God can never be science

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I disagree. Science can be used to provide evidence for God's existence, but doing so doesn't limit who He is.

It was a response to you.

If Angel says "I think God is like this because it says so in the Bible", that's cool. Ana can then disagree with his reading of the Bible, or reject the Bible altogether.
In the same way, if you say "I don't think God is like that because I don't think He exists because...", Ana can then disagree. Your argument is no better than Angel's if Ana rejects both your central tenets (empiricism and the divinity of scripture respectively).


If God answered prayers, wouldn't that limit him? It would stop him from being totally hands-off, for example.

That's not what this discussion is about. Ana says that if God gave us evidence for His existence, He couldn't exist. I say that according to the Bible God already did that.

Why would that really be a problem?

All beings are limited to their nature and character. God is God and only does what God does. That doesn't make God less omnipotent. God COULD be totally hands-off. But if God is both good and omnipotent, why would he WANT to be totally hands off?

Besides, if God was totally hands-off, wouldn't that limit God since God would be unable to answer prayers? It seems a more consistent characteristic demonstration of God's nature of goodness and omnipotence limits God to neither: God can both be hands-on by answering SOME prayers when it is his will to do so AND be hands-off when it is not his will to answer other prayers. The idea that God is limited is built on the false assumption that just because God CAN do one thing or the other that God HAS to do one thing or the other. Everything is POSSIBLE for God. God just chooses only certain things. He need not be subject to the tyranny of His creation.

Complete and utter BS, the bible, if presented in court as a witness account would be laughed into the comic store where it belongs, witness accounts written by people who we not there, talking to people who heard the stories 2nd 3rd fourth fifth hand decades after the supposed events should be deemed fallible in the extreme. Then there is the little matter of archaeological records or rather the complete and utter lack of them, then of course we have the glaring inaccuracies of the historical time line eg Herod who supposedly called for the census that forced Joseph and Mary to head home, died four years prior to the purported census. If you are really going to say that your belief is founded upon the witness testament held in the bible I think you need to re-examine what you actually believe and why you believe it.

One thing I am one hundred percent certain about. Science belongs in a science class while God belongs in a God class and the two should never ever be taught in the same class. In other words, Creationism is a big no-no.

Ana is a Douglas Adams fan, I gather?

Simple question: Is the god we are talking about in the natural order of things or not? If not, then science has nothing to say nor anything to do with or about a god like that. Science is exclusively about the natural order of the Cosmos.

ruveyn

Ancient texts are generally admissible in court. Otherwise, you don't seem to know very much about the Bible.

And it doesn't really matter for the purpose of this thread. The point was made that if God were to give evidence of Himself, He wouldn't exist. I find that to be an absurd statement.

However, based loosely on your response to me, I'd say that if God showed up RIGHT NOW in all His glory, that still wouldn't be enough for some people to believe. It would be dismissed as some bogeyman light show and that there MUST be some alternative explanation we just don't have the means to figure out just yet--some one-off right-wing, religious nut conspiracy. If Biblical accounts are any indication, it would be no different "proving" God to the present-day disbelieving world than it would proving God to Pharaoh.

I don't get all that bent out of shape over supposed Bible difficulties. I've only met one that was a little troublesome, and it had to do with which of the kings, I think it was Israel, ruled and when. At worst it's a misprint that got copied into the manuscripts. But, I mean, ONE error that bears absolutely no theological significance out of the entire record? Move along people, nothing to see here...

I've often wondered if prior to the fall of man and the subsequent wrecking of creation that ensued that Earthly paradise resided in Heaven prior to being placed in the cosmos as we know it. I imagine Heaven might have been some sort of Magrathea. How cool would that be?

I say that your second sentence contradicts your first. You brought up "Biblical evidence" and thus made this discussion about exactly that. I do agree, however, that original suggestion is somewhat absurd - yet no more absurd than any other claims in support of the existence of a divine being.



You thought I told AngelRho that he shouldn't express his difference of opinion - worse still, that he was wrong to? Such misreading between the lines is dangerous and can lead to all kinds of strange beliefs.



The relative value of an argument remains unchanged, no matter how bizarre the mind of a dissenter. Assigning value judgements of arguments based on what other people believe seems like an incredibly clumsy (not to say unproductive) practice. Of more import to myself, and in all likelihood others taking part in this thread, is establishing which god we're actually dealing with before further unfounded claims are made about his/her/its nature and being.



If, as you suggest, a being showed up and was the real deal, there would surely be no doubt as to the veracity of its claim. An omnipotent, omniscient being would have no trouble convincing even a single human of the truth. The existence of doubt would by itself disprove any claim that such a being was the biblical god.

What I am saying is God is outside of science. He is not a part of it. He cannot be a part of it. If he were, he would not be God. I disagree with the notion believers must provide evidence of God and you either believe or you do not. You should not ask a believer for scientific evidence of God's existence because the concept is impossible. It would be like a human with gills instead of lungs or a pigeon with hands instead of wings. These natural mishaps serve no purpose.

Then you agree with me. Science and God (or gods) have nothing to do with each other.

ruveyn

Yes! Exactly. I do not understand why atheists demand scientific proof God exists.

I guess for the same reasons that Creationists demand proof of the theory of evolution. The big difference is that the theory of evolution is support by vast amounts of empirical evidence. By the way, the believers sometimes pull the same crappy trick and challenge the atheists to prove that God (or the gods) does not or do not exists. Of course this is not possible.

ruveyn

No, I most certainly did not. I'm only speaking from MY experience. I don't KNOW what evidence there is for God/gods in other religions. I'm not concerned for other religions except that it's useful for me, and everyone, really, to examine other thought in regard to God/etc. to be sure that one's faith is based on something better than "my parents and preachers told me so." As it is, I do think a monotheistic worldview is more reasonable than a polytheistic worldview. For the sake of this discussion, I don't care to go any further than that; and like I said, it's beside the point.

MY point, which you seem to agree with, is that if a religious text documents evidence that there is a God and He interacts with His creation, it doesn't negate a God that requires faith to believe in (I'm not comfortable with that, but that's the best way I can think to say it--"faith to believe in" seems rather redundant, but whatever, I'm going with it). Faith has to be founded on something demonstrated to be real for it to be meaningful. The family van has consistently demonstrated it's reliability, ergo I have FAITH that it will work tomorrow morning when I need to work again. God has demonstrated His own faithfulness in the past, believers continue to find God faithful in the present, and I have no reason to believe God isn't faithful to me now nor won't continue to prove Himself faithful in the future. We already have the evidence; it's a personal choice whether we decide to believe the evidence or not.

Scientific inquiry isn't THAT much different. Data is subject to interpretation, and there's no guarantee that all interpretations will be the same or yield identical conclusions. Conclusions can by contradictory as per the nature of interpretation. To say that a God that provides evidence cannot exist is absurd at least according to one religious view; as long as that is true, Ana is incorrect in her reasoning.



It wouldn't disprove any such claim. Rather it would prove that God gave us our own minds to make up. To force belief and acceptance on human beings would suspend free will. Even if you don't believe in free will which, again, ironically, is up to you, you have the problem of people living in heaven in God's presence who never wanted to be there in the first place. Human beings HAVE to be allowed to disbelieve in God if they so choose. Even if God showed up, it doesn't mean all human beings would accept him. Perhaps that's illogical, but such is human nature. Not all of human thought is rational, and to compound the irony here, the ones who seem to be the most intellectual and most rational are, indeed, the least.