is with objective-existence, existence other than its own context?

In what context other than its own, and that of your life, do you think this physical world exists?

If you claim "objective existence", "objective reality", "actuality", "substantive-ness" or "subtantial-ness", for this physical world, then what do you mean by that word?

There's no reason to believe that what describably (including this physical world, as the setting of your experience-story) consists of other than abstract implications and complex systems of inter-referring abstract implications.

Some Materialists say that they're more parsimonious because they don't speak of immaterial things.

But I make no claim about the existence or reality (whatever that would mean) for abstract implications, or anything else describable.

Materialists believe in the objective existence (whatever that would mean) of this physical world, and that this physical world is the ultimate reality, all of Reality, the basis of all, upon which all else supervenes. That's an unsupported belief in a brute-fact.

Michael Ossipoff