Why Creation by an Omnipotent, Omniscient Deity Is Even More Improbable than Pure Chance

[Hockeycowboy]

Thought so, thanks for the confirmation.

You know, scholars — even secular ones — recognize much of the Bible is of a poetic nature, right?

If your husband tells you, “Baby, I love you to the ends of the earth”, are you going to denigrate him & say “there’s no such thing!”? Or will you understand his meaning?


Best wishes to you and yours

 

[ChristineM]

You know, scholars — even secular ones — recognize much of the Bible is of a poetic nature, right?

If your husband tells you, “Baby, I love you to the ends of the earth”, are you going to denigrate him & say “there’s no such thing!”? Or will you understand his meaning?


Best wishes to you and yours

He wouldn't say that. No baby, no ends of the earth. He is as literal minded as me

And there are many who take the bible literally, far more in fact than there are biblical scholars

 

[Subduction Zone]

You know, scholars — even secular ones — recognize much of the Bible is of a poetic nature, right?

If your husband tells you, “Baby, I love you to the ends of the earth”, are you going to denigrate him & say “there’s no such thing!”? Or will you understand his meaning?


Best wishes to you and yours

So now are you saying that Jesus knew that there never was an Adam or Noah. He was merely using that sort of literary tools ?

 

[Revoltingest]

I've always thought this. Why does an all powerful God existing from nothing make sense in the first place? It's just kicking the can down the road.

It's an attractive concept because....
1) It explains everything without the need for science.
2) It's simple, unlike the long, tedious, & meandering science.
3) It allows mythology that comforts by providing morals, meaning, & eternal pleasurable life.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

In my opinion, the addition of the abovementioned concept of deity to the equation only makes the already improbable existence of the universe and life even more improbable due to the consequent addition of the deity's capability to choose from an infinite number of ways in which they could create the universe and life.

Good "question."

I'm not sure I accept that argument. Does it apply to a multiverse as well, which presumably could also generate countless numbers of every universe possible? Would that fact make the existence of a multiverse less likely than a hypothesis that our universe is all of reality? I don't think so in the face of the fine-tuning argument, which suggests that we either need an intelligent designer or a very "fecund" multiverse to get this universe.

Your argument reminds me of the objections to the special pleading of creationists, where life is said to be too complex to exist undesigned, and so something undesigned that is even more complex - a tri-omni deity - is posited to account for the complexity of a living cell.

It also touches on Occam's parsimony principle - the least complex narrative with the fewest assumptions is preferred.

The expression 'four corners' has to do with North, South, East and West (NEWS) Not literal corners.- Isaiah 11:12
So, all the dispersed ones (No matter where what corner of the Earth would be gathered together)- Isaiah 66:20
Where are the corners of Isaiah 40:22 above the circle/sphere of the Earth. Earth God's footstool - Isaiah 66:1
Job 28:24 Not a literal ends of Earth but that God sees all over the Earth - Zechariah 4:10 - to the ends of the Earth.
Job 37:3,11 scattered lightning all over the Earth thus includes reaching the ends of the Earth (NEWS)
Psalms 75:3; Job 9:6 is not literal pillars.
Matthew 4:8 ; Luke 4:5-8 easily Satan could have showed Jesus a vision a picture. Even today we see video's.
Revelation 7:1 figurative in all directions N.E.S.W. The 4 winds are directional of North, East, South and West winds.
Description as found at Luke 13:29 is not a literal table, and chapter one of Ezekiel is Not literal.
Even if this is unsatisfactory to you, I find logic in it.
Also, Psalms 46:9; Psalms 22:27 is Not about literal ends but war stopping to the end of the Earth.

I have no reason to believe any of those explanations. If I believed that the Bible was written by a tri-omni god, then my job would be to try to understand what those words must mean given the present state of knowledge, which a god would have known two+ millennia ago, but not unaided human beings. This is called motivated reasoning: "Motivated reasoning is a cognitive and social response, in which individuals, consciously or unconsciously, allow emotion-loaded motivational biases to affect how new information is perceived. Individuals tend to favor arguments that support their current beliefs and reject new information that contradicts these beliefs."

But I don't have to do that, because I have no such belief about a divine provenance for scripture. I am free to evaluate scripture open-mindedly and critically, and to try to see it through the eyes of the people living then. We would expect them to believe these stories literally until they had reason not to, then to begin modifying them ad hoc as new knowledge accumulated.

Even today we speak of the sun setting, the sun rising, the sun traveling across the sky.

Yes we do, and once that was believed literally. That's the point. With greater knowledge, we interpret the experience of a rising and setting sun differently, and language once meant literally is reinterpreted to comport with our modern understanding.

You know, scholars — even secular ones — recognize much of the Bible is of a poetic nature, right?

Hola, amigo.

To me, poetry is the use of deliberately vague language which the reader is expected to inject himself into like a sort of verbal Rorschach test. It should have no place in the message from a tri-omni deity, who presumably is expressly interested in man NOT injecting his sinful nature into understanding such a message.

When language needs to be understood precisely such as with directions how to get somewhere, or in a recipe, or in a will, we don't turn to poetry (vague language). When we don't want any wiggle room in understanding, we use clear and specific prose, not vague language (poetry). That's for song lyrics or Chinese fortune cookies or horoscopes, all of which are written with the intention that the reader inject a piece of his personal understanding into interpretation.

Once you allow yourself the liberty to choose which words you will believe literally and which you will call something else (poetry, allegory, metaphor), scripture goes from instructions from a god to whatever you want it to say.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

He wouldn't say that.

And there are many who take the bible literally, far more in fact than there are biblical scholars

So he wouldn’t say that, huh? Fine.

But you do know what he would mean, if he did say it. It’s metaphorical speech. And you wouldn’t understand it literally.



Yes, some do take all of it literally; I know you’re probably thinking about me, right now. The parts I understand literally, what I was taught, is due to the context. Examination of other passages that either comment on or relate to those topics/events.

But to take it all literally, would be faulty reasoning. There’s a lot of that going on, in all religious branches.


@It Aint Necessarily So said:
“When language needs to be understood precisely such as with directions how to get somewhere, or in a recipe, or in a will, we don't turn to poetry (vague language).”

Yes, when something “needs to be understood precisely.” And IMO, the Bible in the Greek Scriptures (NT) is very clear, on the important things. Like how we should treat others, and what behaviors to avoid. Society would be much better off, IMO, if everyone applied them. (I’m not talking about the Mosaic Law, which was only for one nation - Israel - to abide by. Although this, too, gives us insight into Jehovah’s thinking.)

When the British Viceroy Lord Irwin asked Mahatma Gandhi what he thought would solve the problems between Great Britain and India, Gandhi said: “When your country and mine shall get together on the teachings laid down by Christ in this Sermon on the Mount, we shall have solved the problems not only of our countries but those of the whole world.”

And to accurately discern the meaning of the poetic & symbolic parts, Jesus provided the key when he praised his Father (Yahweh / Jehovah) & said, “….You have hidden these things from the wise & intellectual ones and have revealed them to the childlike.” (Luke 10:21) So really, to get an accurate understanding of Scripture, we need the Father’s blessing.

Since He requires exclusivity in worship, among other actions (Exodus 20; John 13:34,35), this is, IMO, where trinitarians & others fail…they don’t have his favor, so they misinterpret much of the Bible. Not everything it teaches is completely understood at this time, anyway…. Not yet.

Later, I’m gonna start a thread & give a couple examples of how using some verses, can shed light on other verses. I’ll tag you. You can just peruse it at your leisure.

Have a good day, my friend.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

When language needs to be understood precisely such as with directions how to get somewhere, or in a recipe, or in a will, we don't turn to poetry (vague language).

See above post…. I think I messed up.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Why does an all powerful God existing from nothing make sense in the first place?

“Existing from nothing”?
He is energy.
And as science has discovered, energy can “neither be created nor destroyed.”
The conclusion is that energy has always existed, in one form or another; it is eternal.


Hooray for scientific discoveries!

 

[osgart]

For a multiverse to produce a vast many universes that all span the whole spectrum of all possibility so that all universe possibilities definitely happen is unlikely to happen.

An advanced eternal civilization would have to be creating test tube experimental universes where each universe was given slightly different parameters til we had a royal flush of all possible universes. So the multiverse, if it exists, creates another fine tuning argument.

If chance is at the helm and our universe is the stuff of all universes in the multiverse then the vast many possibilities that exist would never fully culminate in all universes. More than likely there is a smaller window of opportunity than all possibilities.

Given infinite many multiverses isn't guaranteed to give anyone the royal flush of all possible universes.

Then does anyone ask the question how did the initial conditions of our universe ever become low entropy in the first place when through the arrow of time entropy always increases?

How did we get those initial conditions in the first place? The roots of our universe must be of the highest orderly state beyond what is already known. From past eternal there must be an extreme order and eternality to whatever spawned the initial conditions of our universe, or creation ex nihilo is possible. To even have low entropy at all suggests to me that from infinity past there exists an cyclical eternal order, or an ultimate beginning to it all, from an eternal order.

 

[Arthur Brain]

I've always thought this. Why does an all powerful God existing from nothing make sense in the first place? It's just kicking the can down the road.

Why would an all powerful God exist from nothing? Sure, one that somehow sprang into being or something from 'nothing' would stretch credibility but what belief espouses that?!

 

[ChristineM]

But you do know what he would mean, if he did say it. It’s metaphorical speech. And you wouldn’t understand it literally.

Do you think I'm stupid and dont know my own husband?

I know you’re probably thinking about me, right now

And many more

 

[1213]

Erm, perhaps the conditions for such just don't exist now, or occur very, very, very infrequently? And as for the laboratory - because we still don't know how to do it. That is science for you - an ongoing process.

That makes it very improbable.

 

[Mock Turtle]

That makes it very improbable.

Probably. But far more likely than an explanation by those knowing much less than we do now, especially if such didn't come from God or any other such but from their own minds.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Do you think I'm stupid and dont know my own husband?

Of course not!
Where did this come from?

 

[ChristineM]

Of course not!
Where did this come from?

The wording of your post

 

[Hockeycowboy]

The wording of your post

I meant no disrespect, or to question your intelligence! That was not my intent.

I’m sorry if it came across that way.

I was only trying to reason on the subject.

I hope you and yours have a good day.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

Why would an all powerful God exist from nothing? Sure, one that somehow sprang into being or something from 'nothing' would stretch credibility but what belief espouses that?!

Not true of the God of the Bible because as Psalm 90:2 says God is from everlasting....... ( Does Not teach nothing )
From 'everlasting' in that God had No beginning. God had No Creator, but God is The Creator - Rev. 4:11
Always existed and He will always exist.
God put 'eternity' into our hearts so that for each day we can count we can count both forwards and backwards forever and ever.

Also, God did Not create from nothing but God used His spirit to create - Psalm 105:30
God used his dynamic Power and Strength to create - Isaiah 40:26
First created the invisible to us spirit realm where angels live, then He created the visible realm of existence where we live.