If Your God...

Post Reply New Topic

Irrelevant. The OP question was about people's gods, not the people themselves.

Of course it was irrelevant man...klaatu baradu nikto should have been your first clue.

Your whole idea is to strongarm any believer who tries to rationally/logically defend his beliefs into a corner and end up shouting "ha! illogical!" in triumph, because both you and I know that religion has nothing to do with logic.

I vote you for Spock in the next Star Trek movie.

But the United States is not all powerful, otherwise the entire multiverse would be filled with mindless moderates and left/right-leaning people who would vote for the current federal government forever.

But to be more frank, let us take a look at what if the USA of 2012 was somehow sent back to the Bronze Age (and without any time travel paradoxes; much like in the Nantucket Series.) This is easily within our comprehension, as, even if one does not live in the USA, almost everyone in 2012 knows of the USA in some form, while we have plenty of written records from the Bronze Age. Anyways, the USA would immediately use its population, several times more than the rest of the globe at least even during the Ramesside Period of Egypt, and its abundant, vastly superior technology, comparable at least to the difference in technological level between the Early Modern Spanish and the Guanches of the Canary Islands, to conquer the entire world. Shang China, the Hittite New Kingdom, the Ramesside Egypt, Assyria nor the Chavín Civilization could resist, even if every single person on Earth outside of the USA were united under a single command, the USA would win in less than a few months at the most. This is the closest parallel I can think of to an omnipotent, all powerful, god without any fear nor reason to fear any consequences of their actions: They can do anything. Of course, not all gods are omnipotent: The Aztec, Greek and Polynesian gods, for example, are not, but that is not the point: If there is an omnipotent god, s/he must want the universe to be exactly as it is, for s/he could change it at her/his discretion in the past, future, present or any combination of the former. I, at least, find that completely absurd and the actual omnipotent gods of the Abrahamic faiths are even more ridiculous and can easily be disproved from the inconsistencies with reality in their holy texts: The world is not 6 millennia old nor is it a disk nor is their any evidence of an afterlife.

There a quantum physicists who dare not say that there is a 0% probability of the Abrahamic god existing. Scientists in general are very careful people: either something is empirically true, or is not yet proven to be true. Of the latter situation, 2 possibilities: either it is actually untrue, or actually true, just not yet proven so. The scientific method (and propositional logic) dictates that we should err on the side of caution.

Therefore, I find it very natural if atheists/agnostics say that there is insufficient evidence to support the theory of an omnipotent God. This is true to the scientific method. But when they take a step further and claim (de facto) that there is sufficient evidence to disprove the existence of an omnipotent God...well then that's just wishful thinking and mysticism, not very different from the concept of religious faith.

Wut? The basic tenant of the scientific method is to disprove something. When a hypothesis doesn't stand up to the experiment you go back to change your hypothesis and test again. If something stands many different tests without being disproved it becomes a theory that explains something until something else comes up to disprove it. For example we thought that the speed of light was the "speed limit" of the universe until a couple of months ago when tests showed that neutrinos can travel faster than light. Scientists constantly test hypotheses. Nothing ever becomes true in science it only becomes a theory that can stand up to scientific experimentation.

In the case of a god, it isn't scientists' job to prove the existence of such a being. There is plenty of evidence already that shows the improbability of an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent being.

The problem with most of the arguments you typically see both for and against the existence of God is that the reasoning tends to be simplistic, linear and egocentric. For the believers, all-too-often, God has been hijacked by religion and their beliefs are shaped by people who have human motivations. For non-believers, all-too-often, God is defined as the God of the Bible/Koran/mythology etc. and once that God is dismissed, then the idea of any God is easily rejected as well. I think in order to honestly answer the question of the existence of God, you need to eliminate thousands of years of human baggage on the topic and stop looking at God in terms of his impact on humanity or individuals. The universe is way bigger than that.

I read a book a few years ago called The God Theory and found it to be quite an interesting read. It basically approaches the question from a scientific perspective and proposes that consciousness gave rise to matter rather than the commonly held idea that matter gives rise to consciousness. It's a heady book, but one of the easy-to-comprehend principles in it is that there was an original intelligence that gave rise to the universe and in doing so allowed itself to experience the combined forces of every single thing that every living thing experiences. Perhaps not all will agree with the theories that the book proposes, but it is a far more intelligent and scientific examination of the question than I have ever seen before.

It's the "no evidence of an afterlife" that really caught my attention...

You don't KNOW that there isn't an afterlife. The only evidence you could have for an afterlife would be if someone actually died--and I mean DIED--stayed dead at least one full day, came back from the dead, and reported to a number of people who knew the guy really well that there is life after death. That would a persuasive piece of documentation.

Now, if that had ever happened, it's just a matter of knowing where to find an account of it. Oh, wait...

1. You're absolutely right. We don't contradict each other. Look at the wording carefully: I use "empirically true". One of the ways we test this is, as you mentioned, by attempting to prove the impossibility of a hypothesis being untrue (proof by contradiction).

The verdict of the experiment is still pending, btw, so it may be premature to say that FTL is possible.

2. I haven't actually seen any evidence that "shows the improbability of a [god]", but I'll take your word for it. In any case, relating back to what you mentioned: it's not so much an issue of finding evidence of disproof, more a severe lack of evidence of proof of existence in the first place.

I find it weird that autistics are interested in this subject when religiosity seems to be a nonautistic feature. Atheistic nonautistics still see things teleologically: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/obs ... eir-lives/

Reasonable to guess that religious autistics are, in conventional nonautistic terms, atheist.

God gave people free will, and sometimes people use that free will to do evil. He couldn't give A without accepting B, which begs the question as to if A is really that important, and we are asked to believe that it is.

Doing the right thing holds much less meaning when it is forced, and not chosen. Parents see that when raising children. A person cannot reach their full potential without freedom to choose.

There is also the concept that everything needs balance, and perhaps a little evil is needed for the good to stay on course. That is more difficult to say; I don't know if it is true; but you wonder if it is similar to the way a little red paint hidden in with green makes the leaves on a painted tree more vibrant.

Yeah, I kind of know I'm in for that treatment.

The challenge, to me, is having faith despite the fact that it defies logic and so many questions cannot be effectively answered.

Once you realize the religion and faith are two entirely different things, the rest is easy.

Faith is to Religion as Love is to Romance.

Very true, I believe.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

God doesn't work the way you want him to.

Then what good is your god if He will not honor the promise He gave in Luke 11:9?

"So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." -- Luke, Apostle and Physician, quoting Jesus of Nazareth.

Either your God honors His promises, or He doesn't.

Either Jesus told the truth, or He didn't.

Either your faith has a strong foundation, or it is built on shifting sand.

Evidence please.