What God Are You Talking About?
There are too many God arguments without proper definition of the identity of the God in question. If someone is referring to the Christian God, Islam God, Hindu God(s), etc., then please say so. And if you're gonna generate your own parameters and consequently define your own God, then please say so too.
I would rather not see another argument based on the premise of an omnipotent God who creates a stone He cannot lift. I mean, Really? What/who the hell anything is this? How about that blind guy whose sight just happens to be okay? Ring a bell?
The un-philosophical answer you're probably not looking for - [hide]The blind guy could be blindfolded or blinded by too much light, etc. The omnipotent God may have overdosed on muscle relaxants (He can create those, right?), etc.[/hide]
I would rather not see another argument based on the premise of an omnipotent God who creates a stone He cannot lift. I mean, Really? What/who the hell anything is this? How about that blind guy whose sight just happens to be okay? Ring a bell?
The un-philosophical answer you're probably not looking for - [hide]The blind guy could be blindfolded or blinded by too much light, etc. The omnipotent God may have overdosed on muscle relaxants (He can create those, right?), etc.[/hide]
Comments (108)
Agreed. But that doesn't stop the hocus-pocus. So it's best to find better control of the discourse.
It's a debate no one needs any extra incentive other than a starting premise. However, by defining your identity of God, we get to see the degree of understanding you have. It prevents people from hiding behind vague screens.
But how can I be sure that you are a fellow human being rather than a bot that will only waste my time?
Perhaps if you defined what you are through some assemblage of words, it would help.
Then again, how could this be of any use?
Not just any strawman. Perhaps a jolly strawman named Bob as opposed to the clown strawman of many mocking faces.
Quoting Mariner
Quoting Wayfarer
That 'if' is my point.
Any further conditioning to an otherwise vague identity offers a volume of clues as to what the argument really is about. It paints a better picture for the context. Then again, a vague premise in the OP that would allow divergence into many different arguments might rack up more responses and/or address many related issues.
Choose wisely, grasshopper. :wink:
In time you'll understand.
As example, please prove that squirrels are capable of understanding the Internet in even the most basic manner.
I would argue that human reasoning isn't "small". So far, humans have the greatest capacity to reason than any other animal.
Also, our ability to reason says nothing about whether or not gods exist. Those are two separate issues.
Why would a god create beings incapable of understanding it and not being able to prove its existence like we prove the existence of so many other things? If that is actually how things are, I couldn't care less what this god wants as it has limited my freedom and capacity to think for myself.
"... the central Self, let's call it God, it’s All of Us. It’s playing all the parts of All Beings whatsoever everywhere and anywhere. And it’s playing the game of hide and seek with itself. It gets lost, it gets involved in the farthest-out adventures, but in the end it always wakes up and comes back to itself"
If (or perhaps when, to prevent a new riff on if) you read the rest of my post, you'll see that your point has no point.
Apologies, but comparing ourselves to animals is a very common logical error, in regards to God questions.
As example, a 12 year old would be more capable of mathematics than a 3 year old. But that doesn't automatically equal the 12 year old being capable of advanced particle physics.
The God idea is a proposal about the most fundamental nature of everything everywhere. And...
We don't know what "everything everywhere" refers to in even the most basic manner such as size and shape etc.
When it comes to ideas the scale of gods, we're like the squirrel who can see the computer monitor and the blinking lights on the screen, but simply doesn't have the ability to grasp the level of abstraction involved in the Internet.
Agreed. Our ability to reason is relevant in that it impacts our ability to do a meaningful analysis of questions the scale of gods.
An amoeba asks, "How could there possibly be something like this human being thing you are describing?? I don't see any!!!"
Aha! Proof!!! We have found God!! His name is Jeremiah!! All hail Jeremiah!!!!
Yet again - i will be happy to argue against any set of premises that ends with the conclusion " therefore theism is unreasonable"
Oh no you don't. I refuse to comply because according to the all knowing 22 year old prophet Jeremiah, gods are just made up nonsense. So forget it! Nana nana na na! :smile:
Well he did create squirrels.
Oh dear, how sad. Hope you feel better soon!
But you were the first to compare us to animals - namely squirrels. So, I'm not suppose to take you seriously now?
Quoting Jake
The God idea is ONE proposal about the most fundamental nature of everything everywhere. There are others that don't require the existence of a God and work just fine without it.
Hoof-prints in the sand could be caused by unicorns, but there are other better explanations for the cause of the hoof-prints. The same goes for the God idea. The existence of the universe is not necessarily evidence of the existence of God, nor is the God idea the only possible explanation.
What does it even mean to say that the "scale of gods" is beyond our understanding? What is the scale of the gods, and how do the gods know that there aren't "scales" beyond their understanding? How many gods are there? How do you know? What powers does one have that makes one a god?
...and cancer, AIDS, etc.
We don't understand why that is for reasons that we don't understand, but can infer are the same reasons for which squirrels don't understand those things.
Sure we do. Squirrels and cancer weren't created. They evolved from prior, extinct species.
Most species that have existed are extinct and all of this empty space in the universe that is hostile to life is evidence that there is no reason for our existence. We just exist. There is no "why".
Correct. You are playing with imaginary knowings, whom you seem to have become quite friendly with. Hey, welcome to the club. :smile:
Don't take me seriously. That will save me a lot of typing.
So, from the POV of God, there's no reason to not compare us to animals.
We are a single half insane species only recently living in caves on one little planet in one of billions of galaxies. This is very small scale, in comparison to....
The god proposal, which concerns itself with the most fundamental nature of everything everywhere.
BTW, I'm not trying to prove there is a God. I'm trying to prove that it's absurd that any of us could answer such a question. Yes, theists too.
Yes. Human beings are limited, like every other creature. It's logical to assume there are aspects of reality which are beyond our ability to grasp.
That is very strange being that we are made of the same stuff and share many features, and even share parts of our genes. Humans ARE animals.
This is a common widespread belief....
...which requires as much speculation as the God idea.
How could you possibly know "there is no why"? Are you a god? Do you have extensive knowledge of all properties of reality?
I think what you're really saying is that nobody has provided a "why" which you personally find to be credible. I have no argument with that.
It used to be absurd to think that humans could land on the moon. It seems to me that we are simply talking about how we see the glass as half-empty or half-full.
Yes, humans are animals. But the proper comparison is to compare human ability to the scale of the question being investigated.
Evolution by natural selection is one theory, and one I believe is accurate.
The problem with the god idea is that
1) there is no evidence like there is evidence of evolution by natural selection.
2) there are so many other ideas that would be just as likely as the god idea
3) most of those ideas could contradict the existence of god, so which one do you believe and for what reason since they all have the same amount of evidence - none?
There is the same amount of evidence for the existence of unicorns as there is for the existence of gods. Why do you believe in the existence of gods, but not unicorns?
If you really want to go down the road of questioning our ability to understand, then it is more likely that no one has ever had the right idea about why we exist, which means that gods are probably not the right idea.
Me too, but evolution neither confirms nor denies the possible existence of gods.
We used to think that we were separate from nature, and not animals. It is only when we took a more objective look at ourselves and nature did we realize that we are animals too. So from the POV of god (the most objective POV there is), we are animals.
I'm sorry, but evolution proves no such thing. As example, if there is some highly intelligent agent operating over our heads, evolution would be a highly intelligent way to manage life. Instead of trying to intervene in every particular situation, a system is implemented which automates the management.
Again, not trying to prove there is such an agent. I'm just trying to challenge atheism with the same enthusiasm that others reasonably challenge theism. This process is called....
Reason.
Manage life? Most of the species ever to exist are now extinct. If what you claim is the case, then humans are just fodder for other species. It seems like God likes cockroaches more than humans being that they have survived longer than most other species, and maybe cockroaches are the reason why "god" created the universe. What reason would "God" have to do this? Is "God" a scientist doing experiments? If so, then it really isn't a "God" is it?
This is why the nature of "god" is so important.
Yes, those species no longer well suited to the current environment are removed, to be replaced by other better adapted species. And god, should there be one, doesn't have to lift a finger because the system is automated. Intelligent.
That is not evolution. Evolution is not progressive, it is not designed, it is a random process. You are talking about something entirely different.
Not. The fact that species are no longer suited is because the environment changes, and continues to change. Environments come and go, the same environments coming about again - warm age to ice age and back again, so why not re-evolve those same animals, or why cause some species to go extinct when you end up bringing that environment back millions of years later? It would be considered inconsistent behavior if performed by an intelligent hand with a purpose. It is what is expected, however, if there is no intelligent hand guiding things.
What use does a god have for an automated system? Automated systems are for limited beings, like us, who aren't all powerful and need automated systems to do our work, because we are limited. An all-powerful being wouldn't need automated systems.
That can be the case, but it is not always the case. A random variation which gives any advantage over the existing population will be preserved by natural selection, and this can happen even if no changes in the environment occurred.
Yet we have environments that haven't changed and species that haven't evolved for millions of years because they are already the pinnacle of evolution for their environment. Sharks are a great example of this. So God created the universe for sharks, then?
Variation in species occurs due to random mutation, when a mutation results in an advantage then natural selection preserves that advantage. The speed in which this process moves will depend on the breeding cycle of the species in question, for some species this could take millions of years, while others, like bacteria, we can see it happening before our eyes.
I am not disagreeing that a shift in environment could create advantages and disadvantages, in fact, I completely agree with that and it has been proven factually true.
WHAT I AM SAYING, is that a change in environment is not the only relevant factor here. Ecosystems are a delicate balance and if a variation happens into an advantage that did not currently exist than that sub-species via natural selection will become the dominant species.
The good old "religion contradicts science and objectivity and is therefore false" straw man.
Throwing dice is random. The result is not designed. The dice and the system of throwing them are.
That'd be one of the best conclusions in this thread, were you not stating it sarcastically.
Agreed. And this proves exactly nothing about gods.
You should be looking for theists to aim these arguments at.
All I'm saying is that the reality of evolution, which we all agree on, says nothing at all about the possible existence of gods. Evolution neither proves or disproves gods. At the best it only debunks primitive stories about God's little workshop etc.
I don't care about that, just because I think all your gods are fake, that does not mean I actually believe I will be able to change your mind on such a topic. I have little desire to actually convince believers that their gods are not real. I understand how fruitless that task is.
However, there is far too much misunderstanding of evolution floating around on this site. It is because people receive a horrible education in evolution (especially in the USA) then they never bother to go out and correct this on their own. Even if someone borrows some element of Darwin's ideas, it is not evolution if it includes some type of design or direction, such ideas are not congruent with the totality of the process of natural selection. If you claim it is a divine process then you are really talking about special creation, but people don't like being associated with creationism they rather be associated with evolution.
As you can't justify this opinion, I wonder why you assert it as though it was a proven fact? :chin: Oh, yes. You're human. We often assert the truth of things we can't prove, to make our unjustified and unfounded opinions sound more convincing. That would be it, then. :roll:
I also don't think unicorns, faeries, leprechauns, etc... are real. However, no one seems to care about that.
I care. :smile: :up: I am a little worried about you, though. You are alarmingly willing to dismiss things without evidence. I thought you were a scientist? :chin:
I am 40 years old, you have no clue how "willingly" I reached these conclusions.
I wasn't being satcastic.
Sure it does. It shows that God would be indecisive or inconsistent.
I wish I could be there when you die and find out that God is actually a woman.
But I'm throwing them at you because you were taking their position. Now you're faced with a difficult question and don't want to play anymore?
That wasn't the point I was trying to make in the post that you just cherry picked.
Quoting BlueBanana
while you seemed to reply to
Quoting BlueBanana
which I didn't notice.
Of course they didn't! Their beliefs cannot be proven any more than yours can. I'm surprised you didn't/don't know that. :chin:
I was wondering whether someone would point out that wasn't 100% correct term for the context, but my point was that you don't seem to believe the conclusion that God created the world and the cockroaches as its greatest being.
Ya they tried those false equivalences for decades as well. I have heard it all.
I also argued that sharks could be god's reason for creation, or maybe some alien species that has been around for billions of years. If "god" has favorites, then is it really a "god"?
What is unreasonable, is believing that your reasonable belief is any better or worse than another reasonable belief.
Evolution happens according to the laws of physics and thus could be argued to be deterministic. Therefore a god could change some minor details before the creation of life to start a butterfly effect.
*Nothing about the existence of gods.
"False equivalences"? Fair enough. Then you will be able to prove your belief, that God does not exist? :roll:
I'm waiting....
I see you are eager to engage your straw-man by calling it a "belief". I have been around that boat more times than I can count, so you keep spinning if you like, but I am not playing those games anymore.
Not believing in something that has no supporting evidence is not the same as believing something that has no supporting evidence. They are two very different things, despite your sad attempt to treat them as equals, furthermore the idea that humans have such special knowledge is not compatible with the Law of Parsimony and is in fact multiplying entities beyond necessity. The more plausible explanation is that these notions arise from human imagination. And, as it is demonstrated with Russell’s Teapot example, the burden of proof is not on me to prove that God does not exist, the burden of proof is to prove that God exist, as it would be the norm with any such similar mundane case.
Let me know when you actually give this God concept some real thought, instead of just spitting up the same tired old arguments, that clearly have failed to convince me in the past.
In other-words you have no clue.
After I said that evolution works according to the laws of physics, you expressed disagreement. What other conclusion am I to draw?
Quoting Jeremiah
Where?
Quoting BlueBanana
Quoting BlueBanana
That won't necessarily help, you know, at least as far as the Christian God is concerned (I don't know much about the others, though I suppose I have the knowledge of the Hebrew God many who were brought up Catholic have, via what Christians call the Old Testament).
The reason it won't necessarily help is that Christians don't necessarily agree on God. For example, in talking or writing about God, certain Christians of a theological or philosophical bent came to describe him as being more or less like what Plato or a Neo-Platonist would describe as God, or as Aristotle would (Aquinas, for example), or as something else again, but in any case something vastly more than what one reads in the Bible. Jesus of the Gospels can become something of a starting point from which a "God of the philosophers" sort of being awkwardly emerges. Perhaps the early Christian Fathers were so intimidated by pagan philosophy that they felt it necessary to take on all its trappings but attempt to retain the Jesus story and the Old Testament through the careful and I think exceedingly liberal interpretation of Scripture. But Jesus has taken on many characteristics throughout history. Some thought or think him a revolutionary, a communist. It may not be possible to describe an acceptable Christian God.
It's not a perfect method but my hope is it could prevent from a lot of misunderstandings and unnecessary deviations in the arguments.
I want you to show the law of physics that proves the below statement and show how that law proves that the variation in species is not a random process, and in this instant by random I mean without aim, without direction, without method. As Darwin was very clear that this integral component of the natural selection processes was without direction, progression or anything of that flavor, and if that is not true, then Darwinian natural selection is not true. So I am very interested in knowing specifically what laws in physics disprove Darwinian evolution.
Quoting BlueBanana
Quoting Jeremiah
I have never said anything to contradict this, but that's not what randomness means in the scale of metaphysics. That's what seems to be random to us humans, arising from the complexity of the physical universe and our lack of computability required to fully simulate such systems.
You are wrong, Darwin meant without direction, it was a major contributing factor to his loss of faith in God. He kept seeing imperfections in nature, like beetles with wings trapped under their shell, which made him doubt a divine influence on the process. He was very critical to all versions of Lamarckism, and when Wallace diverged on the subject of humans from theses concepts his response was simply to write "No!" on his letter.
Darwin kept notes on everything, so we are not guessing at his motives here, as he clearly stated them, privately in writing then later in his books, and during his time (and still today) it was met with much resistance, because humans can't accept the idea that human existence is not special and instead is just the result of aimless mutation. However, without the mutations being aimless, natural selection makes no sense at all, as it would actually not be the selection process. It is a necessary aspect for Darwin's natural laws to make sense.
Furthermore there are no laws in physics that says these mutations have intent, and there are no laws in physics that shows god is directing evolution, your post was wrong on several levels.
FYI, I'm not a theist.
Agree - It seems you are more interested in ridicule than discussion
It IS about the existence of gods. If "god" was indecisive, then why call it a "god"?
That was a question of his personal faith and what he believed the God to be. If by direction you mean that evolution should have some end goal, some perfect being, I suppose that is false but I just don't see any point in defining direction like that and don't see what impact it has on any questions about any gods.
Quoting Jeremiah
Genesis 1: and God specifically remembered and wanted it to be pointed out in His holy book, that never was he to create imperfect beetles with their wings trapped under their shells.
Maybe God just wanted imperfect beetles to exist at this point in time. Why not?
Quoting Jeremiah
I'm arguing from the POV that god doesn't consider humans special, remember?
Quoting Jeremiah
Define aimlessness. When I think of that word I think of something that doesn't aim at a specific outcome, which requires a random outcome. Within determinism all events of the physical universe have a specific outcome so in that sense aimlessness doesn't necessarily exist. However, I think you're confusing true metaphysical randomness and practical randomness - things that seem random. Evolution exists under determinism because it creates a chaotic, ever-changing system that seems random and doesn't have clear patterns or a single direction it seems to clearly be going, from human POV.
Quoting Jeremiah
I didn't say there were, I said they were deterministic (under the assumption of determinism, I'm personally not a determinist).
Quoting Jeremiah
I didn't say that either.
And why couldn't a god/God be indecisive?
Why should I call an indecisive being a "god"?
Also, a god could, depending on the definitions used, exist outside time and view the universe as a space-time-block with time being the fourth spatial dimension.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Because not being indecisive is not the (usual) definition of a god. Some definitions do include it but it's not a necessary part of the definition.
Nothing.
It could be that some higher form of intelligence wished for life to be part of reality, but didn't want to be bothered managing it.
And where, you might ask, is the evidence for this higher form of intelligence? I have none. Just as throughout the history of science we had no evidence for a million things, until such evidence appeared. So what does this current lack of evidence tell us about the possible existence of gods?
Nothing.
The God debate is not powered by reason, but instead by enthusiastic folks on all sides of the question who desperately need to have "The Answer". And so these good folks, on all sides of the question, make up an answer out of nothing to serve that need. When competing answers threaten the imaginary answer which works best for them personally, they often respond to the threat in earnest, further fueling a conversation which rarely goes anywhere except to more of the same old stuff which has been endlessly repeated for thousands of years. And what does this tell us about the possible existence of gods?
Nothing.
What the God debate might accomplish if we were willing to look at the evidence of it's persistent and consistent failure to get anywhere at all is that in regards to questions of such enormous scale....
We have nothing. This seems like useful information, and it would be a shame to casually toss it away after so much work has been done. The vast majority of reality from the smallest to largest scale appears to be nothing. Maybe nothing is not such a bad thing? Maybe our state of nothing in regards to such questions puts us in to alignment with the nature of reality? Maybe this ignorance which we've discovered has some practical use which we could explore, if we weren't so very busy pushing it away?
Maybe the God debate could be redeemed if we would simply accept what thousands of years of evidence are shouting at us, that we're ignorant? Maybe it's not necessary to go endlessly round and round and round in the same small circle to nowhere? Maybe there's another way?
That is still very much intelligent design. I am not trying to prove or disprove any gods with Darwinian evolution, how people reconcile it with their God is up to them and I just don't care. I am correcting a common misconception about Darwin's theory.
As you're so keen on twisting the meanings of words and bringing up Darwin's personal opinions and beliefs, let's shake this up: is anything in the above quote relevant to the evolution?
God could not have created time just like God could not have created itself. It is something that is eternal.
Time is just a measurement of change. If god has intent and creates, or changes its mind, then God changes and would be part of the causal process. In this sense God would be part of the same reality we are. One reality - all connected by causation.
What use is creating a narrative for an omniscient being? You seem to be describing human beings, not some omniscient being.
Quoting BlueBanana
Sure it is. An omniscient being can't be indecisive. If its not omniscient, then who call it god? It could just be aliens.
"Being bothered by having to manage something" is a limitation of humans, not gods.
Gods don't make mistakes. Natural selection does. What we observe in nature is what one would expect to see if life was a "blind" (lack of intent) assortment of adaptaions of prior biological structures and behaviors. This is not what one would expect to see if omniscient intent was the cause.
That's very debatable. I think that if there's a God external to the universe that created it, then it's also external and superior to time, spatial dimensions and even logic. If you think of ancient, mythological or pagan gods, or most polytheist religions in general, gods are a part of the universe and can't affect any of those things. If the same God in the same context is also subject to change, that'd mean time is multidimensional or that God perceives (our) time as a spatial dimension and some fifth dimension as time.
I can accept the concepts and existence of both lesser gods and those with absolute and unlimited omni-everything, but the specific combination of omniscience and omnipotence but also being limited by the concepts of our universe and the existence within it seems weird to me.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Three objections:
1) God isn't necessarily omniscient, especially when written without capital G as in the earlier comments. Furthermore, there can be limitations to omniscience (see below).
2) Writers know what happens in their stories, yet people enjoy not only reading but also writing, not only for monetary gain, and people read their favourite books and watch their favourite films multiple times.
3) God exists on a completely different scale from humans - maybe their actions just are as ineffable to us as our actions are to less intelligent animals, or the actions of those animals are to bacteria. The subject of this discussion is God that doesn't consider humans of any specific value more than any other species, and wouldn't feel any need to grant us understanding of such issues.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Like omnipotence, omniscience doesn't have a singular definition. That is true if the being's omniscience includes knowing everything about itself and everything else within all spatial and temporal dimensions and everything else that may or may not exist. It's also true that if the being is external to our time, it wouldn't appear indecisive to us because even if it was indecisive in its own temporal dimension, its current state of mind and only that would affect the universe at that moment. However, there are definitions between these two. For example, there could be a god that is not external to time and whose omniscience only includes unlimited knowledge of the physical universe external to itself.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Breaking physical laws, existing outside our physical reality, extradimensionality or existence outside the concept of dimensions, immortality or lifespan long enough to be practically immortal, limited omniscience, being a creator of the universe in some sense, holding certain sets of supernatural elements to qualify classification to a minor god. Those are some things that come to mind are commonly included in different definitions of a god.