Theism is, scientifically, the most rational hypothesis
Scientifically, the best hypothesis is the one that makes the fewest assumptions, requires the fewest number of parameters that are not experimentally determined, and explains the most about the subject in question. The subject in question is the nature of reality and that if our universe.
The structure and dynamics of our universe is understood based on a set of fundamental constants, a set of forces, a set of laws, and equations that describe how matter and energy behave and interact. This is the science of Physics and it is through this science that we can make sense of what we observe both qualitatively and quantitative. With this as a foundation, let's consider 2 hypotheses:
H1: Established Physics can explain all observations and thus there is no God.
H2: Established Physics fails fundamentally and God is necessary
Current Physics does an excellent job of describing and explaining just about everything in the universe. This is not surprising because the science is constantly adjusted to fit all observations. The only requirement is that the properties of the universe are constant even if they were to change with time. Indeed, much of Physics is very solid and unlikely to change.
There are, however, problems.
First of all, the universe is not in steady state but began about 13.8 billion years ago. All the universe began at that time: matter/energy and space/time. Before time zero there was no space into which matter or anything else could be placed. There was also no time in which processes could occur. This event cannot be explained by established Physics. A number of proposals to circumvent this problem have been published. None of these can be explained by established Physics and thus are in the realm of science fiction.
Secondly, the properties of the universe are such that as the universe self-assembled into what it is today, life could form and indeed also intelligent life. There is no reason that the fundamental constants and other properties should be as they are. Yet, most of these must be as they are in order for life to form. Even small changes result in a dead universe. The typical response is that if the properties were not what they are we would not be here to ask the question. That misses the point. Not only does established Physics have no explanation for how the universe began and no explanation of the reality before the universe formed but it cannot explain why the properties of the universe are as they are since there is not reason for the properties to be as they are. A proposal, that there are actually an infinite number of parallel universes with all possible variations in physical properties, attempts to explain the this but in doing so it introduces an infinite number of unmeasurable parameters and thus it is not a viable hypothesis.
Thirdly, well before the "big bang" was proposed, scientific observations required that the universe had a beginning. The second law of Thermodynamics, a law often tested and always found to be correct, requires that energy be less available to do work every time it is used. Thus the universe started off at insanely high energy levels and useful energy has been lost ever since...converted to heat. Eventually this loss of usable energy will result in a lifeless Universe. Thus the Universe is highly tuned for life to come into existence but its properties will eventually extinguish all life. Physics can describe this in detail but not explain why this is the case.
The existence of God naturally explains all these and gives a purpose to existence. In addition there is direct historical evidence for the existence of God from the many scientifically impossible events performed by God and witnessed at times by few and at other times by thousands of skeptical observers.
The structure and dynamics of our universe is understood based on a set of fundamental constants, a set of forces, a set of laws, and equations that describe how matter and energy behave and interact. This is the science of Physics and it is through this science that we can make sense of what we observe both qualitatively and quantitative. With this as a foundation, let's consider 2 hypotheses:
H1: Established Physics can explain all observations and thus there is no God.
H2: Established Physics fails fundamentally and God is necessary
Current Physics does an excellent job of describing and explaining just about everything in the universe. This is not surprising because the science is constantly adjusted to fit all observations. The only requirement is that the properties of the universe are constant even if they were to change with time. Indeed, much of Physics is very solid and unlikely to change.
There are, however, problems.
First of all, the universe is not in steady state but began about 13.8 billion years ago. All the universe began at that time: matter/energy and space/time. Before time zero there was no space into which matter or anything else could be placed. There was also no time in which processes could occur. This event cannot be explained by established Physics. A number of proposals to circumvent this problem have been published. None of these can be explained by established Physics and thus are in the realm of science fiction.
Secondly, the properties of the universe are such that as the universe self-assembled into what it is today, life could form and indeed also intelligent life. There is no reason that the fundamental constants and other properties should be as they are. Yet, most of these must be as they are in order for life to form. Even small changes result in a dead universe. The typical response is that if the properties were not what they are we would not be here to ask the question. That misses the point. Not only does established Physics have no explanation for how the universe began and no explanation of the reality before the universe formed but it cannot explain why the properties of the universe are as they are since there is not reason for the properties to be as they are. A proposal, that there are actually an infinite number of parallel universes with all possible variations in physical properties, attempts to explain the this but in doing so it introduces an infinite number of unmeasurable parameters and thus it is not a viable hypothesis.
Thirdly, well before the "big bang" was proposed, scientific observations required that the universe had a beginning. The second law of Thermodynamics, a law often tested and always found to be correct, requires that energy be less available to do work every time it is used. Thus the universe started off at insanely high energy levels and useful energy has been lost ever since...converted to heat. Eventually this loss of usable energy will result in a lifeless Universe. Thus the Universe is highly tuned for life to come into existence but its properties will eventually extinguish all life. Physics can describe this in detail but not explain why this is the case.
The existence of God naturally explains all these and gives a purpose to existence. In addition there is direct historical evidence for the existence of God from the many scientifically impossible events performed by God and witnessed at times by few and at other times by thousands of skeptical observers.
Comments (204)
i agree with most of this. The parts i'm not sure about i would have a hard time proving them wrong, such as whether matter didn't always exist. I believe matter always existed but i don't work for CERN so i'm not going down that rabbit hole. Even if you wanted to argue with me about that i couldn't produce a good argument in my favor.
Why does it have to be a person? Why can't it be a force, or Form, or Confucian Heaven, or pure potentiality? Also, there sure are things that have happened that science can't explain. But what is science? Much of it is speculation. Add some speculation about other dimensions, for example, and you have an explanation for "miracles" without positing a guy out there
Basically science tries to disprove everything, and when something just can't be disproved we accept it...for now. So a most rational hypothesis is something that can be very clearly disproved, and tested to see if it can be disproved.
this assumes creatio ex nihilo, which is an illogical concept truly, if you want further reading, here.
anywho, if we assume god doesn't abide by the laws of logic, then it would defeat the point of trying to prove him using science or logic, or the universe really.
Quoting Marco Colombini
1- how are you so sure changes would result in a dead universe? that assumption would require you to actually verify in such universes, we know that we would be dead there, but what about different forms of what we call life?
2-this is just a reformed version of the teleological argument, which truly doesn't prove god's existence, a good counterargument would be that our universe is actually terrible for life, especially with the amount of dead space we know of and radiation and explosions, it is completely hostile to life actually, we might be a tiny probability that happened, so its ignorant to assume the universe is fit for life.
Quoting Marco Colombini
The universe is terribly tuned for life to exist, and you just proved it, the universe will end one day, that is the most terrible for life, for it to end, the universe is pretty hostile
Quoting Marco Colombini
one no it doesn't at all as explained above, the existence of a first mover? maybe if we do some scientific gymnastics with the Kalam argument.
I would love to see any direct historical evidence lol.
Unless you subscribe to a specific ontology like Thomism, you should have said "God or Gods" and said "theism or polytheism" in the title
Quoting Marco Colombini
Given that the theism I'm familiar with is the kind where a person in serious trouble screams at the top of his lungs, "Oh God! Please help me!", I feel sad to inform you that our ancestors, those who first thought of God, probably had a really really bad time.
Are there many Gods? The only information on that matter comes not from science but from statements attributed to God.
Science is about observation and more importantly, demonstration. We all believe in science because the magic works, not because it has this or that method that we have a theory makes our knowledge secure or because the jigsaw pieces fit together.
Imagine all our machines suddenly stop working because 'it's God's will'. Faith in science would last about 10 minutes.
Is the Universe hostile to life? Yes in a sense it is. However, the fundamental conditions for life to form at all are very difficult to achieve and our science only understands these in a very limited way. For example, if all there was in the Universe is Hydrogen and Helium, life could not possibly exist. A small change in the fundamental constants of the Universe would have that result. If there were no carbon atoms, there would be no life as we know it. Again, it is well understood that the amount of carbon is critically dependent on the energetics of subatomic particles. A small change would not allow sufficient carbon to exist for life to form. Even the simplest cell is extremely complicated, relying for survival on the exact amount of interaction energy between its molecular components. In short, it is very easy to get the wrong conditions and have a dead universe. For a poor analogy, consider that it is very easy to assemble something that looks like a car but does not function...anyone could do that. Whereas it is very difficult to produce a working car if one is stranded in an uninhabited island. The information and skills required are enormous.
It is very easy to misuse logic because, unlike mathematics, words and meanings are not precise. The fact is that the Universe exists and did not exist. Did it come from nothing? All we know is the matter/energy with which we are familiar. Is there other "stuff"? Our senses can only detect our matter/energy so we cannot detect any other stuff.
Quoting Marco Colombini
How do you know this? Or it just an 'article of faith'?
Forget about the God part for a bit, and focus on the existence part. Instead of tying to prove or disprove any gods, try to prove or disprove that the "yes/no, exists or not" paradigm the God question is built upon is a valid useful paradigm which is aligned with observations of reality.
Forget about the competing answers for awhile, and focus instead on the question. If the question is fatally flawed, all the energy being invested in the competing answers contest may be for nothing.
As example, consider the question "what color is the sound of dog barking"? If we thought this was a useful valid question we might argue for centuries over whether the color was blue or red. If we just assumed the question was valid and didn't bother to examine and challenge it, we might wind up wasting a huge amount of time.
Absolute tosh! You have it all backwards. Because we can safely fly on a jet, we can have confidence in our scientific principles. Because the magic works, we believe in science. Because the magic doesn't work, we don't believe in Daedalus and Icarus or Seven League Boots or flying carpets. If we could safely fly on carpets, we'd fly on carpets and to hell with science.
I would say that Marco's faith (assuming he has a thing called faith) is the same or similar faith that the atheist has in his/her belief system. For example, it's a faith towards something that is Metaphysical or not Metaphysical. At the same time, in the case of Christianity, since Jesus existed in history, another question emerges as to what kind of belief or faith does that represent?
We have confidence in the Physics and so design jets capable of flying. It is true that the complexity of the process of flying means that we cannot be certain that the jet will fly properly without testing. In any case, the science came first.
Sometimes what is constructed teaches us new aspects of science but that is very rare. The science generally comes first.
Current settled science shows that the vast majority of reality at every scale is space, a phenomena which not be neatly filed in either the "exists" or "doesn't exist" categories, because it has properties of both existence and non-existence.
You are attempting to conduct yet another version of the same old God investigation that's already been endlessly repeated a billion times, based upon the assumption that a god either exists or not, yes or no, a simplistic paradigm which bears little resemblance to the complexity of reality as observed by science.
If the question being asked is fatally flawed, there's little chance a competing answers game will prove useful. But, nobody cares. All most "philosophers" wish to do is spew a bunch of fancy talk which they hope will make them look impressive, a purely emotional agenda.
1: serving no useful purpose : completely ineffective
// efforts to convince him were futile[/i]
--Merriam-Webster Online
cor·rect
/k??rekt/
adjective
free from error; in accordance with fact or truth.
"make sure you have been given the correct information"
Indeed. Logically, there is more evidence in favor of a cosmological God v. no God. As far as human (Being) existence, those of us who are Christian Existentialist's typically understand Jesus existed and was known to have a consciousness. The irony is that because consciousness itself is a mystery and logically imposible to explain, it is also logically necessary to exist.
Trips-up the Atheist every time!
Space indeed exists. In the realm of science, there is no question that space exists. Indeed, one dimension of space is time. As you know, we exist in 4 dimensions (there may be more). The location of everything in space/time can be defined by providing 4 dimensional measurements. If one wants to find someone or something, the location needs to be given in 4 dimensions. On Earth, the information may be provided in a simpler and cruder fashion.
Here's another example of mapping human scale concepts on to infinite scale speculation, a very common theme which seems to infect god topics from top to bottom.
Our concept of intelligence is derived entirely from experience on one tiny planet in one of billions of galaxies. It's a useful concept for comparing humans to other creatures on this planet. How much relevance this very local phenomena has to the rest of the universe (vast beyond comprehension) let alone any gods is completely unknown. Declaring a god to be intelligent makes about as much sense as claiming god has a long white beard. If there is some source of reality which isn't purely mechanical, it's nature is most likely so far different than our own that we wouldn't have words to describe it.
God investigations based on attempts to generate knowledge have been going on for thousands of years, and have been led by some of the greatest minds among us on all sides, and all efforts to demonstrate the existence or non-existence of God have failed to prove anything at all. This should raise the question of how many more centuries do we intend to keep on doing the same thing over and over, while expecting this will somehow someday lead to different results.
Ah good, then you should be able to tell us how much a cubic mile of space weighs. But you can't, because space has no weight or mass, thus defying our definition of existence. But wait, there is some phenomena between the Earth and Moon or they would be one. So we can't say space doesn't exist either.
We want to shove space in to either the exists or not exists box, because that is how our minds work. But that is not how reality works.
Your argument, like almost all arguments for or against God, is built upon a simplistic dualistic either/or understanding of existence, whose validity is immediately brought in to question by an observation of the vast majority of reality, space.
Once this is understood, all supposedly clever arguments for or against the existence of God come crashing to the ground, and we are left with nothing. Which as it turns out, matches up with the vast majority of reality rather well.
How do we know that the mass of a particle increases with speed? Well, when charged particles are accelerated, the mass increases as described by Einstein's equations. In particle accelerators that increase in mass must be considered in order to control the motion of the particle and reach speeds close to that of light.
By the way, mass is not permanent. The collision of a particle and an antiparticle (e.g. electron and a positron) results in total annihilation producing gamma rays that have no mass. Mass is converted to energy as described in Einstein's famous equation, E=mc^2.
Perhaps there is another (valid) example of something that both exists and does not exist. I'd be curious to hear about it.
I agree Timmy, "there is no accounting for what some people say". It (some atheists) does seem to be a little extreme. :lol:
On further thought, I want to state that non-relativistic physics gives approximate answers that are as accurate as possible under "normal" conditions but is fundamentally wrong for high precision. It is wrong because it does not embody all the necessary properties of the universe. Based on all tests of which I am aware, relativistic physics gives not just better values but actually correct values withing the accuracy that can be achieved. If there is something missing in this theory, there is no sign of it.
There is another aspect to emphasize. There are models that merely mimic the behavior in real life. For example, models of the changes in the stock market try to predict future changes based on the shape of the curve. The relativistic equations were derived to embody quantitatively a property of the universe. That is true quantitative physics as opposed to curve fitting without actually modeling the underlying processes.
Ah, you don't fool me. That only proves aliens were involved, not God.
Nice; subscribed!!
:up:
Our consciousness is much like that. Consider driving a car while daydreaming then crashing and killing yourself. Was it our conscious or subconscious driving the car allowing ourself to kill ourself(?). In many ways, one could say you were driving and not driving because at the time, you thought that you were not driving, otherwise, you wouldn't have voluntarily crashed and killed yourself.
Consciousness seems to be logically impossible to explain yet is logically necessary for existence. Pardon the pun, but I too wonder if there are other things in life that are logically impossible to explain... ?
I understand, it is quite mysterious to say the least. Pretty much transcends many forms of pure/formal logic (as it should be).
I suppose kind of like multiverse speculation, what is your speculation on the so-called soul? What is it, comprised of photons? Though I haven't read any of them, there have been some books regarding the holographic soul, which presumably is based on the holographic principle in physics.
I know it's kind of sci-fi but I wonder how black holes enter into this picture, if you will?
Oh, and don't forget to hit the quote button when you post, that way the other person knows that you've replied by way of their email.
that "usable/ non usable" categorizing is very human centric, practically all types of energy are "usable" to the universe.
Quoting Marco Colombini
Carbon was formed out of Helium and Hydrogen, and how could you prove there would be no life without carbon? this is again a very human centric view, which is flawed, since we cannot imagine a being made differently from us, but you know the funny thing? we are creating a being out of silicon, in the form of AI, life doesn't mean only what's made of Hydrogen Dioxide, it means anything that has the process of living, so it could possibly be made of any material if it is characterized with living.
Quoting Marco Colombini
our universe could possibly be considered a dead universe already, if we look at it outside of our perspective, the universe is practically dead, and will be after we die,
this also explains something important, what if life could exist in a different universe but it never survives to be conscious, would that even be accounted as life then?
plus to add the point that you cannot truly imagine or comprehend other types of universes because we can only do so from our own which would be biased/contradictory perhaps
Quoting Marco Colombini
a car could be easily assembled by anyone, all you need is a lot of wood, and a rope, and it would be semi functional, it takes literal seconds to think of such a solution.
Quoting Marco Colombini
we can scientifically predict other stuff, like dark matter and dark energy, or for example string theory, and so on.
matter logically cannot come from nothing, it always causes a logical contradiction to try to prove so, the essay I linked should be an interesting read on so.
1) there are ugly things and ugly acts in this world. God sustains everything, so he sustains child rape as it is happening. This is against his holiness. But God is supposed to keep everything in place? So he does t exist
2) if God's nature were perfect, the world would reflect this. Sure, humans have free will and letting things happen to us can be for a greater good. But what of the suffering of innocent animals. Is God's nature so deficient that he can't create a world and protect innocent animals at the same time?
Q.E.D
I am assuming, maybe wrongly, that you mean the Bible. Well, the Bible says Jesus paid for our sins. The price for our sins was billions of people in the eternal furnace. Jesus suffered for three hours. So that theology is wrong. Also, the idea of an innocent man taking our punishment has God the Father saying "well at least SOMEBODY suffered pain because of these sins!!!". It's scapegoating. So again, the Bible is wrong
If you want to believe in Super Daddy and his son Superman, that's ok. Just don't tell us we have to believe in him too. I have a real dad and I love him. That's plenty of daddyness for me. You don't have to shroud the whole universe in fatherhood
So you are not a scientist but a philosopher. And one who is not very good at his job. True philosophers see things from every angle in order to see what possibly could be true. You are obviously myoptic. Above I clearly gave an alternative to theism, then I clearly refuted theism, and I clearly refuted Christianity. What do you say then?
:lol:
Quoting Marco Colombini
You haven't identified anything. And "settled science" only identifies the unexplained - whether yet to be explained or only explanable in principle. You've merely posited your own "unexplanable" (i.e. woo woo). Stop talking nonsense.
From a Christian college right? Depending on the college, it doesn't count. I have to go to work now. I have a real job. Not "spreading the Word" sheesh
Talk to you latter tonight
My use of the term usable and non-usable energy actually applies not only to human activity but all activity by both animate and inanimate objects. The technical term is entropy and that always increases overall, although living organisms decease it locally (for themselves) only to increase it in the environment by a greater amount. A simple, perhaps too simple, example is a wind-up toy. Energy is put into the toy by winding up the spring. What happens to it...motion, sound...but eventually it all becomes heat. All the energy becomes unusable. Fresh energy is needed to wind the spring up again.
The universe started as a giant wind-up toy...enormous energy. That energy allowed the universe to self-assemble and allowed life to form. The usable energy is being converted into non-usable energy. Stars will run out of fuel. That will not be replaced.
There is a bottleneck in the formation of elements. The simultaneous fusion of 3 He atoms is needed to for carbon. There are no other pathways. If the energy levels are not quite right this reaction will not occur and further formation of elements will not take place. No matter what science fiction says, no life can exist with only two gases, or two liquids it the temperature were low enough.
Well, in my humble opinion, AI is not and will never be alive. It is very useful but is not life. It is an imitation of life. Silicon-based life has been speculated but there are many mechanistic problems with silicon. One obvious problem is that oxidation of silicon produces a solid that is difficult to eliminate if that is an end product of an energy-generating reaction.
I do not understand why the death of any individual would mean the death of the universe. A dead universe is one in which there is no life anywhere.
One can imagine many things, most of which do not exist.
By building a car I was referring to a complex object that requires high levels of technology and expertise to produce....just replace car by a fully functional Tesla or a fully functional 747 jetliner.
Dark matter, dark energy, string theory are all hypothetical proposals to try to explain observations or advance scientific theory. These were not predicted but proposed. In my opinion, the first 2 are likely to be valid. I have reservations regarding string theory...but that is not my area of expertise.
My point was that a scientific degree is historically a degree in philosophy. Ph.D. is doctor of philosophy in a particular sub-area. I was just bemoaning the separation between science and philosophy. Both seek to understand our world.
As to light following "world lines", that is too simplistic...sorry to say. Despite having zero mass, photons are still attracted to matter by gravity. Yes, gravity can be understood as a distortion in space but that distortion (or strength of attraction) depends on the mass of the massive object and the "mass equivalent" of the photon, which depends on the energy of the photon. Thus a microwave photon, a light photon, and a gamma ray photon will be affected to different extents. Are they each following different "world lines"?
By the way, everyone has knowledge that they can share and I hope to learn for these discussions as much as I share of my knowledge.
God as the answer to any unanswered question.
Inspiring only pathos.
As a general rule of thumb, yes, but to actually analyze two completely different hypotheses with conflicting ontologies it becomes difficult to say which one is making more assumptions than the other. If this is some short hand representation of Occam's razor then you are making the assumption that the hypotheses in question do actually explain all required observations while being similar enough to compare which ever hypothesis is found to be extraneous (easier said than done).
Quoting Marco Colombini
Sure, in principle the fewest amount of experimentally unobservable ontological/metaphysical entities/assumptions would be preferred.
Quoting Marco Colombini
The nature of reality or the nature of anything is inherently unknowable as the only things we have access to are our sensory perceptions and the pragmatic epistemological idealism we would use to then analyze said perceptions or abstract from them.
Quoting Marco Colombini
Here the ontological rub in that the universe is "understood" or better yet "described" by these laws which we assume (even with skeptical outlooks on the ontology implied by such a theory) better match the behavior of said entities that would constitute our universe or the nature of them that guides their actions. I'll also note that energy is obviously a purely mathematical entity especially since (via Noether's theorem) we only get energy conservation from our laws if the laws in question are mathematically time translation invariant, energy here being some mathematical entity that is conserved.
Quoting Marco Colombini
H3: Physics (nor any other philosophical speculation) falls by the wayside if it seeks to establish or explain the nature of our experiences (an issue in its own right) and rather physics creates predictable models upon which to map reality.
Basically I take issue with the word "explanation" here as we are doomed to be slaves to our personal experiences and the true nature of the things we experience is always locked away from our grasp. The description of reality and where these descriptions extend to/apply is what we should be concerned with not any prescriptions you are supposing.
Quoting Marco Colombini
Okay.
Quoting Marco Colombini
Yes, these explanations are in the realm of science fiction just as much as this interpretation (the ex nihilo one) of the big bang theory is. Every scientist/physicists who are atheist/theist have regarded the description that general relativity gives of reality as incomplete and in need of amending meaning any interpretation of spacetime/matter beginning 13.8 billion years ago would have to possess one hell of a reason to extend this theory with its understanding of spacetime (something also not cleared up by general relativity in spacetime philosophy) to places so for out of our testing of it that we have to admit infinities in the mathematics (infinite temperature, infinite density, etc). It's incomplete and if all modern day physics attempts to amend such a theory (as it's INCOMPLETE) would not validate using a particularly extreme interpretation of the theory with a particular interpretation of spacetime (not accepted by all physicists/philosophers) that can even begin to handle when temperatures arise to such a degree. This spacetime interpretation of general relativity isn't even that clear cut as other positions have arisen over the years with some taking spacetime as emergent/fundamental/coexistent with matter.
Quoting Marco Colombini
There is no reason these fundamental constants should be the way they are as far as were aware (we haven't discovered it yet if there is one) but there also isn't any reason that such fundamental constants could have been one of infinitely many others/a finite set or this is the only truly possible universe to exist (speaking about metaphysical/nomological possibilities and not conceptual ones). Basically while this is left unknown to us we cannot speculate on probability or possibility of this particular universe without first knowing what truly possible universes could have come about. You and I can consider many conceptually different universes but with respect to what universes could actually exist we do not possess knowledge (nor know how we could attain it) to specify what greater restrictions there are on what can exist.
The multiverse theory, if there is a viable example, would have to possess testable hypotheses and hold up to extreme scrutiny to be considered. Though, it still could be viable and where you say "infinite number of unmeasurable parameters" I don't know whether you mean the parameters given can vary along a segment of the real number line or that there actually are infinite adjustable parameters that are also each adjustable along the real number line. . . something I don't think any modern multiverse theory has the complication of being so.
Quoting Marco Colombini
Well in my eyes physics nor philosophy where ever "explain" (define this term) these aspects of our world if at best we only ever know that they exist and all other bridges of investigation have burned down you have to be realistic or become comfortable with not knowing.
Though, when it comes to the second law of thermodynamics and then intermix that with quantum mechanics you can get momentary as well as unlikely but not impossible reversals of thermodynamics. Under certain quantum theories given an un-ending future no matter how unlikely the possibility sooner or later you could have a spontaneous reversal of thermodynamics resulting in, yes, a new big bang. If you wanted to get at what the best descriptions of how our universe works we would need to incorporate quantum mechanics which does possess such violations on smaller scales as well as theoretical ones (via the same model) on much larger scales.
Quoting Marco Colombini
You have a burden of proof and now you must respect such a burden by first defining what a god is and how you know this particular being exists. Then go into how this god concept can give us a predictively successful model of reality that is better than any given previous.
Also, on the "thousands of skeptical observers" if you are talking about the miracle of Fatima no other person/scientist on earth noticed any changes in the suns positions (especially gravitationally) nor did anyone else report it as such doing rather strange behaviors but if you are talking about Jesus performing miracles to thousands in the bible note that the central claim here is that there were thousands (no second hand reports were given) so we cannot know that thousands actually said such an action was performed (or that these thousands actually existed).
Light isn't pure energy that's sort of a misnomer.
Quoting Marco Colombini
Here you're are using the word universe which i'm assuming you mean as what we can see through telescopes as the greater cosmos (existing stuff beyond our sight or disconnected from our spacetime) is not accessible to us and we have not reason to rule it out or in.
Quoting Marco Colombini
Intelligence has nothing to do with it unless you think that the intelligence we possess allows us to walk through walls. We can manipulate loosely the reality that surrounds us as well as makes us up but creating it extends this analogy so far that you would have to specify how you know an extremely intelligent being could do so.
Quoting Marco Colombini
You still haven't defined god without vagueness/incoherency so how can be so confident without telling us what to be confident in clearly existing.
Quoting Marco Colombini
You gave a false dichotomy and misunderstanding as to me (a sort of pragmatic epistemological idealist) at most the only thing we can do is create concepts to describe how things act/behave/relate to each other but the true nature of them is philosophically left by the way side. We can only describe things and if there is something inconsistent with our descriptions then we switch it up and create new ones that better describe it. . . perhaps we could speculate that were getting closer to matching reality but we will always be one step behind it.
You also haven't defined god so we can't investigate whether it's or is not successful in better explaining our observations or in other terms better describing them.
Quoting Marco Colombini
Well matter is just an umbrella term for stuff which isn't a measure and the mass or inertia of objects isn't something that is conserved. Energy, even in our universe, due to general relativity isn't much conserved since energy requires time translation symmetry.
Quoting Marco Colombini
Again, you should specify by universe you mean observable universe which in the form it's right now may not have once existed (the matter that consists of it still did). You'll have to specify how creation from nothing actually is even a coherent concept in its own right.
Quoting Marco Colombini
Not exactly as you would need to consult spacetime philosophy on this. . . start here.
Quoting Marco Colombini
Not really. . . first the equation is incomplete as it's E^2 = (mc^2)^2 + (pc)^2. Second, energy is a largely mathematical entity involved in the description of the behvaior of matter and here you don't exactly get mass being converted into energy but rather put into a mathematical equivalency (energy-mass equivalency). Energy describes a mathematically conserved aspect of systems of particles and mass is a property of matter not identical to it.
Quoting Marco Colombini
Well relativistic mass is a concept that has been largely abandoned by physicists as far as i'm aware of as the rest mass of a particle doesn't increase with speed (it's invariant) and this thing we call the relativistic mass (gamma*m) is just mathematically arbitrary.
Quoting Marco Colombini
No rest mass!
Quoting Marco Colombini
This would assume or have us presume a connection strictly between the concept of inertial mass in classical physics to rest mass which may or may not be justified.
Quoting Marco Colombini
Then you should be able to then define god and tell us how this concept of god gives us better predictable models. . . which is really the only thing you as a scientist should entirely worry about. As a philosopher be equally concerned with semantics/language as you are in epistemology.
Quoting Marco Colombini
The model describes gravitation in terms of geometrical relations dependent on the energy-momentum content of a certain region. Whether it's really bent spacetime or in what way the metaphysical grounding is supposed to go (matter or spacetime) is a question you haven't gone into nor seem to have considered.
Perhaps we could try this? Math is real, but it doesn't exist. I think space is like that.
We can define space as existing only by demolishing the definition of existence. If space is said to exist, then anything that has no mass, no weight, no shape or form, and is invisible to every observation could also be said to exist, and we would thus quickly enter looney land.
Evolution has trained our minds to think in simplistic dualistic terms, because that is what works at human scale. Watch out for the tiger, grab the food, find a mate, and your genes continue. I'm not objecting to such simplistic uses of "existence" in daily life.
The problem arises when we try to map these simplistic dualistic mind generated patterns, which are a VERY local phenomena, on to the very largest questions about everything everywhere, ie. the scope of god claims. That's what I'm objecting to.
I'm proposing that the phenomena of space illustrates that the question of existence is a lot more complicated than something existing or not. As a scientist who presumably bases a lot of your perspective on observation of reality, this would seem to matter to whatever claims you wish to make about God.
I'm not challenging whatever your beliefs about God might be. I'm challenging the "does God exist" question because, to me, the simplistic either/or, yes/no nature of that question doesn't seem to bear much resemblance to space, the vast majority of reality.
If the "does God exist" question is dethroned (and why shouldn't it be given that it's never led to proof of anything) the vast majority of God debate is swept off the table, which may open doors to other approaches which will prove more productive.
Was it Einstein who claimed that doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results is the definition of stupidity? That's how I view the "does God exist" debate. Thousands of years of claims and counter claims, never leading to proof of anyone's claim. Is it our intention to repeat this unproductive pattern forever?
This is a subject for another thread but briefly, for what it's worth, I don't accept science culture as a whole as being expert at reason. Science culture in general is determined to give the human race ever more power at an ever faster pace, willfully ignoring that human beings can not successfully manage unlimited power. Science culture is basically marching blindly towards it's own destruction.
Experts at science? Yes, agreed.
Experts at reason? No, certainly not.
I'm making this point in response to what seem to be your attempts to apply the cultural authority of science to the God topic.
It exists in our heads and on the chalk board you write. If anything it's a mirage. . . a mirage gives the impression of one thing when in reality is was something different the whole time but there was still something actually occurring. There weren't palm trees and a water basin out in the distance but it we merely a perceptual illusion as you interpretation of it was off. . . the experiences of it still existed as it was the nature of it or surface nature that you got wrong.
Quoting Hippyhead
Einstein - "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”
Quoting Hippyhead
Yes, it has more to do with properties we give it as even under spacetime relationism it would still exist it's just the case that spacetime is more or less structurally emergent or dependent on matter.
Quoting Hippyhead
Yeah, he really needs to consider the point of discussing god and the primary reasons to do so. Is it to come into a fully understanding of reality (in which god could be besides the point) or are we more concerned with the concepts existential nature?
Asserting that you can prove there is a person out there who is really three people who don't have a body but who are in reality my real dad.. well I find that almost offensive
The way you've approached the issue is just one of the many ways available - you've taken the path of miracles where you rely on the scientifically inexplicable as evidence for God. However, if you look at the scientific community the way some of them strengthen their belief in God is through discovering, understanding the laws which govern the universe i.e. the scientist's route to God is built of the scientifically explicable.
As you'll notice these two ways of bolstering faith in a deity are poles apart. In fact they seem even outright contradictory. What do you make of that?
Thank you very much for your extensive analysis. It is much appreciated.
"The nature of reality or the nature of anything is inherently unknowable as the only things we have access to are our sensory perceptions and the pragmatic epistemological idealism we would use to then analyze said perceptions or abstract from them.” substantivalism
It seems to me that being so strict about what it means to know is counterproductive. Despite our limitations it is very useful to arrive at an understanding of any process knowing that that understanding may need to be modified as more information becomes available. To simply say that something is unknowable is to abandon the search for truth. Although truth is absolute, knowledge is graded.
.” I'll also note that energy is obviously a purely mathematical entity especially since (via Noether's theorem) we only get energy conservation from our laws if the laws in question are mathematically time translation invariant, energy here being some mathematical entity that is conserved.” substantivalism
The problem with mathematical models of real systems is that they often do not include all aspects of the system. Noether's theorem does not apply to dissipative systems and that aspect of dissipation is a critical property of the universe. I must disagree that energy is a purely mathematical entity as this statement seems to me to imply that it is theoretical and not real.
“H3: Physics (nor any other philosophical speculation) falls by the wayside if it seeks to establish or explain the nature of our experiences (an issue in its own right) and rather physics creates predictable models upon which to map reality.” substantivalism
It seems to me that H3 has nothing to do with the issue under discussion. Please enlighten me.
“Yes, these explanations are in the realm of science fiction just as much as this interpretation (the ex nihilo one) of the big bang theory is. Every scientist/physicists who are atheist/theist have regarded the description that general relativity gives of reality as incomplete and in need of amending meaning any interpretation of spacetime/matter beginning 13.8 billion years ago….” substantivalism
Regardless of the incompleteness of existing theories when applied to the extreme conditions present in the very early universe, the evidence for the extreme conditions in that early universe is extremely strong. The backward extrapolation leads to a singularity beyond which is unknown territory. The logical conclusions are either the moment of creation or some process totally outside known science. Creation from nothing by God is not a problem…not science fiction.
“There is no reason these fundamental constants should be the way they are as far as were aware (we haven't discovered it yet if there is one) but there also isn't any reason that such fundamental constants could have been one of infinitely many others/a finite set or this is the only truly possible universe to exist (speaking about metaphysical/nomological possibilities and not conceptual ones)……” substantivalism
If a fundamental constant, such as the gravitational constant, could have a continuum of values then there can be an infinite number of possible values. If the correct value is to be obtained at random, without any intelligence, one needs to propose an infinite number of universes each with a different value of G for one of these to have the correct value. Since there are many fundamental constants, to generate by random chance the correct set of values (as these are interdependent in terms of overall outcome) again we need an infinite number of trials. Our universe would have to be one of a very very small number with one of the correct set of values that would result in a universe that would produce intelligent life. All the failed universes would need to somehow exist. These are all undetectable and unverifiable parameters in a rather unattractive theory.
“Well in my eyes physics nor philosophy where ever "explain" (define this term) these aspects of our world if at best we only ever know that they exist and all other bridges of investigation have burned down you have to be realistic or become comfortable with not knowing.” substantivalism
I am using “explain” in the sense of common usage…to state why things are as they are. Why is the universe so finely tuned to result in the formation of intelligent life and yet it will not reach some steady state where life can exist but rather end up totally dead. In my mind the best explanation is that God created it as such because this is our temporary home. Of course, that is an explanation that strict materialistic science cannot convey.
“Though, when it comes to the second law of thermodynamics and then intermix that with quantum mechanics you can get momentary as well as unlikely but not impossible reversals of thermodynamics. Under certain quantum theories given an un-ending future no matter how unlikely the possibility sooner or later you could have a spontaneous reversal of thermodynamics resulting in, yes, a new big bang. If you wanted to get at what the best descriptions of how our universe works we would need to incorporate quantum mechanics which does possess such violations on smaller scales as well as theoretical ones (via the same model) on much larger scales.” substantivalism
In fact, only very small scale “reversals” are possible. It’s more that individual elements in the system can probabilistically move to higher energy states transiently even though the overall population must follow the thermodynamically determined direction. Clearly the universe is a very large population of fundamental particles and it continues to proceed as determined by thermodynamics. In this universe entropy must increase. There is no new big bang in reality.
“You have a burden of proof and now you must respect such a burden by first defining what a god is and how you know this particular being exists. Then go into how this god concept can give us a predictively successful model of reality that is better than any given previous.” substantivalism
Materialistic science alone cannot go any further. Because of our severe limitations in our ability to gain knowledge (as you as so well stated) we cannot have any information about God except what is revealed by God.
“Also, on the "thousands of skeptical observers" if you are talking about the miracle of Fatima no other person/scientist on earth noticed any changes in the suns positions (especially gravitationally) nor did anyone else report it as such doing rather strange behaviors but if you are talking about Jesus performing miracles to thousands in the bible note that the central claim here is that there were thousands (no second hand reports were given) so we cannot know that thousands actually say such an action performed (or that these thousands actually existed).” substantivalism
To be fair and unbiased, the bible is a collection of books. Some are historical, others poetic, others share words of wisdom… The historical books should be treated as any other historical books. They described the events that happened. To discount events that are scientifically impossible is to be biased against the possibility that such events can take place. The descriptions are highly credible as is the skeptical nature of those present. These extraordinary events had such an impact on the culture that some of those are still celebrated today (e.g. Passover). If scientific study leads to the conclusion that the best hypothesis is the existence of God as creator of the universe then one might expect revelation of His existence and actions to influence the social progress. Setting the correct initial conditions and properties of the universe were very likely sufficient to eventually produce intelligent life but then knowledge of God and of the purpose of existence had to be revealed.
It could perhaps be a serious conversation if you wished to challenge your own faith in reason in the same manner you asked the Christian author to do.
Amen, amen! Welcome to TPF
And yet it goes on and on. My humble opinion is that it's futile to argue that reason or science establishes there is a deity, and frankly that belief in one is something evoked (brought to mind) rather than established. I have a certain fondness for C.S. Peirce's "musement" approach to the issue, though I'm not sure I understand it. I'm a sort of pantheist in a sort of Stoic sense, but wouldn't dream of contending that I could demonstrate that a deity exists. I confess I wish others felt the same way.
I'll just offer the opinion that multiple "gods" is a suitable explanation for Multiverses, but not for a Universe. :smile:
You are not a philosopher and you have no comprehension of the logical alternatives to believing in bodyless supernaturals
That's one of Aquinas's argument. "One world, therefore one God" basically. I don't find it convincing at all, especially considering that the Trinity muddles the whole question (is the Son our father too?)
We'll see how well he'll hold up under my scrutiny. Like you, I hope he doesn't fold under pressure :snicker:
Why, the Trinity is no problem at all. Pater, et filius et Spiritus Sanctus are merely three divine persons all having the same substance. The persons are distinct, but not the substance. The persons answer the question who is God, but the substance determines what is God.
So, God the Son is the Jesus person; God the Holy Spirit is the dove person (a very special dove, though) and God the Father is the person with the white beard. That's who they are. But what they are is God.
I'm trying to work out a sort of "who's on first?" routine with this which I'm sure will make things clearer.
You really haven't stated an argument with any sufficient details. Online forums are filled with stupid notions and good notiions all the time, why should we just take it on faith that you are right that this is a stupid topic? What was the general conversation with that Christian Author?
It this respect it is unfair to ask for proof and unrealistic to try to limit knowledge to things that can be 'proved' because proof almost always concerns primitive things. If our world view is to be limited to provable things then our world view will be wrong because much of reality cannot be proved in this primitive way (if you have a thought can you prove you had it? can someone prove you did not have it? Thought is the source of much of the world we live in and is, in many respects, more potent than physical energy or matter)
The question about God being an explanation comes down to the opinion that 'God' is the most convincing explanation for the world.
Arguing about the reality of God within the context of religion is fraught with all kinds of complications. Better to argue in terms of God as the source of the world and not complicate it with particular religious viewpoints.
Did you just assert the general existence of "higher things?" Well this is certainly proof of a strong, Primate imagination.
I'm not sure what your question is asking. I am asserting the reality of art, music, religion...
When I say primitive I am not referring to primates, I am referring to basic things. These are the things that lend themselves to 'proof'. Can you restate your question?
I think it was meant to be rhetorical. I mean, you are free to prove the existence of "higher things," if you can? I'm all ears.
There is no need to prove the reality of these things. Art is really there. So is music, religion, consciousness. The question is not whether these things are real, the question is 'what do they mean?'
I agree, these things do exist. You ask, what do they mean? This is a strange question, because you seem to be assuming some extra-dimension to which they correspond? They proceed from man and will die with man.
I am saying the reality of these things cannot be hammered into the limited confines of scientific knowledge. Science can not explain these things so we have to find a better way of coming to terms with them.
So is the Holy Spirit and Jesus our father or not?
Freud argued thusly
Allow me to take a bit of a different approach here. You strike me as honest and sincere, at least as much as any of us can lay claim to it, and I respect this. It's truly a hard truth that, not only are we contingent creatures, but that our so-called "higher forms" are also contingent. Can you see that it frightens us and depresses us to realize they are not "higher," that they are not "eternal," that they do not correspond to any transcendent realm? It is important to see this because it's the psychological motivation behind our drive to prove their transcendence, and this motivation stops us from comprehending reality. But we must comprehend it, we must learn the courage to look its terror in the eyes and resist it! This is the only way to stop manufacturing delusions and start cultivating quality. Run toward the negative, learn to go through it, that it is the secret to transforming thought into a great power!
Strange ponderings but I think correct
We're talking about the nature of existence. In other words, Metaphysics. Are you not familiar with that?
Are you sure? Consider relatively. At the speed of light, time stops and becomes eternal and timeless. Your point?
Light is not grace. We are asking for proof of a supernatural order. So you know what that means?
I agree that the Trinity doctrine is a muddled rationale derived from theological attempts to make sense of a few unrelated biblical passages. It may also be a polytheistic carryover from the religions of pagan Rome. I wasn't basing my comment on Aquinas' arguments, but on my own reasoning, which is based on a non-religious concept of a First Cause. One world, one Cause. :smile:
If we knew of nothing that wasn't contingent, then we wouldn't know of anything contingent. Ships move relative to light-houses, but if light-houses also moved, then there would be no way of navigating.
The 'timeless truths' of Christian Platonism were simply what were then considered the immutable facts of geometry, logic, and reason. They were thought not subject to change, because they were grasped directly by nous, not by the senses, which can always deceive. Individual particulars were simply the instances of these immutable Ideas, which don't exist anywhere in the domain of phenomena, but are the implicitly perfect forms to which they strive.
Of course, none of that can be proven by empiricism, although one wonders if empiricism would ever have got started were it not in some sense true.
This reminds me of Plantinga's sophistry. 1) There's such a thing as a Holy Spirit that exists. 2) This magical being gives you a direct knowledge of God. 3) Therefore it is rational to have belief in God. Nonsense. Holy spirit, Fairy spirit, Tree spirit. What's most shocking is that people have taken his Holy Spirit assertions serious.
I think they are arguing against psychologism
https://www.google.com/search?q=psychologism+mathematics&rlz=1C1OKWM_enUS867US867&oq=psychologism+&aqs=chrome.7.69i57j0l7.9833j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
What it reminds you of, is your business.
What you're saying is: be brave enough to be a nihilist:
Quoting JerseyFlight
Comprehending anything, as distinct from merely reacting to it, requires that we can identify what about it is of what kind, how to measure it, what it means, and so on. WIthin the flux of sensations, the rational mind identifies and relies on these elements to even form sentences or argue. That is what 'reason' comprises.
So if you look back to the Greeks, they realised that the intellect (nous) worked this way. This is what enabled them to devise logic and lay down the foundations of science.
I think it's likely that you have no idea of what 'transcendent' means, beyond that it means 'something I don't believe in'. But if you understand how reason itself operates within the domain of thought and language, then you would see that reason itself is 'transcendent' in that it provides the means to arrive at general ideas about all manner of subjects - which is the sense that the term 'transcendental' is used by Kant.
Not even close. I am no Nihilist, one must be religious in order to be a Nihilist.
The Liar paradox thread on this forum might throw a monkey wrench into this. Not sure
It's a fine tool, so are shovels, just don't start attaching God to these tools and we won't have a problem.
Right. As I recall, this apologetic "mystery" didn't begin to make sense to me until I stumbled upon a copy of Abbot's Flatland in a Public Library when I was in 7th or 8th grade.
Pater = 1-d (the all).
Filius = 3-d (the flesh).
Spiritus = 2-d (the word).
Years later in high school, on the verge of my apostasy, I'd updated and expanded my metaphor (of Abbots metaphor) to something like
Pater = 1-d (every where/when/soul),
Logos = 2-d (revealed scripture e.g. "gospel"),
Filius = 3-d ("the incarnation") and
Spiritus = 4-d (time, eschaton, s?t?ria),
and then realized that these dimensions are merely demarcations (metrics) of space - any (i.e. empty) space - which, pressing the metaphor to its breaking point, corresponds to equating ousia with void. The "Our Nada who art in Nada ... " prayer from Hemingway's short story struck my then 15/16 year old self as very funny (which I even recited under my breath during Mass until I graduated and quit altar boy service), just a couple years before becoming acquainted with notions like 'vacuum energy', gnostic 'kenoma' & buddhist 'emptiness'. The "what" is [s]nothing[/s] empty, therefore the "persons" are fictions; and 40 years on, I can't quarrel with my teenage self on this point.
Hypothetically If it is beneficial for there to be a god or gods than he could use the phrase "higher things". Any time an argument takes place it is sometimes necessary to take minor short cuts. I don't think his argument was proving there was a god or gods, but his argument was stating that it would be hard to prove with science that there is or is not a god(s).
Well, this is quite accurate now isn't it? After all, everything depends on how you define the being or beings you claim exist? It's a fun little game for theologians, but hardly an exercise for serious thinkers.
I think you are trying to find an adequate argument with what he was saying where there is one. What do you mean by serious thinkers? What is it that makes you a serious thinker?
"As I see it, science is concerned with primitive realities. Matter is primitive and so is much of mathematics. It is naive to think that the science of the primitive could answer questions concerning higher things: art, religion, consciousness, God, creativity, emotion, music, literature... these things are far beyond science. Trying to reduce these things to scientific 'proofs' is like trying to reduce oil painting to the chemistry of pigments or reduce music to an analysis of the sine wave."
EmPassant
This is an interesting point of view. Not that I agree with it but it's interesting to see a different perspective and wonder why someone would hold such an opinion. I don't see science and mathematics to be primitive but rather to be solid and reliable tools to understand everything. I see art, music, literature, and emotion as being soft, malleable, unreliable, and thus rather useless tools if one wants to know anything with any confidence. (the other items mentioned do not belong) These soft things are all susceptible to subjective interpretation and thus mainly useful as sources of pleasure. I do agree that none of the things listed above as "higher things" are subject to any proofs. These all obviously exist (for respect let's not include God) just as water exists and the Moon exists. To assert that art, music and literature are higher in any way than science and mathematics is merely a personal opinion to which anyone is entitled to have or not to have. As to primitive, I think archeology would indicate that art preceded mathematics and thus is more primitive based on the depictions on the walls of caves. I do not recall seeing any numbers written on the oldest cave paintings. Science, on the other hand, may have come before art as someone needed to identify a pigment. Of course the pigment may have just been observed without any truly scientific thought process.
I don't recall saying anything about 'God'.
Anyway - with respect to the OP, I don't think that belief in God is in any way shape or form a scientific hypothesis, because there's no way of proving or disproving it by science. It might be a rational belief, but not an hypothesis. But the caveat is that science is not all-knowing.
Science itself doesn't explain 'the order of nature'. In the same sense, it doesn't explain the nature of numbers or mathematical reasoning. It assumes both things, and is on pretty safe ground in so doing. Natural theology might argue that the intelligibility of nature points to a higher intelligence; again, a reasonable argument, in my view, but not something that science can either prove nor disprove, so, not an hypothesis, as such.
Quoting 180 Proof
That is nihilist reading. Space itself is used (for instance) in Buddhism as a metaphor for Nirvana, in that it's said to be unconditioned. But Nirvana is not nothing, nor mere nonexistence or non-being (as Western intepreters since Neitszche have been fond of saying.) It's 'beyond' in the sense of 'incomprehensible to the discursive intellect' but from other perspectives it's also comparable to the 'pleroma' i.e. the source of all being (which I think you refer to misspelt?)
What nihilists forget is the role of the observing intelligence in creating the dimensions of space and time (pace Schopenhauer: 'Everything objective, extended, active, and hence everything material, is regarded by materialism as so solid a basis for its explanations that a reduction to this (especially if it should ultimately result in thrust and counter-thrust) can leave nothing to be desired. All this is something that is given only very indirectly and conditionally, and is therefore only relatively present, for it has passed through the machinery and fabrication of the brain, and hence has entered the forms of time, space, and causality, by virtue of which it is first of all presented as extended in space and operating in time. ')
“You correctly pointed to the fact that science evolves - its theories adapt as more and more disparate observations are made. Part of this adaptive process probably involves making new assumptions. Do you see a point in the distant future when one of these new assumptions is "there's a God"?” The Mad Fool
The word assumption is not quite correct. Science advances as a result of new observations that do not fit within existing paradigms or new theories that better, more inclusively, explain the observations or processes of interest. One tries to avoid making assumptions. I also don’t like the work “evolves” in this context because I like to think of it as a combination of chance and natural selection, although the word, evolution is widely used synonymously with simple change regardless of the process. To answer your question: no. Science as understood today is not merely knowledge of any kind but limited to the material world.
“The way you've approached the issue is just one of the many ways available - you've taken the path of miracles where you rely on the scientifically inexplicable as evidence for God. However, if you look at the scientific community the way some of them strengthen their belief in God is through discovering, understanding the laws which govern the universe i.e. the scientist's route to God is built of the scientifically explicable.” TheMadFool
Indeed, the “truly” scientifically inexplicable is prima facie evidence for the existence of God. I understand that some argue for the direct action by God in producing life on Earth based on extremely complex systems whose components have no apparent function (e.g. the ATP synthase rotary motor). Even the formation of the first living cell from non-living matter seems totally impossible without some help. In a way one could label those as miraculous. I do not subscribe to that because it is possible, however unlikely, that these did form spontaneously. Other events, such as the birth of the universe, the getting water out of solid rock, generating bread from nothing, are truly scientifically impossible.
Light isn't pure energy that's sort of a misnomer. substantivalism
Well, I disagree. Light is electromagnetic radiation in a particular range of frequencies. It is pure energy. For example, when matter and antimatter collide and totally annihilate each other converting all matter into energy, the only things that are produced are two photons of energy. Nothing else is produced. There is no contaminant. It is pure energy. Please explain why you think that light is not pure energy.
Here you're are using the word universe which I'm assuming you mean as what we can see through telescopes as the greater cosmos (existing stuff beyond our sight or disconnected from our spacetime) is not accessible to us and we have not reason to rule it out or in. substantivalism
One can never rule out what one does not know.
Intelligence has nothing to do with it unless you think that the intelligence we possess allows us to walk through walls. We can manipulate loosely the reality that surrounds us as well as makes us up but creating it extends this analogy so far that you would have to specify how you know an extremely intelligent being could do so. substantivalism
As I said, intelligence is essential to determine the exact conditions that will result in the universe self-assembling in a way that will produce life. As an analogy, imagine you have a totally automated car assembly factory and your job is to program all the robots to assemble the car without human interference. You would need to be very intelligent to write the correct programs. That does not mean that having that intelligence will suffice to build the assembly plant. Someone else built the robots and purchased all the needed parts. Intelligence alone does not generate matter from nothing. That is a separate issue. Suppose that some weird process devoid of any intelligence suddenly generated an enormous amount of energy, unless the proper rules of were also present, that energy could simply dissipate as it expanded and nothing world form…or only hydrogen would form…or whatever.
You also haven't defined god so we can't investigate whether it's or is not successful in better explaining our observations or in other terms better describing them. substantivalism
All one can deduce from our scientific knowledge is the existence of an intelligent being capable of generating a universe consisting of an amount of matter/energy equivalent to 10 to the power 24 stars…more or less. (including dark matter etc.). At the same time to generate space/time and to determine all the laws governing all the interactions. One can surmise that this being exist without space and time and is not composed of matter and energy. Does that help?
If my trash can, capped with a tight lid, is raided at night, I do not need to define what animal did that to know that the animal existed and did the deed. I might be able to estimate the strength of the animal and find other clues, but those are superfluous to the conclusion that the animal exists. The animal could have been a racoon, a human, a bigfoot…irrelevant.
Well matter is just an umbrella term for stuff which isn't a measure and the mass or inertia of objects isn't something that is conserved. Energy, even in our universe, due to general relativity isn't much conserved since energy requires time translation symmetry. substantivalism
Under the conditions in which the vast majority of processes take place in our universe, matter+energy is conserved. Name one significant process that has been observed to take place in which matter+energy is not conserved. By significant you can consider any process that affects this sum by at least 1 part in 10 to the power 20 of all the processes in the universe.
With regard to your comments about physics, they are trivial and do not consider the context in which I made the statements. Ok so E=mc^2 does not include the kinetic energy present in the motion of the particle in question. So what? That is not why I introduced that piece of information. Other assertions you make are actually opinions and/or selective interpretations. You are welcome to your point of view.
This is an important question. What, after all, makes a serious thinker serious? A serious thinker, among other things, is a person who wants to comprehend reality even if that comprehension results in the total negation of their vital, positive belief structure. It comes down to truth over comfort.
What, in your understanding, is this motivation?
When I say primitive I don't mean historically or culturally primitive, I mean they are rudimentary. Atoms and numbers are rudimentary compared to the more sophisticated realms of consciousness. They are the nuts and bolts of existence. The 'music' of reality is on a more evolved and sophisticated realm.
The hydrogen atom is a physical image of energy. It is not an ultimate physical substance because there is no ultimate physical substance. All physical objects are images of energy. Likewise with physical music, art and religion. They are images or metaphors of something else. The question I am asking is what do these metaphors/images represent? Art and religion are images of the contents of our consciousness. So what is the reality behind the image?
All human, physical life is an image of something else. Science is concerned with the invisible order behind the physical world. Religion is concerned with the invisible order behind the image that human life is. In this respect science and religion are both attempts to grasp the 'world beyond the world'.
The subtext here is that only 'provable' rudimentary truths are admissible; subjective things are open to debate, established science and mathematics are not. All that seems reasonable but the problem is provable, objective truths that can be agreed upon are rudimentary, primitive. They are almost useless.
Imagine a luxury ocean liner on a cruise. In the bowels of the ship you have the engineers tending to the engine and the basic running of the ship. But on the upper decks there is opera at night. This is an art exhibition. The passengers occupy themselves with discussions about higher things; art, philosophy, religion, creativity and so on.
Why would the people on the upper decks summon one of the engineers to comment on these things? Because he is an expert engineer and knows every nut and bolt of the engine? Why would this qualify him to make judgements on art and religion or music?
I'm not denigrating science or mathematics but in the modern age we have this fixation with the scientist because he knows weird stuff that intimidates regular folk. They are 'geniuses' and are held in awe. So we tend to think they are experts on all manner of things outside their area of expertise. But two minutes reflection will show that they are no more qualified in philosophical matters than anyone else. Indeed, there might be more truth in folk wisdom than there is in a library of science books.
In fact, scientists are often poor judges of matters concerning consciousness because they are scientists. This is because people can be 'hypnotized' or drunk on their own knowledge and expertise; they are blinded by it and are locked inside the consensus box. Very often it takes someone who is willing to think outside the box to break the spell. And 'spell' is the exact word here because academic excellence can cast a spell on the mind and prevent it from going outside the consensus. In this respect, scientists can often be very poor philosophers. How many times have you heard science writers parroting the consensus simply because it is the consensus rather than rigorously established science?
I don't think god is simply invented to explain things. Belief is often based on intuition. Yes, people may use god to 'fill in the gaps' but even then they are not necessarily wrong because God really does move the planets. It is just that God's actions are more complex then we originally thought.
A serious thinker may eventually think their way to the realization that nothing made of thought can ever be the truth. Such a realization has proven itself uncomfortable to many a thinker. :-)
EnPassant, your posts are great, thanks. I'm going to quibble a bit, but just a bit.
Your description of science seems accurate to me, and I like the way it points to something, an order, that is very real, and yet does not exist.
While the purpose of science is to develop knowledge about reality, I think religion is better described as an effort to develop our relationship with reality. What confuses this issue is that religions often make claims about reality as part of the attempt to manage that relationship.
I actually agree with most of what you said. Outside of one's area of expertise one can be rather ordinary in skill and insight. One should never put anyone on a pedestal, accepting statements without making one's own judgement.
I don't particularly like opera, despite being Italian by birth. Given a choice, I'd much rather be tinkering with a mechanical device. A great deal of creativity goes into probing the mechanism of action of a novel cellular protein...exploring the unknown. This is not base or primitive. This is merely a part of a constellation of human interests and activities.
Gregory!
I'm not sure you're thinking that through. The newbie contributor was positing that there is no 'higher eternal entity'. And so I replied with the fact that in nature light speed stops time; eternity, timelessness, etc. exists.
Here are a couple more bullet points for you regarding your comment about 'grace' (not sure where that concept even came from, maybe you could explain in your reply).
1. 'Grace' has no Darwinian survival advantages, so what is your point, is 'grace' some sort of metaphysical feature of human consciousness? Please explain what you mean by 'grace'?
2. The Holographic Principle in quantum theory posits consciousness can transmit information through space via Biophotons. Which in turn, has other intriguing implications regarding eternity/speed of light viz Einstein's relativity and black holes, etc..
Good question, there's no reason why God couldn't be... .
The following is a well worn path, but perhaps reminders will be helpful...
All discussions of God are contained in language, and thus become prisoner to the built in limitations of language. As example the noun God, like all nouns, presumes the existence of things, which in turn presumes the existence of boundaries between one thing and another thing.
And so it is extremely common to attempt to define God by saying God is this, God is that, God does this, God does that, just as we would do with any noun. Such attempts at explanation of God are built upon the assumption that God is a phenomena separate and unique from other phenomena, and thus subject to definition.
What if boundaries, things, division and separation are not a property of reality, but rather a pattern projected on to reality by the dualistic nature of the human mind?
As evidence we might consider space, that is, the overwhelming vast majority of reality. There are no divisions in space. The space of a far distant galaxy is an single unified unbroken undivided phenomena which extends down in to the very smallest scales of our own physical existence.
Point being, our attempts to define God would seem to be in rather substantial conflict with the vast majority of reality. All of our definitions presume that boundaries are real. Are they?
Well the celestial realm is supposed to be filled with God's light, which is grace. I don't see how you get from natural light, even if it's pure energy, to a superconsciousness people call God
Let me ask you again, what is grace?
Your expressed opinion that God is used to explain away natural phenomena that are not yet understood, is a frequently held opinion. Yet, if one reads the Bible one does not see that at all. Nowhere does it try to explain natural phenomena by appealing to God. It is true that Genesis describes the beginning with acts of God but that story is a way of telling us that God created the universe but in a way that could be understood both by primitive peoples and more sophisticated ones. Note that the Bible says that light came before the Sun and the stars. That notion could be ridiculed up to about 100 years ago. Now we know that it is true. Separation of light from darkness is what we now believe happened early in the expansion of the universe...interesting. Otherwise, the Bible is a story about the relationship between God and man. It is not a science book.
As to our knowledge of the way the universe works from present-day Physics, yes, you are correct that there aspects that are not understood (dark matter, wave-particle duality). Given that, what is known and understood is truly amazing. Yes, it is limited to the material world which is probably not all that exists. I think one can say with confidence that based on what we know collectively, what we know to be quite solid science, certain events (e.g. beginning of the universe) are not possible based on the properties of the universe. Perhaps in 100 years that statement will prove false but I doubt it very much.
Grace is a substance of sorts that presents God to you. Natural light does no such thing as far as I can see. God might be an energy, rarified or whatever. Or he might be all the energy in the world as Spinoza and Teilhard might put it. Or maybe he never existed?
Sorry for the piece meal, my internet is buggered up. Consider reading about the Holographic Principle and conscious energy/Biophotons first. Then, in Christianity, consider that God created consciousness through a Being known as Jesus who existed in history. Then, consider the many metaphysical question(s) about conscious existence.
Quoting Gregory
Interesting. You are suggesting grace is 'a substance of sorts that presents God to you'. What is your theory?
"the world could have any shape, size, qualities, anything you can imagine" In fact, that is not true unless one does not care about the consequences. The restrictions are extremely tight if one wants to have a world that can support life. It that requirement is not necessary then yes, there are many possibilities but there are still restrictions. For example, it is impossible to make a coffee cup the size of Earth. Gravity would cause it to collapse into a ball-like structure. By the way, one can calculate the size of the largest living organism that could exist on the surface of the Earth just based of the strength of interaction between atoms. (I cannot do that but I've read the paper that reported the calculation).
On another subject, you asked, can God be made of energy? I would say no, at least energy as we know it. God cannot be made of anything created because He existed before creation.
Why can't energy as we know it be eternal in the form of God's body as Mormons say? Simple question. Btw I'm Italian too
The key word being relationship.
All the endless talk of theology and philosophy is not relationship with God (or if you prefer, reality) but is instead relationship with our thoughts about God (or reality).
You can't logically connect..
(1) The world can't begin without an intelligence
with
(2) the structure of the world suggests an intelligence
They are both different questions. I think the first is more of a science question than the second. To the second I say "the world is what it is"; to the first is say the Confucian Heaven, Platonic form, Heideggarian potentiality, Eleatic one, and so on
And no I don't think etymology is a strict science. I started a thread on it once
There's a kind of special pleading involved in such apologetics. Faced with the fact that scripture clearly distinguishes between the Father and the Son and the especially vague Holy Spirit or Ghost, but committed nonetheless to the claim there is only one God and infuriated when pagans such as Celsus and Porphyry noted this problem, Christians had to come up with an explanation. They resorted to using pagan philosophy to explain how divinely inspired scripture didn't really say what it says.
They were more lawyers than philosophers (Tertullian was a lawyer, in fact). But I still admire an old priest I knew who explained that the Trinity was like a ham sandwich. Two slices of bread and ham there may be, but there's only one sandwich. That says it all.
They are not the Father. But they're God, and so is He--according to the explanation given.
Never heard that one. :lol: :pray:
Yes, all is one. Consider the following. Let x^2 mean x squared. Now consider the squares;-
1^2 = 1
2^2 = 4
3^2 = 9
4^2 = 16 and so on. This squaring is an abstract, mental concept. Now draw a graph of x squared on a 2 dimensional sheet of paper. The graph will represent precisely the squares of real numbers. But how can this be? How can a mental concept be mapped onto space? The only way this can happen is if there is a natural affinity between mind and space. That is, mind and space must share the same nature. If they did not it would not be possible to map the squares onto a graph. There are many examples of how things on one level of reality can be mapped onto another level of reality. This is because nature is universal. The universe is an image of God's nature and God's nature is expressed on many different levels. But ultimately it is all one thing, as you say.
Quoting Hippyhead
But humans need simple definitions of God. They may not be ultimate but they are useful.
Very often people argue about religion in terms of whether the mythology is 'true' or 'false'. That is like arguing whether a painting by Cezanne is 'true' or 'false'. Cezanne's painting is obviously not literally true because he does not represent things literally. Cezanne's truth is on a more subtle level. Likewise, religion is mythological because people need mythology. People need truth in a mythological form because myth is the oldest language of mankind, maybe older even than the spoken word. It is our first language.
Because myth is not literally true does not mean it contains no truth. It is a poetic image of the truth. It is also a practical context in which people can practice their faith. Truth is within religion. The outer myth is only a poetic image. (But religion is more than myth as it also makes direct claims about reality).
Yes I agree but I am talking about science as knowledge not as a creative activity. Scientific and mathematical knowledge is primitive. By primitive I don't mean base or degraded, I mean rudimentary. Questions concerning consciousness go beyond the nuts-and-bolts of materialism.
The motivation is a subconscious drive to prevent psychological pain.
Here truth can only be posited in the most abstract sense, which renders it useless. The presumption behind the claim is a stacked deck, the thinker doesn't even realize, in the process of thinking thus, he has departed from reality to wander through an abstract aesthetic. No thinker needs to worry about such a formal charge, it is after all, rooted in an unconscious, radical skepticism. This kind of thought is merely playing games with itself and the world. The point of thought is to change the world -- it is not mere aesthetics, to handle it thus is to leave off its power and hope, is to play the game of thought without intelligence.
This is something that I hear a lot. Yet out of personal experience I know a good amount of theists who are well aware of the limits in their knowledge and accept the possibility that they might be wrong. And never fear the outcome. Often I hear the mantra "If I am wrong then at the very least I have lived a happy and meaningful life."
I know you guys were talking about music, religion and consciousness. But since I suppose lots of people also count God within transcendental things I thought it might apply.
Well, if that is what it is it has not worked very well. The human condition is steeped in pain and religion does not change that. But I am also wary of psychoanalytical definitions of religion. It is too easy to invent these theories and they come in all shapes an colours.
This was C. S. Lewis' last attempt to hold onto his Christianity in the face of the encroaching resistance. He simply resigned himself to pragmatic hedonism, conveniently ignoring the fact that this approach presupposed the total collapse of his Christianity. It is no different for modern Christians. They are all, in reality, simply playing a psychological game with themselves, precisely because they can't face reality. This is quite easy to prove, simply ask a Christian to explain how he views the world in the absence of his ideals. You will be met with a cynical exposition of the supremacy of the negative.
Please see Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death.
The purpose of philosophy is to teach us that the intellect cannot attain truth. Truth exists in the realm of consciousness. The a/theist's rationalizations are post hoc. The real issue is more subtle.
Here you have not transcended the presupposition of the criteria of radical skepticism. What you say you cannot attain is conditioned by a false idealism. The way around it is simply to identify the error of the formal criteria. It is absolute skepticism posited as an ontological finality and boundary. If you want your thinking to succeed you must learn how to transcend the culture into which it is born.
Looked him up on wiki. Honestly, he just takes the "immortality project" and runs with it. It is so easy to do this. You can take some psychoanalytic notion and fit the whole world into it. Like Freud's Oedipus and Electra complexes. You can easily build the whole world around them and make a convincing theory. Here goes-
Psychonalysis is an "immortality project" in the sense that the practitioner wants god like knowledge of all things and pretends to be able to map the human mind; unravel the greatest mysteries of the mind and thereby achieve immortality by way of god-like knowledge.
Quoting JerseyFlight
My statement is slightly tongue-in-cheek. But it has truth in it; the intellect is labyrinthine. So is philosophy.
Quoting EnPassant
Then clearly you have already violated your original premise regarding truth. Only here the problem is that you have evaded it in the wrong direction. One is free to deceive themselves all they desire, they are not free to deceive others (though this is the way of the world). The bottom line is that you are going to believe what you want to believe, after all, you have already admitted to the futility and bankruptcy of thought. There is little more one can say to divert such conviction.
I disagree. My beliefs are convictions not the fulfilment of unconscious desires. Of course you can say 'How do you know that if your desires are unconscious?' But you can refute anyone by positing unconscious motivations for what they are saying.
Quoting JerseyFlight
I would not say thought is futile. I'm saying abstract 'rationalizations' cannot answer realities that exist in the realm of consciousness. Religion is about awareness and intuition. Going the intellectual route is a poor choice when it comes to resolving these issues.
I'm a noob with all this so I have a very hard time understanding the expensive words. But I don't see it.
Again, I'm arguing from personal experience so I don't know what that's worth but I don't see the psychological game. I don't think I can either, unless they are really upfront about it! They believe they are right. And that's why, I think, they remain theists. When asked about the negative things in life they react just like anyone else I've asked. They're not happy with it.
I'm with EnPassant when it comes to those psychoanalytic theories. I'm sure they hold merit but I am very wary into accepting it as an all in explanation for such beliefs. And why theists hold them.
Then this must be proof that it's not there. After all, if it was there, surely you would be able to detect it? The same is true of all forms of bias --- we are not plagued by them precisely because they are so easy to detect! The sole criteria of its existence must be whether or not I perceive it in my intuition???
What are it's criteria? How do you know?
I stated in my second to last sentence that I agreed that it could make a difference in some theists. So I didn't say it's "proof to the contrary". What I did say is that these psychoanalytic theories get us nowhere. Because I haven't a clue how to notice them and I don't think they play as big as a role in the forming of beliefs as you claim they do.
Then there is not much more to say.
Well if you would want to tell my what the criteria are. Because I really do want to learn if I'm mistaken.
As Enpassant said. These theories could be made for everything how do you know they are true?
But my dear, EnPassant, how ever do you get out of this circle once you enter in?
If there is no God and the world is violence and chaos. Can you live with this, can you accept it if this is the nature of reality?
I would be forced to accept this yes. A person cannot choose his beliefs, right?
I'm pretty sure anyone would have issues accepting this at first and they ought to learn to live with this.
I'd also like to add that I haven't a clue what I believe. I am 18 and of the idea that I know too little and have read to little to form beliefs as of yet. These religious convictions don't seem to make the suffering and issues of the world disappear either. People still have to live with them?
Absolutely. And this is a good reminder of my own position. I was crushed by reality when I finally realized my Christianity was false. But oh how necessary it was to be crushed! :) If you are truly serious about understanding how and why humans manufacture delusion then it will be necessary for you to study psychology. Many many books* have now been written precisely on the topic of denial, self-deception and bias. One I can whole-heartedly recommend is, "The Truth About Denial" by Adrian Bardon, (Oxford 2020)
*Please note: the present body of literature has gone beyond mere speculation. The premises have been verified empirically. Denial, bias, self-deception are things we have seen repeated under controlled conditions.
Right I agree it would be necessary if it really were the case. The problem is I don't think we can make the generalization that religious belief and convictions are all the result of these psychological deficiencies. The general public, I believe, is very prone to these mistakes. But to a person who is aware of their bias and psychological shortcomings and does their best to counteract and divert them? I am very wary to describe the same to them.
Atheists and theists often throw these things at eachother a lot too. "You are too rebellious to believe in a God! You just don't want to be told what to do!" or "You are simply afraid of the harsh reality of life. You escape to God!" I just feel like it doesn't cut it.
You and I will not be talking again. It is clear to me that you are not serious, I took a chance because you said you were, although I had my suspicions. If you are serious you will have to inform yourself by educating yourself. I have already given you a place to start. I wish you all the best.
You are quick to make decisions I suppose. I am honest as can be when I say that I am as serious as possible. And I have told you that I do not hold steadfast beliefs about reality. Only convictions that SEEM true to me. You've given me psychology and I've told you why I have issues with it at first glace.
You don't have to give an answer. But then at least don't go spouting around that I'm an insincere troll.
I never said this. These are not my words.
You said I was not being serious. I take that (Pun intended) very seriously.
If the intellect is to discern truth its only hope is if it is allied to consciousness.
@JerseyFlight
We'll find out over the course of time whether you are a serious thinker. I suppose you are a Libertarian? So am i.
Casting my vote for this.
You will sound more serious when you drop this ego positioning drumbeat which seems to infect quite a bit of your writing. Not claiming to be above it myself, just claiming it's not evidence of seriousness.
Assuredly not. Libertarians are not serious thinkers, but they are ideological thinkers, their approach to the world is fallaciously monological. To be a real Libertarian you must believe in magic, specifically the fairy tale of self-balancing markets. G. A. Cohen long ago obliterated their position. Libertarians present a serious threat to freedom and democracy.
And the universe is overwhelmingly space. Thus, the nature of space would seem to deserve a great deal more focus from theists. This is equally true for the atheist, whose methodology is the observation of reality.
We can see that reality is overwhelmingly dominated by what we typically label as "nothing". Thus, a serious philosophy aligned with the nature of reality would also be mostly nothing.
Philosophy can assist in reaching such a rational state by a process of systematic challenge to all intellectual somethings. Religion is demolished. Atheism is demolished. Philosophy itself is demolished. And we are left with mostly nothing, a state of mind which most closely resembles reality.
We might learn from astronomers. We can observe how the majority of their work seems to be focused on things in space, phenomena which represents only the tiniest fraction of the cosmos. Philosophers are like that. We focus on things in mind, only the tiniest fraction of consciousness.
Another method of approaching such a place might be to shift the focus of such investigations from explanations to experience. It's perhaps more efficient to leap over the process of challenging every idea on these subjects, and instead focus on finding out how deep in to our relationship with (insert any label here) we can go.
ok.
You seem to be very elitist when its about who is a serious thinker or not :brow:
"the world could have any shape, size, qualities, anything you can imagine" In fact, that is not true unless one does not care about the consequences. The restrictions are extremely tight if one wants to have a world that can support life. It that requirement is not necessary then yes, there are many possibilities but there are still restrictions. For example, it is impossible to make a coffee cup the size of Earth. Gravity would cause it to collapse into a ball-like structure. By the way, one can calculate the size of the largest living organism that could exist on the surface of the Earth just based of the strength of interaction between atoms. (I cannot do that but I've read the paper that reported the calculation).
On another subject, you asked, can God be made of energy? I would say no, at least energy as we know it. God cannot be made of anything created because He existed before creation.
I feel that I need to move on as I do not quite fit in. There is a lot of sparring in the discussion that indicates a young crowd. It reminds me of young bulls testing their strength (applies to both women and men). This is not a negative just an observation.
Have fun....
A bit like The Emperor's New Clothes?
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/443851
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/443873
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/443892
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/443895
...
(your responses have to be on point and adequate to be of much consequence)
I didn't think you were religious Banno.
These arise for many reasons, but when you are talking about belief in the imaginary, unless you are talking about Deism, which could be leveraged though it wouldn't matter, you are talking about some kind of psychological or emotional motivation. Those who come to religious belief in terms of propaganda, apologetics, are manipulated, victims of their own ignorance. So here the cause, though it has an ideological base, it is still premised on the negative. People give all kinds of reasons for their beliefs, but these often only serve to mask the real psychological motivations. We can sometimes discover these by probing their negative convictions. Above all, we know there's a problem when a rationale for the belief is legitimately refuted and the subject merely looks for something else by which to retain the belief. This is a good indication that one is being driven by their psychology.
Quoting JerseyFlight
I think that someone could come to belief in God through philosophy and that they could have good reason for it. Usually God's existence itself doesn't guarantee or promise a whole lot to a person. When religions get added to the scene, like Christianity. A whole lot of promises and actions are attributed to this God. And that, I think, is where the danger of psychological motivation comes from. But I still believe that if someone is aware of their motivations, unless you think that is not possible, could reflect on those and their belief so that their reasoning is more distanced from bias. If this weren't possible then bias was the biggest undefeatable enemy in philosophy.
Quoting JerseyFlight
Well look at it this way. You are a fan of Hegel. I haven't a clue what he argues for and who he was (I know shame on me). But if someone were to come up to you and falsify the reason you have for holding the same positions as he had. Would you not first go back and read his material over? Rethink your entire situation? If by the end of this reflection you have found new or improved reasons or found out that the attack is somehow wrong then is that not a valid thing? It doesn't make sense to me that if some random guy on the internet broke down my entire reasoning that I would simply say "okay, i'm X now". No I would reflect and rethink. And If you are honest to yourself and you acknowledge that the objections are true then you would change beliefs. Because who wants false beliefs?
Thank you for replying though.
It's not counterproductive to admit there is no way out of the philosophical skeptics thought experiments.
Quoting Marco Colombini
You are probably right about energy conservation not applying to our universe as there are energy conservation issues inherent to the universe but inherent to general relativity itself.
The theoretical doesn't equal "not being real" as newtonian gravitational theory and its applications are indubitably as real as the phenomenon it purportedly (on solar system scales) describes so well. There is a map and a terrain but because the map isn't the terrain (we have to admit this) this doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Quoting Marco Colombini
Creation from nothing may not be "science fiction" but i'll wait to see in what manner it isn't outright contradictory/non-existent from everyday experiences. You cannot get something from nothing and thusly something always was with the capability to be what is the case now.
Quoting Marco Colombini
"Could" is the key word here as you are working off of conceptual possibilities and not nomological/metaphysical possibilities of whether it actually is the case the universe (the observable one) as we know it COULD have actually been any other way.
Quoting Marco Colombini
Or this is a question/issue that gives no readily accessible nor understandable reason to human minds. It's one thing to search for an answer to a meaningful question it's another to look for an answer to a meaningless question. Does this question deserve a humanly understandable reason or a reason at all?
Quoting Marco Colombini
The universe isn't just a small collection of particles as even empty space is seemingly filled with quantum fluctuations and at smaller scales the potential emergence of spacetime itself from unknown quantum properties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poincar%C3%A9_recurrence_theorem#Quantum_mechanical_version
Quoting Marco Colombini
"Revealed by god" is an extremely loaded term on your part as it's implied interactions between god and our universe (or information about him) is unobtainable through scientific investigation (pragmatic epistemology or the literal use of our experiences) it seems that you wouldn't really have much of a case for saying whether a certain natural event was "caused" by said entity. As i've asked in other places, "what distinguishes a finite in time universe that just is and a universe that is created by a god like being (something i'm not sure you have actually defined)?" IF we cannot tell the difference between them then why ask for the likelihood or prefer the god hypothesis over the "universe created five minutes ago" hypothesis.
Quoting Marco Colombini
It's to point out that our full understanding currently of what is possible or could occur rules out such a scenario.
Quoting Marco Colombini
The apparent skeptical nature of those present as they were claimed (claimed not proven) to be skeptical observers who then observed said natural event that has never occurred since then. The bible doesn't give us external sources covering who these people were and their independent accounts but rather claims there were many observers, that they were skeptical, had observed such a miraculous event, and that such an event was seen to be the same among many independent observers. The problem with this is contained in passages in which Jesus is proclaimed to have performed miracles among thousands but people forget that together with the claim that he performed said rare occurrence the bible also is claiming that there were thousands who observed the event occur declaring (without coercion or group delusion or was too far in the back of the audience to see it) exactly what had happened without much difference among their testimonials. Scrapping the bottom of the barrel there were four writes of the gospels (mildly influenced perhaps by each other) and they alone are supposed to have told the completely UNBIASED story of the bible as well as declare exactly what it's that OTHERS saw. . . without us being able to every get their side of the story.
Science has more qualifiers (arguably) than just its theories need to be falsifiable and it must settle with the simplest explanation.
The other qualifiers of science are its usablitiy of theories, repeatability of experiments, and value as a predictive source. God-explanation beautifully cuts through all the knibs and knabs, but fails at all other requirement to be scientific, save for being the simplest explanation.
But we don't need to choose between those two hypotheses. For example, one could choose to argue that physics incomplete, we don't know everything via physics (yet). And then the physicist can add his own thought that he has no evidence of a God, so he goes on either considering himself an agnostic or an atheist.
Also what you are doing in in the OP is not being done scientifically. It's pure and problematic deduction.
I'm a theist, but that was not a convincing argument.
What you fail to acknowledge here is that you are asserting that a god exists as an explanation for things needing to be created by a god existing. It's circular. The presupposition "god must exist because _____" is not proof of its existence.