God/Prime Mover is necessary
Offline Take a look at the universe. It's a series of cause & effect reactions. However, there can't be an infinite series of causers. That is impossible. There HAS to be a prime mover, and that mover is god or anything analogous to such. Saying that there are no beginnings is ridiculous IMO, all one has to to do is follow them back.
Some of you might say " but why assume that there must be a beginning when we have yet to encounter it?"
Because it's illogical - just because we haven't encountered it doesn't make it not so. You simply have to decide whether you want to rely on logic, or data.
Hence, because of the necessity of a prime mover, there must be a god. Therefore, isn't it more reasonable to believe in god than to not to?
Suffice it to say that I believe there must some kind of first principle, unmoved mover, uncaused cause, what have you, whether it be the universe or something else.
Thoughts?
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(1) is correct. Theoretically, God is eternal.
From where do you infer (2) from? You seem to be implying that God created us AFTER existing for an infinity, which is absurd since theoretically, nothing can come after an infinity. That also presupposes that God exists in time, which is absurd if you agree that time is based on the universe itself, which we are already agreeing theoretically that God created.
(3) is vague. What do you mean by "coherent" and "rational"?
(4) is problematic because once again, you are temporalizing God. Furthermore, even if you put your scenario in a temporal setting, it doesn't necessarily follow from the fact that something wasn't done faster that the person or thing in control of that event had no problem with that event not happening or that he/she/it is completed disconnected from the event and/or the results of the event emotionally.
(5) is not only an invalid inference, but it also posits a double negative. How would God making a decision contradict his eternality? And you said that it contradicts (4), which means that by creating the universe, the idea that God did not have a problem with us not existing because he would have created the universe faster is negated. And I thought you were trying to say the exact opposite.
In response to (6), once again you cannot place God in a temporal setting. Before the universe existed, you cannot just presuppose that there existed a past, present, and future. Obviously, we have to speak in such terms because without speaking of things in spatial and temporal terminology, spoken or written linguistics would hardly be possible as a means of communication. But when you talk about God, you have to let go of those things. You even have to acknowledge the looseness of sentences such as, "God created the world" because the sentence is in past tense, which implies that God did it in some point in time and this is not the case.
I'm not denying that it may be true that God exists and doesn't give two cents about the universe, but I will say with absolute certainty that you have not proved that this is true.
Ad 2 ) thank you for noticing this contradiction yes god can not have existed for ever and created us because there would be a infinity between our creation and gods starting point.
However it’s a easily deducible fact that god needed to exist for a infinity and suddenly and magically this infinity ended and we started. Let me ask you did god exist before the start of the universe ? and before that ? and a billion days before that ? And a infinity of days before that ?
God needs to be temporal or he is unable to exists. You are implying something like this god created the universe because he can never create the universe or god can win the Olympics because he is crippled and can never ever move. Lets give you a crash course in dimensions lets use the word god time to denote the time axis for god. Now lets take a simple example this take a 2D object it haze a X and Y dimension now lets make it 3D it gains Z however X and Y are still present they don’t despair now lets make this object 4D it gains a T axis for time however XYZ are still present. Do you comprehend that you are postulating a flat god ?
However a time dimension is something necessary for something create or actually interact with us. You see if something lacks the time dimension it can not change this includes responding or interacting with heir dimensional beings like humans. If god lacks a time dimension he i
You seam to imply that god did not exist or didn’t have consciousness of his existence during the time before the creation of the universe. You see a god that existed for ever and loves humans is internally contradictory to the power of infinity.
s like a sculpture or a drawing unable to do or think or make any thing he is eternal frozen and oblivious to his surroundings that he would be not able to comprehend.
Its like a program having no ability to execute the next line of code god simply is infinitely oblivious.
Ad 3) you seem to not understand the concept of being sane do you believe in a infinitely insane god ? A example would be random god or insane god that would decide to torture his followers and reword the unbelievers just so or have no logical consistency what so ever like waiting a infinity for starting something , lets say you would like some candy you wont some candy there is nothing ever stopping you from having the candy no prohibitions or promises or something however you decide to get some candy in 5 decades and no candy before that moment. This is the essence of a completely incoherent creature are you believing in a infinitely insane god ?
Ad 4) if god would be not internal and did create humans immediately after his creation or popping into existence then this would be not a contradiction. Do you believe that your god is infinitely oblivious and did have no memories or existence or whoever during the time that he supposedly existed before creating the universe this is linking god with the existence of the universe you are implying that god have bean awoken or created or completed during the creation of the universe.
Ad 5 ) because if god would have a beginning and create us immediately after that because we are his loved ones than the concept would be not contradictors however berceuse god is supposed to be internal concept one is contradicted or are we not his loved ones ? Or do you believe in a god that infinitely hates humans and loves to torture them ? This is the contradiction of point 1 , point 2 If god have problems with us not existing you are postulating a god that can be harmed if this contradicts gods immutability and other factors.
3 and 4 address gods rationality again my scenario is not eliminating infinitely EVIL , oblivious , random or incoherent gods however I would doubt someone would like to worship this creature creatures in light of this.
Ad 6) Obviously I can not postulate a real or existing god , thank you for disproving gods existence or realness. Again I recommend learn or think about dimensions you are simply postulating a god that is less then us. And without this god can simply never ever create something. God must have a god time axis or he has less dimensions then we have however then you get all the other problems.
Warning I’m not a native English speaker.
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No, not at all. God making a decision would be dependent on the conditions which caused the decision to be made at that point, and in that manner. Even if all God is doing is making an internal decision, those conditions are dependent upon the conditions which gave rise to them, etc, etc, etc. These are still causes acting upon what you have called the 'first cause'. Which means that in order to find the 'first cause', you need to find God's initial state... but if God regresses infinitely, then God can have no initial state, and so you're once again not answering the question.
No, actually it proceeds from the idea that in order to take action, God needs to exist along some axis of progression. If God does not have an axis of progression, then God cannot take action, because taking action is progress: for God to be able to enact a change, there has to be a direction of movement that corresponds to 'before' and 'after' that change is made. So while God may not progress along the same axis we call 'Time', God would need to have an analogous axis along which to progress.
Another story goes that W.C. Fields said "go away, kid, you bother me", which is pretty much exactly what Augustine was getting at with that reply. It's not an answer, it's a 'Shut up.'
Correct.
But they do within math. Outside of mathematics, numbers are a descriptor, adjectives. Take 'one pie', for example, where 'one' is used to describe an attribute (quantity) of 'pie'. But within math, numbers are real. And counting is math. It's addition.
I say this because you're approaching the 'set:subset' issue from, well, a God's-eye view, and I think that's the wrong way to go about it. We start counting at 0 because it's our default position. It is, if you will, our 'now'. To get anywhere from it, you have to add (or subtract, but that's just addition of negative numbers). From 0's point of view, though, it's just one number in an infinite sequence from -Infinity to +Infinity.
Similarly, we are limited in our perception of the set because we are part of the set. When we step back and look at the full set, as though from outside of it, of 'Regression/Progression of Existence', we are able to define start and end points for our finite set just fine. You're only able to say 'there is an infinite set of numbers prior to the 1, but I have not counted them' because you are outside the set when you say it.
And why can that 'infinite' state not be 'Progression' itself? The only constant, after all, is change. Maybe that's truer than even Heraclitus knew. Or maybe he was just smarter than most of us.
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You assume that only one time dimension exists, but one could posit that our universe and associated spacetime resides in a metaverse with its own spacetime that either subsumes our own or has some connection to it. From this postulate, we can infer that God could have created our time dimension by residing outside of our spacetime but inside the spacetime of the metaverse.
It seems that we must posit that or something analogous to it. The notion of god necessarily includes the notion that he acts as a causal agent. That means we must include the notion of causation. Causation can only occur as an event, though, and an event is necessarily a moment in time. Thus, we must posit that god exists and acts within a meta-time dimension that subsumes our own spacetime or somehow connects with it. If we concerned ourselves not with time but with space, we would end with essentially the same conclusion because events necessitate change and change necessitates a space in which something can change. Thus, we must conclude that god exists within a meta-space dimension that subsumes our own spacetime or somehow connects with it. Regardless of our direction of thought, we must conclude that metaspace and metatime exist together as a single causal manifold because we cannot conceive of space without time or time without space and, accordingly, metaspace without metatime or metatime without metaspace.
Without positing a meta-spacetime, we cannot posit the existence of a causal agent responsible for the existence of our own spacetime without the charge of incoherency or contradiction.
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Can someone photoshop a Dungeon's and Dragon's game box and put a cross on it?
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You should read Aristotle's Physics and other books, not just the Metaphysics. Some of the responders should do the same.
The unmoved mover is a logical necessity, not physical. It arises from the supposition the the universe is a whole "thing" or entity of some kind and therefore, like all entities in human experience, must have a beginning and an end. Drop the supposition and there is no unmoved mover.
However, dropping the supposition leaves us attempting to talk about infinity and we have not yet (perhaps never will) figured how to do this intelligibly. When the subject involves infinity, our discourse always gets us into paradox and circular argument. Unmoved movers (including the quantum singularity) are language devices, or figures of speach, or, in Aristotle's terms, principles of intelligibility. They set context and terminate infinite regress for purposes of discourse; and that's all. One would have to be a Platonist to believe that this kind of logical necessity has anything to do with physical causality (something which Aristotle refutes and rejects in the Physics).
In general, it is important to avoid confusing our talk about the world with the actual world. Converting a logical necessity (which has to do with our talk) into a cause of physical activity in the world is a fallacy which both religeous and scientifically minded people need to be wary of.
And also our knowledge is limited to such that nothing would exclude the existence of God, and therefore we can't say with any certainty that he doesn't exist.
How is an infinite series of cause and effect more understandable than an all-powerful creator? The universe always existing has just as much evidence as God existing, your position
is notmore logical in any way, shape or form.
And your explanation is no better.
Can you replicate what the universe looked like prior to the big bang, and what caused it to "bang" in the first place? If the matter always existed, why all of a sudden did space start expanding? Why wasn't it always expanding?
At some point you have to admit that your explanation is seriously lacking in the unknown department as well. God is just as good an explanation as the universe somehow always existing yet "choosing?" to expand at some point. But of course that doesn't make sense, because we know the universe had a beginning (big bang).
Something creating itself is no more "logical" than some as yet unkonwn entity creating something. The only difference is that we have examples of things that were created by hands we cannot see (for example, you probably didn't watch your home being constructed) however we don't have any examples of anything in the universe creating itself, much less the entire universe creating itself.
Not believing is one thing, but having contempt for those who do believer, and deluding yourself into thinking that your position is the more "logical" is the definition of stupidity. This is the atheist supremacism we are talking about, the belief that your position is superior to all others, or that yours is the most "rational" or "logical."
. Come on already, stop playing hopskotch with it and be a man, you are an atheist supremacist, get over it.
It's time for you to admit your true position, which is that God does not exist. Not that you don't know whether he exists or not, but that you are definitely certain that he does not exist (otherwise, you must be calling yourself "irrational" "illogical" "childish" "primitive" and "idiotic."
"I don't know" is not a position - it's a convenient dodge for those who don't want to believe in a god.
You guys need to get something through your head: if evidence points to something then it's not illogical just because you disagree with it. We can get to discussing what that evidence is if we ever get off this damn topic of whether it's illogical or not...
Who says God isn't natural?
And why is that wrong?
No shit he'd survive. No reason for him to die if he's powerful enough to create the universe.
Why not. My definition for a "god' is pretty flexible.
No, I don't.
I've already admitted dozens of times that these claims are unsubstantiated, welcome to the thread. But they are NOT illogical. You can't blame people for arriving at these conclusions.
Logic & data are two different things. Data = Empericism. Logic = philosophy. Science = logic + data.
Sure he does. A god, assuming he exists, explains everything.
And you do? Enlighten me then.
Because we have evidence that it's slowing down.
That's a logical fallacy. You're attempting to disprove my theory by giving the converse which is clearly not true.
You don't understand my definitions of "god" and "existence". By "existence" I'm referring to the definition of the universe as scientists see it.
And I see that my point sailed right over your head again. Richard Gott claims there is an infinite loss of information about events before 10^-43 seconds. With this total loss of information, he says, anything becomes possible, including "the ability to make an infinite number of universes." It was an example, of the same kinds of fallacies that scientists make for which they accuse theists.
Says who? Is this just you making assumptions?
Let me spell it out for you then.
Scenario: The universe was spontaneously created. From what we've seen, the universe was only created once. However, the universe has been tailor-made for the evolution of living things. The universe couldn't have set these variables by itself. The odds of it doing that by itself are so small that they should basically be considered zero.
Scenario: A powerful, sentient being was spontaneously created. It learned and evolved. Eventually it learned what a reality needs to sustain living things. Therefore it created these things in one fell swoop, which is EXACTLY what the big bang looks like.
This could certainly be wrong. But I don't think it's illogical.
Look back at my example earlier in this post, or think about the state of science a millennium ago, where mysticism was the order of the day and where you would be considered a fool for disagreeing with some of the things that later ended up being wrong. Things are stated as fact all the time in the name of science. The FDA for example, lies about what kind of drugs are safe or not. Their excuse? They claimed to have experimentally tested the drugs.
Assuming that those things already exist.
Agreed. God has no place in science.
The universe isn't a thermodynamic system where energy can be brought in from the outside, if that's what you were referring to. So, again, still illogical.
God doesn't have to be anything. That's the point, you're putting your faith in it. patcleaver accused me earlier of having no imagination. Yet you atheists are the ones who won't accept something unless it's shoved right in front of your face.
Time didn't exist before the big bang.
Speak for youself. I've certainly had those moments, but I didn't decide to "get payback" on god by not believing in him anymore.
Bullshit. The existence of scientists who believe in a god disproves this statement.
And as for the bet, I ain't done spanking you atheists around here yet. This reply took me quite a lengthy time to respond. The bet's still there. I am betting none of you will be able to systematically prove me wrong in anything I've said here. I'm going to rip you atheists apart in this thread.
There's a difference between attribution and necessitation. For example, if I kicked a ball and the ball started moving, then we would all agree that my kicking, along with other conditions, necessitated the movement of the ball. But my decision to kick the ball was not necessitated by anything. I made the choice to do so. Now you could ATTRIBUTE my choice to different factors considering that my existence in a world of constant action going on outside of me happens at the same time as my action. For example, you could attribute my kicking of the ball to the fact that I am playing a game of kickball. But the ball kicking was not necessitated by the game. At the ultimate level of explanation, you separate my decision from the natural scientific chain of causality (which I should note, is a metaphysical presupposition and I'd be interested to know if atheists believe that they are free) and there is a metaphysical fork in the road.
My point is, God's choice to create the world was not dependent on any external conditions. For one, God transcends space and time so therefore we should not unqualifiably assume that there are external things besides God "prior" to him creating the universe.
Once again, the assumption of ANY kind of progression necessarily posits an assumption of time. And the premise that action necessarily requires time is based on our experience of the universe, which we already agree God would transcend.
No, Augustine's point was that in any discussion of an entity that theoretically exists outside of the universe, you must therefore, as Yoda would say, "unlearn what you have learned." Our whole language is based on our experience of space and time. We can't even construct a sentence without putting it in some sort of temporal sense. So it's practically impossible for us to imagine a being that is neither spatial nor temporal. The problem is that when we discuss God positively in our language, we are actually positing contradictions by even putting him in a sentence. So we have to acknowledge some sort of looseness in our conversations. God does not exist in time or space.
We are talking about a chain of causation, with the principle that nothing can give existence to itself as its foundation. It is not a good analogy because you would not attribute the existence of the number 2 to the existence of the number 1 and so on. One could also argue that numbers are ontologically dependent on objects. The number 1 could not exist unless there was some object that could be one in number.
Once again, numbers are really nothing more than an attribute of things that we happen to be able to discuss in isolation from these things that they predicate. We even have to represent numbers with symbols in order to render them intelligible.
It's not the same.
We are talking about actual existing BEINGS which are subjects with predicates. Such a being, if it does not pre-exist, must be brought into existence by something other than itself. I think we've already agreed upon that.
Because that would be an infinite regress and I've already explained why that's impossible.
The original conception of "God" was a physical being who could manifest storms, droughts, floods, death, lightning, thunder, and so on. God originally controlled our destinies, wrought vengeance in His wrath, gave us wealth and made us poor.
And so on.
As we began to discover and explore the natural world, God has been pushed back into a role of impotence. His ability to influence the world has diminished to the point where some see Him only in the chaotic fluctuations of quantum events. It's like we were scared of the creaking noises in the house, and imagined there must be monsters in the walls; but as we explored the house, we found there to be nothing but the house itself, vibrating with the wind, or creaking in its thermal cycle of warmth and cold.
The reason that our knowledge is "limited to such that nothing would exclude the existence of God" is because as our knowledge expands, God shrinks. Until we know everything (which is a mighty tall order), "God" may remain in the areas of our ignorance. And as the Intelligent Design adherents prove, the belief in God warps an individual's view of reality, such that for them God continues to exist even in things His hand has not touched.
Doesn't this at all disturb you? The fact that God has shrivelled into inconsequence as our knowledge expands? Doesn't this pattern of divine ignorance, followed by the exorcism of God by natural understanding, give you pause?
How do you figure? Aren't scientists human too? Aren't they subject to the same fears, the same indoctrinations, the same dogmatic beliefs, as other people?
It's interesting. Many scientists who "believe in a god" believe as Einstein did: as an abstract collective, used to indicate awe at the structure, cohesion, and vast beauty of the universe. This is not a God that causes anything to happen. This is not a God in the same spiritual sense to which you seem to cleave. This is a God that doesn't really exist, a deistic pantheism of the natural.
Considering that scientists are atheists in much higher percentages compared to the non-scientists, I believe the statement still holds.
If you don't believe so, name one area in which God still reigns in which we are not ignorant.
You've been spanking us? That's an interesting verb. I'm not sure it's one I would've choosen. However, if by "spanking" you mean, "bleating at," then perhaps you have a point.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
You're telling me what my position is?????
convenient dodge????
atheist supremacism???
You're never going to get this are you?
This will be the last time I try to explain this to you before I move on to the next person.
-ism is about belief or practice. aka: ideology
theism is the positive belief in god(s)
a-theism is the lack of that positive belief. It is not a declaration.
Since I would willfully accept the label of 'anti-theism' that would define me as: against the BELIEF in god(s) not the god(s).
Read that again.
"anything becomes POSSIBLE."
It was not an assertion concerning something given as a fact with no evidence.
Theists BELIEVE god(s) MUST exist ergo they treat god(s) as fact with no evidence. Thus the reason their position is irrational.
Let's say you're right. It is a system made up of many other systems both open and closed.
Since we agree that energy cannot be brought into the universe... no room for a god there.
Wow. Thanks. That was almost a compliment. I do have an imagination. I just don't let it run willy-nilly after bumps in the night.
Huh? I don't believe in god(s). Why would I decide to 'get payback'?
How do you know it's a 'he'??? lol.
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That's one of the worst strawmen that I have ever seen.
The people who believed that are probably the same people who believed that the Earth is flat. And despite what your little friends may tell you, flat earth theory was ALWAYS laughed at by the majority, even in antiquity. Obviously, if our planet's shadow on the moon is round, then even a 5 year old could conclude that the Earth is not flat. But I digress.
All you have to do is open Aristotle's Metaphysics and read his description of the unmoved mover (God) as being pure form and no matter. You could read similar things in the medieval doctrines of Aquinas, Anselm, and Augustine.
Nobody with a brain in their head ever believed that God was literally some big tall guy with a beard.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
Except for Oral Roberts and his 80 foot Jesus...
And the writer of Revelation who gives a physical description of God taken from his vision...
Oh, and the writers of the rest of the Bible who gave God human attributes...
Nope, all anencephalic adults.
Which was more reasonable for human beings? Believing that God looked kind of like themselves or your way where you give nothing (all form and no matter) the name God?
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
People in the past did believe the earth was flat. The shadow on the moon is consistent with the earth being a flat disk, which was a common conception.
Human knowledge has moved on immensely since the days of Aristotle. In the area of knowledge about the nature of reality, their ideas are of mainly historical interest. These are the guys who couldn't get their heads around 'irrational' numbers or summation of infinite series, let alone remotely getting near calculus.
Logic can only show what follows from the premises, it cannot prove that your initial assumptions are true, therefore, by itself, without evidence, logic cannot tell us anything fundamental about reality, except maybe what is not possible, due to contradiction.
"I don't know" is the only intellectually honest position when confronted with inadequate evidence about something. Positing a 'God' to fill that gap is dodging the issue.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
I'm not denying that. I'm saying that the only people who believed that were idiots. Most people DIDN'T believe that.
Oral Roberts had no brain in his head, as well as anyone else who literally believed that God was a physical being. What's your point? Most people did not believe that.
The fact that you are reading the bible in the most literal way possible shows that you have absolutely no knowledge of the bible or theology in general. No, the writers of the bible did not believe that God was a physical being.
When someone says, "He's got the whole world in his hands"... do you believe that s/he is claiming that God is literally holding our planet in between his gigantic fingers?
1. On Roberts we agree.
2. If most people didn't believe in the descriptions of God as written in the Bible, why did the writers bother to write them? Was the Bible a document for the minority?
3. If some parts of the Bible are to be taken figuratively and others literally, what guides you on which is which? Are you like many Christians who say "I don't like to do X as the Bible says, so that part of the Bible must be figurative and symbolic."?
4. On the lyric, of course not (though I know people who do).
5. More to the point - if, as you and the authors you cite claim, God is form without matter - why do you believe in nothing and call it God?
At least I know not to believe without evidemce
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Do you deliberately miss the point?
I never said that people still believe in a physical God. In fact, I believe I stated quite clearly that our conception of God has changed as we've discovered the nature of reality.
My point, which you so obtusely missed, is that knowledge modifies our conception of God. You stated that there's nothing that can disprove the existence of God. My counterpoint was an agreement: you can't disprove God, because the definition of God keeps changing to match what we know about nature. That is, the common understanding of God keeps getting pushed back further and further into the edges of ignorance as we learn more about reality.
That stated, Christians believe that God was literally some big tall guy with a beard: Jesus. So bite me.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
It's not that they don't believe in the descriptions. It's that God transcends the realm of sense experience and therefore describing him in human language inevitably contradicts his true nature. For example, any sentence we write will have to be in some sort of temporal sense; either past, present, or future. But God is none of the above, since he is not a temporal being. Likewise, we always speak of things being "here" or "there", when strictly speaking, God is not a being in space. So when we bring God into a discussion, we are forced to describe him in sentient terms because that is what human beings are limited to. We can only speak of God in metaphors because God cannot truly be described in language. Some say that to truly understand God, you have to experience him and I don't disagree with that. So people DO believe in the descriptions in the bible, but they are not understanding the passages like you are understanding them.
And if someone says, "I am so hungry I could eat a horse", how do you know he doesn't mean that literally? Is there some sort of guide that tells you when someone is using a metaphor? How do we tell when a metaphor is being used in our favorite song or novel?
Just so you know, I'm not here to carry the water of Christianity or any particular denomination. I know for a fact that the bible wasn't written by God. It was written by people who claim to be witnesses of God's earthly embodiment Jesus Christ.
Out of curiosity, have you ever read Aristotle? Are you even vaguely familiar with hylomorphism?
No you are completely wrong, and they weren't idiots - you are closer to fitting that description, based on such ignorant and ill-informed comments.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Nice try moving the goal posts.
What you were saying was that the concept of God began as that of some physical being and then as knowledge in science progressed, we gradually changed our conception of God. And you are wrong. You can go back to ANTIQUITY (see Aristotle's Metaphysics) and realize that no intelligent person ever thought of God as a physical being.
Your argument is that of a child.
"I don't know, so I guess some sky pixies did it."
Why don't we assume that N=11 super-symmetry is actually god. Then we can ignore all current religions as being lies. Each bible/koran/fairytale book is made up and worthless.
Every new follower of this god would have to take advanced post graduate physics and mathematics and then preach this to the masses as the probable truth.
There is no dogma and only mathematics can show the true meaning of this god. This god cannot speak to anyone so there are no rules.
There you go I have solved your prime mover argument- so we can all relax and know that there is no book - no heaven - no hell - no sins - no good - no evil. There is just mathematics and biological life-as far as we know. Oops that means that evolution is correct, as it obeys the laws of the N=11 super-symmetry.
Beside that point, it would seem to be blatantly obvious in the depictions of gods throughout history and prehistory, that an anthropomorphic figure is exactly how god has been imagined by at least some humans. We can at least be certain that some people throughout history have thought of gods as physical beings, but you should appreciate that it's quite impossible to know the (relative) intellect of those people. We can only assume that they were, to some degree, intelligent.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
God exists - as an abstract idea, a metaphor, a concept, or more accurately as myriad related ideas. Or maybe just a label we paste over our ignorance of the 'ultimate' nature of existence.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Chuck, just a friendly request. Can you like... not hijack my thread? I threw out a lot of points for these atheist bigots to refute... I don't want my efforts wasted. After you posted, they now have a valid excuse to ignore all my points.
I'd like to prove them wrong until they run out of arguments and lose the bet. I sort of intended this as a "desertwolf9 vs atheists" thread.
Thanks =D
I've read Aristotle but it was long ago and far away. From what little I do understand (matter+form=substance), the God you describe (form without matter) is not a substance and doesn't exist. Aristotle's view stopped making sense a while ago.
As for literal or figurative - for myself - I judge on the basis of "does what was written/said make sense?". With the Bible, it's supposed to be the divinely inspired words of their God that Christians supposed to live by. Does it make sense for them to have the option to figure that their God's words weren't REALLY meant to be taken seriously?
We also agree on the Bible to a point - I don't necessarily believe that the writers of the NT claimed they witnessed the earthly embodiment of God. I lean toward them cobbling together a Jesus character from rabbis they liked and other myths they knew and wrote themselves into the stories.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
It doesn't explain anything, and simply substituting our Universe, or the Metaverse which gave rise to the Big Bang event, for "A powerful, sentient being" is in no way less 'logical', and more parsimonious, therefore more intellectually appropriate as an initial assumption.
To chuck, to emphasise something I pointed out earlier, the assertion that
"Obviously, if our planet's shadow on the moon is round, then even a 5 year old could conclude that the Earth is not flat."
is so demonstrably invalid, that it becomes even harder to take uou seriously. Please acknowledge that you got that wrong - the Earth's shadow on the moon is entirely consistent with a flat circular Earth.
{ Edited to clarify who I was responding to in each case }
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
*sigh*
Go back and re-read my post. Please. You seem to have completely missed everything I said. The point wasn't the physicality of God; the point was that God was attributed with control over the unknown, like thunder and lightning and droughts and whatnot. Take away my mention of a physical being, and my argument still stands. Yet you concentrate on the least important part. Have you no refutation of the rest of it?
As for your assertions: the Greeks believed in anthropomorphic Gods, who would visit earth as various entities (including big guys with beards), impregnating mortals and whatnot. The sun was carried 'round the earth by Apollo. So tell me, how is that belief not a belief in a physical being?
As for "no intelligent person ever thought of God as a physical being," are Christians who believe that Jesus was really the Son of God (and also part of God himself, as one of the trinity) all unintelligent? Were all Greeks who believed Apollo really did carry the sun around the earth all unintelligent?
Or were they all just uneducated?
What I was doing in my original post was pointing out that our conception of God has changed dramatically as our knowledge increases. You seem to really want to refute that, but haven't managed to do anything other than take a trivial aspect (the physicality of God) and blow it up into something I never intended.
And this is the pattern I was trying to show: God is nothing more than people wishing to fill in ignorance. In every case, God has been nothing but a way to explain that which was "unknowable" at the time. And I make a bold claim: any definition of God, whatever it might be, is still nothing more than an attempt to paint over ignorance as if it were knowledge.
Now, you talk about moving the goalpost. That's all theists do with their conception of God. As science learns more and more, they have three defences: redefine God, argue against the emerging scientific knowledge, or find tiny trivial stuff to argue against while ignoring the bulk of the evidence or argument.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
Just like those little flat round wafers that many Catholics believe are the actual body of Christ. Once consecrated, anyway.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
Just to get the thread back on topic, as you want, could you post those points succinctly for us bigots to refute?
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
If I recall, his point was he believes in the uncaused cause. His reasoning was that he hadn't looked for any other explanations.
(Sorry, being a smart ass today.)
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
That's right. I remember his points now.
Nothing to refute there so much as there is a lot about which the OP must first be educated about. At worst this is nonsense and at best it's question begging and that's only if we're to ignore what else he's got wrong.
desertwolf9, maybe you have some point to make that can actually be refuted instead of a blatant display of ignorance that only needs correcting?
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
Alright, I'll start off a different thread in a short while. this time, only me and atheists debating against me will be allowed to post. No fellow theists will be allowed to enter and I will go ahead and lay out my views. Now it won't be a debate about whether god exists or not, but rather a challenge against the atheists of this website to prove to me that my belief is "irrational". I am sick of atheists getting off the hook because someone else came in and derailed my thread.
Your belief is based on the existence of a being you call God but people aren't allowed to dispute that... doesn't seem like you want much of a debate.
If you believe your belief is rational, no amount of bludgeoning you with the truth will convince you otherwise.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Of course, one of the most important ways in which one can examine the rationality of your belief would be to examine the belief. Excluding that from the terms of the challenge makes the challenge impossible. We can't very well prove that your belief is irrational if you've excluded the thing you believe in from our analysis.
No one will take you up on that challenge. I recommend changing the terms and first presenting an argument on how your belief is rational that expounds your belief coherently.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
I didn't miss what you've said. Technically, if I don't even attempt to shoot a basket, then you wouldn't say that I missed it.
I didn't even read most of what you've wrote other than what I quoted. Forgive me for being presumptuous, but I presupposed that you had nothing useful to say after reading such an asinine assertion about the evolution of God belief. Sorry.
We are talking about GODS now? I thought we were talking about God.
LOL
Your laughable misinterpretation of Christian doctrine doesn't even deserve a response.
Suddenly the Holy Trinity is equivalent to the premise that when we talk about God, we are talking about a physical being?
We aren't talking about Apollo. We are talking about GOD. This is a proper noun here.
Once again, flat earth theory could be refuted just by looking straight at the moon. You could research it all over the place and you'll find that nobody with any shred of credibility ever believed that the Earth was flat.
And I'm telling you that it hasn't. Back in antiquity, the idea of God was that of an infinite being who is immaterial and exists outside of space and time. That has always been constant.
Now we obviously no longer attribute things like storms, sunsets, tides, etc. to God but that doesn't change our conception of God himself.
You call that "bold"? LOL. Atheists have been making these claims for eons. Don't act like you are breaking some sort of mold here.
Obviously I first need to demonstrate how my views are logical and rational. That goes without saying. That's precisely what I did in the new thread I just started. Now you can go ahead and try to prove me wrong.
What is a "GOD"?
People didn't believe in the Christarded god in antiquity. Stop moving the goalposts.
Aristotle's formulation of the unmoved mover argument relies on the idea that a body at rest will remain at rest unless an outside source acts on it, thus changing the potentiality for movement into actuality. The argument fundamentally contradicts itself by positing an unmoved mover because that notion relies on a potentiality becoming an actuality without receiving the action of an external force, and that premise he had already denied in the chain of his reasoning by saying that bodies at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon.
Further, quantum mechanics throws away the notion that, fundamentally, bodies will remain at rest unless acted upon. As the physicist Michio Kaku said in his book Hyperspace, "gas molecules may bounce against the walls of a container without requiring anything or anyone to get them moving." Matter moves without anything acting upon it, therefore material bodies qualify for the term "unmoved movers." An atheist could agree with the conclusion of Aristotle's formulation of the unmoved mover and remain an atheist.
I suppose one could argue that he could not, because that requires an infinite chain of causality, which requires an infinite amount of time, which cannot exist. That argument relies on a presupposition that the theist can avoid such a problem. As I said earlier...
Even if one posits a god, one must still place it within a time dimension of some sort, which exposes it to the same problem of infinite regress. Regardless of whether one is a theist or atheist, the infinite regress problem arises. This suggests to me that we might act too hastily to dismiss the notion of an infinite regress, because our universe seems to require one, regardless of whether we posit a god or not.
With regard to the idea of transcending space-time, the notion makes no sense whatsoever. The word transcend does not make sense. They simply plaster the word into their writings and thoughts because they can think of the label without thinking of the thing that the label represents. And, fundamentally, the label does not represent anything, as indicated by their inability to define it, describe the substance that comprises it, describe the constitution of that substance, explain how it can act without time, think without time, or act or think forever through an infinite regress that comes to an end, and so on. Ask them what they believe concerning the creation of the universe, and they will say that god did it, but ask them what god means, and you get nothing in response. God, in their means, does not actually refer to anything. Considering that, how can they believe in something that, apparently, isn't anything? That requires a cognitive dissonance that they could not possibly maintain by confronting head on. If they tried confrontation, they would turn atheist. They combat the cognitive dissonance by moving to a higher level of abstraction, usually entrapped by a lot of symbology and emotion. They move the concept of god further away in their reasoning to try hiding the problems—they do not believe in god, they believe they believe in god.
Stultior stulto fuisti, qui tabellis crederes!
Once again, I've already pointed out that this statement is utterly and absolutely incorrect. The shadow on the moon is entirely consistent with a FLAT circular Earth - it does not demonstrate that it is spherical.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
No, actually, it's not. You see, the Christian God has a proper name. A couple of them, in fact, as names in the Hebrew of the Bible tended to tell you about the entity (as in Jacob being renamed 'Israel' for 'He who has wrestled with God'). One proper name for God is 'Yhwh', aka 'I am', as a reference to God as a self-existent critter, responsible for his own being.
Another is 'Elohim', which is in fact an earlier name used than 'Yhwh', and may mean 'He who one with fear takes shelter in', but the actual specific derivation and meaning has been lost to time, as with 'El', yet another of the proper names of the Abrahamic deity. There's also 'Adonai', 'Shaddai' (and of course, El Shaddai), and even (though this fell into disrepute), Ba'al.
That's right, Ba'al is another freakin' name for Jehovah, and the 'wars' waged by the 'faithful' against the 'followers of Baal' were probably just internicean conflicts between sects.
But then, you're probably not familiar w/the goddess of the ancient Abrahamic faith, Asherah, either. Yes, that's right, modern monotheistic religions are actually just atrophied polythestic religions where competition for tithings got too intense.
"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
Are you really that ignorant of various Christian doctrines? I mean, the very simple, fundamental doctrine that Jesus was divine, an aspect of God. That he was physical, and real, and walked the earth. And he even had a beard.
In fact, some Catholics believe that little round, flat wafers (that look just like the shadow of the earth as it crosses the moon) are really the body of Christ. Now that's physicality.
What, we're only discussing monotheism then? Hell, monotheism hasn't been around that long, comparitively-speaking. And most of them (the various Abrahamic religions) say that God walked the earth, and talked to His creations, such as Adam and Eve. How is that not physical?
As far as you "telling me it hasn't," you can tell me whatever you like. It doesn't stop you from being wrong. Which you are.
Funny, though. But very, very wrong.
Did I claim to be original with that statement?
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
No, you claim it was a 'Bold' claim. And as you are Nigel The Bold, all your claims are 'Bold claims'!
"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
Ain't it just friggin' hilarious how it is the atheists, not the Christians, that know the names of the Christian god. The overwhelming majority of them, like chuckyboy here, think that god is a name.
I've never been able to pinpoint the name Yahweh either. I doubt that we'll ever know. But we have the name Yah from a Canaanite text as being one of the 70 sons of El.
El might also just be a generic name meaning god. We find the term bene Elohim in both Canaanite and Hebrew texts meaning sons of god. Strange how the Bible can mention bene Elohim and still pretend that Judaism and Christianity is monotheistic.
Shaddai may translate as breast, but a more literal translation would be ' nourisher '. There is also a possibility that the word was taken from the Akkadian word for mountain, shadu. This would be in keeping with the Canaanite/Hebrew attributing the dwelling places of the gods to high places. One thing for certain though, it doesn't seem to translate into " Almighty " as the KJV erroneously translates it.
Adonai came late, after the masoretes added vowels to the Hebrew texts. The sounds of the vowels are ad, on, and ai. The name has no real meaning.
Ba'al is my personal favorite. Depending on context, the name can mean husband, lord, master, or all three. Compare Yahweh's storm theophany to Baal Hadad's title ' Rider on the Clouds '. Biggest enemy in the Bible, and yet the Hebrew plagiarize Baal's smiting the heads of the sea creature Lotan by having Yahweh smash the heads of Leviathan. If you compare the wording of the Bible to that of the Epic of Baal, you can see that they pretty much quoted it word for word.
So glad to see that you remembered Yahweh's wife Asherah. I wonder if Yahweh married her after the Canaanite high god El divorced her? The editors of the Bible did plenty to eradicate Asherah's connection to Yahweh, but they didn't anticipate that we would find the library at Ugarit. We can compare the references to wisdom in the Bible, especially where wisdom is personified as feminine like in proverbs 8 & 9, and compare this to the Canaanite epithet for Asherah, ' Lady wisdom '. We also have proverbs 3:18 telling us that wisdom is a tree of life. Of course we know both from the Bible and from the Canaanite texts that Asherah's symbol is a tree. Then there is that troubling graffiti at Khitbet el-Kom and Kuntillet Ajrud that links Yahweh and Asherah. Have you ever heard the fundies ridiculous explanation for this? They insist that the asherah mentioned is a pole or symbol, ignoring that fact that the ancients thought the gods and goddesses to inhabit those symbols. The Hebrew arc of the covenant was meant to house Yahweh.
But what the hell do you and I know, BMcD? We're just ignorant atheists that have never studied this. Mmmm Hmmm!
It takes a village to raise an idiot.
Save a tree, eat a vegetarian.
Sometimes " The Majority " only means that all the fools are on the same side.
Ok, you say we can not describe God’s true nature in human language.
I must be tired or something because the little symbols you’ve typed seemed to be words you’re using to describe God in human language. Either you can describe god in human language or you can’t. If your description of god is so much better then that which is found in the bible then why isn’t it written there? The bible is supposed to be divinely inspired, you would think that god would be able to describe himself far better then you can.
You have repeatedly described god in terms which aren't metaphors.
We know when a metaphor is being used because of our cultural understanding of the language. Many people when learning a language for the first time have a lot of trouble knowing when things being said are metaphors. The bible was written in ancient times in another language, what makes you so sure you know if the things is says are metaphors or not?
My apologies for missing that you replied to me within your monstrous single reply.
No, because in order to judge whether or not a conclusion is logical, one must know what the evidence that leads to this conclusion is. Without the evidence being specified, how can we judge if the conclusions drawn from it are logical?
Not at all. You're claiming 'God' as prime mover and an infinite, all-powerful one at that. To establish God as 'prime mover', then you have to establish that there's a limitation on regression. But if there's a limit on regression, then there's a limit on how far back God can extend, which puts a limit on an infinite, all-powerful being, and thus contradicts, which is illogical.
Which scientists? Most will tell you that the universe as they see it progresses from a state wherein it was the universe other than as they see it. Which means that existence already exceeds your definitions.
Multiple people have already demonstrated the errors in your reasoning. Standing there with your fingers in your ears shouting 'LALALALALALALALALA NOT LISSSTENINNNNNNNNNNNG!!!' doesn't change that.
"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
Okay, one last response and then you can have the last word (I assume you will want to get it in to make it appear that you've won the game).
The bible makes it clear that God is an immaterial being. The bible makes several references to God being spirit and invisible.
"God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." --John 4:21
"He (Christ) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation." --Colossians 1:15
"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, so that men are without excuse." --Romans 1:20
"Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen." --Timothy 1:17
And if you want a secular source, here you go:
"God has no body (from Latin, incorporale), or is non-physical. This is a central tenet of monotheistic religions, which insist that any references to God's eyes, ears, mind, and the like are anthropomorphic. Christian belief in the incarnation is a unique case in which God takes on human form in Christ."
http://www.iep.utm.edu/g/god-west.htm#SH3a
As far as Christ goes, you need to learn the meaning of "theophany".
Let me expain it from this angle: The central doctrine is that mankind, when left to their own devices, will inevitably succumb to temptation. Humans are inherently lustful, gluttonous, selfish, jealous, competitive, etc. And so humans need to be taught to take control of temptation, so to speak. So God needs to find some way to guide us. To do that, he needs to convey the information in some way. Now he could have done this in many different ways. He could have manipulated the winds such that they would blow messages in the sand, or he could have made a thunderstorm occur everytime somebody did something wrong... but he felt that most practical way to do so was through the existence of a human being, because that is the level that we exist on.
So God is giving us information using a human form as a means of conveying that information. This does not contradict God's essential nature, which is that of an immaterial being. For example, I'm conveying information to you through various computer graphics. Would you say that chuckg6261982 is equivalent to the human graphics? I'm merely manifesting myself through those means.
Ha. You are simply parroting things that Sam Harris says, which I notice is a common pattern among this forum. It's almost like a religion-- Sam Harrisism.
If you read the bible, even Jesus makes it clear that the teaching is not a literal one. John 6:63-64: "The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life."
But we're digressing. We are talking about God. "God" is referring to a particular being, not a genus. All the monotheistic religions are talking about the same thing, though they may use different predicates to describe this being. You could go back thousands of years and philosophers (even secular ones like Aristotle) would predicate him as being infinite and immaterial. You want to argue that the concept of God was adjusted as natural science progressed and that is just not true. Maybe they stopped EXPLAINING NATURAL EVENTS by invoking God, but the actual concept of God has not changed, or if it has, the change is so cursory that it would be nitpicking to even bring it up.
Damned straight!
In your face, Chuck!
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers