There is a CHANCE that God exists...? What the...

[brennan]

My point is that god may exist and that we are too puny to know.

And that you are way too arrogant, about our knowledge of the universe and everything realy.

Please justify the above statements. I've gone into some depth as to my opinion and the reasons for it, don't think 'I disagree' cuts the mustard as a retort...

 

[Fifty]

While I'm not nivi, here's my attempt:

"we are too puny to know" simply because it's impossible to prove a negative. We can certainly say that it's wildly improbable, but you just can't prove that something doesn't exist, especially something supernatural.

"too arrogant, about our knowledge of the universe", well you seem to think that our current knowledge disproves the possibility of God, which it certainly doesn't. I wouldn't call that arrogant though, just mistaken.

 

[mdwh]

Whats your point? And no, there are some things can't be disproved that I dont believe in.

My point is wondering whether you believe in billions of things. So if not, why is it good enough for with God, but not much else?

 

[mdwh]

Not all ideas of god must be a personal god. You're denying the chance of any type of god.

The problem is that now we're just playing the definitions game.

Yes, I could define "God" to be the pencil on my desk, so sure "God exists", but that's not very helpful. If it turns out that brennan's statements are talking about a personal god - you know, the one that billions of people believe in and is what people almost always mean by the word - I don't see that it really matters too much.

Certainly when I label myself an atheist, it is with respect to a personal god, and not other concepts such as "the Universe" (which pantheists sometimes seem to use - obviously the universe exists, though I don't worship it), or the pencil on my desk. Similarly, scientists often use "god" as a synonym for, or a personification of the universe (e.g., "God does not play dice"), so yes, this "god" exists, but that's not at all the same thing. AFAIK, this was the sense which Einstein used the word "god" ("I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.").

 

[nivi]

Please justify the above statements. I've gone into some depth as to my opinion and the reasons for it, don't think 'I disagree' cuts the mustard as a retort...

The first fifty explanation was OK,



You seem to think we (science) got it all figured out. this is this and that is that and everything we know now is true and everything we don't know is not alot.

Time and time again in the past people wrong, what makes you think we aren't?

I gave you the dark "stuff" example of stuff we know nothing about, at least it would seem like to nothing to people from 2000 years in the future. And how big it is which you dismissed by saying that that may be it and that may explain it (to paraphrase you)...Is that the best you could do? Even if they are we still don't know nothing, it's like as if all we knew about gasses is that air is a gas crazyeye.

 

[GenMarshall]

You seem to think we (science) got it all figured out. this is this and that is that and everything we know now is true and everything we don't know is not alot.

I am inclined to agree with you, especially observing this hardliner atheist. I don't see science figuring out everything. There are still things that science cannot explain.

Time and time again in the past people wrong, what makes you think we aren't?

I'd suspect a tint of egotism and a cup of arrogance .

 

[brennan]

"we are too puny to know" simply because it's impossible to prove a negative. We can certainly say that it's wildly improbable, but you just can't prove that something doesn't exist, especially something supernatural.

If something can't exist then then you don't have to prove a negative. The supernatural denies logic and causality - God being the biggest culprit. In my book that makes Him impossible.

You seem to think we (science) got it all figured out. this is this and that is that and everything we know now is true and everything we don't know is not alot.

Having an understanding of underlying principles doesn't mean you know everything: we still can't predict the weather for more than a week. One of the great wonders of science is how complicated things arise from simple rules.

Time and time again in the past people wrong, what makes you think we aren't?

If there's a basic underlying structure to everything we have to find it sometime, why not now? Our current models come extremely close to explaining not only our own universe but a multiverse. That's a level of predictive and explanatory power that is simply unprecedented in history. Not only that but theoretical and practical investigations into the possibility of a 'next layer' of fundamental rules comes up (so far) negative. To me those facts together are powerfully indicative of the possibility that we are coming to the point where all the rules are known.

I gave you the dark "stuff" example of stuff we know nothing about...it's like as if all we knew about gasses is that air is a gas crazyeye.

There are known candidates to explain the dark matter problem, the problem therefore is largely that it is hard to look for them. To use a metaphor: you are a blind man whose chickens are going missing at night and insists that aliens are responsible just because he has never seen a fox.

 

[Fifty]

If something can't exist then then you don't have to prove a negative. The supernatural denies logic and causality - God being the biggest culprit. In my book that makes Him impossible.

How does the notion of god deny logic and causality?

 

[GenMarshall]

If something can't exist then then you don't have to prove a negative. The supernatural denies logic and causality - God being the biggest culprit. In my book that makes Him impossible.

How in the word does God denies logic and causality?!

I'm sorry but I dont buy into this hard atheist hogwash. I do not see what you call "supernatural" denying logic and causality. I see God's existence as a possibility. I may not have all the proofs that God exists that would satisfy your hardliner thinking. But one things for sure, I know God exist and I believe that God exist.

Much like you know God does not exist and that you believe that God does not exist.

Having an understanding of underlying principles doesn't mean you know everything: we still can't predict the weather for more than a week. One of the great wonders of science is how complicated things arise from simple rules.

But yet you act like science knows everything. Science has no great wonders, just a bunch of ballonie.

There are known candidates to explain the dark matter problem, the problem therefore is largely that it is hard to look for them. To use a metaphor: you are a blind man whose chickens are going missing at night and insists that aliens are responsible just because he has never seen a fox.

It could be aliens, it could be a fox, or it could be just a thief stealing your chickens .

 

[brennan]

How does the notion of god deny logic and causality?

By possessing illogical properties: omnipotence and omniscience for example. By being everywhere and nowhere. The Holy Trinity. Miracles. By comprising more information/energy/complexity than that which He is posited to explain - as an uncaused cause. By being Infinite and ineffable. And ultimately by being unnecessary.

 

[brennan]

But yet you act like science knows everything. Science has no great wonders,

Truly the words of a non-scientist.

 

[GenMarshall]

By possessing illogical properties: omnipotence and omniscience for example. By being everywhere and nowhere. The Holy Trinity. Miracles. By comprising more information/energy/complexity than that which He is posited to explain - as an uncaused cause. By being Infinite and ineffable. And ultimately by being unnecessary.

That only applies to the Monotheistic God of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. What about other non-Abrahamic Gods? What about the Gods from Shintoism, Roman, Greek, Egyptian, and Norse Polytheism, and Hindu Gods?

Truly the words of a non-scientist.

Truly the words of an arrogant hardliner athiest.

 

[brennan]

That only applies to the Monotheistic God of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. What about other non-Abrahamic Gods? What about the Gods from Shintoism, Roman, Greek, Egyptian, and Norse Polytheism, and Hindu Gods?

Which one do you believe in? I think this is the unfalsifiability principle at work 'oh, but my God isn't like that... or that... or that'.

 

[Fifty]

By possessing illogical properties: omnipotence and omniscience for example. By being everywhere and nowhere. The Holy Trinity. Miracles.

So you're arguing against just a specific form of god, not just a creator? Also, the only one of those that strikes me as illogical is omnipresence/absence (and that certainly doesn't strike me as a critical feature of the notion of god). How are the others impossible?

By comprising more information/energy/complexity than that which He is posited to explain - as an uncaused cause. By being Infinite and ineffable. And ultimately by being unnecessary.

How are any of those logically impossible?

 

[GenMarshall]

Which one do you believe in?

I have told you countless times. I hold a belief in Pantheism (look it up yourself, since I told you 100 times) coupled with Shintoism along with Buddhist Philosophy

I think this is the unfalsifiability principle at work 'oh, but my God isn't like that... or that... or that'.

Your arrogance is working overtime once again. Sorry, but it's not the so called "unfalsifiability" at work. You sir are quite arrogant and ignorant of other religions. Are all religions exactly the same to you, That they all believe in the Abrahamic God? Sorry to tell you but most of them don't. Look up other religions and cultures instead of burring your nose in some silly science and having a one track mind about the Abrahamic God.

 

[Samson]

By possessing illogical properties: omnipotence and omniscience for example. By being everywhere and nowhere. The Holy Trinity. Miracles. By comprising more information/energy/complexity than that which He is posited to explain - as an uncaused cause. By being Infinite and ineffable. And ultimately by being unnecessary.

Firstly, I thought the strict laws of causality had been shown to not apply in the quantum world, so complaining that there is some unknown mechanism that dissobays these laws that we have shown to be probably false anyway is a bit odd. It is certainly concevable that all these things you talk about do obay the principle of causality, but wee do not understand the proccess. And then logic. You know enough logic to know that you have to start with an axiom and go by logical steps to your conclusion. What axioms are you starting with to get these as logical falicies? Indavidually:

What is illogical about an entity that has such extent that he can know everything about our universe, and such power that he can do anything within said universe?

I am not sure who claimed god is nowhere. It seems quite concevable that his multidimensional presence could be such that it can best be described to us 3 dimensional beings as everywhere.

What is logically wrong with the holy trinity? Does not the US legislature have 3 seperate arms, but is one entity?

I guess you ment miricales violated causality. See above.

"By comprising more information/energy/complexity than that which He is posited to explain - as an uncaused cause." This I do not really get, but I shall try and make some comments, correct me if I am barking up the wrong tree. What does religion have to say about the cause of god? God is posited to explain the universe, why should he have less or more information/energy/complexitythan the universe? Can you not create somethign that has less or more information/energy/complexity than you?

I had to look up ineffable: "defying expression or description". Any multidimentional being would be ineffable to the human race until a few decades ago. It is certainly not a tenant of my christianity that god is essentially ineffable. It seems quite concevable that his multidimensional presence could be such that it can best be described to us 3 dimensional beings as infinate.

"And ultimately by being unnecessary." Unnecessary in what sence? We do not know he is unnessacery for the existance of the universe, we can say noting about what caused the big bang if anything did, so how can we know god is unnecessary for it?

 

[brennan]

It is illogical, given the puzzle of why the universe exists, to make up an even bigger thing and claim that this bigger thing created everything else (because that's simpler of course - especially if it's just a three letter word).

Even more illogical: to ascribe 'God' with a whole shedful of other qualities for no good reason, like intelligence, morals etc...

More illogic: despite the fact that 'made' things are a minute set of the things that exist i'll decide that it's obvious that absolutely everything is 'designed'.

Despite the fact that the world clearly doesn't give a hoot whether I live or die, it was made specifically for me by God.

Despite the fact that complicated behaviour arises from simple beginnings i'll make my creator omnipotent, omniscient and infinite all at once.


Fifty: why should the universe need a creator?

Samson: I can create something bigger than me by manipulating my surroundings, God doesn't have surroundings to work with, He creates everything: all matter, all energy and all the information that puts it together. That is why he has to be 'bigger' or 'more complicated' than what he creates. Which makes him a fundamentally illogical way to explain everything else; in that He is even more inexplicable.

Miracles defy causality by definition: a miracle is something that cannot happen. The fact that it happened would be evidence of God over-ruling reality. That's your breaking of causality.

Any multidimentional being would be ineffable to the human race until a few decades ago. It is certainly not a tenant of my christianity that god is essentially ineffable.

Define God then...

 

[Nylan]

By possessing illogical properties: omnipotence and omniscience for example. By being everywhere and nowhere. The Holy Trinity. Miracles. By comprising more information/energy/complexity than that which He is posited to explain - as an uncaused cause. By being Infinite and ineffable. And ultimately by being unnecessary.

Well, how do you know our thoughts aren't projected in some way, be it matter, energy, or something else we haven't discovered, and God is attuned to hear them? How do you know God doesn't have the mental processing power to predict what is going to happen with 100% certainty if he does know whats going on? How do you know God doesn't have the ability to make exceptions in the laws of physics...certainly if he created those laws he can change them. While I'm not saying I advocate any of these, we don't have the ability to confirm or deny these things, there are whole branches of science we don't even know exist yet. We can't disprove that a deity can have those powers.

Furthermore, you fail to understand that is a very narrow description of God, and doesn't even comprise all Christian viewpoints, let alone monotheistic ones or even deistic in general.

 

[Nylan]

It is illogical, given the puzzle of why the universe exists, to make up an even bigger thing and claim that this bigger thing created everything else (because that's simpler of course - especially if it's just a three letter word).

Even more illogical: to ascribe 'God' with a whole shedful of other qualities for no good reason, like intelligence, morals etc...

More illogic: despite the fact that 'made' things are a minute set of the things that exist i'll decide that it's obvious that absolutely everything is 'designed'.

Despite the fact that the world clearly doesn't give a hoot whether I live or die, it was made specifically for me by God.

Despite the fact that complicated behaviour arises from simple beginnings i'll make my creator omnipotent, omniscient and infinite all at once.


Fifty: why should the universe need a creator?

I'm curious as to whether or not you can comprehend that an electron is both a particle and a wave, generally speaking. Its a similar principle that doesn't quite make sense.

But just because you don't understand it doesn't mean its a load of crock.

 

[GenMarshall]

It is illogical, given the puzzle of why the universe exists, to make up an even bigger thing and claim that this bigger thing created everything else (because that's simpler of course - especially if it's just a three letter word).

It's not illogical to ascribe the unknown to the actions of a deity

Even more illogical: to ascribe 'God' with a whole shedful of other qualities for no good reason, like intelligence, morals etc...

Once again, it's not illogical to ascribe personifications to a deity.

Despite the fact that the world clearly doesn't give a hoot whether I live or die, it was made specifically for me by God.

Your close friends and family would give a hoot if you die. Eventhough the world wont give a hoot, but your close friends and family would.

Despite the fact that complicated behaviour arises from simple beginnings i'll make my creator omnipotent, omniscient and infinite all at once.

Aint nothing wrong with a creator being omnipotent, omniscient, and infinate at the same time. I see that there is a slight possibility that this kind of God may exist, but right now, I dont know if that Abrahamic God exits.

why should the universe need a creator?

The universe would need a creator to explain the unexplained events that has gotten this universe started.