You know God. You know God created the universe. You know He loves you. Surely, then, this will be no trouble for you...
Posted on: September 6, 2008 - 12:19am
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You know God. You know God created the universe. You know He loves you. Surely, then, this will be no trouble for you...
Explain to me the mechanisms by which God created the universe, creates souls, set-up Heaven and Hell, transformed into Jesus and performed miracles (just to get us started). Give me all the juicy details (post a video with them included, if you like. Or even just one of them), using the Rosetta Stone of mathematics and science as your descriptors.
I mean, you know the guy, right? So who/where is he? What's he made of? And just how did he manufacture the cosmos (Hint: Genesis's answers are definately incorrect ones)?
Quote:
"Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
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I "know" where you're going with this (pun intended).
I am of the opinion that Theists, when they say they "know God or Jesus or Mohammad, etc", have a different meaning for "know". It's a nebulous meaning like "Spirit" or "soul" or other religious terms. It's just bs. Utterly embarrassing bs.
Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
Isaac Asimov
k
Immediatly after the Big Bang, the average particle energy was >1020Gev. Once it cooled down, (due to the expansion..) to about 1015Gev, the strong force seperated from the electroweak force. The universe then cooled to 102Gev, and now the electric force seperated from the weak and the universe was then a mix of leptons, quarks, gluons, and photons. The quarks and gluons then got together to form hadrons, which of course decayed into neutrons, protons, and leptons, the heavy leptons then decayed into electrons and nuetrinos.
But only after the particle energies was 10ev did hydorgen, helium, deuterium form, then of course came stars and heavier elements and the rest is history.
as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.-isaiah 55:9
ill put it in a more finite way, can i know how you think and do things? and you know how i think and do things?
i am theist and i dont know how to put it under my name
and for the record god is nothing like man. and he is a spirit.
Yes, I can know how you think and do things, and you can know how I think and do things.
And what is a spirit? What material is it made of, how can we measure it?
Get with the spirit of the question asked!
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
Damn.
Jill beat me to it.
Oh, before I forget:
Oh, come on Cap'n, you can do better. You know very well you didn't describe "creation", but the period following it.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
Do you even know what made in his image means?
gods spirit isnt made of anything, he simply exists, and if god in infinite you cant measure infinity.
i am theist and i dont know how to put it under my name
You are being disingenuous and equating the Big Bang with god’s creation of the universe. Firstly, there is no evidence that a god was required to inaugurate this event. Secondly, cosmology has progressd beyond the Big Bang and is exploring two cyclic theories of the universe, namely Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) and String Theory. It seems increasingly likely that one or other or a combination of the two will replace the Big Bang Theory as the dominant model of the universe. In neither theory does the universe have a beginning or an end.
These theories combine Einstein's Theory of General Relativity with equations of quantum physics not existing in Einstein's day and are mathematical descriptions establishing the existence of the Big Bounce … deducing properties of the earlier universe from which our own sprung and from which future universes will spring ad infinitum.
............................................................
"Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition". - Isaac Asimov
...And so where does God come into this picture, Cap? And what does he do?
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
If I knew the period before it, I'd be in Sweden. I was describing the creation of the elements within the universe.
The laws governing the interactions.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
More to the point, wouldn't some laws governing interaction have to exist before god in order for god to exist? If god is a Being, then some rule of interaction must have preceded god.
How does a random collection of nothing say "Hey, guys, lets get together and form a Being. A Perfect Being, no less and THEN we'll create a huge mess of stuff that 13 billion years later will arrive at something that resembles us".
In order for God to say "Let there be Light", there would have had to been some ordering of thoughts and things before he said it. Otherwise there is no thoughts to collect, or Logic to exercize.
Anyone who thinks this is a plausible explanation is a bit wacky, IMO.
Alternative: Logic is a Brute Fact and Something always existed it just changes States. No god required.
Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
Isaac Asimov
Why would I know? Why would I care? What are you babbling about?
Most likely...
This assumes God came into existance as opposed to always existing.
I reject your reality and subsitute my own.
That's still not an explanation of any kind regarding how God works, Cap.
Nice try, though.
Well, if you're a Christian, you claim to know and be in a personal relationship with the guy - so surely you must then know what he's like and how he operates?
Moreover, you claim to know he created the universe. So, how'd he do it?
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
Don't know. Don't care. I assume you think this is some sort of argument against Christiantity. It aint. don't know why you think it is.
I was explaining how the creation happened, I don't know God 'works' or what you even mean by that.
Well, maybe not assumes but posits. But, yes, it seems much more plausible that the the most raw and basic reality always existed and changed state into the BB then to suggest a Perfect Being always existed and then things went downhill from there.
Sure, we all can say that at any time. But, since this is a debate site; a forum in which to exchange thoughts, it doesn't seem very sporting of you to claim that and run away without explaining why you have a problem with my alternative.
Is this what it looks like when I pwn somene?
Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
Isaac Asimov
Well in the spirit of Leinbiz's question: 'Why is there something rather than nothing?'
According to current laws, 'nothing' can't exist (Quantum fluccuations etc...), that is because of current laws, however, if there are no laws, then the law of 'nothing' is unstable doesn't exist.
Now, how is God exempt? I can't really explain it but to me it's more likely that God always existed rather than something else, after all why would there be something in the first place?
Oh, but it is an argument against christianity, or more specifically, the fact that you believe something with absolute certainty without a shred of evidence to support it.
If the bible is the word of God, and the bible is packed full of God's musings, how can you claim to not know his mind? How can any christian claim to know what God wants us to do, and also say they don't know his mind, simultaneously?
I know there's a greebly way you can talk your way out of it, since you're used to rationalising bullshit, and none of these are real questions, anyway. I know the answer. Because christians are afraid, just like everyone else, and they've found a security blanket that keeps the fear at bay, and no-one is going to take that away from them, no matter how much logic the rationalists can throw at them.
Plus they've found a community to belong to, and their beliefs are such a large part of their ID blah blah blah It's a rich tapestry of reasons, but my point is, you're still beautiful. I love everyone. Pink is my favourite color, and I dig tennis.
Wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which one fills up first.
I fancy playing God's advocate in this thread.
In answer to the original question:
There wasn't a "mechanism" by which God created the universe.
The theist claims that the most fundamental law of the universe is "What God wills happens" and everything else is contingent on it.
E.g. The laws of Physics hold because God wills the universe to be that way.
And ofcourse, he doesn't always will it because from time to time there are miracles.
Maybe they mean "know" in the sense that the villagers wanted those two angels sent outside so they could "know" them.
So the question becomes... You rape God. You rape God created the universe. You rape he loves you. Surely, then this will be no trouble for you...
But can't you see you are inserting a more complicated answer (a perfect being) as an unknown? You agreed that there mu8st have been laws in place in order for a god to exist in the first place, so why complicate your cosmology by saying:
1. There were basic laws in place
2. God - a perfect being popped into existence fully formed
3. God then created a long, complicated and convoluted process to create mankind over a process taking billions of years.
4. (If you are a religionist). God then contacted humanity through a miniscule amount of people (prophets) , who people have trouble knowing which one speaks for god and which one doesn't.
My explanation cuts it down to 2 premises and relies on the existing knowledge of our universe. It doesn't insert the omni-answer "god did it".
What is philosophically interesting about your approach is that since you agree laws were already in place, then God was just acting in accord with his Nature. That God had no choice in his options, since he was constrained by existing Laws: he didn't have Free Will. Otherwise, you will have to explain the mechanism that God is able to overturn the Laws that existed before him.
If I may be so bold: welcome to the fold. You're an atheist, you just don't realize it yet.
Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
Isaac Asimov
Maybe I'm off, but being an intelligent being that's also the most fundamental thing in the universe seems like a logic circuit with only one bit. God would have to be made of other fundamental things, or else be a simple and mindless force.
OK, but how did God first will that his Will would function? How did God - before anything made sense, any Law of Logic existed - say "When I will something, it will function as I will it."?
There would have had to have been some logic preexisting in order for god to form into a coherent form, for god to form a coherent thought, and for god to make a coherent statement.
So, already we have a Lesser God. One that didn't create everything, just a Universe, which, given the multi-verse hypothesis, isn't saying much. Since the Laws of Logic pre-exist, there could have been millions of Universes being created before God ever arrived on the scene.
Suddenly, God becomes an animal made from the basic, preexisting Laws of Nature that makes a Universe like a bird makes a nest.
And, yet, this is not evidence: its just a hypothesis, like the multiverse hypothesis. And the God hypothesis has less reason to believe, since there are other things about the definition of god that would make it likely that we have evidence for a god: namely, his presence would be obvious.
If we just look at your premise that the most fundamental Law of Everything is that "What God Wills, is done" presumes that Nature presupposed there was a God to obey in the first place. (Otherwise, we are still back into the incoherency of God being able to Will something before willing something makes sense).
And, then, what willed god into being? God? That's absurd.
Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
Isaac Asimov
But premise 2 says God came into existance. A powerful being cannot just pop into existance, it always existed.
I don't see where your getting this/
Okay. So change premise 2 to 'God always existed, fully formed'.
Terrific. Now you've still got an explanation that can be refuted by Occum's Razor alone.
...You don't know have a clue how God works, but you're sure he's there in the first place anyway?
Classic.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
So the arguement comes down to either
1) The laws always existed
or
2) God AND the laws always existed
and I guess, by occam's razor 1) is most likely right?
But like I said that I think it's most likely that 2) is right since there would be no indication that laws must exist on their own. Occam's razor would come in only if God 'popped' into existance, so I think it's more likely that a God always existed.
1. Why can't a powerful being pop into existence? I admit it is unlikely, but what Law do you cite? BTW, how did Satan and the other powerful beings in the Bible come into Being? Did they evolve, or were they always around?
2. How do you explain a powerful being always existing? What precedent, outside of your own Theology, can you cite? Where did you get the idea that your god always existed? Through logic? But this can't be true: it isn't logical that a fully formed, perfect, intelligent Being always existed outside of time/space. In fact, it is quite irrational and one for the loony bin books. It's just making things up and declaring them true and beyond our understanding. That's a child's game.
If you can't answer these things, why do you claim to believe in them? It seems you are arguing by Naked Assertion: you simply want it to be true, so you claim it to be true.
Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
Isaac Asimov
The law of probability because it has lots of components that have to pop into existence at the same time in the right way. I'm not going to get a epic novel by banging on the keyboard.
The part about Satan and the Bible are N/A
I think whatever was at the beginning had to be complicated. Simple things can only become complicated when combined with other simple things, and what is a complicated thing but a sum of simple things?
As for how it's God, I think it's more likely since I don't see no indication that something should exist eternally without a God.
Either way, what is your sample set to determine the probability of gods popping into existence? Hint: you can't use a property set of one to determine probability.
Also, you seem to be using Natural Laws to detemine all of this - as if they apply to the Supernatural. It seems you are creating boundries for your God who I heard was boundless.
Of course, without the Bible, why are we talking about God? If not for one religious text or another (doesn't have to be the BIble), why are we positing a God in the first place? Where did we get the idea?
And, also, if you say that revelation is part of the knowledge of God, you are using a Judaic/Xian centric God. You are picking and choosing which parts to argue: not a coherent whole.
It's ok, though, Xians often deny the God of the Bible in order to argue for him. It's the only way they can make modest sense of the whole thing.
Arguments from Personal Incredulity and Ignorance. I also don't see why God has to be complicated. How complicated was it to create a Big Bang: by all accounts it doesn't even need a god, just a Higgs field.
Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
Isaac Asimov
1. How is it more likely? How do you know God fits the bill? What do you know of God when dealing with these things? You say revelation is important - how do you know your revelation of God isn't just a bacterial infection that makes you believe a God exists?
2. I don't see how this follows. It's a fallacy, for one (Argument from Persoanl Incredulity: "I can't see how, so it can't be true"
. But the Universe has existed eternally - ever since it began to exist, it has existed for all time (since time began when the universe did). And the Universe didn't need a God.
Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
Isaac Asimov
1. How is it more likely? How do you know God fits the bill? What do you know of God when dealing with these things? You say revelation is important - how do you know your revelation of God isn't just a bacterial infection that makes you believe a God exists?
2. I don't see how this follows. It's a fallacy, for one (Argument from Persoanl Incredulity: "I can't see how, so it can't be true"
. But the Universe has existed eternally - ever since it began to exist, it has existed for all time (since time began when the universe did). And the Universe didn't need a God.
Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
Isaac Asimov
How could God be infinitely basic and simple? What does this even mean?
Yep, it's limitations that created the universe.
Because I'm wierd.
It would need a Higgs field for mass, anyway the BB needed laws.
I can't really explain it, it's just that if it's just energy that always existed, what did it do? How long was it? What determined the laws?
When did I say this?
Where do you get that time began when the universe did? Couldn't there have been other universe before it?
The only thing we know is that time began at the start of th BB. You are arguing fallacy after fallacy and you simply prefer your point of view. We are wasting our time.
What's funny is that you keep acting as if "how do you know x isn't this or that.." is a good reason for me to believe something. Maybe you prefer to fool yourself into a belief, but I don't.
I think we are talking past each other. You keep inserting a god into a process that we have good evidence for but you have none for a god. I could insert aliens or gremlins every time you say "god" and have the same arguments.
Am I to understand you believe that they are of equal probability.
Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
Isaac Asimov
Cap, this is why I'm trying to avoid talking to you.
You are a 'physics student' at some prestigious university, presumably on your way to a degree by the way you describe it... and yet you don't even know what Occum's Razor is.
Occam's Razor prefers the simplest answer. If a natural process, then, is fully capable of producing a particular result on it's own, there's no reason to attach God to it. It doesn't apply 'only if God popped into existence', and if you actually were a science student you'd already know this.
It's only more likely by your double-standard; all rational data strongly suggests a total absense of any God.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
At least I can spell 'Occam's Razor'
But the principle is all things being equal.
If your God is an impersonal and unconscious manifestation of the nature of existence, perhaps. If your God is an entity capable of conceiving of the universe he would create, then he is by necessity more complex than the universe he created, because he is capable of conceptualizing it. Thus, his complexity contains the complexity of the universe, plus whatever complexity he has independent of that.
You will note, as part and parcel of the universe, we are not able to actually conceive of the entire thing. We're only able to say 'this set of rules seems to work for what we can see, and we presume the rest of it's more or less the same'. A lot of things we represent with numbers, we cannot actually get our heads around outside of the abstract. Consider a beach. There are a specific number of grains of sand on that beach, above the high-tide watermark. If the number were written down, we could look at it and say 'well, sure'. However, actually thinking about the beach, not 'in terms of' the grains of sand, but actually as those grains of sand... that's a lot harder. Try it. Try considering a beach, but don't see the beach. See every grain of sand as individual objects. Try to hold them all in your head.
Also...
Actually, just as a point, the principle is "entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem", which translates roughly as "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity". ie: Add nothing to the equation that the data doesn't demand be there. Without evidence for God, there is no reason to presume God. This is not proof of no God, it's simply lack of cause to believe.
The whole 'all things being equal' is a common paraphrasing, but that doesn't make it that actual principle, just like 'c = the speed of light' and 'nothing can exceed the speed of light' are common shorthand, but doesn't make them accurate. The constant 'c' is the speed of light in a vaccuum, after all. Light has been demonstrated to be able to be slowed down in other media, which would then mean that something (light in a vaccuum) is going faster than the speed of that light. So the second shorthand should be 'nothing with mass can exceed c.'
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons." - The Waco Kid
It's kind of like an old Gutenberg press, only it turns out souls and trees rather than books.
There's a lever on the side that allows God to switch freely from Father to Son to Holy Spirit.
Shop was set up on the coast of Virginia in 1776.
Yes, the first one.
The thought is that, conceptually, God doesn't need to be complex, just as an ameoba can create a complex patterns. I'm not talking about complexity a la ID, but the idea that a simple formula can create extraordinary patterns.
That is, if the Unified Theory is ever realized, it will be a simple theorum (I would guess) but can lead to all the complexity we see.
Or, for example, a simple formula can lead to amazing fractal arragments. In essense they are simple, but we only apply meaning to them later.
God, for example (and as an atheist, I am only throwing this out as a philosophical exersize), could be ifninately simple: God is x. x=some basic impulse that unfolds, it is the spark of life, it is Will, it is a collection of base properties, Logic, etc.
As an atheist, I can only see how there must have been less complication (lets say "complication" and not "complexity" since it confuses it with ID which has been shown to be irrelevent). That is, the Higgs Field is quite simple. It may take complicated mathematics to explain it to humans, but in its self it is simple.
I know I am doing a theist thing here and reducing complicated things to one Set (like Theists do with God. They will say "God satisfies Ockhams Razor!" Not realizing that their "god" requires much more explanation. However, only if it is complicated. If God only = "impulse" or a poetic version of "Love, Truth, etc", then it is a simple concept and doesn't need intelligence or any of the other attributes attached to it.
Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
Isaac Asimov
One question what did god do in the eternal time before deciding to create us or start the big bang ?
Is it even coherent that a being that existed eternally and did have no problem existing without us/universe decided to start it all?
Our existence is contradictory to a god existing or creating the universe. It makes absolutely no sense and is illogical.
1) god existed for ever.
2) God did have no problem existing for a infinity without us.
3) God is perfect/coherent/rational (Axiomatic to believe or accept god)
4) God did have no problem with us not existing because he would create us/universe faster.
5) God decides to create the universe , and this contradicts 1 , 2 , 3 and 4.
And this is why a creator god disproves himself.
Warning I’m not a native English speaker.
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This is unusually bad even for an internet forum. If a normal fallacy is a brick, this one is the Empire State Building. You are basically implying that every idea in science, every idea in mathematics, and every idea in every discipline of human inquiry is unwarranted.
We do not have to know "how x" to know "that x". Let me give you an example. You know that matter is solid. You do not know how (or "why" ) matter is solid. You really just have to say "because that's how matter is". You do not know what mechanisms cause matter to be solid*, yet your belief that matter is solid is no doubt warranted. We could perform a similar analysis of any of your beliefs, because at some point, the regress of explanation has to stop.
* Someone is going to say something cute about the God particle and the LHC at this point. That objection misses the point. People were warranted in believing that matter was solid before we came up with that theory. But if you want to go there, I just have to keep asking "and how does it do that?" You will run out of answers eventually, which is my point. (And technically, the God particle theory is not yet proven.)
Q: Why didn't you address (post x) that I made in response to you nine minutes ago???
A: Because I have (a) a job, (b) familial obligations, (c) social obligations, and (d) probably a lot of other atheists responded to the same post you did, since I am practically the token Christian on this site now. Be patient, please.
No, Presup, the fallacy is all yours. You can come up with as many ideas how things work as you want, but at some point you have to back it up with evidence or else accept you have no evidence.
You mention Matter: the mechanisms of Matter are quite well known. We know the operations down to the level of quarks, gluons, etc. To suggest that we just don't know is absolutely absurd, but expected from Theists.
The Theist is always charging towards the Gap in our knowledge and claiming that it is the place God resides. They have always done this: they assert how things work based on the Bible and then whine about science. Presup is following this fine tradition.
Consider the history of Science, especially our understanding of the Solar System. The Bible followed the Aristotalian idea and the Church was damned if it would change. They kept pointing to Gaps in knowledge and claiming that Science just couldn't know the answers.
And now that Science has answered how the ENTIRE UNIVERSE has formed down to a nanosecond of its existence, Presup says it's not enough - and yet in 10,000 years of human history no one can offer eviednce for a God. In fact, being a god is a dangerous business. They have been becoming extinct at a rapid pace.
Meanwhile, science has given us real answers and solutions. Presup, et al, are just pissy because they want people to believe their madness just because they say so.
Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
Isaac Asimov
i'll field this.
first of all, the most important postulate is this:
god is a leprechaun.
let me give you a second to absorb that. it's very critical that you grasp this, because without it, nothing that follows will make sense.
1. how he created the universe
you've heard of the string theory, no doubt. it's been a universally held fact, throughout the ages, from francis bacon to niels bohr, that fiddles have four strings. four strings signifying the four words, "let there be light." you see, leprechauns are irish (yes, ireland preexisted earth, and fell from heaven into the ocean in 1972, also appearing in all history books and the memory of everybody who was born before 1972), and, being irish, are able to play all kinds of jigs, reels, and breakdowns. god was playing at a house ceilidh once: scientists haven't discovered yet what tune he was playing, but it was probably either "let mr. maguire sit down" or "the irish washerwoman." the soundwaves vibrating from these four strings, combined with god's dancing, combined with about 14 pints of murphey's stout, created densely compacted gaseous matter inside god, which resulted in the big bang after an especially jarring twirl.
2. how he created souls
souls, like everything else in the universe, are embodied gaseous matter from the big bang. mostly murphey's and lamb stew.
3. how he set up heaven and hell
this is perfectly self-evident from the leprechaun law. hell is god's pipe. god frequently runs out of matches, and humans, partly composed of the gaseous matter from the big bang, are, unfortunately, very handy. some are even predestined for it: usually nice, long, thin ones, especially when the tobacco burns low in the bowl. humans burn forever because the carbon matter in them becomes part of the carbon caked on the inner edge of the bowl--ensuring a good, smooth smoke every time!
heaven is god's whiskey glass. god frequently gets drunk and fumbles his matches, which fall into the glass and become useless once wet. they remain there since god isn't too particularly about what he drinks. heaven is eternal because, even after being drunk, humans remain in the whiskey because, after an eternity of tippling, that's pretty much all that's in god--veins, stomach, and all. those lucky humans remain pickled forever, and feelin' pretty fuckin' good. if you can think of a better heaven than a sea of powers gold label, you're probably destined for the pipe bowl anyway.
4. transformed into jesus and performed miracles
god, like all irish except the goddamn heathen ulstermen, is catholic, and once had the hots for a young nun. in order to get what he wanted, he posed as jesus for a while and came to consummate his "marriage" with the smoking hot bride of christ. incidentally, he also slept with mary, begetting himself...virgin my ass. as for how catholicism and the idea of jesus existed before god's transformation, well, that's a very complex answer involving the theory of relativity and...something about wormholes...and...solar winds...
hope this helps.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
Does that make Charlie Daniels a saint?
"I am that I am." - Proof that the writers of the bible were beyond stoned.
It helped me to laugh, THANKS!
I haven't suggested otherwise. This paragraph (and indeed the rest of your post) suggests that you have not understood my point.
I'll yield to that assertion. Our belief in the solidity of matter was an example of my point, not my point.
Daedalus, let's run through a hypothetical scenario. Suppose we rewind to the fifteenth century. You and I are both peasants walking around in the muck. We are both totally ignorant of wondrous 20th century scientific advances. Now, would you say that we are warranted in believing that matter is solid, even though we don't know why it's solid?
No. No no no no no. I was not arguing for the existence of God. I was making a basic epistemic point: we can know that some proposition x is the case, without knowing the reasons why x is the case.
No! You have totally breezed by my argument. Let me guess: you saw the word "matter" and automatically assumed I was arguing some God-of-the-gaps type thing. I am not arguing for the existence of God here. I have not presented an argument for the existence of God in this whole thread.
You will probably be lauded regardless, however, since you're engaging an Evil Theist (TM) and using the standard Hambydammit/Rook Hawkins/Todangst approved arguments.
Q: Why didn't you address (post x) that I made in response to you nine minutes ago???
A: Because I have (a) a job, (b) familial obligations, (c) social obligations, and (d) probably a lot of other atheists responded to the same post you did, since I am practically the token Christian on this site now. Be patient, please.
And me god laughs .... How to dance around the fire? Fuck all dogma. Dance to what, to idols of human invention? Explain what, me god as you, the dirt , star dust , a single atom? Religion god idol shit is make believe, all of it. The gods of religion worship are fucking retarded embarrassment of what I AM, 100% god, human, carbon life. No master has shown itself, BUT we have .... by no designer revealed. Why pretend?
The wisest intuitive message of our ancients was simply all is one , and yeah this ONENESS is a mystery , so go go science .... and never ever create idiols, as WE are one with the force. Love the enemy, hate religion dogma .... so said every wise one worth a shit ....
Atheism Books.