Prove God Exists - Act Three

[Birdjaguar]

You will believe what you want, or not believe what you want. Ultimately, you will end up where you desire to be.

If you don't believe miracles can happen you won't ever see one. If you do believe they happen, you could see one every day.

 

[FearlessLeader2]

I guess that makes it what it's always been, a matter of faith.

THREAD CLOSED.

 

[FredLC]

Fearless, I beg you to forgive me, but I couldn't resist posting on this thread just to prove to you, once and for all, that you saying so doesn't make it so!

now, more than ever,

Regards .

 

[anarres]

So this thread is dying and there is no proof yet?

Shame, I so wanted to find Him.

 

[Birdjaguar]

So this thread is dying and there is no proof yet?
Shame, I so wanted to find Him.

Yes, it took another 1000 posts to reconfirm what the previous 1000 concluded and what has been evident for at least 2000 years: Faith and reason are a poor substitute for violence when it comes to changing peoples minds.

 

[onejayhawk]

So this thread is dying and there is no proof yet?

Shame, I so wanted to find Him.

Proof in a matter of faith? Isnt that like athletic scholarship: almost oxymoronic?

J

 

[carniflex]

The proof that god exists: the commies were crushed.
...
Well, not yet in Venezuela (Chavez 58%)

 

[~Corsair#01~]

The proof that god exists: the commies were crushed.
...
Well, not yet in Venezuela (Chavez 58%)

Bah, the Reds will never be crushed! One day we will rise again and crush your Fascist corporations, and free the poor from Western Imperialism and the twisted lies of "gods" that destroy minds and imprison the working class in their own stupidity!

 

[carniflex]

Bah, the Reds will never be crushed!

I'm afraid i think you're right

 

[FearlessLeader2]

... and free the poor from Western Imperialism and the twisted lies of "gods" that destroy minds and imprison the working class in their own stupidity!

Completely off-topic, but well worth noting. The arrogance of communism/socialism at its bluntest. The 'working class' (So much for the 'classless society'. ) is mired in its own stupidity, and needs to be 'rescued' by the good Commie soldier.

Typical intellectualist trash-thought. Well, you showed your arse this time, didn't you?

 

[carniflex]

The 'working class' (So much for the 'classless society'. ) is mired in its own stupidity, and needs to be 'rescued' by the good Commie soldier.

neither by "the good commie soldier", nor by your capitalist crusaders.

"L'émancipation des travailleurs sera l'oeuvre des travailleurs eux-mêmes"

 

[Samson]

Well, I have not been following the thread, so I hope it has not been mentioned before. There was an article in the new scientist that was about this (proving the existence of god). It gave a method, and a VERY speculative snippet of evidence. If anyone is really interested I will look up the links tonight.

The steps in the logic, as I understand them are thus -

Axiom - That the mutliverse exists. This is the theory that our universe with its physical laws is just one of a very many (infinite?) number of others with different laws.

Given this, there will be some universes in which exist species / cultures that have developed technology to simulate a universe.

If they could, they would.

Very soon the number of universes that could support intelligent life that are simulated would massively outnumber those that are real.

Given this, the odds are that we live in one of these simulations.

These universes would not be perfect simulations, as that would require a computer of similar complexity to the universe. I would use short cuts, just as we do at the moment with, for example, weather modeling. They would of course be much better.

These short cuts would cause some anomalies in the universe we observe. If we found such, the creator would probably also know about it, and at would try and find a fix, applying a "patch" to the simulation to fix it.

To detect that we were living in such a simulation (and so detect the presence of our creator, god if you will) we must detect these anomalies and show the change as they are patched. This is the method to prove god exists.

There was one example they gave, something like an astronomical observation that countered some way that we understand the universe. Later could not be repeated. I am not at all sure of the details here.

I quite liked this, it showed a real scientific method for this big question, and gave us a real way to solve it. Could be a long time looking down telescopes before we get a real answer though

 

[Blasphemous]

ioww, this would make sense if we knew everything about our universe.
But we don't, so anomalies are very likely to mean we just understand things wrong, rather than insinuating elaborate schemes of a virtual multiverse.
Taking this far-fetched conclusion goes very much against Occam's Razor and really shows a strong bias in interpretation.

 

[Samson]

ioww, this would make sense if we knew everything about our universe.
But we don't, so anomalies are very likely to mean we just understand things wrong, rather than insinuating elaborate schemes of a virtual multiverse.

I THINK the idea is that you look for both the anomaly, and the "patching" that follows the discovery.

 

[~Corsair#01~]

Completely off-topic, but well worth noting. The arrogance of communism/socialism at its bluntest. The 'working class' (So much for the 'classless society'. ) is mired in its own stupidity, and needs to be 'rescued' by the good Commie soldier.

Typical intellectualist trash-thought. Well, you showed your arse this time, didn't you?

I consider it my duty to make sure Communism is represented- when someone spews anti-communist propaganda, such as this-

The proof that god exists: the commies were crushed.
...

, I consider it consider it my duty to make the argument fair by spewing pro-communist propaganda. Whether I am right or not is wholly irellevant.

Anyway, the people ARE mired in their own stupidity, and will continue to be so, whether they are freed from the lies of religion or not. One of the aims of communism is to remove the power from the people and put it in the hands of non-idiots, so the stupidity of the masses won't continue to destroy society.

 

[Blasphemous]

I THINK the idea is that you look for both the anomaly, and the "patching" that follows the discovery.

It's still far more easily explained by saying we simply didn't understand things right, rather than this whole elaborate multiverse theory.

 

[Samson]

It's still far more easily explained by saying we simply didn't understand things right, rather than this whole elaborate multiverse theory.

The multiverse theory is a separate question, and this whole idea stems from that, rather than being used to explain this idea. It has been used to explain things like the charge on the electron volt, and has also been postulated as involved in the functioning of quantum computers. This idea is just one consiquece of that theory.

I have to point out that I just thought it was an interesting idea, that you can actually prove what has previouly been held to be unprovable. It is not a tenant of faith or anything

Btw, it looks like the new scientist has restricted the archive search. If you fancy looking at the articale you can subscribe to the site free for 7 days. The one about the multiverse and proving the existance of god is 7th june 2003, p44, and the anomaly (apparent astronomical variation in the fine structure constant) is 7th sept 2002, p30.

 

[Blasphemous]

I didn't mean just the basic theory of a multiverse, I meant this idea that in some universes there must already be creatures advanced enough to create universes and the whole anomaly + patch-up thingy.
The whole thing falls apart really when you realize that we don't know enough to jump to conclusions because of an anomaly or two. Or ten. Or more.
Saying that this kind of anomaly is proof for the existance fo god is plain old biased. Might as well use Phydeaux's examples of proof... I mean, there being a dragonfly nearby water where there are mosquitoes? Who woulda thunk it!?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Anyway, the people ARE mired in their own stupidity, and will continue to be so, whether they are freed from the lies of religion or not. One of the aims of communism is to remove the power from the people and put it in the hands of non-idiots, so the stupidity of the masses won't continue to destroy society.

This very point is the focus of "The Grand Inquisitor" a complete story within the novel "The Brothers Karamazov" by Dostoevsky.

The Inquisitor's plan is to pacify and enslave earth's millions by protecting the masses from Freedom. To him, man's freedom is cause of human misery. He will personally assume all responsibility for human happiness and sin. "WE SHALL ALLOW THEM EVEN SIN...THEY WILL ADORE US: Every sin will be expiated if...done with our permission..." The story is his conversation with a returned Jesus.

The story opens with Jesus' return to 16th C Spain. Here is an excerpt:

The tears of mankind ascended to Him as heretofore, and the Christian world was expecting Him as confidently as ever; they loved Him and hoped in Him, thirsted and hungered to suffer and die for Him just as many of them had done before. . . . So many centuries had weak, trusting humanity implored Him, crying with ardent faith and fervour: ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not come!’ So many long centuries hath it vainly appealed to Him, that at last, in His inexhaustible compassion, He consenteth to answer the prayer. . . . He decideth that once more, if it were but for one short hour, the people—His long-suffering, tortured, fatally sinful, yet loving and child-like, trusting people—shall behold Him again. The scene of action is placed by me in Spain, at Seville, during that terrible period of the Inquisition, when, for the greater glory of God, stakes were flaming all over the country,

Burning wicked heretics,
In grand auto-da-fés.

This particular visit has, of course, nothing to do with the promised Advent, when, according to the programme, ‘after the tribulation of those days,’ He will appear ‘coming in the clouds of heaven.’ For, that ‘coming of the Son of Man,’ as we are informed, will take place as suddenly ‘as the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth even unto the west.’ No; this once, He desired to come unknown, and appear among His children, just when the bones of the heretics, sentenced to be burnt alive, had commenced crackling at the flaming stakes. Owing to His limitless mercy, He mixes once more with mortals and in the same form in which He was wont to appear fifteen centuries ago. He descends, just at the very moment when before king, courtiers, knights, cardinals, and the fairest dames of court, before the whole population of Seville, upwards of a hundred wicked heretics are being roasted, in a magnificent auto-da-fé ad majorem Dei gloriam, by the order of the powerful Cardinal Grand Inquisitor. . . . He comes silently and unannounced; yet all—how strange—yea, all recognize Him, at once! The population rushes towards Him as if propelled by some irresistible force; it surrounds, throngs, and presses around, it follows Him. . . . Silently, and with a smile of boundless compassion upon His lips, He crosses the dense crowd, and moves softly on. The Sun of Love burns in His heart, and warm rays of Light, Wisdom and Power beam forth from His eyes, and pour down their waves upon the swarming multitudes of the rabble assembled around, making their hearts vibrate with returning love. He extends His hands over their heads, blesses them, and from mere contact with Him, aye, even with His garments, a healing power goes forth. An old man, blind from his birth, cries, ‘Lord, heal me, that I may see Thee!’ and the scales falling off the closed eyes, the blind man beholds Him. . . . The crowd weeps for joy, and kisses the ground upon which He treads. Children strew flowers along His path and sing to Him, ‘Hosanna!’ It is He, it is Himself, they say to each other, it must be He, it can be none other but He! He pauses at the portal of the old cathedral, just as a wee white coffin is carried in, with tears and great lamentations. The lid is off, and in the coffin lies the body of a fair girl-child, seven years old, the only child of an eminent citizen of the city. The little corpse lies buried in flowers. ‘He will raise thy child to life!’ confidently shouts the crowd to the weeping mother. The officiating priest who had come to meet the funeral procession, looks perplexed, and frowns. A loud cry is suddenly heard, and the bereaved mother prostrates herself at His feet. ‘If it be Thou, then bring back my child to life!’ she cries beseechingly. The procession halts, and the little coffin is gently lowered at His feet. Divine compassion beams forth from His eyes, and as He looks at the child, His lips are heard to whisper once more, ‘Talitha Cumi’—and ‘straightway the damsel arose.’ The child rises in her coffin. Her little hands still hold the nosegay of white roses which after death was placed in them, and, looking round with large astonished eyes she smiles sweetly. . . . The crowd is violently excited. A terrible commotion rages among them, the populace shouts and loudly weeps, when suddenly, before the cathedral door, appears the Cardinal Grand Inquisitor himself. . . . He is a tall, gaunt-looking old man of nearly fourscore years and ten, with a stern, withered face, and deeply sunken eyes, from the cavity of which glitter two fiery sparks. He has laid aside his gorgeous cardinal’s robes in which he had appeared before the people at the auto-da-fé of the enemies of the Romish Church, and is now clad in his old, rough, monkish cassock. His sullen assistants and slaves of the ‘holy guard’ are following at a distance. He pauses before the crowd and observes. He has seen all. He has witnessed the placing of the little coffin at His feet, the calling back to life. And now, his dark, grim face has grown still darker; his bushy grey eyebrows nearly meet, and his sunken eye flashes with sinister light. Slowly raising his finger, he commands his minions to arrest Him. . . .

"Such is his power over the well-disciplined, submissive and now trembling people, that the thick crowds immediately give way, and scattering before the guard, amid dead silence and without one breath of protest, allow them to lay their sacrilegious hands upon the stranger and lead Him away. . . . That same populace, like one man, now bows its head to the ground before the old Inquisitor, who blesses it and slowly moves onward. The guards conduct their prisoner to the ancient building of the Holy Tribunal; pushing Him into a narrow, gloomy, vaulted prison-cell, they lock Him in and retire.

 

[Samson]

I didn't mean just the basic theory of a multiverse, I meant this idea that in some universes there must already be creatures advanced enough to create universes and the whole anomaly + patch-up thingy.
The whole thing falls apart really when you realize that we don't know enough to jump to conclusions because of an anomaly or two. Or ten. Or more.
Saying that this kind of anomaly is proof for the existance fo god is plain old biased. Might as well use Phydeaux's examples of proof... I mean, there being a dragonfly nearby water where there are mosquitoes? Who woulda thunk it!?

If you accept the multiverse theory, then each other step is just about nessasery. If there are infinate universes, then there MUST be highly advanced societies. That is just the way if you have infinate possibilites, all possible outcomes will happen. Given that it is possible to simulate a universe to the accuraccy we can detect, it will have been done. That just leaves us to work out which we are in. If we detected this anomaly + patch-up thingy it would be good evidence to decribe the universe we exist in.

Of course I am not saying the evidence we have at pressent is anywhere close to proof. However, to say that any possible evidence that may come in the future is just us not understanding science well enough is a bit negative.

BTW, google does not help much with Phydeaux, (lots of dogs called Phydeaux for some reason?) so if you want a comment on that, give us a link.