How insulting to imply that I look like Gods a**.
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Are there any good arguments for God?
- Thread starter Tiberius
- Start date
allfoak
Alchemist
Perceive it as you wish.
ThePainefulTruth
Romantic-Cynic
It doesn't, that's all hearsay.
Then why does the scientific method require observation and experiment?
Evidence may or may not be sufficient to indicate proof.
We live in a universe that's composed totally of evidence, yet there is a total lack of it from its inception? Again, that's not evidence that can be used, but it's suspicious.
Because an omnipotent God could do anything else instantly. Imparting free will to creatures without influencing them with the knowledge of It's existence, and thus spoiling the pudding, is a very neat trick.
Koldo
Outstanding Member
One advantage, if I'm wrong, I'll never know it. If the atheists are wrong, they'll have me ragging on them for all eternity....though all in good humor of course.
That's incorrect. A deist god doesn't entail the existence of an afterlife, nor does the non-existence of gods entail the lack of one.
I read and enjoyed Kastner's monograph on the subject (and even commented on it to her). I don't see, nor do the vast majority of philosophers, metaphysicians, cosmologists, or physicists agree (and I don't think most proponents of the TI would either) that it "addresses all quantum weirdness". The notion is absurd. If there were such an interpretation, then basically all physicists would embrace it, as we have been attempting to rid ourselves of such "weirdness since before the origins of QM.
Many if not most physicists regard time as an artifice. It is, at least formally, nonexistent in modern physics thanks to its union with space and is for all practical purposes moot as any global or fixed entity thanks to the elimination of simultaneity.
Multiple dimensions are completely unrelated to both the many-worlds interpretation of QM and multiverse cosmologies. This confusion is due to a confusion among nonspecialists between the notion of "dimensions" as in "higher dimension" or "parallel dimension" and actual dimension, in which EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE version of quantum mechanics requires a (at times infinite) abstract, complex mathematical space that is basically never 3D or 4D but rather higher dimensional spaces.
If our universe is 4D, this is hardly the only dimensional space in which time can exert itself, nor is the fact (?) that our universe is 4D particularly relevant. The fact that special relativity requires a non-Euclidean geometry if far more important than the requisite dimensionality.
I'm curious as to what evidence could possibly motivate such a conclusion. Perhaps I misunderstand you.which was extruded from all the other dimensions by the Big Bang.
Indeed! Though at times I feel as Frodo did ("'I wish it need not have happened in my time.' said Frodo. 'So do I,' said Gandalf, 'and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide.'")
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Because we seek evidence. But history has taught us that claims of "proof" in the sciences are pathetically far from being such.
I've done a lot of work in more "pure" mathematics, albeit not so much as I have in other fields of scientific research. The gulf between "proof" and scientific arguments, theories, research, etc., is vast. We don't seek to prove (unless it concerns some formal component of our fields, yet even here e.g., Bell's proof is subject to interpretive constraints).
That a divine creator could have done differently is evidence somehow? I must be misunderstanding you here.
But there is nothing whatsoever of the kind. There exists a plethora of evidence. Also, if there were not, you could hardly claim to have evidence to the contrary.
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The most convincing, I think, is, "Once you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the case." Many atheists, and even many theists, have not arrived at "god" in that way; if they had, they would be identically firm in a shared belief that is neither atheism nor theism. So what is impossible about the whole world? That path is, in philosophy in the West at least, the road of nihilism, which points to the uncertainty of an objective reality (specifically, the truth value of the world). The agnostic settles on "I don't know," in regards to the truth value (specifically, that there is no knowable truth value); the nihilist recognizes that truth is the one thing that cannot be eliminated, at least not without contradiction (the truth of the elimination). Hence, uncertainty is granted a certain certainty that moves realization past the possibility of eliminating the world, while maintaining its uncertainty. This is a brand of mysticism. "God" lies in knowing the complete uncertainty (for some, 'unlikelihood') of the world, while, still, the world remains.
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Kueid
Avant-garde
There is typo in my phrase. World. I wanted to write WORD. Like saying existence is when something exist. How come this can show to anyone what existence is? Can you clarify to me what is existence? What is the difference of something that exist to something that don't?
I didn't say proof nor the OP. Why are you bringing it? And another thing, who are you to judge the value of things (I can say with large looseness that you are not Legion)? To say something is purposeless to another? To say something has no benefit to no one? You think you know what I'm doing? Care to answer this questions?
Why? What qualities or attributes of this "whatever-exists-I-don't-know-what-regardless-of-its-qualities-or-attributes" makes this whatever-it-is a god?
And if you change it for "GOD = MARMALADE", we could easily say that God tastes good on toast and comes in a jar.
This revisionism of the definition of "God" (or "god") has always struck me as an admission of defeat: "we can't justify belief in anything we could reasonably call 'God', so let's unreasonably call something 'God' that we think we can justify belief for."
This claim never made any sense to me. "Obvious choice" does not equal "no choice".
So...
- the reason it looks like we're insignificant to any overall purpose to the universe is because not only are we the overall purpose to the universe, but all of the universe's history so far has all been just an elaborate ruse to hide this fact from humanity.
- despite all the elaborate efforts of God to hide his existence, YOU have seen through it and figured it out.
Interesting.
Edit: aside from the chauvinism of your position, it seems like you're assuming quite a bit about your God beyond the "conglomerate of matter and energy" you say that you're open to God being.
God doesn't try to hide his existence.
And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.Genesis 12:7
And the Lord spake to Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend. Exodus 33:11
And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.Genesis 12:7
And the Lord spake to Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend. Exodus 33:11
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Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
And it's tautological. (Language, that is, not your post.
)
Two things:
- You misattributed my post to allfoak.
- I was responding to ThePainefulTruth, who hasn't claimed (AFAIK) to believe these passages.
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
He also speaks through his a**:
"And the LORD opened the mouth of the ***, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?"
Num 22:28
ThePainefulTruth
Romantic-Cynic
If we were spawned by God, it's infinitely more likely, since God's existence alone indicates a spiritual realm, God's reason for wanting our existence would indicate that as well.
Yes, but as I said, addressing all those weirdnesses is at the cost admitting one big weirdness, if you will, a realm of timelessness. And of course TI is still not yet the favorite interpretation, but it's turned the corner I believe, not only due to the science, but to its intuitive neatness and its simplicity. It is essentially Feynman's baby, and I trust his ability (when he was alive) to think outside the box. And it fits well with the separate concept that the universe is a giant quantum computer.
But it appears that both local and non-local circumstances apply. Science has still not come to grips with that either
They appear to be tied together. And my idea is that the dimension of time exists in quantumland, but that it is swamped by other dimensions. Think vast or infinite number of dimensions vs the one of time. It would still exist but only "cycle through" once in a.....
It would seem that the idea of a time neutral quantumland with multi-dimensions and proto-geometry is indicated by quantum mechanics. And the apparent quality of non-locality is so totally opposite to our local mega-universe locality, what with its lack of the apparent effects of time, shows we have to came at this assuming a timeless realm due to the evidence. And if time is a dimension, then either it doesn't exist in quantumland or it is subsumed by other dimensions (is geometry not the application of dimensions) rather than being non-existent there. Philosophically, the latter is the easier explanation.
BTW, to complicate things even more, I think there's a gate between this quantumland and the world of macro-physics--Planck length/time. That's an enormous chasm of cosmic scale to something that's 10 to the -500 m. We have the incomprehensibility of the "always was" component of time, now we have the same thing for space, or rather, the ether.
After all, the only alternative is boredom.
Well, it was Bell's theorem, not proof, after all. And I'm thinking there are different kinds of proof; like hard proof explaining why a round wheel rolls and a square one doesn't; or virtual proof where there's massive evidence for something and none against (evolution, the non-existence of revealed gods); and staged proofs such as relativity, which presents a more complete picture of physics than Newtonian physics, but less than it's combination with quantum mechanics or into a GUT.
Yes, it isn't that God could have done different, it's that however God did it, our free will requires that there be no trace evidence indicating the possibility of It's existence. There's only one possible reason for creating this natural rational universe with God being "absent", free will. There's no reason for God's absence otherwise, AND it could have been created instantly. I can't stress enough the importance of free will, and the difficulty of providing it for rational, fully self-aware creatures, on a rational stage.
What plethora of evidence. Even Hawking thought he'd come up with evidence from before the Big Bang, even thinking he'd disproved God, but had to back off. And I'm not claiming evidence, to the contrary, just the opposite. That's my whole point, I'm saying we have none. I suggest a reason for there being none, but again, I can't use a complete lack of evidence as evidence.
God in the generic sense, as in what money, power, sex and idols are gods for other people. Only I capitalize it because Truth is the ultimate ideal, which includes knowledge, justice, love and beauty, pure objective grading to pure subjective.
SpeaksForTheTrees
Well-Known Member
Your own uncertainty
That isn't the generic sense; it's the metaphoric sense.
The things that people value highly are no more literally gods than their adversaries are literally white whales.
GoodbyeDave
Well-Known Member
There are two separate questions that have got tangled up here, not to mention the general assumption that "god" = "the divinity of the Abrahamic faiths."
Firstly, we have the question of how the cosmos came into existence.
The argument from the improbability of a universe that could contain us (argument from design) is a statistical one, and so not a proof. Like the statistical evidence for the link between tobacco and disease, it points to a case worth further investigation.
The argument from causation is a philosophical one, not a scientific one, and rather better. Scientists, like everyone else, assume that things don't just happen for no reason at all. But that means that the big bang (if there was one) didn't just happen. No physical event can be a first cause, by definition. If you assume that the big bang did "just happen" you've abandoned our basic instincts and also destroyed science: you can't discover the laws of nature if they could be broken at any time! So, you have a choice. Either the universe is meaningless and lawless, or the sequence of events had a non-physical launch. And if the universe is incomprehensible, how come we, as part of it, have this built-in belief that it isn't? And how come science is so successful?
Those arguments may not be irrefutable proofs, but there are no irrefutable proofs save in mathematics. There is always an alternative explanation, as all good creationists and conspiracy theorists know! Also remember that because they start from separate premises, they reinforce one another. If two arguments have different premises but the same conclusion, then if their probabilities are p and q, then the probability of the conclusion is (p + q - pq). In other words, if the two arguments each has a 50% chance of truth, then their conclusion would have a 75% chance. But all that the arguments show is the likelihood that the physical universe depends on mind. They do not show that only one creator was involved, let alone that she was omnipotent and omniscient and revealed in the Bible or the Quran!
Secondly, we have the question of whether there is evidence for the existence of gods. This is a purely empirical one. Have people experience gods? Yes. Are they sane and reliable? Yes. A survey of religious experiences in the USA showed that those who have them are not revealed to be suggestible or gullible by psychological tests. A survey in the UK showed that over a third of the population have had a religious experience, and that the percentage among graduates is actually twice that among those who left school at 16. Some who have had such experiences have been geniuses, like the mathematician Pascal.
But this does not support Christianity or Islam. Generally people identify a spiritual presence by context. If you're a Christian, you assume it's Jesus. If you're praying to Ganesha, you assume it's Ganesha. But there are occasions when deities identify themselves, and you can't just dismiss the many occasions on which that has happen to perfectly normal people. If it had never happened, all religious believers would be monotheists.
Firstly, we have the question of how the cosmos came into existence.
The argument from the improbability of a universe that could contain us (argument from design) is a statistical one, and so not a proof. Like the statistical evidence for the link between tobacco and disease, it points to a case worth further investigation.
The argument from causation is a philosophical one, not a scientific one, and rather better. Scientists, like everyone else, assume that things don't just happen for no reason at all. But that means that the big bang (if there was one) didn't just happen. No physical event can be a first cause, by definition. If you assume that the big bang did "just happen" you've abandoned our basic instincts and also destroyed science: you can't discover the laws of nature if they could be broken at any time! So, you have a choice. Either the universe is meaningless and lawless, or the sequence of events had a non-physical launch. And if the universe is incomprehensible, how come we, as part of it, have this built-in belief that it isn't? And how come science is so successful?
Those arguments may not be irrefutable proofs, but there are no irrefutable proofs save in mathematics. There is always an alternative explanation, as all good creationists and conspiracy theorists know! Also remember that because they start from separate premises, they reinforce one another. If two arguments have different premises but the same conclusion, then if their probabilities are p and q, then the probability of the conclusion is (p + q - pq). In other words, if the two arguments each has a 50% chance of truth, then their conclusion would have a 75% chance. But all that the arguments show is the likelihood that the physical universe depends on mind. They do not show that only one creator was involved, let alone that she was omnipotent and omniscient and revealed in the Bible or the Quran!
Secondly, we have the question of whether there is evidence for the existence of gods. This is a purely empirical one. Have people experience gods? Yes. Are they sane and reliable? Yes. A survey of religious experiences in the USA showed that those who have them are not revealed to be suggestible or gullible by psychological tests. A survey in the UK showed that over a third of the population have had a religious experience, and that the percentage among graduates is actually twice that among those who left school at 16. Some who have had such experiences have been geniuses, like the mathematician Pascal.
But this does not support Christianity or Islam. Generally people identify a spiritual presence by context. If you're a Christian, you assume it's Jesus. If you're praying to Ganesha, you assume it's Ganesha. But there are occasions when deities identify themselves, and you can't just dismiss the many occasions on which that has happen to perfectly normal people. If it had never happened, all religious believers would be monotheists.