What's the term to describe this?

[Unveiled Artist]

Think of this. A building can't be built by one builder. There needs to be multiple people to create one. If we apply the same logic to what we know of this (as you are with one builder), then we would assume life has multiple creators not one.

Wouldn't this make sense to assume just as much as if we said one creator?

I mentioned Darwin because even Darwin supports that evolution is not a fact. Its a hypothesis. I believe in microevolution, which is small changes within a species, but not in one being changing to another being.

 

[firedragon]

When someone says "look. proof of god is in nature... see!"

What is the name for the attribution they are putting to what they see and what they believe?

Since there is no direct connection between nature and creator (me and someone across the world should believe come to the same conclusion when looking at the same thing), it's based on the person who determines that connection not a obvious means of conclusion.

Maybe it's a fallacy, I don't know.

(From an abrahamic view)

I think this view also is subjective. Various people will have various things in their minds when they say this. Some people maybe having a pantheistic view of God and he believes God is everything. Some might believe in Panentheism. Then some others might view their so called "proof in nature" as a scientific, rational understanding that nature proves God exists.

So it would depend on the person I think.

 

[firedragon]

Think of this. A building can't be built by one builder. There needs to be multiple people to create one. If we apply the same logic to what we know of this (as you are with one builder), then we would assume life has multiple creators not one.

Wouldn't this make sense to assume just as much as if we said one creator?

Thats a good argument. This too would depend on the person. One may ask, why would it need multiple builders when one could do it anyway! But you put an interesting perspective so I will follow this thread out of that interest.

 

[Skywalker]

Think of this. A building can't be built by one builder. There needs to be multiple people to create one. If we apply the same logic to what we know of this (as you are with one builder), then we would assume life has multiple creators not one.

Wouldn't this make sense to assume just as much as if we said one creator?

No, because one Creator is adequate enough to explain the existence of the creation.

 

[Skywalker]

You lost me with Darwin. Builder of a building we see that in real life and we come to that conclusion by what we can observe "and" we can check it out, see who build what, how many builders, and we can build buildings ourselves. So it makes sense to assume because there is a building there "must be" a builder.

We can see flowers grow. We can observe the progress of a child's growth in its mother's womb. No one has created these things but they formed into being without a hand in sight. The only way to "know" there is a creator is beyond what you can observe "I see a tree therefore there's a creator." You need to know what the creator is (not just that it creates-I can create too, so I'm a creator). Then you have to discern the blueprints. When you study a tree's growth or flower, there is no obvious sign a creator is involved or every single person who sees it will draw the same conclusion regardless whether we believe in god or not.

It's a good assumption based on what we believe we know of reality, but as a fact, you'd have to show the process and connection rather than jump to conclusions based on what you see.

Flowers trees and children in the womb don't have intermediate organs. We can see their development but that doesn't reveal their ancestors having intermediate organs. The blueprint of those organs already exists in their genetic code. There is no child in the womb with half a heart. There's a difference between life developing on an individual case and that life having an intermediate organ. It's akin to bacteria can develop on its own with rotted meat but that never becomes sentient life. There's a difference between bacteria developing and it becoming that complicated dna.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

No, because one Creator is adequate enough to explain the existence of the creation.

But how do you know there isn't more than one builder. Of course you can believe there isn't, but buildings aren't build by a single person...

So maybe builder/building isn't a good analogy.

 

[Skywalker]

But how do you know there isn't more than one builder. Of course you can believe there isn't, but buildings aren't build by a single person...

So maybe builder/building isn't a good analogy.

Good question. Because the nature of the creation reveals the nature of the Creator. Romans 1:20 says that since God's eternal power and divine nature are clearly seen from what has been made. Unmasking the Creator

Excerpted from "The Case for a Creator" by Lee Strobel. Copyright 2004 by Zondervan. Used by permission of The Zondervan Corporation.

As I reviewed the avalanche of information from my investigation, I found the evidence for an intelligent designer to be credible, cogent, and compelling. Actually, in my opinion the combination of the findings from cosmology and physics by themselves were sufficient to support the design hypothesis. All of the other data simply built an even more powerful cumulative case that ended up overwhelming my objections.

But who or what is this master Designer? Like playing a game of connect-the-dots, each one of the six scientific disciplines I investigated contributed clues to unmasking the identity of the Creator.

The evidence of cosmology demonstrates that the cause of the universe must be an uncaused, beginningless, timeless, immaterial, personal being endowed with freedom of will and enormous power. In the area of physics, Collins established that the Creator is intelligent and has continued to be involved with his creation after the Big Bang.

The evidence of astronomy, showing that the Creator was incredibly precise in creating a livable habitat for the creatures he designed, logically implies that he has care and concern for them. Also, Gonzales and Richards presented evidence that the Creator has built at least one purpose into his creatures-to explore the world he has designed, and therefore to perhaps discover him through it.

Not only do biochemistry and the existence of biological information affirm the Creator's activity after the Big Bang, but they also show he's incredibly creative. Evidence for consciousness, as Moreland said, helps establish that the Creator is rational, gives us a basis for understanding his omnipresence, and even suggests that life after death is credible.

This is not a picture of the god of deism, who supposedly formed the universe but then abandoned it. The abundant evidence for the Creator's continued activity in the universe after the initial creation event discredits deism as a credible possibility.

Pantheism, the idea that the Creator and universe are co-existent, also falls short of accounting for the evidence, because it cannot explain how the universe came into existence. After all, if the pantheistic god didn't exist prior to the physical universe, then it would not be capable of bringing the universe into being.

Also, Craig explained how the scientific principle of Ockham's razor shaves away the multiple gods of polytheism, leaving us with a single Creator. In addition, the personal nature of the Creator argues against the impersonal divine force that's at the center of some New Age religions.

In contrast, however, the portrait of the Creator that emerges from the scientific data is uncannily consistent with the description of the God whose identity is spelled out in the pages of the Bible.

• Creator? "In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands."

• Unique? "You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him there is no other."

• Uncaused and timeless? "Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God."

• Immaterial? "God is spirit."

• Personal? "I am God Almighty."

• Freedom of will? "And God said, `Let there be light,' and there was light."

• Intelligent and rational? "How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures."

• Enormously powerful? "The Lord is.great in power."

• Creative? "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I that full well."

• Caring? "The earth is full of his unfailing love."

• Omnipresent? "The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you."

• Has given humankind purpose? "For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisibible.everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him."

• Provides for life after death? "He will swallow up death forever."

As the apostle Paul wrote two millennia ago: "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made [that is, his creation], so that men are without excuse."


The question of whether these qualities might also describe the deities of any other world religions became moot once I added the evidence that I discovered through the study of ancient history and archeology.

As I described in my book The Case for Christ, the convincing evidence establishes the essential reliability of the New Testament, demonstrates the fulfillment of ancient prophecies in the life of Jesus of Nazareth against all odds, and supports Jesus' resurrection as being an actual event that occurred in time and space. Indeed , his return from the dead is an unprecedented and supernatural feat that authenticated his claim to being the one-and-only Son of God.

To me, the range, the variety, the depth, and breathtaking persuasive power of the evidence from both science and history affirmed the credibility of Christianity to the degree that my doubts were simply washed away.

Unlike Darwinism, where my faith would have to swim upstream against the strong current of evidence flowing the other way, putting my trust in the God of the Bible was nothing less than the most rational and natural decision I could make. I was merely permitting the torrent of facts to carry me along to their most logical conclusion.


Unfortunately, there's a lot of misunderstanding about faith. Some believe faith actually contradicts facts. "The whole point of faith," scoffed Michael Shermer, editor of The Skeptical Inquirer, "is to believe regardless of the evidence, which is the very antithesis of science."

However, that's certainly not my understanding. I see faith as being a reasonable step in the same direction that the evidence is pointing. In other words, faith goes beyond merely acknowledging that the facts of science and history pont toward God. It's responding to those facts by investing trust in God-a step that's fully warranted due to the supporting evidence.

Oxford's Alister McGrath pointed out that all worldviews require faith. "The truth claims of atheism simply cannot be proved," he said. "How do we know that there is no God? The simple fact of the matter is that atheism is a faith, which draws conclusions that go beyond the available evidence."

On the other hand, the available evidence from the latest scientific research is convincing more and more scientists that facts support faith as never before. "The age-old notion that there is more to existence than meets the eye suddenly looks like fresh thinking again," said journalist Gregg Easterbrook. "We are entering the greatest era of science-religion fusion since the Enlightenment last attempted to reconcile the two."

To many people, including physicist Paul Davies, this is a shocking and unexpected development. "It may seem bizarre," he said, "but in my opinion science offers a surer path to God than religion."

Added nanoscientist James Tour of Rice University: "Only a rookie who knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith. If you really study science, iit will bring you closer to God." Astrophysicist and priest George Coyne put it this way: "Nothing we learn about the universe threatens our faith. It only enriches it."

"For Polkinghorne, who achieved acclaim as a mathematical physicist at Cambridge before becoming a full-time minister, the same kind of thinking he uses in science has helped him draw life-changing conclusions about God:

No one has ever seen a quark, and we believe that no one ever will. They are so tightly bound to each other inside the protons and neutrons that nothing can make them break out on their own. Why, then, do I believe in these invisible quarks? . In summary, it's because quarks make sense of a lot of direct physical evidence.I wish to engage in a similar strategy with regard to the unseen reality of God. His existence makes sense of many aspects of our knowledge and experience: the order and fruitfulness of the physical world; the multilayered character of rality; the almost universal human experiences of worship and hope; the phenomenon of Jesus Christ (including his resurrection). I think that very similar thought processes are involved in both cases. I do not believe that I shift in some strange intellectual way when I move from science to religion.In their search for truth, science and faith are intellectual cousins under the skin.

He added, however, an important distinction. "Religious knowledge is more demanding than scientific knowledge," he said. "While it requires scrupulous attention to matters of truth, it also calls for the response of commitment to the truth discovered."

According to McGrath, the Hebrew word for "truth" suggests "something which can be relied upon." Thus, he said, truth is more than about simply being right. "It is about trustworthiness," he explained. "It is a relational concept, pointing us to someone who is totally worthy of our trust. We are not being asked to know yet another fact but to enter into a relationship with the one who is able to sustain and comfort us." The facts of science and history, then, can only take us so far. At some point, the truth demands a response. When we decide not merely to ponder the abstract concept of a designer but to embrace him as our own-to make him our "true God"-then we can meet him personally, relate to him daily, and spend eternity with him as he promises.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Good question. Because the nature of the creation reveals the nature of the Creator. Romans 1:20 says that since God's eternal power and divine nature are clearly seen from what has been made. Unmasking the Creator

I'ma read the whole thing later, but it sounds like he's making a lot of assumptions.

Deism just means the creator isn't involved with the earth and people. Pantheism means god is the universe not co-existent. So, to prove god isn't the universe is to prove god doesn't exist. To prove deism is wrong, one would have to figure out what the deist god is first since there is no human "scripture" to describe it for humans to go by.

 

[Skywalker]

What would be evidence of an absence of a creator?
And how can we see the difference?

How can there be evidence of absence of a Creator with such order in creation? Everything in nature has order. Nothing is chaotic in nature.

The difference between absence of evidence and evidence of absence is that absence of evidence might not necessarily hint at there being a God. The age of the earth is absence of evidence because it's not important and there are Christians who think that the earth is old. The earth being old or young has nothing to do with whether or not sentient life could have evolved on its own life. Evidence of absence doesn't make sense because it doesn't explain the moral code that everyone knows about.

 

[Heyo]

How can there be evidence of absence of a Creator with such order in creation? Everything in nature has order. Nothing is chaotic in nature.

The difference between absence of evidence and evidence of absence is that absence of evidence might not necessarily hint at there being a God. The age of the earth is absence of evidence because it's not important and there are Christians who think that the earth is old. The earth being old or young has nothing to do with whether or not sentient life could have evolved on its own life. Evidence of absence doesn't make sense because it doesn't explain the moral code that everyone knows about.

Thank you.

@Unveiled Artist:
I think this counts as evidence for a tautology. There is no way the presupposition of a creator can be falsified. It is right, no matter what. That's a tautology.

 

[Skywalker]

I'ma read the whole thing later, but it sounds like he's making a lot of assumptions.

Deism just means the creator isn't involved with the earth and people. Pantheism means god is the universe not co-existent. So, to prove god isn't the universe is to prove god doesn't exist. To prove deism is wrong, one would have to figure out what the deist god is first since there is no human "scripture" to describe it for humans to go by.

Why would a loving God who designed everything not be involved with the earth and people? God and the universe not being co existent means that God is the universe. How can God be the universe if he created the universe? To prove God isn't the universe actually supports there being a God who created everything. Regarding deism, the character of God talked about in the Scriptures proves deism wrong. God is a loving Father not a distant creator. The Bible describes who God is and that is what I go by in not believing in deism.

 

[Skywalker]

Thank you.

@Unveiled Artist:
I think this counts as evidence for a tautology. There is no way the presupposition of a creator can be falsified. It is right, no matter what. That's a tautology.

I don't believe that everything Christian is rational and everything not Christian is irrational. I disagree with the teachings that many Christians believe in and there are some nice teachings in other faiths, like the Buddhist teaching about not having desires for things, but that doesn't mean that those beliefs are true.

 

[Skywalker]

Personally I believe in evolution but fostered by nature spirits.

Are you a pantheist?

 

[Unveiled Artist]

How can there be evidence of absence of a Creator with such order in creation? Everything in nature has order. Nothing is chaotic in nature.

The difference between absence of evidence and evidence of absence is that absence of evidence might not necessarily hint at there being a God. The age of the earth is absence of evidence because it's not important and there are Christians who think that the earth is old. The earth being old or young has nothing to do with whether or not sentient life could have evolved on its own life. Evidence of absence doesn't make sense because it doesn't explain the moral code that everyone knows about.

I'm not sure the logistics behind deism and pantheism (to an extent) any more than I am with theism.

But I guess the existence of a creator not involved in the universe (human's aren't special) would probably have the same "evidence" using the design factor and builder/building example. So, why its not involved, I don't know. I never thought of god as an actual being or thing to where it can be involved or not involved in anything and anyone.

Pantheism I understand more whether one calls it god or not since the physical universe and everything in it creates itself into and out of existence. So, it doesn't matter if it's earth or the sun, all would be god.

The argument is the same with deism as with what you're saying about the creator. Existence of something and someone doesn't scream a creator(s). That's human attribution.

But I am curious of how it is illogical (if you can explain how not why) that creation doesn't have multiple creators as a building has multiple builders.

 

[Skywalker]

Please explain what this "essence" is, and how we tell one essence from another. Please explain how small changes know when to stop changing. Please look at some fossil sequences and study some genetics.

The essence means the basic aspect of what something is. A language that evolved is still a language. A plant that had certain changes is still a plant.

Small changes knowing when to stop changing isn't an issue because they can't change past a certain point. There are no fossils that demonstrate macroevolution. Genetics support that macroevolution isn't possible because genetics can't change to that degree and when bacteria develops on its own, it just stays as bacteria.

 

[Clara Tea]

I'd be hard pressed to call someone an idiot for believing in God because they are awestruck by nature and the complexity of life.

This is because some of the greatest geniuses in recent times have asserted their beliefs based on this. Einstein is a bit of an enigma, since he sometimes says that he's an atheist or agnostic, while at other times says that "God doesn't play dice with the universe" when he had initially doubted quantum mechanics (later he accepted it, and even contributed to it: Bose Einstein Statistics (which statistically describe large particles called bozons). Einstein also said that it must be God that can make several pages of his calculations and complicated thoughts boil down to simple formulas like E = mc^2.

Enrico Fermi said that it is the hand of God that moves the particles.

I spoke to a highly religious cardiologist who said that the human body is far too complex for it to have been made by accident. In further discussions, he mentioned that on several occasions people have died on the operating table (to be revived later), but their spirit (they claim) floated about the hospital, overhearing conversations in distant rooms, which they could not possibly have overheard in soundproof surgical theaters. Querying the people involved, they claim that they did say the things that this spirit overheard. If spirits can float about, why not God?

It could be argued that the blueprints of the whole human being are contained in virtually all cells of the body in the form of DNA (except for red blood cells which don't have nuclei). So, there is plenty of room for dissension among atheists who believe that who bodies can be made from that dna chemical. Indeed, we can clone and gene splice, so we are beginning to understand how God does it. It is said that all things will be known in the end days (perhaps we are very close to those days).

I think of nature as God's greatest creation.

Satan thinks of nature as God's greatest creation, too. But, Satan wants to destroy it. Satan rules by deception and fear. Satan says that he is on God's side "fighin' the Axis of Evil." But we know that God told us to "turn the other cheek" and "thou shalt not kill." Satan wants logging roads into God's forests, and wants drilling off of God's beautiful shorelines (after we have already seen countless oil leaks). Satan wants to stop burning dry weeds to prevent dangerous out of control fires (using controlled burning, which we used to do prior to the W. Bush administration). We have now seen the results of these devastating wild fires in the forests of California, Oregon, and Washington state. Satan wants God's environment to be polluted and foul, and utterly destroy God's greatest creation.

Every few days, Orange Alerts were issued, scaring us into believing that North Korea was about to launch nukes at California. Homeland Security was the only organization that could issue those alerts. Tom Ridge (interviewed on the Paula Zahn TV show said that he didn't issue orange alerts, but those came from higher up [W. Bush or vice president Dick Cheney]. That was Satan ruling by deception and fear.

 

[Hellbound Serpiente]

I think you are referring to people who observe a certain highly sophisticated effect nigh-impossible without highly deliberate, guided effort and regulation, and jump to conclusion that this conscious effort and regulation cannot be done by non-sentient system, process, entity [etc.] but this effect could only come to fruition via sentient and intelligent agent. And they assume that agent to be God.

Personally, I hold this assumption as well in my belief system. Which is why I feel like there most likely is a God. I have seen law of karma and many, MANY other spiritual laws [along with many phenomenas seemingly unexplainable to me] playing out in my life with pin-point accuracy to it's utmost magnitude, and I have seen it occurring many times for it to be a coincidence. I'll just copy/paste something I said in other thread to make this point a bit clearer:

" I've personally witnessed the law of karma [and many other spiritual laws] play out right in front of my eyes over and over again. So have many others. But these are just anecdotes. Anecdotes aren't evidence.

[...]

I would think so. [If we assume that there are spiritual laws in place] That's because it usually requires a sentient, intelligent, creative, efficient agent to achieve the end result of [for example] karma with perfect precision.

[...]

Even if I agree with you here, don't you think that it is more sensible to believe that [nothingness which gave birth to] something with unchanging laws and constants requires a sentient, intelligent, creative, efficient agent to keep and maintain it that orderly way? Even if I agree that something was born from nothing [which, I don't know, I don't think there's any concrete proof to it], isn't it rational to think that the order in which things are kept in our world require intelligence?

[...]

I think you got me twisted here. I do feel like I made a poor choice of word. What I meant something like universe [which I personally feel like a folding and unfolding mass], a continuous automatic system [which is born out of quantum chaos] needing a sentient, conscious, focused, perceptive, intelligent, accurate, creative agent to create, maintain and operate unchanging laws and constants to keep it running in an effective, orderly way unlike the chaotic way the quantum world functions [from which it is born]. I personally don’t think chaos breeds anything other than chaos. To think that order is born out of chaos sounds counterintuitive]

Also, besides that, I don’t mean to argue, with all due respect, I personally feel BOTH are needed. Pretty much like to consistently smooth, safe, guided, ordered proficient car-driving needs both a sentient, conscious, focused, perceptive, intelligent, accurate, creative and overall expert and proficient car-driver AS WELL AS mechanical and operational mechanism of the car. If there is no [and/or poor] driver and/or mechanics, the driving will be poor and lead to destruction. If someone tells me that they have seen a consistent show of effective car-driving in absence of a [effective] driver and the mechanics of the car, I’d find that to be senseless. I’d have to make baseless assumptions for believing that since it is counterintuitive. This is where I find both the believers and non-believers in fine-tuning to be too extremes in their views. Both are flawed to some extent while both also make good points.

[...]

I want to talk about this too, because it would more elaborate on my opinion that unchanging laws that makes something unchaotic and orderly to be born out of chaos and disorders needing a sentient, conscious, focused, perceptive, intelligent, accurate, creative agent to create, maintain and operate those unchanging laws along with that unchaotic system.

Law of karma and other unchanging SPIRITUAL laws might give me a good analogous example to further elaborate why it needs such an agent that I described."

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

It was a question.

And my answer is @Unveiled Artist:

Tautology.

When everything is of divine origin there is no distinction between divinely created and not divinely created. It makes no difference if there is a creator or not.

And if everything is physical, there is no difference between the answers: Yes and no. Both are physical, because everything is physical.

 

[Hellbound Serpiente]

In case you are referring to people like me who jump to conclusion of seeing the effects requiring god-like agent in such sophisticated phenomenas [like karma], I'd say you are referring to people who hold panentheistic view of god. And the term to describe this is Panentheism.

 

[George-ananda]

Are you a pantheist?

Sort of. I identify as 'Advaita' (non-dual Hinduism=God/Brahman and creation are not-two).