Strange Argument
Offline I was arguing with this guy about a whole bunch of bible bullshit. In the back and forth, he offered this rebuttal to something I had said earlier. He said:
"Finally, please tell me how it would be possible for us to fully comprehend the Creator of the universe? If we could, that would mean we'd be as intelligent as God. Every atheist I talk to concede's that it makes sense that we as humans cannot fully understand God. You certainly are full of lofty and unrealistic expectations about God."
The guy did clarify that the "every atheist" part assumed that there was a god, of course. Given this, can I get some comments on what he said?
god -- I tried you on for size.... you were a little long in the crotch, loose in the waist, short in the length and you made my butt look extra flat. I had to take you back for an exchange.
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But I'd say we would need to understand the universe before we could understand its creator and our knowledge of the universe is minute, though penetrating. I wouldn't say the universe could not be comprehended. I assume it's just like our local area but on a vast scale, with associated black holes and star nurseries, etc. And I think that faced with the forces that created the universe, if they were natural, we would comprehend them. Given god is apparently using natural forces, we could understand those forces, too.
I think comprehending something does not require you to be as intelligent as it is. The available proof suggests humans are the most intelligent creatures in the universe. I can't see how it's possible for imaginary deities we make up to be beyond our conception. Humourously, that's a self correcting proposition.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
I could imagine a very simple deity. I could imagine myself understand all there is to know about such a being. For that matter, why must a deity be super intelligent? What if there is a kind of stupid creator god? I could imagine that. This man is just assuming that god is super intelligent, super complex and inherently beyond our ability to understand. I would like to know how he gathered the information needed to come to that conclusion. Where did his certainty that god has those traits come from?
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
I can imagine god might turn out to be a billowing cloud of noble gases or a quantum yo-yo.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
This entire life is but a dream.
A dreeam.
A dreeeeeaaaammmm.
/how did I do?
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
Right, this assumes that God exists.
Anyways, if the popular conception of God existed, then no, we definitely wouldn't be able to "understand" him, but of course, that's because he's designed to be that way. He transcends everything and is completely unobservable and unmeasurable except when he chooses to show himself (which seems to be never). In fact, God is incomprehensible by definition. Lol, if you could comprehend him, then he wouldn't be God, by definition.
Well, that's a bit of a non sequitur, isn't it?
Lol, I assume you expect God to be an internally consistent concept and has no contradictions with observable reality.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
lots of people have imagined that. you've basically just described yaldabaoth, the proud but ultimately inept demiurge in the gnostic pantheon who created the world and whom the israelites worshipped as yahweh. of course, to the gnostics the creation of the world was one big fucking abortion and a huge mistake.
"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