Do You Believe In God, Why? Don't You Believe In God, Why?

[Valjean]

Asking the question 'Who created God?' is nonsensical because we humans cannot
imagine anything outside of time and space, let alone God. People often feel that's a
clever question.

It's a question we got from theists, who insist everything must have a creator. We're just throwing it back at you.
If an extant universe must needs have a creator, ergo: God; why is asking the same question about a presumed god nonsensical?

EITHER the universe created itself when it didn't exist (ie no physics, no mathematics,
no space etc..) or it was created by an external agency.

How the universe came to be is a question for theoretical physics. Positing a god explains nothing, it's a claim of agency, not mechanism; who not how. God's mechanism remains unexplained.

 

[Trailblazer]

Do you believe that the messengers (Abraham, Jesus, Moses, Mohammed...) are really speaking to God?

I do not know if they spoke to God and God spoke back to them, as in a conversation, but I believe they all got a revelation from God. I have no idea how that works since I am not a Messenger of God. I do not believe Messengers are like ordinary people because they have a two-fold nature, human and spiritual, so they alone can receive communication from God and pass it on to ordinary humans.

Any one of us can speak to God in prayer, but God does not communicate messages directly to us as He does to His Messengers.

 

[Valjean]

Right. These are measured forces, not the power of God.

So what is this 'power of God'?

What things? Let's be clear about one critical thought:
WHERE WE REASONABLY CAN VALIDATE SOMETHING IN THE
BIBLE, WE OFTEN DO.

For instance, we can't validate the resurrection, but we should be able
to validate there was a town called Nazareth - and indeed we found this
town.
We can't validate the David and Goliath story, but we should be able to
validate there was a King David, or House of David. And sure enough,
we found this.

But places, plants and animals; landforms, political events, seasons, &c are common knowledge. They're not verifying evidence of anything. Fictional literature of all kinds records known places and events.

 

[Trailblazer]

If you can't believe this world came from nothing, then why can you believe a god came from nothing?

Gd did not come from nothing, God has always existed. That is why God is called the uncreated.

 

[PruePhillip]

It's a question we got from theists, who insist everything must have a creator. We're just throwing it back at you.
If an extant universe must needs have a creator, ergo: God; why is asking the same question about a presumed god nonsensical?
How the universe came to be is a question for theoretical physics. Positing a god explains nothing, it's a claim of agency, not mechanism; who not how. God's mechanism remains unexplained.

The question of "who created God" is not nonsensical in as much as ALL
notions of things outside the universe are considered 'nonsensical' to
science.
Scientists gives metaphors of what lies outside the universe, one of my
favorites is this, "What is north of the North Pole?"

 

[Altfish]

I want to know how you know it is the best current explanation? Or should I trust you?

If you claim as you do, it is the best current explanation, you have made a positive claim, so you must provide the proof, that it is the best current explanation. Or should I trust you? Well, I won't. I want the proof, that it is the best current explanation.

Well, it changes, but I read an article about 2-years ago in hmmm not sure. New Scientist? Maybe

 

[blü 2]

Yes, science is objective and religion is subjective. Now what is the world?

Well, it's free of supernatural beings, for a start.

 

[Altfish]

Gd did not come from nothing, God has always existed. That is why God is called the uncreated.

I call that 'special pleading'
If that's allowed, I can state "The Universe was always there"

 

[Valjean]

So how did the impersonal give rise to the personal?

Human psychology.
People personify and deify all sorts of natural things. It takes some of the mystery out of the unexplained.

You use a lot of personal words like will, desire, judgemental and not.

These aren't my words. They're words used by theists to describe their personified gods. Will, desire, judgement, &c are human attributes applied to otherwise impersonal forces of nature, making them deities.

I would like you to only do your life in impersonal terms and only use science. So if you answer no personal words!

I'm fine with impersonal forces of nature. It's the theists that insist on personifying them; assigning them human qualities.

 

[PruePhillip]

So what is this 'power of God'?
But places, plants and animals; landforms, political events, seasons, &c are common knowledge. They're not verifying evidence of anything. Fictional literature of all kinds records known places and events.

I agree. But it isn't that simple. If I recall, people did not believe in the biblical Hittites
at one time. And the cultic town of Shiloh (known from the book of Samuel and the
story of the Philistines and the Ark of the Covenant) has been excavated - revealing
it really was destroyed with fire and violence, and therein lies the "horns of the altar"
and evidence for the ritual sacrifice as instructed by the law of Moses (right side
cutting of the beast.) Shiloh existed nearly 600 before skeptics claim the book of
Samuel was written.

 

[Valjean]

How did we jump to the conclusion that @frbnsn is ignorant of physics? Did I miss the exam in another thread?

Or do you just believe he's ignorant of physics?

The way she framed the universe creating itself in material, cause-and-effect terms, rather than the known physics of cosmology and expansion.

 

[PruePhillip]

Yes, Gould.

But to the extent that religions claim that God / gods / supernatural beings have objective existence, are not imaginary, then contrary to Gould, their claims are subject to the same rules as any other claim about reality.

You stand correct. But the proof is different to the physical laws. The bible states
that you must prove its assertions FOR YOURSELF. This is not corporate proof
but personal proof. The bible goes further - if you just believe the claims of the
scripture without proving things for yourself then you simply don't understand.

 

[PruePhillip]

Ain't science great, ir has proven that the Jewish people were a tribe.
No, without evidence how can that be abusing science, you are snowing here your deep mismisunderstanding of what science is.

You missed my points here. It turns out that Jews are not just a tribe or a religion
but a racial group. Google 'Jew haplotype Cohen' and you will read of descendants
from Moses' brother Aaron and the Levitical priesthood.
The abuse of science usually isn't with scientists but the wider community.- scientists
said, correctly, "There is no evidence for King David" and many people (and most
skeptics) took that to mean, "King David did not exist." But that's not what scientists
said - and soon we found evidence for King David.

 

[PruePhillip]

Why do you think they 'came into being'?

Because they are here now.

 

[PruePhillip]

Maybe, maybe not. What is it about an open question that you're having difficulty understanding? There are multiple hypotheses, including, for example, one that maps the distant future of the expansion to a new big bang (Conformal cyclic cosmology - Wikipedia)



Equations are generally the best we can do in understanding things that are fundamental. The GR model of space-time works very well, so there's good reason to take it seriously.



It's not ruled out in principle but most of the scenarios are rather unrealistic.

We use Gravity in equations since the time of Newton. We still don't have a real clue what
it is. Amazingly it isn't a force. There's some neat videos on this topic.
The death of the universe, expanding, cooling and tearing is becoming the preferred model
for cosmologists.
Same with the POV that life emerged on land first - I think 2020 was the turning point for
general acceptance of this. Genesis states that life emerged on land first - not from God
from God's command that the earth itself bring forth life. But I digress

 

[ChristineM]

You missed my points here. It turns out that Jews are not just a tribe or a religion
but a racial group. Google 'Jew haplotype Cohen' and you will read of descendants
from Moses' brother Aaron and the Levitical priesthood.

Except that outside scripture there is no evidence that Moses existed and scripture cannot be taken as historic without indipendant verification.

And they were still a tribe (or group of tribes) just like all the other tribes that lived in the middle East at that time

The abuse of science usually isn't with scientists but the wider community.- scientists
said, correctly, "There is no evidence for King David" and many people (and most
skeptics) took that to mean, "King David did not exist." But that's not what scientists said - and soon we found evidence for King David

There was no evidence until one item was discovered in the early 90s. Before that there was no reason to believe the house of david existed.


You may find this of interest

Meet the real King David, the one the Bible didn’t want you to know about

 

[PruePhillip]

Except that outside scripture there is no evidence that Moses existed and scripture cannot be taken as historic without indipendant verification.
And they were still a tribe (or group of tribes) just like all the other tribes that lived in the middle East at that time
There was no evidence until one item was discovered in the early 90s. Before that there was no reason to believe the house of david existed.

True, we need 'independent verification', only...... if a Pharaoh claims to have
defeated the 'sea people' we believe it, even if there's no verification. The
bible says something and we want verification.
The bible states that the Jews were the descendants of a single family of
twelve. This single family would have been swallowed up, genetically speaking,
in Canaan, but they migrated to Egypt, like many other groups, and settled there.
An early example of anti-semitism meant that the Jews were isolated as a group
in Egypt till they came a huge nation. And during the convulsions that shook the
whole ancient world, with mass migrations happening everywhere (ie those sea
peoples again) the Jews returned to their ancestral Canaan.
In a nut shell, THIS is the story many people won't believe.

 

[ChristineM]

True, we need 'independent verification', only...... if a Pharaoh claims to have
defeated the 'sea people' we believe it, even if there's no verification.

Do we believe it? There is certainly more evidence than that ti support a king david.

In a nut shell, THIS is the story many people won't believe

Yes well, many people don't believe in pink unicorns for the same reasons

 

[Trailblazer]

I call that 'special pleading'
If that's allowed, I can state "The Universe was always there"

And you'd be right, because the Universe has always been there.

The upshot is that God and His Creation have always existed.
(I am not referring to life on earth, because humans and plants and animals evolved.)

 

[Valjean]

I guess my point is that unless one has knowledge of something based on objective evidence, there is really no point in disqualifying other hypotheses.

Once one has irrefutable evidence as to how the universe came to be, only then can we disqualify God "magic" or anything else.

Being open to new evidence or hypotheses is one thing, but giving any serious credence to an entirely unevidenced idea is not reasonable. There's an equal chance Prue's Rainbow Serpent did it, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but we don't seriously consider them.