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What if it was created by God to evolve?

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
What sort of question is that?

I have several children .. and if they act irresponsibly, I am disappointed, naturally.
Would there be any such thing as responsibility, if G-d had created us without it? Duhh ;)
According to the Garden of Eden myth God made people without that sense of responsibility. You should read it some time.
 

Brian2

Veteran Member
He probably sees "God" like I do - a creation of the imagination. But the humanist skeptic still judges the fictional character by the same rules as if it were an actual moral agent, and no, that doesn't include carte blanche approval of that behavior as the believer generally grants it. Might doesn't make right however mighty one is.

It's not about might but about right.
Without a God there is no absolute right and wrong and so skeptics judge God on moral principles made up in their own head or feelings and usually not considering either the long term goal of good presented in the Bible, and working towards that, or the authority of God as creator and owner and judge of all His creation.
If there is a creator God, He owns us and can judge us as He sees fit. We can complain about it and God may decide we have a case, but that is something that will happen in the future.

That sounds like a design flaw. If you could design your children, would you program the ability to do wrong in or out of them?

If I designed it out of them then they would be amoral creatures and so would be less than human.

That's a pretty good description of a nonexistent god, and what would be yet another bad idea for a deity that allegedly wants to be known, understood, loved, obeyed, and worshiped.

Maybe you've noticed in these last two comments of yours and my responses to them that the world is the way we would expect it to be if it arose and evolved naturalistically and was godless. And the apologist's response is to tell us that that's God's design, implying that God meant to be indistinguishable from his own nonexistence.

Even when/if He shows Himself you do not want to believe those who tell us about it and try to say that the prophecies must have been written after the fact.
So now you want God to come back and judge the world and get rid of evil and evil doers (which is what He is going to do) but you want Him to come back to be known, understood, loved, obeyed and worshipped, no doubt thinking that you don't need His mercy but that He needs your mercy and a better PR programme.
But no I don't see that the world is the way we would expect it to be if it arose and evolved naturalistically and was godless.
 

Dan From Smithville

He who controls the spice controls the universe.
Staff member
Premium Member
Yes, please!

Is this not called “religiousForums”?
But when you ask someone how or why they believe a certain way in a religious context, they get offended?! Asking them to support their religious view, on a religious discussion site no less, is apparently inappropriate.
Why sure it is.

And by your reckoning, I am forced to address questions from you whether I want to or not. Otherwise I am the subject of conversations about it for months.

However, I ask questions of members of your group and get no response at all. Isn't that a double standard that you are supporting here. You can carry on a campaign to get me to answer questions while supporting members of your group that don't. @nPeace ignores questions from me and others and I don't see any discussion of that at all. I don't routinely run across posts where his name is mentioned regarding his failure to respond.

Why is that OK? Is there something special about your group that lets them ignore some while hounding others to answer questions?

Isn't that a double standard?
I’m gonna try to answer a few of these questions; a couple don’t make sense, to me:

I don’t understand what you are saying here.
Is that why you all repeat the same claims over and over? You don't think others understood them the first few dozen times?
Yes, I claim God has given humans free will, but I’ve “embraced an ideology that doesn’t allow” free will?
It is my understanding that members of your group cannot question what they are told and doing so results in severe consequences including shunning. Under those circumstances, that is not free will.
People can choose to break all kinds of laws - that’s free will - but there are still repercussions for doing it. (It is obvious from the numbers of people in prison.) See Galatians 6:7.

As far as “evidence of reality,” I’m quite sure I’ve already found it, aka, spiritual truth. And how it combines the Bible (& the worship of Jehovah) with science, three subjects I care a lot about!
“What Christ preached”? Did Jesus accept the actions of everybody? No. Matthew 7:21-23
Uh huh. That skirts the point. I know you have to.
What?! I don’t!
Where did this come from?
In my opinion it is. What's the group position on Catholicism?
You mean, see, as in see their effects?

It’s a million different things… but I’ll give you one:
Since Christianity is your religion, I guess I could safely assume you think its core values are God-approved, right? I know I do.
By the time Jesus finished his preaching & was killed, he had established a certain system of worship that was approved by his Father, God.
But Jesus knew it would not stay that way… remember the previous Scripture (above), Matthew 7:21-23?
And in line with Revelation 12:9 & others, it makes sense that a religion that started out right, would be a target for attack by His enemies. Has it?
Well, of the world’s major religions, it is the most fractured, with over 30,000 divisions & sects! Orders of magnitude beyond the others!

By making so many proverbial haystacks, Satan & his cohorts have tried to overshadow the needle.
Why do you see demons everywhere, but remain unable to show others what you see is real?
Honestly, I haven’t seen that. (I’ve seen them supporting your posts.) But then, I haven’t seen all your posts.
About science. They do not support my views on religion.
I don’t want to whip anybody. My goodness.
Then this should be the end of it. If you make demands I or anyone answer questions that are off topic, then you should be OK that you don't get answers and not keep repeating them until we get this.
I don’t follow.
It has been months since you tried the ploy of demanding I give my views of Christianity to avoid the fact that you have no evidence to support your belief in Demons. What I believe or don't is irrelevant to your ability to provide evidence. It has all the appearance of a diversion to avoid the fact that you don't have that evidence.
I want to start an inquisition? I’m the inquisitor? But I’m the one here answering your questions. Lol.
What would you call a months long discussion about a person that doesn't want to engage with you on subjects other than the OP's. What would you call demands that I explain my religious views where that information is irrelevant to the OP?

Looks like inquisition to me.
Then ask me. With respect, please.
I do until it is time to give the same respect I get. Frankly, I am tired of the disrespect I've received over this entire situation.
I don’t know much about Australia, though. I have some nice opals from Lightning Ridge, & boulder opals from Koroit. I do love many science topics.
I didn't ask about Australia or opals. Odd you didn't mention what I did say. Is that what you consider respect?
 
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shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
It doesn't look like you saw the post I replied to. It was commenting about cancer and genetic defects. And please understand, I didn't say the material world was ONLY chaos. So, yeah, it's orderly. But there is an inherent chaos INCLUDED.

I disagree with this old use of chaos and randomness terminology. I addressed this in a previous thread in detail. Yes, science still misuses randomness and chaos terminology, You, unfortunately, indicated this concept plays a major role and I disagree.

I will address this further it is late.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
I disagree with this old use of chaos and randomness terminology. I addressed this in a previous thread in detail. Yes, science still misuses randomness and chaos terminology, You, unfortunately, indicated this concept plays a major role and I disagree.

I will address this further it is late.
The best way to describe the problem of terminology to describe variability over time is this example concerning the variability of Cancer growth. Note: At the molecular cause-and-effect event outcome the events are described as fractal even though appear as random.


PERSPECTIVES IN CANCER RESEARCH| JULY 15 2000

Fractals and Cancer1

James W. Baish;

Rakesh K. Jain
Whereas our present discussion has focused on applications of fractal analysis to tumor vasculature and the tumor border, several groups are seeking to extend the use of fractals to the classification of abnormalities of cellular and nuclear structures (5, 59–61). Explanations for why structures at this scale should display changes in fractal dimension under pathological conditions remain to be explored.
Although better understood than cellular morphology, determinants of vascular morphology are just beginning to be revealed by molecular methods (62, 63). The extent to which specific vascular growth factors may be linked to specific vascular morphologies is an area of ongoing study. Hopefully, when molecular methods are combined with fractal analysis and more classical morphometric methods(64), a more complete understanding of tumor pathology may be obtained.
If carefully applied, fractal methods may someday have a significant impact on our understanding of challenges in treatment delivery and diagnosis of cancer. Being able to quantify the irregular structures that are present in tumors helps to clarify why treatment is so frustratingly difficult, a disappointing but important finding. More constructively, the same irregularities that thwart treatment appear to be promising means of highlighting tumors in new imaging procedures based on the patterns of tracer movement. Fractal analysis shows its greatest promise as an objective measure of seemingly random structures and as a tool for examining the mechanistic origins of pathological form. Whether fractals will ultimately find a place in the oncologist’s toolbox awaits more controlled comparisons with conventional pathological procedures.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Major? I said it is included.

None the less if there are better words and concepts, I am happy to learn and use them, if they fit. thank you, good night.

Please note follow-up post #186. Your initial description was more than just being included.

This example describes Caner growth at the molecular level as fractal. even though it appears random.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
There are other possibilities.

Such as?

He also knows the distant future and that this evil in the world is going to be non existent then.

You're making excuses. As per your own acknowledgement, he created a world knowing before hand that he was going to have to push the "reset button", engage in genocide, command people to go on genocidal and infanticidal killing sprees, etc.

Having said that, reading these myths, it is absolutely clear to me that he in fact did NOT know before hand that he was going to "have to" do such things. He was disappointed and felt the need to punish. This does not at all fit a story where he supposedly knew before hand what would and wouldn't happen.

If I set up a path where I KNOW with absolute certainty that this path would lead to my son committing murder and being a drug addict then I can not hold my son responsible for that. It is entirely my responsability. I KNEW what was going to happen and decided to go ahead with it anyway. And then I even punish him for it... He never stood a chance. He never had a choice. It was a set-up. A trap. A trap set by yours truely.

It's absolutely insane, psychopathic, masochistic, irresponsible, immoral,...

Why do you give your god a free pass for such disugsting behaviour?
Why would your god NOT be responsible for every nasty thing that happens if it is him who created everything knowing full well what that set-up would lead to?

Suppose I have perfect foresight and KNOW that if I get my wife pregnant tonight, it would lead to the birth of Adolf Hitler who later on in life would be responsible for the massacre of 6 million jews.... Do you think I would make my wife pregnant tonight? Don't you think that I would wait till tomorrow so that such horror does not occur?

If you do something while KNOWING what horrible thing it would lead to.... why would you do it? Why would you not hold that agent accountable for those horrible things happening?

As I said, there is more to it than that.

Yes, you keep claiming that.
Can you support it / demonstrate it?
No. Let me guess: "you just gotta have faith"?

You must mean that He did not let us humans off the hook for all the evil we have done, but He accepted the death of one perfect human to pay the wages of sin that we have all earned for ourselves because of the evil deeds we have done.

Which is letting us humans off the hook .................................................... :facepalm:

How in the world is punishing an innocent scapegoat and letting the guilty off the hook NOT letting the guilty of the hook?????
How in the world is that remotely "justice"?

And let's not forget that the previous point still remains.... humans aren't "guilty". HE is responsible for the "wrong doings" of humans, since he set them up in a system where they had no other choice. He KNEW what would happen (according to you at least) by setting creation up the way he did. That future (according to you) was set in stone. No way to avoid it. So how are we in any way responsible for it?

If it could have turned out in another way, then your god couldn't have known beforehand what would happen.

You have dug this hole and you can't get out of it. Your statements are self-contradictory.

But of course you don't believe in the Bible God or any Gods anyway so it has nothing to do with holding anyone accountable.

I don't have to believe the characters in a story are actual real characters in order to evaluate the moral implications of said characters actions in said story.

We can perfectly have this exact same discussion about the morality of the character of Darth Vader from Star Wars or Thanos from the Marvel Universe.

This is yet another attempt of you to try and dodge the points made. As if my evaluations of the moral implication of the story aren't relevant because I don't think the story is non-fiction. It matters not.

If there is a creator who judges us then you can present your ramblings to Him and say how evil He is

If that "creator" is the bible god and the bible descriptions of him are actually accurate, then yes that is exactly what I'll do.
There also would be no point in trying to lie or whatever because if this god is how the biblical view of him is, then he'll know I'ld be lying anyway.

and that you yourself are pure and holy in comparison

I never said that.
I'm only contesting the claim the he is the definition of moral behavior and goodness. He clearly isn't.
In morals, the ends don't necessarily justify the means. If that were the case, then it would be moral to develop AI nano-technology that attacks every single chinese person identified by their DNA in order to rid the world of more then a billion chinese people which would at least partially solve over population and at the same time get rid of the nation with the most carbon emissions. This would be a positive outcome for all future generations of human kind.

But morality doesn't work that way. It would be immoral to do that. Regardless of the "long term benefits" for the future of humanity.

and that He is responsible for all evil and you for nothing.

Never said that either.
Clearly you are incapable of following a simple thought process. It's telling however that you need to resort to these types of strawman in order to try and defend yourself against the actual points made.
It tells me that you don't actually have a valid argument and that deep down, you know I'm right.

But if there is no God then you remain responsible for all the evil you have done.

I'm always responsible for my own actions regardless of gods existing. Regardless of immoral supernatural agents killing scapegoats to absolve me of my supposed "guilt".

I'm responsible for my wrongdoings. So is your god. So is every moral agent.
The point. You keep missing it.

I'm not the one who's trying to escape responsibility of my own actions. That would be christians who believe they were "saved" from their own guilt because some supposed "perfect" jew was killed 2 millenia ago.

But you can always tell yourself that there is really no such thing as evil except in our own imagination. We have made the idea up.
More strawman.

Try to actually address the points raised instead of this drivel.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
Without a God there is no basis for absolute rights and wrongs.
Complete utter bs.

The very opposite is true.

Your idea of morality is no more or less then obedience to a perceived authority. "divine command theory" is the "morality" of psychopaths.
Actual moral agents to their own moral reasoning and don't require an authority to tell them what is and isn't moral.

I can confidently tell you that I am morally superior to the god described in the bible. And so are you.
 

Audie

Veteran Member
Noah's flood just shows the authority of God and His concern for the world.
Also consider that God gives everyone a final judgement based on a personal assessment.



So you see God, the creator and owner of all things as just another human with no authority over anything.



God created us with the potential to choose to do the wrong things. iow we are more than robots.
He's waiting for more people to come to Him and in the meantime He is putting up with all the evil in the world.
Showing concern by killing billions of animals.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
I’m not going to reply to each in vidual commenting on my “Cambrian“ post, too many.

Let me say this:

When you Google ‘Cambrian’ along with ‘ “sudden appearance” ‘ in quotations, you’ll get so many sites. (‘Cambrian “abrupt appearance” ‘ will also work, and add even more, )

“Sudden” does not mean rapid. It means “immediate”.

The reason for the 10 to 15 million years, was the time for these life forms to populate the oceans… indeed, they’re found just about everywhere.

But of these thousands of species, each one “appeared suddenly.” With no obvious precursors.

I’m tired of people misrepresenting the evidence, in an effort to downplay its significance.
The problem remains endemic to fundamental Christian responses to cite incomplete layman references that do not provide explanations as scientific sources concerning subjects like the Cambrian rapid diversification of life. It in reality is adequately described in scientific research as caused by changes in the environment, and in reality, there was not a sudden beginning in the Cambrian, but has continued extinction and evolution based on environmental changes from life forms in the Pre-Cambrian world. This article goes into the specific cause in terms of changes in the environment from the Precambrian and Cambrian life. Read further and the article goes into the phony 'Discovery Institute' argument for 'Intelligent Design, which ended in the embarrassing withdrawal of an article from a scientific journal.



What Caused the Cambrian Explosion?​

Last week we looked at some of the reasons why creationists can’t stop talking about the Cambrian explosion. Today let’s look at a new paper published in Science1 that explores possible causes of the Cambrian explosion, the seminal diversification of animal life that began about 530 million years ago. As we’ll see, the way scientists think about the causes of the Cambrian explosion has little in common with the way creationists think about it.
animals from the burgess shale

Paul Smith and David Harper (of Oxford and Durham Universities, respectively) outline a number of ideas about why Cambrian animals changed so much during a geologically short period of time. They reasonably conclude that we should consider multiple causes acting simultaneously, rather than any single stand-alone process, and that we should consider both abiotic and biotic factors.
Noting that “it is unlikely that any single causal mechanism can explain the Cambrian explosion,” and that such a complicated event likely involved the “complex interaction of abiotic and biotic processes,” Smith and Harper point to early Cambrian sea level rise as a major factor. Geologists have long known that worldwide sea level surged during the Cambrian, drowning low-lying continental areas to create shallow seas of the kind that, in today’s environment, teem with life. That may be just a coincidence--or it may be one of the key causes.

What would a rise in sea level during the Cambrian accomplish? Smith and Harper note that “sea-level rise would have generated a very large habitable area lying between the base of wave turbulence.” Additionally, Cambrian flooding would release nutrients such as phosphate and calcium, which would aid the formation of hard shells.

Smith and Harper describe the Cambrian explosion as a series of “interacting processes generat[ing] an evolutionary cascade that led to the rapid rise in diversity.” Some of these processes are biotic: an arms race sparked by “near-simultaneous appearance of both predatory and defensive hard tissues across a wide range of animal groups.” Some of these processes are abiotic: “Calcium concentrations in seawater increased almost three-fold in the early Cambrian, and this input may have facilitated the origin of biomineralization.”

This multifaceted complexity is how scientists think about the causes of the Cambrian explosion. While there is disagreement and controversy among scientists about the relative importance of the factors involved in the Cambrian explosion, and much research remains to be done in the Ediacaran fossils that predate the Cambrian, there is essentially no disagreement among scientists that evolution was responsible for the diversification of Cambrian animals.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
What sort of question is that?
The question was, "If you could design your children, would you program the ability to do wrong in or out of them?" It's a very good question the answer to which illustrates a relevant point. Since you won't answer, I will. Yes, if I had the means to make my children good people by directly choosing their values and temperament, I would. Since none of us have that power, we come as close to that as we can during upbringing. We correct bad behaviors after the fact with admonitions and maybe punishment. And if junior turns to the bad anyway, we mourn that and wonder how we failed. If only we could have dialed in restraint, gentility, kindness.

So, for a tri-omni god who has the power to design people without the ability to experience malice or indifference, or to be cowardly or disloyal, there is no excuse to introduce evils into the world. Such a god cannot be tri-omni. As Epicurus noted, “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”)

That's the kind of thinking a skeptic does, which is off-limits for the Abrahamic theist. He and his church consider it blasphemy to entertain such thoughts and they are dismissed as a devil trying to steal one's soul. Also, people like me making arguments like this are considered hostile to "God" and immoral as well. That's by design. It behooves the religions to teach that. But It Aint Necessarily So.
Evolution is Gods technique of creation on our particular world as opposed to life inventing itself and falling uphill for millions of years!
Looks like you changed name and adopted standard capitalization.

What does a god add to the same ideas without one: nature assembled itself according the laws of physics that emerged following an initial expansion into a theater of filaments of clusters of solar systems in space and time, which generated the elements which then organized themselves according to those same laws into dissipative structures that then began evolving biologically?

That works fine as is until such time as it can be shown that that could not have happened without intelligent oversight - maybe by finding specified or irreducible complexity in a biological organism. There's a reason the intelligent design people focused on just those two, and it's because the rest of reality can't be shown to require an intelligent designer.
He did not let us humans off the hook for all the evil we have done
The Abrahamic religions are dismal in their nihilism and pessimism, especially for man. Its god punishes man for being human but doesn't seem to ever reward man for the good he does. Imagine growing up with such a parent - continually punishing you for being human but never praising or rewarding you for the opposite.
Empiricism would not accept the OT Messiah if He came and all the Jews believed it was Him
If the Jews accepted anybody as their Messiah, it would be on empirical grounds - the degree to which a given life conformed to messianic prophecy in the Torah. It ought to be meaningful to Christians that they don't, but it isn't. They don't really care what Talmudic scholars say.
So chaos organises itself and there is no cause in the underlying principles of physics?
Yes (first clause) and no (second). Order can arise spontaneously from chaos into what are called dissipative structures. They are far-from-equilibrium structures that channel energy more efficiently than the disordered air molecules of a balmy day. Ambient energy drives the process. The more heat in the oceans and atmosphere, the more common and large the tornadoes and hurricanes (atmospheric vortices) that form will be, and they'll cluster in the warmest times of the year. We have physical cause and effect. I've given you other examples, like vortices in water. The red spot on Jupiter is a dissipative structure (storm) that has been relatively stable for centuries. The hexagon on Saturn's north pole is another geometric structure organized from relative disorder by heat energy.

And the pinnacle of this process is life. Living cells are far-from-equilibrium dissipative structures channeling ambient energy. You and I are that. That all ends with death. We cease energy intake, we stop generating warmth. Our far-from-equilibrium configuration returns to equilibrium (room temperature, blood pools according to gravity, subcellular structures including actomyosin falling apart and returning to simpler molecules and structures manifesting first as rigor mortis them flaccidity).
What anyone believes about the origins of life is believed by faith and isn't knowledge.
Like many others, I have knowledge there, and no faith is involved. I provided it already in this thread at post 142
But you believe it anyway even though you say it is never proven.
My beliefs are commensurate with the quality and quantity of available relevant evidence, and are tentative, meaning less than 100% certain and amenable to revision with new discoveries.
You make that leap of faith as I do
My beliefs are founded empirically, not on faith (discovered, not imagined)
You have your own subjective beliefs and reasons for not believing.
I wrote, "if I see scripture as weak prophecy, does that not make the Bible NOT worth believing and therefore not reliable." You gave no answer. My answer is, yes, if prophecy is weak, one should not believe it came from a prescient source, and if you are honest with yourself, you'll see that this is the flipside of your belief that if the prophecies are fulfilled, that indicates a transhuman source for them.

[cont.]
 
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It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
My faith is not irrational.
If one's belief isn't supported by valid reasoning, it wasn't arrived at using reasoning, which is what irrational means - absent reasoning.
Without a God there is no basis for absolute rights and wrongs.
There are no absolute rights or wrongs known to man, just claims from some religions. That's a part of the human condition with which we must grapple.

Also, "Appeal to consequences is a fallacy in which someone concludes that a statement, belief, or hypothesis must be true (or false) simply because it would lead to desirable (or undesirable) consequences if it were so."

Simply wanting there to be a god and absolute moral values is not grounds for insisting that it must be.
I have evidence for my beliefs but you believe my evidence is not evidence. That must be a faith based belief.
No. I've seen the evidence believers offer for their god beliefs. It doesn't support a god belief by the standards of critical analysis.
If you can't see the goodness of God because you left out faith in your life, then how can you examine the goodness of God.
One can't examine anything open-mindedly if he begins with a faith-based belief. It's you that can't examine the goodness or badness of that deity, because you have excluded the possibility of badness a priori.
You cannot trust is prophecies of God when you trust in Occam's razor more than you do in the possible existence of God and fulfilled prophecy.
I haven't ruled out the possibility of gods or of some prophet one day making a strong religious prophecy and it being fulfilled.
skeptics judge God on moral principles made up in their own head or feelings
Agreed, although that is not the language I would use. Humanists get their moral intuitions from their consciences, not holy books or pastors.
If there is a creator God, He owns us and can judge us as He sees fit.
That's value that humanism would reject. People cannot be owned, and might doesn't make right.
If I designed it out of them then they would be amoral creatures and so would be less than human.
If you programmed immorality out of your children, they would be moral exemplars, not amoral, they would still be fully human. They would be "sinless" as you define sin.

Funny that you don't describe Jesus that way. In Jesus, his sinlessness doesn't make him amoral or less than human to you. You're using motivated reasoning here. When it suits you to call sinlessness perfection, you do, and that same state in a man programmed becomes undesirable. It's just as desirable in me and you as it is in Jesus. So why didn't God make man that same way? My answer? There is no such god.
So now you want God to come back and judge the world and get rid of evil and evil doers (which is what He is going to do) but you want Him to come back to be known, understood, loved, obeyed and worshipped, no doubt thinking that you don't need His mercy but that He needs your mercy and a better PR programme.
Brian: I'm an atheist. I don't ask anything of gods.
I don't see that the world is the way we would expect it to be if it arose and evolved naturalistically and was godless.
I do. The world behaves as if it runs blindly.

Here's complex argument against interventionalist gods I call restricted choice that begins with an analogy. Consider a coin. Is it a fair coin or one perfectly loaded to flip tails (for example) every time? Suppose that we were unable to touch the coin to weigh or X-ray it. The only test available to us is a series of coin flips. How many consecutive tails would it take to convince you that the coin was loaded and could never come up heads?

Probably more than ten, but probably less than a thousand. Have you proved the coin is loaded after 1000 consecutive tails? No, but you've made a compelling case, one good enough to prevent reasonable people from betting on heads. If [A] the coin is fair, then two results are possible, heads [R1] or tails [R2], but if the coin is perfectly loaded, only [R2] tails will be seen. This is what is meant by restricted choice. When the outcome is restricted to the same one of two (or more) possibilities

Now we apply the argument to the universe we inhabit:
  • If it was ruled by an interventionist god [A], we might have a holy book that clearly could have been written by any man [R1] or not [R2]. If no such deity exists , we would not [R2]. This world contains no such compelling writings [R2].
  • If our universe were ruled by an interventionist god [A], we might not [R1] or might [R2] have regular laws of physics, since an interventionalist deity might vary the strength of gravity, for example. If no such deity is running the universe we would have fixed, mindless laws [R2].
  • If our universe were ruled by an interventionist god [A], we might not [R1] or might [R2] see convincing manifestations of this deity. If no such deity is running the universe we never would [R2].
We can never proved the coin was loaded however many times we flip it, and this argument doesn't disprove anything either however many times it turns up tails [R2], but it is a compelling argument that there is no god running the show - good enough to ignore those who claim otherwise. Not that it is needed.

The simple inability of the theist to sufficiently support his claims is enough to reject them. But this argument goes beyond that. It says there is evidence that the claim is wrong. The repeated absence of expected evidence for an interventionalist god is evidence (not proof) of its absence.
 

F1fan

Veteran Member
Noah's flood just shows the authority of God and His concern for the world.
So the best God can do to show his authority is mass murder?

And if he is concerned about what hos creation had become perhaps he should have designed it in a way that would have been what he wanted. I always hear the "free will" argument for Adam & Eve, but then the flood shows that God did not fully understand the consequences of allowing free will (as believers like yourself interpret these myths). The God you interpret from these stories is incompenet and evil. If you think it is loving it clearly doesn't know what he's doing.
Also consider that God gives everyone a final judgement based on a personal assessment.
How can you trust a God that murders most of the world's population for errors the God made in creating the humans? You don't seem to understand the God you are creating with your interpretation is a sociopath. And then you think it is worthy of respect?
So you see God, the creator and owner of all things as just another human with no authority over anything.
I see your interpretation of God as you present your beliefs. You need to take responsibility for the God you create in your mind via your interpretation, and then post in debate. Notice you post what you believe, but no evidence, and no explanation how your interpretation is consistent with facts. A God that murders most of the planet's life is NOT loving or competent, and could even be evil if what he is doing is deliberate. Your defense of God by denying he allowed cancers to kill people and other animals suggests you think God is incompetent, but also evil to not stop cancers. You cite your God's authority above, but apparently he doesn't have the authority or power to end cancer? Jesus, even doctors can cure some cases of cancer, but your God can't?
God created us with the potential to choose to do the wrong things. iow we are more than robots.
I suggest rigid believers like yourself who won't and can't listen to reason are the robots. You have the capacity to lern and adjust beliefs, but you refuse. Do you deliberately choose to reject reason and evidence, or are you responding to the inner conflict and fear of your beliefs, and like a robot processing your religious programming?
He's waiting for more people to come to Him and in the meantime He is putting up with all the evil in the world.
This is an extraordinary claim. Do you talk to God, did he tell you this directly? Or is this a guess, or is it you just repeating what religious leaders told you, and you believed them without question (like a robot)?

And again, if there is evil in the world it exists because your God created it. He needs to be frustrated with himself if he doesn't like the resiults of what he created. Many people are good, but you expect all humans to be better than your God in being moral. Don't forget, your God murdered millions, but then is disappointed that many don't believe in him?
 
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Colt

Well-Known Member
What does a god add to the same ideas without one: nature assembled itself according the laws of physics that emerged following an initial expansion into a theater of filaments of clusters of solar systems in space and time, which generated the elements which then organized themselves according to those same laws into dissipative structures that then began evolving biologically?

That works fine as is until such time as it can be shown that that could not have happened without intelligent oversight - maybe by finding specified or irreducible complexity in a biological organism. There's a reason the intelligent design people focused on just those two, and it's because the rest of reality can't be shown to require an intelligent designer.
There are no "laws of physics" that create life. Another swing and a miss!


195:6.11 "To say that mind “emerged” from matter explains nothing. If the universe were merely a mechanism and mind were unapart from matter, we would never have two differing interpretations of any observed phenomenon. The concepts of truth, beauty, and goodness are not inherent in either physics or chemistry. A machine cannot know, much less know truth, hunger for righteousness, and cherish goodness.

195:6.12 Science may be physical, but the mind of the truth-discerning scientist is at once supermaterial. Matter knows not truth, neither can it love mercy nor delight in spiritual realities. Moral convictions based on spiritual enlightenment and rooted in human experience are just as real and certain as mathematical deductions based on physical observations, but on another and higher level.

195:6.13 If men were only machines, they would react more or less uniformly to a material universe. Individuality, much less personality, would be nonexistent." UB 1955

THE SUPREMACY OF PURPOSIVE POTENTIAL​

102:5.1 "Although the establishment of the fact of belief is not equivalent to establishing the fact of that which is believed, nevertheless, the evolutionary progression of simple life to the status of personality does demonstrate the fact of the existence of the potential of personality to start with. And in the time universes, potential is always supreme over the actual. In the evolving cosmos the potential is what is to be, and what is to be is the unfolding of the purposive mandates of Deity.


102:5.2 This same purposive supremacy is shown in the evolution of mind ideation when primitive animal fear is transmuted into the constantly deepening reverence for God and into increasing awe of the universe. Primitive man had more religious fear than faith, and the supremacy of spirit potentials over mind actuals is demonstrated when this craven fear is translated into living faith in spiritual realities.

102:5.3 You can psychologize evolutionary religion but not the personal-experience religion of spiritual origin. Human morality may recognize values, but only religion can conserve, exalt, and spiritualize such values. But notwithstanding such actions, religion is something more than emotionalized morality. Religion is to morality as love is to duty, as sonship is to servitude, as essence is to substance. Morality discloses an almighty Controller, a Deity to be served; religion discloses an all-loving Father, a God to be worshiped and loved. And again this is because the spiritual potentiality of religion is dominant over the duty actuality of the morality of evolution." UB 1955 IMOP
 
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It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
There are no "laws of physics" that create life.
Sure there are. They're acting to create new life in you right now. A zygote becomes a newborn without intelligent oversight. Only the laws of chemistry are needed. Charged solutes in an aqueous solvent move passively, orient themselves, and form bonds (anabolism) or break bonds (catabolism) according to the laws of physics (chemistry).
195:6.11 "To say that mind “emerged” from matter explains nothing.
I thought we were talking about life?

I'm not predisposed to accept such a criticism from a theist, whose proposed god explains nothing. We see this special pleading frequently in religious apologetics - "Your beliefs need empirically demonstrable mechanisms, but mine don't. God works in mysterious ways"
Although the establishment of the fact of belief is not equivalent to establishing the fact of that which is believed, nevertheless, the evolutionary progression of simple life to the status of personality does demonstrate the fact of the existence of the potential of personality to start with
That's a trivial observation. Obviously, whatever actually obtains was potential (possible).
potential is always supreme over the actual.
Disagree. That which is actually realized is ontologically "supreme" over mere potential.
 

Alien826

No religious beliefs
It is up to God to reveal Himself to us.
I agree. That would be the only way we could know anything about a being that was beyond our comprehension. Of course we would get an edited version, in terms that we could understand. I still don't think we could actually understand god to the point of making definitive statements about it, because, by definition (beyond our comprehension), we couldn't understand the reality.

No, lying is an appropriate word whether you want to use the word or not.

I don't get it. Isn't a lie a deliberate falsehood intended to deceive? I certainly don't want to accuse all religious believers (or authors of scripture) of that.
 

Colt

Well-Known Member
Sure there are. They're acting to create new life in you right now. A zygote becomes a newborn without intelligent oversight. Only the laws of chemistry are needed. Charged solutes in an aqueous solvent move passively, orient themselves, and form bonds (anabolism) or break bonds (catabolism) according to the laws of physics (chemistry).

I thought we were talking about life?

I'm not predisposed to accept such a criticism from a theist, whose proposed god explains nothing. We see this special pleading frequently in religious apologetics - "Your beliefs need empirically demonstrable mechanisms, but mine don't. God works in mysterious ways"

That's a trivial observation. Obviously, whatever actually obtains was potential (possible).

Disagree. That which is actually realized is ontologically "supreme" over mere potential.
Physics and chemistry (which come from God) don't have forethought and create! Thats an absurd claim from the Atheist religion! Ther spark of life comes from the spirit.

If one could have observed and analyzed the primitive life forms that became a Human hundreds of millions of years later, there would not have been anything that would demonstrate conclusively that it would evolve the way it did. Therefore the potential was supreme over the actual was at the beginning.
 

Alien826

No religious beliefs
You must mean that He did not let us humans off the hook for all the evil we have done, but He accepted the death of one perfect human to pay the wages of sin that we have all earned for ourselves because of the evil deeds we have done.

This is probably the main part of Christian belief that I don't get. If a human murderer is sentenced to death, neither the law, nor the general consensus of the population would accept letting him off by executing somebody else. How is that not a more complicated way of letting him off the hook?

It may make sense to God, and I understand that it goes back to Jewish ideas about sacrificing animals as an atonement for sin, but that still doesn't make sense to me.

I don't expect you to explain it, though try if you wish.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Physics and chemistry ... don't have forethought and create!
Physics and chemistry create every day. Consciousness and intent are not required.
Thats an absurd claim from the Atheist religion!
There is no atheist religion. And no claim of science is absurd.
Ther spark of life comes from the spirit.
Now THAT'S religion and an absurd claim to make lacking any evidence that spirits exist.
If one could have observed and analyzed the primitive life forms that became a Human hundreds of millions of years later, there would not have been anything that would demonstrate conclusively that it would evolve the way it did. Therefore the potential was supreme over the actual was at the beginning.
No, the actual was and is always more important than the mere possible. Maybe you or I had the potential to do great things and change the world for the better in a big way, but we didn't. That primitive life form had the potential to evolve into orders of magnitude more organisms than actually appeared. Only the latter actualized and became part of reality. Unrealized potential life forms simply don't matter until they do. A male fertilizes a female. Billions of sperm have the potential to fertilize the eggs, but only the one that does affects reality, and that which doesn't affect reality is irrelevant. The offspring that never were following that union don't matter, just the one that realized that potential and actualized.
 
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