Existence of God (split from old thread)

[Aleksey_aka_al]

Sorry to say that, but Big Bang is exactly magic and a creationist myth, wrapped in scientificism. A religious disgrace on the face of science. An invention of a Catholic priest, sponsored by a Catholic Church.

And in no way cosmology can be compared to biology. The latter is full of experiment, practice, evidence. The former is full of speculations, dogmas and beliefs.

 

[onejayhawk]

It's not a non-sequiter. I need to know if your question regarding 'want' would include the wants of an imagined being. Then I just work within the paradigm of the being I assume you're describing

If you'd said "Superman does not want the same thing, only actual beings can have wants.", then I'd know how to craft the answer differently

Now I only need to figure out which description of 'God' you mean. In the West, lotsa people mean the Abrahamic god when they say 'God'. Other people mean a more theoretical construct. I can talk about God's wants as authoritatively as I can talk about Superman's wants.

Neither of them seem particularly bothered that reality is perceived through our senses as a false illusion.

Edit: oop, phrasing. I'm not saying God is fictional. Merely that I can describe the wants of an entity, even if I don't think it exists

Meh. It is common usage that if God is monotheistic and god is not. So, God is a being, not a device or mechanism. Inserting references to Superman muddies the water.

J

 

[El_Machinae]

I use 'god' when I am referring to a specific description. The Muslim god. The Abrahamic god. A Greek god. If you're using 'God' as a name, I still have to ask 'which one?'

Superman does the opposite of muddying the water. As I said, your answer indicates that you're willing to have the answer be with regards the intent of a being you don't actually believe in. To say "Superman wants X" is a silly statement. Superman doesn't have a mind. To give a fictional entity 'wants' is (in some fashion) a silly statement. And in other ways, it's not silly at all. You and I could very easily discuss whether Superman wants something. We just analyse the story as a story. But the answer "um, dude, Superman doesn't exist. It's a comic book character. You need a mind to want things." is also reasonable.

To discuss whether or not 'God' wants something, though, I then have to figure out which God you mean. Is Jay describing the god that told Adam and Eve to not eat the fruit? Is Jay describing the god that denied Adam and Eve access to the fruit? Is Jay describing the god that wiped out the planet with a Flood?

Or is Jay describing an extra-Biblical entity that merely draws upon Biblical traditions?

In other words, your question's answer really depends on what you mean when you say 'God'. I can have that conversation, we've already broken the ground giving us permission to ascribe motivations to entities, even if we don't think they exist.

But, as I said, It doesn't seem bothered that we perceive reality as a false illusion.

 

[Perfection]

I'm not sure what that has to do with my Occam critique, mecha. Feel free to elaborate.

I think the difference is that team God is saying Reality is not created but naturally self-existent. What we observe as a conception and destruction within Nature are only a surface dynamics of boundless Reality.

I see no reason why there needs to be a God for this to be true. And indeed, I think there are compelling non-theistic ideas that are at least sympathetic to that line of thinking, if not outright embracing it. A fun primer on some of the ideas is Brian Greene's The Hidden Reality. (Other good starting points are Max Tegmark's Our Mathematical Universe and Jim Holt's Why Does the World Exist?)

While the other team seems to be suggesting that reality has a begining in limited phenomena and as such it isn't explainable except for by magic or giant leaps of logic which we will potentially be able to trace step by step in the future.

I don't see not having a perfect explanation as much of a criticism. I think there are a lot of potential explanations and partial explanations but right now I can't see anyone having an airtight case.

My critique of God is not that atheists have the answers and theists don't - rather it doesn't seem to me that posing God specifically provides much insight that a non-God substitute can't. You may posit that if there was a boundless God that might help explain things. I don't see a problem with posing some sort of boundless thing, that may be a reasonable conjecture, but why should it be God and not some other sort of boundless thing?

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

I don't see a problem with posing some sort of boundless thing, that may be a reasonable conjecture, but why should it be God and not some other sort of boundless thing?

The reason why I thing its more useful to use God is that inspite of it being extremely misused and ill-understood concept it conveys some sense of encompassing and total reality. In other words it doesnt only represent all of the physical universe with its potential supraphysical components but also our highest psychological possibilities.

 

[El_Machinae]

It takes awhile to explain to people if you use 'God'. There's too much of a 'person' wrapped up in the concept. Wants, for example. Jay upthread was talking about "God wanting stuff". For you to take the same three-letter word and give it different attributes just confuses things, since you need to spend a whole lot of time unwrapping the person's implicit definition and the rebuilding it.

 

[Perfection]

The reason why I thing its more useful to use God is that inspite of it being extremely misused and ill-understood concept it conveys some sense of encompassing and total reality. In other words it doesnt only represent all of the physical universe with its potential supraphysical components but also our highest psychological possibilities.

So what would be one of these highest psychological properties?

 

[onejayhawk]

I use 'god' when I am referring to a specific description. The Muslim god. The Abrahamic god. A Greek god. If you're using 'God' as a name, I still have to ask 'which one?'

Superman does the opposite of muddying the water. As I said, your answer indicates that you're willing to have the answer be with regards the intent of a being you don't actually believe in. To say "Superman wants X" is a silly statement. Superman doesn't have a mind. To give a fictional entity 'wants' is (in some fashion) a silly statement. And in other ways, it's not silly at all. You and I could very easily discuss whether Superman wants something. We just analyse the story as a story. But the answer "um, dude, Superman doesn't exist. It's a comic book character. You need a mind to want things." is also reasonable.

To discuss whether or not 'God' wants something, though, I then have to figure out which God you mean. Is Jay describing the god that told Adam and Eve to not eat the fruit? Is Jay describing the god that denied Adam and Eve access to the fruit? Is Jay describing the god that wiped out the planet with a Flood?

Or is Jay describing an extra-Biblical entity that merely draws upon Biblical traditions?

In other words, your question's answer really depends on what you mean when you say 'God'. I can have that conversation, we've already broken the ground giving us permission to ascribe motivations to entities, even if we don't think they exist.

But, as I said, It doesn't seem bothered that we perceive reality as a false illusion.

God as a proper noun rather than name. In this case, God in singular vs. god in plural.

Saying "Superman wants X" makes perfect sense. Since you hypothesize a sentient being, you can try to follow his thinking as a thought experiment. That said, you analysis holds together til you throw in the "um, dude". You cannot simplify by assuming God is fiction.

Asking which God you you mean could equate to which part of the elephant you are touching. To say we are blind and trying to cope with other senses understates things. Are there extra-Biblical traditions that draw on Biblical (or Koranist) traditions? Perhaps it is the other way around, that Monotheists drew on a sense that has always been there.

It is common to discard observational evidence of God as purely subjective and inherently suspect. While the criticisms are accurate, it is a fallacy to discard them as worthless. The pervasiveness of religious expression is itself evidence. It is a question of what to make of it.

J

 

[El_Machinae]

Yes. Agreed on the last sentence. It's also a transferable idea. Anecdotes are, in fact, data. You then insert them into a variety of theories to see how they work best.

But note, I didn't say that the god you're describing is fictional. I said that it's a construct of yours. To your parlance, it's a hypothesized sentient being. And so, I can meaningfully discuss it.

(I can still say 'god'. There are a variety of entities that would meet your use of the word 'God'. The set we're describing is plural until we whittle down the description to not be plural) There are currently two descriptions of God on the table. One wants us to be fundamentally ignorant. One doesn't. You're asking which of those two actually exists, or more carefully, which makes more sense if it exists.

Can God have an outcome outside of something It wants? Well, if the answer is 'no' then our ignorance is Its desire. Otherwise, the answer is way tougher.

 

[onejayhawk]

Distinguish fictional and construct.

Hypothsized sentient being applies to Superman, who is known to be fictional. It does not necessarily apply to God.

J

 

[El_Machinae]

Fictional is something we actually know doesn't exist - Superman

Construct is a mental model. The model doesn't depend on the existence or non-existence. You can model something real. You can model something not real.

We construct a model of something that exists when we say "what would a person do in situation X?" Importantly, you can answer this question even if you don't thing that the actual event will occur.

A model can be of a fictional entity: you answered a question about Superman's wants. It can be of a real entity. As well, I can answer a question about a model, even if I don't believe in it. I just need to know enough about your model to extrapolate logical inferences about it.

Answering the question "Do you think my dog will like rawhide bones" doesn't require you to believe that I actually have a dog. You just need to know my answers to various questions about the dog

 

[Akka]

The simplest explanation for the existence of the universe is that a higher power constructed it. Any explanation should start by dealing with the obvious.

That's just stupid, not simple.
Now you have to explain how this higher power came in existence, so you basically didn't answer at all to the original question, you just pushed it further. AND now you also have to explain why you felt the need to add this layer which has no proof of existence.

 

[Lexicus]

I'm going to take this opportunity to again plug for Igtheism, which refuses to take a position on the existence of "god" until the term is properly defined.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

So what would be one of these highest psychological properties?

It would be something associated with an infinite consciousness and capacity.

Here is an interesting example of personal experience:

“I lived in that Nirvana day and night before it began to admit other things into itself or modify itself at all, and the inner heart of experience, a constant memory of it and its power to return remained until in the end it began to disappear into a greater Superconsciousness from above. But mean while realisation added itself to realisation and fused itself with this original experience. At an early stage the aspect of an illusionary world gave place to one in which illusion is only a small surface phenomenon with an immense Divine Reality behind it and a supreme Divine Reality above it and an intense Divine Reality in the heart of everything that had seemed at first only a cinematic shape or shadow. And this was no reimprisonment in the senses, no diminution or fall from supreme experience, it came rather as a constant heightening and widening of the Truth; it was the spirit that saw objects, not the senses, and the Peace, the Silence, the freedom in Infinity remained always with the world or all worlds only as a continuous incident in the timeless eternity of the Divine.”

 

[El_Machinae]

That's just stupid, not simple.
Now you have to explain how this higher power came in existence, so you basically didn't answer at all to the original question, you just pushed it further. AND now you also have to explain why you felt the need to add this layer which has no proof of existence.

Well, it doesn't need to be stupid. Just depends on what you mean by a higher power. The most common explanations of our universe is that it spawned naturally from a multiverse.

I dont think that's what people mean when they say 'higher power'. But I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until they explicitly rule it out

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Well, it doesn't need to be stupid. Just depends on what you mean by a higher power. The most common explanations of our universe is that it spawned naturally from a multiverse.

Define "multiverse".

Wait I do that for you. Unlimited beginningless and endless reality capable of self-limitation and self-manifestation? Thats God right there.

 

[Akka]

Well, it doesn't need to be stupid. Just depends on what you mean by a higher power. The most common explanations of our universe is that it spawned naturally from a multiverse.

I dont think that's what people mean when they say 'higher power'. But I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until they explicitly rule it out

He wasn't speaking of "spawning", he was speaking of "constructed".
It's just an intellectually lazy way to kick the can down the road and grasp at straws so one can be able to hang on the "God did it" reassuring belief, while completely avoiding the actual point. So, yeah, it's stupid.

 

[warpus]

Well, it doesn't need to be stupid. Just depends on what you mean by a higher power. The most common explanations of our universe is that it spawned naturally from a multiverse.

I don't think that matters to be honest, because it's the same problem as when you say "God created the Universe", it just leaves the universe inside a larger more complex thing the existence of which now has to be explained as well.

I think that if our universe came into being into a multiverse, and we figure that out one day using science, we should then stop and re-define the question to be framed as "Where did the multi-universe come from?" instead declaring victory of explaining where the universe came from.

 

[El_Machinae]

There's no victory. Once you find a turtle, you gotta look under the turtle. Now, mind, I have no problem with ending at an uncaused cause. As far as I know, the theists are right about that. They just put more attributes on it than I think are warranted

 

[warpus]

There's no victory. Once you find a turtle, you gotta look under the turtle. Now, mind, I have no problem with ending at an uncaused cause. As far as I know, the theists are right about that. They just put more attributes on it than I think are warranted

Yeah but if we're going with an uncaused cause, the much simpler answer is "the universe is the uncaused cause" instead of introducing an even more complex actor into the equation like God