Little Dragon
Well-Known Member
How does one assume things into being?
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What tools or mediums does God use to create the universe?
- Thread starter osgart
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Little Dragon
Well-Known Member
Which is why it is so powerful and so successful, as a method of inquiry. Your conclusion, is my conclusion.
Audie
Veteran Member
It's intended as a dim joke.
Creos think science is all assumptions.
Fallible humans cannot assume things come into being.
Little Dragon
Well-Known Member
Ah. Sorry. Yes they do, which is peculiar.
The problem with computer simulations is that with contemporary AI technology, everything in our natural existence may be computer-simulated. This does not remotely demonstrate the possibility that it is a computer-simulated reality.I think that is a good point, and reminds me of the computer simulation theory. It is interesting that some physicists and philosophers are thinking that world could be like a computer program. I think it can be a good analogy for what this world is and how it was created with word, as computer programs are also realities that are created by words.
Are We Living in a Computer Simulation?
High-profile physicists and philosophers gathered to debate whether we are real or virtual—and what it means either waywww.scientificamerican.com
To me the Biblical idea of soul and body looks much like the idea of virtual reality in the Matrix movie.
Matrix virtual reality? You need to separate our reality from science fiction and ancient mythology.
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Little Dragon
Well-Known Member
A good question is, even if all reality is a simulation, how could you, whilst within that simulation, ever know or prove that you were part of a simulation? I love metaphysical questions, because no metaphysical answer is necessarily invalid.
the nature of God and Creation cannot be described in terms of need. My beliefs are based on IF God exists you cannot make diverse and conflicting assumptions of an anthropomorphic 'hands-on God' as ancient tribal religions do that Creation was a Creation from absolute nothing.
Based on the present nature of our scientific knowledge our existence is boundless and likely eternal. and the beliefs of the Baha'i Faith the concept of Creation is different from the traditional view of Creation.
joelr
Well-Known Member
The evidence suggests it. The shifting Greek ideas about God looks to have influenced trends about Gods and did probably influence later theologians.
God was a gigantic man with a heavy tread, weapons in his hands and breath as hot as sulpher. He took on a monstrous sea dragon in a hysical fight, he walked in his heavenly garden, in cemeteries, stripped a woman naked and offered her up, sat on a throne in a temple and enjoyed the aroma of scorched animal fat as he waited for diner. Had children?
Early temples had his giant footprints.
"Like Gods of his era, he had a face, head, hair, eyes, nose, mouth, arms, legs, heart, feet, genitals. He breathed in and out, looked like a human on a glamorous scale, behaved like a human. Evening strolls, mels, wrote, spoke, whistled, laughed, shouted, talked, loved, fought, grappled, made friends, took wives, had sex...
just like the Gods who he took after.
The Hebrew Bible offers a highly ideological portrayal of the past from pro-Jeruselem writers. The text were likely re-shaped in the new second temple period.
Moses had regular meetings with God, Abraham walks along side him, Jacob wrestles with him, Isaiah and Ezekiel see God sitting on his throne, Amos sees him in one of his temples.
The cults of Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian and Phoenician deities all experieced periods of aniconic worship as well, despite the fact that these deities were understood to have bodies.
The prohibition of divine images in the ten commandments points to a growing emphasis on the hiddenness of God's body."
paraphrased from God: An Anatomy
There of course is no such thing as proof involved with anything in this thread, but the Bible does describe God(s) from the anthropomorphic 'hands-on God' perspective.
dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
Hee. I knew it.
You said: "Early Yahweh has a body, had a son, fought, had sex, wore clothes and that is not metaphorical language."
But the truth is actually not so certain.
The topic is Yahweh, not greek gods. Nice try.
When one actually reads those passages, they are all metaphorical. But it requires a mature understanding and a careful reading.
Anything else?
dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
See below:
IMO
The atheist's metaphysics and "science" cannot escape the "darkness" which surrounds everything that exists. That darkness is as you said: "the laws of nature, which needed no conscious creator".
The implications of this insurmountable "darkness" are profound. For some, it is a great relief, for some it is a great burden. Ultimately assuming the "darkness" is the highest and the most supreme implies that there are no consequences beyond mortal existence. And this is a dangerous philosophical position to hold.
IMO
Audie
Veteran Member
It's an ignorant and biased view, not even
original to those who mouth it.
It's also some heavy duty psychological
projection.
But all very necessary for holding on to
otherwise intenable beliefs.
joelr
Well-Known Member
did you think I don't use evidence?
Strawman. "The evidence suggests it. " I did not say certain.
"Nice try" implies some sort of fail. That didn't happen. But nice try.
Yahweh did become an incorporeal deity as trends changed. But when he was a Near-Eastern deity, during the first 5 books he was like all the others. They had bodies, footstools, so did he.
Post-Biblical thoughts didn't like the idea that Yahweh was just a typical deity but it's very likely what he was originally intended to be.
Professor Fransesca Stavrakopoulou,
"But lot's of text suggest that Yahweh is masculine, with a male body"
Apologist professor "The problem isn't God, the problem arises when we take the Bibles' descriptions too literally. He went on to explain that those troublesome biblical portrayals of a corporeal, masculine God were simply metaphorical or poetic - "we shouldn't get too distracted by body references, we shouldn't engage too simplistaically with the text, look through the text"
F.S. I found this deeply frustrating, why should I look past the clear image of a man with a heavy tread, weapons in his hands and breath as hot as sulphur?A God who took on a monstrous sea dragon in a fight? A God who.....etc....etc......
Here was a deity just like I'd visited in museums as a child, a god of ancient myths, fantastic stories and long lost rituals, s god from the distant past, from a society UTTERLY UNLIKE our own.
This was a God made in the image of the people who lived them, a god shaped by their own physical circumstances, their own view of the world and their own imaginations.
after getting a PhD in Hebrew Bible and studies the text looks to be sanitizing it's deity of any mythological, earthly or unsettling characteristics.
This book explores the original Hebrew and the deities in other nearby cultures and shows the similarities.
It covers many examples of literal mentions of Gods feet, footstool, genitals, back, belly, arms, hands, grasp, face and more.
Looking at cross cultural examples, every instance is rooted in mythology of the time.
Also the apologetics you are using -
"a favorite tactic employed by early Christian theologians was simply to reduce all biblical references to Gods body to the symbolic.
another strategy was simply to insist that biblical references to Gods body parts were metaphorical and allegorical, and were not to be taken literal.
"Reverence rather requires....an allegorical meaning" Clement of Alexandria
The extent to which these theological manoeuvres were practiced by ordinary Christians is a matter of considerable debate among scholars. What is more certain is that by the 3rd century CE, the Christian exegete and theologian Origen was so appaled by those who still conceived of 'God as a cosmic giant that he launched a scathing attack in his homilies.
It was a convoluted. theological abstraction that would influence Christian interpretation of this Biblical text for centuries to come, reflecting an increasingly powerful conceptual shift away from an old-fashioned mythological imagination to a world in which the symbolic and the abstract were granted the highest cultural and theological status."
So yes, that is an apologetic, unconvincing, desperate and does not match the evidence from the time. It's a revision of history.
Yahweh had a body. Modern believers are uncomfortable with it and have to make apologetic claims that EVERY SINGLE body mention is a metaphor.
Hilarious. Scriptural evidence plus looking at the myths they were inspired by show evidence clear physicality.
No I'm all set with apologetics that revise history and deny evidence.
wonder what Gods long nose was a "metaphor" for in Exodus 34.6 Not genitals because there are literal sightings of that.
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What darkness? That seems like a personal intuition of yours. I don't experience the laws of nature as darkness. For me, they're the source of light and everything else.
This sounds personal again - like some sort of existential angst. I don't have that experience. I don't feel such a burden.
This is from atheist firebrand Pat Condell:
"It must be quite galling for religious people to see atheists like me going about their business without a shred of guilt or self-loathing, and not in the least inclined to pray or to do penance of any kind, and not in the slightest bit worried about any form of eternal punishment. I have to admit if I was religious, I'd probably think to myself: "How come I've got all this weight on my shoulders while these bums are getting a free ride?"
So you say, but it's my position and it has served me well. There is likely no significance to our lives except personally and locally, and no post-mortem consequences resulting from the lives we've led except to those we leave behind. I'm very comfortable with all of that, but I've lived decades as an atheistic humanist and as a result, possess the mindset of somebody who is comfortable with the possibility that there are no gods or magic, that nobody is judging us except other people, that nobody is helping us that doesn't live on earth, that life has no intrinsic purpose or meaning except that given by the conscious agents living it, and that consciousness is extinguished with death.
Once you're good with all of that, you can ask, "What darkness?" and live life meaningfully and mindfully without gods or religions. Neither would serve any purpose for such a person. This isn't the dangerous position to hold. The one with unfalsifiable beliefs that prevent the kind of maturation I just described is a problem, however. Holding on to magical thinking can be a problem, but not atheistic humanism, as is being preoccupied with the darkness, the void, the abyss, etc..
What darkness? I used an example almost half a century ago; if you were floating in space and could see any stars (light) then between you and them is not empty, the em (light) is there.
osgart
Nothing my eye, Something for sure
I consider evolution factual. Abiogenesis is a worthy pursuit to find a natural pathway to life. I don't believe in supernatural occurrence, but anything discovered will fall under natural processes. However with life existence, purpose, and agency I don't think any of what I just mentioned explains those things. It only explains the behaviour of life's biological medium.
Alien826
No religious beliefs
And you then have to explain where the computer came from, so it really doesn't get us anywhere.
The Matrix (in the movies) was purely physical. Real human bodies were kept alive in tanks and fed sense impressions via wires. Very similar to how our eyes and nerves work now, in fact. The machine intelligences, and Neo eventually, were able to perform apparent miracles by altering the programming. Nothing supernatural about it.
dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
Not at all. Just exaggerating and making an unqualified statement to support your own non-belief. And there's nothing wrong with that non-belief. But it doesn't produce reliable conclusions when those conculsions are unqualified. So when I see an unqualified conclusion coming from you, it's like a bright-blinking-neon sign.
Your statement was an unqualified and phrased with certainty.
You said: "Early Yahweh has a body, had a son, fought, had sex, wore clothes and that is not metaphorical language."
"... that is not metaphorical language." is expressing certainty. And there was nothing in your message which indicatess or implies a lack of certianty. I think you should just admit you made a little boo-boo, and then we can both move on.
It is a "fail" to apply greek god concepts to Yahweh.
That's not true when the actual Hebrew text is read. And what I've observed from you and others is an extreme reluuctance, almost religious zealtory which prohibits reading the actual passages themself. It is considered "blasphemy" to consider the text as written.
I know your opinion of her, but, if I recall, she exaggerates.
All that's needed is to read more of the text. Cherry picking produces the illusion. Using "apologist" as a pejorative exposes the weakness of your position. All that should be needed are facts.
Beccause of what's actually written:
Deuteronomy 4:12
וידבר יהוה אליכם מתוך האש קול דברים אתם שמעים ותמונה אינכם ראים זולתי קול׃
And the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of the words, but saw no form; you only heard a voice.
I'm sorry Joel, it's simply not written that way. For a child, yes, there are metaphorical descriptions.
There is another highly plausible explanation.
And we've been though this, the differences are being ignored.
If you need to use name-calling, then your position is weak.
Excellent! Just read your own words and accept them, and.. we're done.
You said: "reflecting an increasingly powerful conceptual shift away from an old-fashioned mythological imagination"
That ^^ is precisley what is written in the Hebrew bible. A conceptual shift away from those other god concepts. When the text is not read, and only snippets are plucked out, then an illusion is produced which neglects the "conceptual shift" which is included in the text itself. It's a story about people coming from egypt who believed in the egyptian god-concepts, but then are being convinced that these concepts are false. The pagan god-concepts and language are included in the text, of course! That's required for the conceptual shift.
Of course it does. It matches it as polemic.
No, what yoou are doing is revising the story, by plucking out only the parts which support your non-belief. And as a PHD yourself, I'm surprised that you are not aware of how this works.
False. What's actually written alwways proves you wrong.
Deuteronomy 4:12
וידבר יהוה אליכם מתוך האש קול דברים אתם שמעים ותמונה אינכם ראים זולתי קול׃
And יהוה spoke to you out of the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of the words, but saw no form; you only heard a voice.
No. The evidence shows just as you wrote:
The Hebrew text is "reflecting an increasingly powerful conceptual shift away from an old-fashioned mythological imagination"
You simply are not aware of what's in the text. And you seem desperate to reconfirm your non-belief. If you cam from a Christian backgournd this makes sense. Deep dowwn you don''t want to go to hell. And these Christian ideas made a deep and profound impression on you. I don't think you're going to hell for you non-belief, Joel. You can put all of that behind you.
You don't seem all set, Joel. And that's because you are neglecting what is actually written and resorting to name calling. When a person puts their fingers in their ears and their head in the sand, that indicates there is an unresolved issue iin their mind which is painful or uncomfortable to face head on, with eyes wide open.
"Arich Anpin" and "Zeir Anpin" both simultaneously.
Arich Anpin - Wikipedia
You see. These concepts were neglected by those who wanted to assimilate into mainstream German culture shortly before WW2. They didn't want to follow the law, and they chose to ignore the deeper aspects of Judaism. This produced the Reform movement and biblical criticism as it is known today. They don't know what the words mean, they don't know the metaphors attached to them, and they don't want to know them. They want to be "german-intellectuals" for lack of a better term. It's not that the metaphors didn't exist, it's that the metaphors need to be denied inorder to assimilate. And they deeply desire assimilation. This is historically accurate. Look at the kosher meat strike in New York city around... oy... the mid 1900s. It was german intellectuals vs. the common masses whom were being painted as outsiders.
And, one can go directly back to the story in the garden to see what happened. Eve is standing directly in front of the Tree of Life but instead choses knowledge. Why?
ותרא האשה כי טוב העץ למאכל וכי תאוה־הוא לעינים ונחמד העץ להשכיל ותקח מפריו ותאכל ותתן גם־לאישה עמה ויאכל׃
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit, and ate, and gave also to her husband with her; and he ate.
She chose the tree that was desired by others.
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Ultimately applied technology based on Natural Laws and natural processes. As far as the objectively verifiable evidence everything objective is based on Natural Laws and processes.
. . . . or simply turtles all the way down.
It remains science fiction with no context in reality.