Do you believe in God?

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Whoever said I was talking about Yahweh? I'll have you know that in polythesic Judaism Yahweh is just one name on a list of about 150.

It's not stripping away or bastardisation if you don't believe in those other things to begin with. I didn't go... "okay, so I'll start with Yahweh, then I'll dye his hair blonde, give him contact lenses oh - and I'll give him some fake tan." What I have left in the end is my personal belief in God. Not yours. Not the Jews. Not anyone elses.

Yes you can claim something exists without defining it. Science is full of hypotheticals which are assumed in order for the laws of the universe to function but which haven't been conclusively proven. You could say that when a scientist suggests that dark matter exists - they're taking it on faith. They haven't proven it yet but dark matter's almost a household name. I could write dark matter on a piece of paper, point at it and say 'hey look, there is dark matter, it's right there'. But scientists are hedging their bets that a significant amount of the universe's mass is on that bit of paper!

Here's where scientists are on the timeline scale of proving dark matter:

Ages Ago - didn't know about it
Recently - had a theory about it
Today - still haven't proven it
Future - might prove it

Here's where believers are on the timeline scale of proving god:

Ages Ago - didn't know about it
Recently - had a theory about it
Today - still haven't proven it
Future - might prove it

Occam's razor has proven to be wrong before. It's catchy to say the simplest solution tends to be the most preffered but there are plenty of examples to the contrary. It's more like a bumper sticker slogan, not infallable law and it's thrown around as much as people say "that's un-American". The reason I state the concept of Ockham being christian is to prove that scientific rationale changes over time and Occam's law today could be discovered to be flawed tomorrow. Use it with a big grain of salt.

Hypothetically, if God is more than human and by following that - his/hers/its logic is more than what humans comprehend (again hypothetically speaking) - how can you expect to analyse its rationality by human means - such as Occam's razor?

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

Just because you have written god's name down a piece of paper or say it's unlikely doesn't mean you eliminated the impossible

Nobody, but you speak of God as one individual, not as a group, and you suggest that God created the universe (or set in motion whatever mechanisms did), so I can't really interpret that as anything but some sort of monotheistic god. Could be you're a deist, of course, but you haven't said that either. You haven't really said anything at all, and it's impossible to say anything substantial about something that lacks definition. All you've given is the word, "God". That says nothing. And unless you ascribe some attributes to that word, it is effectively meaningless and a description of nothing. To speak of something without a definition is to speak of nothing. Empty talk. And since you won't give a definition, I can only go by the definition most commonly associated with a monotheistic god. Forgive me if this is an erroneous conclusion, but you haven't really said anything.


That's not what I said, and not at all relevant.


No. You can't. A word without a definition is meaningless. To say that something which has not been given a definition exists without giving it a definition, is entirely pointless. "Blah exists" means nothing unless "blah" is given meaning.


Proof and definition are two entirely different concepts.
To define something is to ascribe attributes to a word. This makes the word actually describe something rather than just being a meaningless bunch of letters/sounds.
To prove something is to demonstrate that those attributes manifest in reality.
You can define something without proving it, but you can't prove something without defining it.
I can define the word "unicorn" - a mythical creature which looks like a horse and has a single horn on its forehead. I can't prove that such a creature exists, because I can't find one, nor can I find any conclusive evidence that such a creature has ever existed. But at least I ascribed attributes to it, which gave me something to look for. If I didn't have the definition, or if you went "no, that's not at all what a unicorn is", I wouldn't know what to look for. The word would have no meaning, and it would be pointless to make any kind of statement about it. If the word "unicorn" didn't already have a definition, I could just ascribe to it the attributes of an elephant, then point at an elephant and say "see? There's a unicorn right there".
The same goes for God. If you don't give the word a definition, it is meaningless. You could say "God's only known attribute is that he is divine", and then you could say "divine means 'has a hat'", and you could point at a random pedestrian wearing a hat and say "Look, it's God!".


You won't find a respectable astronomer or cosmologist who will tell you that dark matter exists. It's a hypothesis. It is a hypothesis with a detailed definition and some logical evidence suggesting that it might be likely to exist, but it is not yet proven, and no respectable scientist in the related fields will take on faith that it does. What's relevant to this discussion, though, is that it has a definition. There are specific attributes ascribed to dark matter, which would have to be proven to manifest in reality in order to prove that dark matter exists. Dark matter is not conclusively proven to exist, but it is defined as having specific attributes.


Wrong. Dark matter has a clear definition. Sure, you could write dark matter on a piece of paper and call it dark matter if you want to, but that wouldn't matter to the cosmologists and astronomers, as it's not the kind of dark matter they are looking for. They have much more to go on than just "it's called dark matter... go!". They have a definition, and a logical reason for that definition. Your piece of paper doesn't have the attributes ascribed to the hypothetical dark matter, and that is why your paper is not dark matter. This is why, if you wish to have any sort of argument, you are required to give a definition for God beyond "uh...it's God", or else I will have to make the assumption that the God you are talking about has the same attributes as usual. In contrast, if your god has no attributes, you have no god, which would make you technically an atheist.


Your talk of proof is irrelevant to this part of the discussion. Nobody is claiming with certainty that dark matter exists (and certainly nobody is shaping their entire life around the certain assumption that it does), and regardless of proof, there is one definition of dark matter. There are tons of definitions of God, and if you don't give yours, I'll just have to refer to someone else's definition for the sake of argument (or, if you prefer, assume that your god has the same attributes as void).


How can I possibly say whether your god is possible or not if you won't even tell me what your definition of the word is? The omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient God is impossible simply by being a contradiction of itself, but apparently these are not the attributes you ascribe to God, so tell me, what are the attributes of the God you believe in? If there are no attributes, there is no God, and you believe that there is a God, so all I can do is ask you: What is God to you?

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." This is a quote from Sherlock Holmes.

Dark Matter, when making measurements of the Universe, the observed mass did not fit the math, of Newton most likely, so Dark Matter was proposed as a fudge factor, to make the math work.

As the idea states that 90% of the mass of the Universe is invisable, but rules all things, we have the God of Mathematics.

I think the math wrong. My disagreement is based on not thinking the speed of light or time is a universal constant, now the math works. This is a much simpler problem, but still not accepted.

I do not believe, I seek facts that fit, math and basic physics, none of that string theory, dark matter, just the stuff that works.

The Universe is not random, how it came into being is beyond me, but since it has been around, it has direction. It took 10,000,000,000 years for the first stars to blow up, and spread matter, and in the second universe, that matter formed planets, and as soon as this one cooled, there was DNA.

DNA is about as complex as forming a universe from nothing.

Life is a hybred of energy and matter, some forms have not changed, others have, some survived, some did not, but there does seem a direction toward the more complex, and intelligent.

Much was by accident, most life in the universe would most likely be reptillion, and mammals a fluke of the rock. A mass experiment into what is possible.

A collection of facts form a pattern. Patterns show dirrection and intent.

I used to call myself agnostic, but then I looked up the terms and technically I'm an atheist. Also God seems less and less likely after a while, so I guess I'm more atheist now than then anyway.

Last edited by wigglyspider on 23 Feb 2010, 3:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?"
- Epicurus

The closest you could get to describing what I'm experiencing when I have a "religious experience" would be pantheism.