So... God

[SomeGuyOverThere]

Also, by request:

The hammer you used to make that bookshelf has a ‘creator’. That car you drove to school has a ‘creator’. You have a creator. Your parents have a creator. Your parents’ parents have a creator. The moon was created from the earth. To this day we can see solar systems being created from gas nebulae some billion years in the past. Everything in you life experiences indicates a creator creates things.

Man has enveloped all of creation into the concept of the Universe. Now at this point you decide arbitrarily that the Universe does not require a creator. It is arbitrary because nothing in your life experience indicates that things do not have a creator. That seems to be a leap of Faith based on no empirical evidence. I say that the Universe has an intelligent creator and I accept that assertion as a matter of faith. Then you may equivocate and say there is be a creator of the universe but it is not intelligent. Again a leap of faith you have no empirical evidence it is not intelligent. Your atheism or non-belief requires a leap of FAITH. That is the only real point I’m trying to make.

I don't decide arbritarily that the Unvierse has no creator, I decide based on the fact that we have very plausable explinations of how things came to be and that the very notion of a creator is itself an infinite regress (who created the creator? And who created the creator's creator) and infinite regresses are a rather big problem in logic.

Also, you are not being empirically minded, as it is a generalisation to say "everything I have encountered has a creator, therefore everything has a creator", you leap from an existential quantifier (Everything I have encountered) to a Universal Quantifier(everything there is in the Universe) which is a logical falicy.

I'm sorry but unless you can make the idea of a creator more plausible than scientific theories which are backed up by evidence, then the creator is the bigger leap of faith, the lesser probability.

You have no superior intellectual ownership here. Only the agnostic has superior intellectual ownership not requiring faith.

Go measure your bed with a ruler. Your perception of reality requires you to give that measurement a confidence interval. My bed is 6.411 feet long +/- .001 and I have a confidence that it is in that range of 95%. It can never be 100%. We can’t predict where a hurricane will hit land and you can assert with 100% confidence that you can figure it all out or will. Do you see that as kind of funny? I do.

No we can't, but we have probability and possiblity for these things. If you are going to be a pedant about these things, then you can never be "absolutly certain" about anything at all, but that is irrelevant and pedantic for most discussions. If you want to go down that line, just put "I think" infront of everything I assert.

We are allways working with the "best evidence we have" and the best evidence we has points to there being things that can come to be without being designed (us, for example), science is allways working with the best evidence and looknig at the most likely things.

Faith isn't.

Faith works with no evidence, without even consulting what we know, by very nature, faith is based on nothing.

When I say "there is no God" (Paraphrasing "Working with the best evidence and knowledge I possess, I have come to the conclusion that it is very unlikely that there is God") don't you think that thats a damn sight better than saying "There is a God" (Paraphrasing "I have formed the belief that there is a God based on no real world evidence")?

I certainly do, and this is why I think that I have the stronger arguement in this case.

Note: We can't even prove for a fact that the physical constants are the same throughout this Universe. How could you possibly tell me with certainty what the speed of light is or the gravitational constant or any other physical constant may be 7 Billion light years in any direction from Earth. Been there lately. Maybe you and Dawkins should be a little more humble in your certainties. Even your Anthropic Principle isn't a certainty. You personally terra form anything lately?

Again, not if you take such a hard line pedantic point of view, but I think most people are well aware of possibility and probability and will see that some things are rather more probable than others ("the speed of light through a vacume is constant" vs "Pigs can fly").


I appologise for the late reply, I've been sort of occupied here.

 

[B_spiker067]

I don't ....

No apologies required. But more like a decade late. I've known and understood Popper, Falisifiability,... and work them well enough for my sense of over all truth.

I want to say you put in good effort and exercise your thoughts well for 19. I read your points. I got my subversive philosophical message in though. Again, thanks for the time and effort you put in.

Take care
Spiker

 

[HazelGod]

Does anyone else appreciate the irony in the etymology of the word universe, particularly given its usage by secular folk? :wink:

 

[JustAsking]

Popper and falsifiability were put there on purpose to supply the counter argument or actual response I was searching for from anyone.

Thanks for some insight though as to set thought patterns. Were you aware of Popper before this thread. I thought you were but now I'm not sure.

Yes, I am aware of Popper and his notion of falsifiability as applied to scientific theories. A theory is not scientific if it is not falsifiable. This means that the theory needs to make a positive assertion (e.g. if x, then y) such that a test could possibly be devised to find a counterexample. For example, the statement, "Some pigs can fly", is not falsifiable, because it is not specific enough about which pigs one might test in order to falsify it. For every pig that you find cannot fly, you could easily say, "well, i guess that wasn't one of the pigs that can fly." The statement "All pics can fly", however, is very falsifiable (and therefore scientific) since a test can be easily devised to disprove it. All you need is one pig and a really high place to drop him off.

The theory that "All pigs can fly", due to its high falsifiabilty also has very high predictive value. One can apply this theory to pig experiments and explain all kinds of things about pigs (if it were true). For example, it would explain why pigs have wings, why they can get out of a high walled pen with on top, etc. If it were true, this would be a good scientific theory.

The problem with "The universe must have a supernatural creator", is that it makes a positive assertion but no empirical test can be devised for it. Not because we don't have any evidence, but by definition, a supernatural entity lies outside the realm of materialistic natural processes to which science is restricted.

Furthermore, it makes no useful positive assertions about events in the natural world. It has no predictive power. It is not a scientific theory.

Also, SomeGuyOverThere provided the formal critique of what I was trying to say a while ago.

Also, you are not being empirically minded, as it is a generalisation to say "everything I have encountered has a creator, therefore everything has a creator", you leap from an existential quantifier (Everything I have encountered) to a Universal Quantifier(everything there is in the Universe) which is a logical falicy.

Excellent and concise.

Spiker,
Your biggest problem in using logical positivism or empiricism to prove that there is a supernatural creator or that atheists must operate through faith is that you are misusing logic and empiricism all over the place. There is a much better way to attack this. What you need to do is to undermine empiricism itself. You need to work outside the system.

 

[B_spiker067]

Yes, I am ...

That was great. Nice read. Thanks JA.

 

[B_spiker067]

Quote:
Originally Posted by JustAsking http://www.lpsg.org/et-cetera-et-cetera/40384-so-god-7.html#post670222http://www.lpsg.org/images36/buttons/viewpost.gif
Yes, I am ...

JA,

I have been half playing a role for you (a ‘devout Christian&#8217 to use and the other half evolving an idea. I really like the Job thing but you never answered my questions on it (image of God meaning, ‘Tree of Knowledge’ - off topic questions) or finished with the J.C. post.

Interesting how over an over again I said I knew there was no empirical evidence for God, there never would be, nor was I trying to prove there was a God (yet you and SG insisted on this to the very last post here ).

Then I said I was interested in de-personifying a Christian God into an abstract class of Creator (and all I hear from MZ, JA, SG is about a personified, supernatural God).

Do you know what an abstract class is in terms of computer science?

I asked you if you knew about Popper before this thread and you answered rather that you knew Popper, just not when (BTW, very well written, I hope lurkers appreciate it as much as they should). It was an honest question.

I have been trying to determine if disbelief of a creator (outside of the realm of science) is faith and if so why. To say that everything has a creator is only to show that it is reasonable to suspect the Universe has a creator. To then say there is no creator of the Universe would seem to require some kind of proof or it may be disbelieved since life experience indicates things are created.

Most interesting though is that as a devout Christian you would believe Christ to be essentially God and yet God is emptied of the Unverse and therefore not empirically measurable. Interesting, very interesting.

Anyways, thanks again.

P.S. I knew some Gould, no kinosis(sp?), no Kuhn or logical positivism. I will try to learn these aspects. Thanks.

P.P.S "What is more interesting is Jesus's complete voluntary submission to natural processes." Never explained this either.

 

[JustAsking]

Quote:
Originally Posted by JustAsking http://www.lpsg.org/images36/buttons/viewpost.gif
Yes, I am ...

JA,

...

I asked you if you knew about Popper before this thread and you answered rather that you knew Popper, just not when (BTW, very well written, I hope lurkers appreciate it as much as they should). It was an honest question.

...

Most interesting though is that as a devout Christian you would believe Christ to be essentially God and yet God is emptied of the Unverse and therefore not empirically measurable. Interesting, very interesting.

Anyways, thanks again.

P.S. I knew some Gould, no kinosis(sp?), no Kuhn or logical positivism. I will try to learn these aspects. Thanks.

P.P.S "What is more interesting is Jesus's complete voluntary submission to natural processes." Never explained this either.

Spiker,
Yes, this has been very enjoyable. I have to apologize for my sporadic participation, though. I am in the middle of trying to get a software product to market (Yes, c#, very OO). I started a few subthreads that I didn't deliver on. So if you are ok with it I will trickle them out as often and as briefly as I can.

Before I answer your question about Kenosis, I should say that the guy you are looking for to bust empiricism into its little pieces is Thomas Kuhn. He is the post-modernist's Popper.

Kenosis:
Job lies festering in the mud, a sorry husk of a man, with his skin falling off. As he watches his fortune and family dwindle and die around him, he cries out to God asking why this is happening to him. One by one he rejects the explanations offered by his friends, which, ironically, are offered in defense of God, such as "God has a plan for you.", or "You are suffering so as to edify you or the people around you.", or "You were not righteous enough so God is punishing you.", etc. All of the explanations offered are assertions about God's direct influence on the Job's destiny.

Finally, God comes and answers with the afore mentioned "shit happens" speech. He appears in a fearsome cloud of thunder and lightning and proceeds to ask Job where he (Job) was when he (God) was making the universe. The explanation veers off into pure descriptive imagery about the wonders of the limitless universe in contrast to the insignificance of Job. In a way God's speech is a "creation echo". And just like the creation story of Genesis, the main theme is that God has emptied himself out the "space" where creation is created. The creation is "not God". It is something separate and runs on laws, principles, and systems which are capable of sustaining themselves, and further, they are even creative systems all on their own. And these are the forces that are acting on Job according to God.

All of this would almost be Taoist in its emptiness if it weren't for God's next answer to the question which comes in the form of God entering history in human form. For some reason, American Christianity, in its most basic folk religion form has become very Gnostic. By this I mean that we see Jesus as something far above being human and we consider him perfect. We raise him up on a shining pedestal while we continue to view the world as a corrupt and nasty place. We think Jesus must have held his nose and come down to save us out of pity. In this Gnosticism we miss the most important thing about God, Jesus, and Creation.

Job's question is one of Theodicy. It asks the age old, "If there is a loving and all powerful God, then why is there misery, suffering, and evil." Or more basically, "What does God do in the world?" Consider God's answer in the form of Jesus. This is important because as Martin Luther says, we really don't know squat about God except in what is revealed to us in Jesus. As Jesus himself says, "Anyone who sees me has seen the Father." By ignoring this point, we either ignore or don't notice the outrageous contrast between God as Creator of the universe and the life of Jesus. So for the time being, I will talk about the story of Jesus but substitute God instead. Think of how outrageous this is for a God:

1) God enters history as a helpless human baby born to an ignorant unwed teenage mother covered with amniotic fluid and blood, fallen into a pig trough in a cave in the middle of nowhere. His birth is witnessed by the lowest of human society in the form of smelly shepherds.

2) God grows up subject to all the dangers, risks, wounds, sicknesses shared by all mortal beings along with the angst and confusion of being a human child.

3) God starts his ministry among men by first going into the wilderness where he is tempted by Satan to use his Godly powers to help his own suffering by hunger, to protect himself from harm, and to wield wordly power to right worldly injustices. Basically, Satan tempts God to become Superman. God flatly refuses Satan and renounces the notion of God intervening in the natural processes that Satan is presenting him with. Remember that Satan is the prince of the world, which is to say that Satan is the prince of the natural processes of the universe.

4) God goes through his ministry as a transient vagrant preaching against all use of worldly power, reluctantly doing some cheesy parlor trick miracles and asking those who saw them not to tell anyone about them. His good friend Lazarus is dying and he does nothing to help him. When challenged by Mary for being late, all he can do is cry along with Mary. Yes, he raises Lazarus, but Lazarus is only one person.

5) God anticipates his ultimate arrest and death and experiences fear, doubt, and anger.

6) God is finally arrested in a cheesy power play by jealous Jewish bureaucrats and a Roman governer whose trying to keep the peace long enough to earn his retirement. The reason for his arrest are mundane and petty. God is mostly just inconvenient for these guys. God doesn't even resist arrest. He is not even going to intervene in petty politics.

7) God is tortured mercilessly and nailed to a cross where the natural processes of being crucified will win over the natural processes of his own body. One by one he is witness to his bodily system shutting down. The thief on the adjacent cross begs for mercy and God does nothing to intervene except to promise something "unwordly" to the thief.

8) Finally, God witnesses his own death, seemingly even surprised by his own lack of intervention. (Why have I forsaken myself?).

So there it is. The all powerful creator of the universe comes into the world and completely submits to the same natural processes that we are subject to and that he created himself. Presumably, this is all for us, because "For he so loved the world, that while the world was in sin....".

How can anyone miss this lesson. What is God's regard for creation and all its natural processes? Answer: He loves it.

How does he demonstrate it to us? Answer: He submits to it completely in all of its wonder and all of its awfulness. This God who washes the feet of his disciples places himself, momentarily, beneath the level of worldly natural process, therefore telling us that these processes are divine. He suffers as we suffer and he promises, just as he did to the thief, something wonderful but unworldly for us in the end.

Naturally, the biggest miracle and the one that makes all the rest unimportant is the resurrection. Here is where God's work is accomplished, and except for the "risen" part, the real work takes place outside of the creation. Worldly powers are not involved in the salvation of the world, and there is no need for him to intervene in natural processes in a way that is detectable by scientific instruments.

This is Jesus' Kenosis. God empties his Godness out of the creation as an act of love and submits to the creation as a further act of love.

This leads into another one of your questions. It is precisely the Kenosis of God during creation and the Kenosis revealed through Jesus that causes Christian theology to see the natural processes of the world as separate from God and as something that is part of God's divine creation. This is why the Catholic church has co-existed, supported, embraced, and definitely participated in the systematic study of the universe in the form of science. It is not only compatible with Christian theology, it is mandated by Christian theology. To study the universe as a system of natural processes is a sacred pursuit. Its not just an accomodation that the Catholic Church and the other mainstream denominations have clear and bold position statements that embrace such things as neo-Darwinism.

 

[Lordpendragon]

I think that you are creating a chicken and egg thing because you are stuck within the relative terms of your own premises.

Not everything exists by design or creation or even evolution.

For me you are stuck because you have committed to confine yourself within the reference terms of christianity. The rather base god of moses has had to be gradually evolved to sit comfortably within the evolved modern mind as evidenced with JA. The stories are allegorical not factual now.

I don't know how many discenible religious groups there are in the world, let's say over 10,000. You/they all believe in god - therefore to me on one level they are theists. I don't suppose they very much like being thought of as all the same thing but seem to be happy to call everyone who doesn't hold to their basic tenets as one thing i.e. atheists.

For me the negative prefix makes something relative to the original. Therefore a theist is someone who believes that there is a god. By definition an atheist is everyone else including agnostics. Your problem comes because you are trying to make atheism something that it is not, ie a stand alone position. I don't accept that it is, because it is relative to your terms and can therefore only mean anything within your terms - not mine.

Anyway - god came to me the other day. S/He had a simple message.

"It's about you, not about me."

 

[B_spiker067]

Question to LP but also open to all atheist and agnostics.

How many years of science and math do you have?

 

[Love-it]

Question to LP but also open to all atheist and agnostics.

How many years of science and math do you have?

I have an interest in all aspects of science and have some higher level math background. How many years? Ever since I learned to read I sought out books, magazines and news articles relating to anything scientific. From dinosaurs, astronomy, natural sciences including biology, to physics and evolution, etc., etc. Any treatise or PBS program in any science field captures my interest. How many years, I am almost 58, so I will say 50 years. I am an inveterate reader with many interests.

 

[B_spiker067]

....
Not everything exists by design or creation or even evolution.

How about a half dozen examples.

For me you are stuck because you have committed to confine yourself within the reference terms of christianity. The rather base god of moses has had to be gradually evolved to sit comfortably within the evolved modern mind as evidenced with JA. The stories are allegorical not factual now.

Well I'm sure you don't asiduously read my posts so let me clarify. JA is the devout Christian I use Christian as a descriptor. I don't think this is a gradual evolution. I think JA is sharing St Thomas Aquinas, Jesuit, MLK, and canonical thinking plus his own. I've asked him for a reading list.

And you still don't read what my intent has been all along. Oh, well.

I don't know how many discenible religious groups there are in the world, let's say over 10,000. You/they all believe in god - therefore to me on one level they are theists. I don't suppose they very much like being thought of as all the same thing but seem to be happy to call everyone who doesn't hold to their basic tenets as one thing i.e. atheists.

Interesting, I'm trying to remove the idea of a defined god and simply insert creator. I've said so over and over again. Listen. Also, I will have to find a way to define categories of belief, they are a slippery bunch of words that seem to fluctuate with the fashion of the times.

 

[B_spiker067]

I have an interest in all aspects of science and have some higher level math background. How many years? Ever since I learned to read I sought out books, magazines and news articles relating to anything scientific. From dinosaurs, astronomy, natural sciences including biology, to physics and evolution, etc., etc. Any treatise or PBS program in any science field captures my interest. How many years, I am almost 58, so I will say 50 years. I am an inveterate reader with many interests.

So were you college course rigorous in these studies? Do you have Calc 1,2,3. Diffy Q, Linear Algebra, P. Chem, Organic Chemistry, Quant, Circuit Design, Genetics, Modern Physics..? If you are self studied, did you work out the chapter problems? People can read things very much at layman levels. There are any number of well trained Atheists, no doubt, but how well trained are the atheists here in LPSG?

 

[RandomBottle]

Religious discussion annoys me... So, I'll just make this post and never look at this thread again. You posed a question and I'm answering it, why? I'm just bored...

Anyway, I believe in Gods (plural, not sigular). But I also believe they don't give a crap about this plane of existance and just use it to make some fun for themselves...

Why? Well... I'd like to think this world isn't as disgustingly boring as it looks. Believing in demons, ghosts, gods, etc. All that mythology had to have had some air of truth...

And if not... What's the point? I don't get the cosmic joke... sorry.

 

[Lordpendragon]

How about a half dozen examples.

Will this planet's existence be enough? Within the time frames and scales of the universe it is random and irrelevant. The formation of planets is a very random process and of little consequence to the main events.

Black holes are also very interesting.

And you still don't read what my intent has been all along. Oh, well.

Interesting, I'm trying to remove the idea of a defined god and simply insert creator. I've said so over and over again. Listen. Also, I will have to find a way to define categories of belief, they are a slippery bunch of words that seem to fluctuate with the fashion of the times.

It is interesting that the Greek and Roman pantheons were not the creators nor shamanists and pagans, other faiths (including pantheistic) have their god or gods creating everything that they could comprehend at the time, and this seems to have developed when faiths started to compete with each other.

Ultimately though Spike, I can't see any point in what you want to do. Where does it go? You can ask a christian if a creator created everything and they will say yes, my god. You can label others whatever you will and ask the same question and if they say yes, then you can say, well there you go you do believe in god or whatever you want. Could there be a creator who is not god? maybe who knows and what does it mean anyway?

I just don't want any of your labels. I don't see it like - if you are A then you believe B, and if you are C then you believe D etc etc and I'll say it for the fourth time, these things only mean anything within their own terms of reference.

 

[HazelGod]

So were you college course rigorous in these studies? Do you have Calc 1,2,3. Diffy Q, Linear Algebra, P. Chem, Organic Chemistry, Quant, Circuit Design, Genetics, Modern Physics..? If you are self studied, did you work out the chapter problems? People can read things very much at layman levels. There are any number of well trained Atheists, no doubt, but how well trained are the atheists here in LPSG?

I wasn't going to answer your query until you basically posted my course list. :wink:

Yes...my first degree is in Chemical Engineering. I had math credit through Calc II coming into the university, where I continued with Calc III and Diffy Screw. On the physical science side, Biology I/II, Chem I/II, Organic Chem I/II, Mechanics, Electricity & Optics, Thermodynamics, and Fluid Dynamics.

My second is in Computer Science, which includes the BS courses in System Organization & Architecture, Assembler Instruction, Operating System design, Queueing Theory, Compiler Design & Optimization. Of further interest is that the school my CS degree is from requires several "mission" courses, one of which is "History and Philosophy of Science." Fascinating class, that. Khun's book on scientific revolutions is required reading for that one. Another that I chose as a critical issues course was an analysis of world religions...again, a fascinating class. I wound up writing a research paper on Spirituality vs. Religiosity in the Modern Era.

Suffice it to say, I'm an educated individual. I was raised in a 3rd or 4th generation Catholic home...parents on both sides were children of large Catholic families. Church attendance was compulsory in my house, as was education in the catechism and progression through the sacraments. I simply took this as a matter of fact as a child...something that simply was and as such, didn't really warrant critical consideration. It wasn't until my sophomore year in college that I read Descartes in my first Philosophy course, and the doors on all the questions in my mind seemed to swing wide open. Once the idea was introduced into my mind that people might actually seek to prove the existence of god, all the presupposition fell away and the light of analysis shone through.

As simply as I can say it...coming from a religious upbringing and possessing a rounded education in both the pure sciences and the softer subjects (history, philosophy, anthropology), I have neither seen nor experienced anything that would even reasonably convince me of any of the following:
(a) that any god does or should exist
(b) that any "creator" of any kind is necessary
(c) that any established religion even approaches truth

I tend to agree with a previous poster in his viewpoint of the term atheist. In my own mind, that term means exactly what it says: a lack of theistic belief. Not only am I not convinced that your god exists, or that any god at all exists...I am not convinced that there should even be a god to begin with. Point being: to me, atheism is not a constructive assertion in and of itself...rather, it is a position that rejects any a priori contention that god (or gods) must exist unless otherwise proved. To me, this is what truly sets apart the atheist mindset. I begin from a position that gods are neither existent nor necessary, and will require demonstrable proof of their existence to change my position. Theists tend to start from the opposite side and expect another to disprove their position.

The atheist (or scientific/rational/empiricist) viewpoint agrees with me, because it has no problem admitting its limitations. It isn't afraid to answer a mystery with, "I don't know." I'm particularly annoyed by the more zealotous theists who refuse to do so, instead ascribing miraculous significance to otherwise inexplicable events. In essence, providence becomes the ultimate cop-out. Don't know why the seasons change or why the moon waxes and wanes? Must be god's doing. Skydiver survives a jump where his chute didn't deploy? Divine intervention. This seems to be an almost universal human response in the face of ignorance, borne out by the various pantheons of gods found across almost all ancient civilizations around the world.

Anyhow, I've rambled on way more than I intended. I think I've made my point, though...I'm an educated pragmatist. Show me reason, preferably with some empiricism, and I may entertain your idea. Show me supposition and "faith" and I'll show you to my collection plate. :biggrin1:

 

[B_spiker067]

Will this planet's existence be enough? Within the time frames and scales of the universe it is random and irrelevant. The formation of planets is a very random process* and of little consequence to the main events.

Black holes are also very interesting.

We can see whole solar systems being created a few thousand years ago from gas nebulae. Is not the gas nebulae the 'creator' (for the lack of a better word) of the solar systems?

Black holes are created when suns go supernova collapse on themselves and begin to aggregate all the physical matter in the vicinity reaching ever greater mass, bending light so that even it can't escape. Thats the creation process of a black whole. Which taken back was created by/from a solar system. Which taken back was created by/from a gas nebulae, which taken back was created by/from the big bang, which taken back... I'm missing some steps and maybe even elegance here but what the hay.

If I got time I'll get back to the rest of you post.

*Could you explain what you mean by this?

 

[JustAsking]

I wasn't going to answer your query until you basically posted my course list. :wink:...Anyhow, I've rambled on way more than I intended. I think I've made my point, though...I'm an educated pragmatist. Show me reason, preferably with some empiricism, and I may entertain your idea. Show me supposition and "faith" and I'll show you to my collection plate. :biggrin1:

HazelGod,
Excellent post. Worthy of printing out and framing.

A question, though. Do you remember Kuhn's notion that the revolutions that take place in a particular field of science don't seem to produce any kind of trajectory towards universal truth. For example, modern physics (atomic physics, relativity, etc) bears little resemblance to classical physics yet it subsumes classical physics. And there is no certainty that the next revolution won't replace modern physics with anything that is remotely similar.

Kuhn used this observation to suggest that empiricism, although allowing us to build amazingly useful theories about natural processes, doesn't seem to be drawing us towards a conclusion. The progression of theories do not seem to be converging on anything. His conclusion was to throw doubt on the idea that scientific theories were actually modeling the actual truth.

If you remember this from your studies, what are your thoughts about it?

I think this is where empiricsm might fall down as one's only guide to making conclusions about whether a Creator exists or not. The question goes from "Show me evidence of God and I will believe it", to one of "Show me how 'evidence' leads to universal truth."

 

[madame_zora]

HazelGod,
Excellent post. Worthy of printing out and framing.

I agree- it was a stellar read, as was your previous post, JA.

I think this is where empiricsm might fall down as one's only guide to making conclusions about whether a Creator exists or not. The question goes from "Show me evidence of God and I will believe it", to one of "Show me how 'evidence' leads to universal truth."

I'm not so eager to dismiss empiricism. Where see us failing is in limiting the kinds of evidence we apply. We also fail to clearly define what is meant by "truth". In the sciences, we tend to draw only from sources strictly pertaining to the given experiment, when there are so many other factors that are pertinent. To be a completely non-scientific asswipe, I like the phrase bio/psycho/social I ripped of from AA because it just applies to almost everything in life.

The scientist means "factual reality" when he/she says "truth" while St. Thomas meant moral truth, that he felt was of higher proportion. They're both "right" because they only have to satisfy their own needs- it's when others try to use the word "truth" to be all-encompassing that they can do no better than fail. Science can never answer "Why are we here? What is my purpose for life? or What will become of me when I die?" types of questions, because it is not interested in those things, which cannot be quantified and measured. Religion cannot answer questions about how old the planet is, how the life cycle works, details about the evolutions of species or any of the mechanics about life. It isn't intended to. It's there to provide moral guidance for those who find that direction desirable.

Religion passing itself of as quantifyable, factual reality is automatically wrong, and if ever I find myself talking to someone with such assertions, I know immediately to disregard everything else they ever say to me, because they simply don't understand the difference between facts and moral truths. But I digress.

Empiricism could be used in more beneficial ways, but the sciences that are more quantifyable are going to have to open their doors to the fledgeling sciences like psychology, sociology and medicine which are stil currently more arts than sciences. They won't advance as they could without a hand up from their big brother, the same hand that religion offered to science in the first place. IMHO, religion will eventually outlast the need for itself, but before we had any other options, it provided a great comfort and stabilizing effect which has allowed civilisations to develop to the point that they have. There will probably come a time when we know enough about "the truth" that it doesn't terrify us anymore.

It comforts me to know that if humans still occupy the planet hundreds or thousands of years from now, they'll look on our quaint little customs and beliefs as naive but kind of cute. I try very hard not to take anyone's belief in currently accepted notions of reality serious- even my own. How silly a thing to put a lot of stock in that which you DO not know, but also which you CAN not know.

 

[madame_zora]

Well I'm sure you don't asiduously read my posts so let me clarify. JA is the devout Christian I use Christian as a descriptor. I don't think this is a gradual evolution. I think JA is sharing St Thomas Aquinas, Jesuit, MLK, and canonical thinking plus his own. I've asked him for a reading list.

I realise this wasn't for me, but I have been reading your posts, and I do think I get it. I addressed this very early on in this discussion when I said, if God is "The set of all things that we don't understand about natural law as of YET" that I certainly couldn't disagree with that. I don't think you took that as my answer to your query below.

Interesting, I'm trying to remove the idea of a defined god and simply insert creator. I've said so over and over again. Listen. Also, I will have to find a way to define categories of belief, they are a slippery bunch of words that seem to fluctuate with the fashion of the times.

It sounds to me that you are attempting to bring science and religion together, and I believe (if my assumption is correct- tell me if it is not) that most of us in this discussion feel that that is possible, at some level.
You are cetainly right that specific verbage is difficult to work with, because of each person's "internal definitions" that prevent us from communication exactly what we are thinking.

I have often said that I believe there will come a time when the forces of nature/reality that caused our planet to be will one day be known, and if THAT force is what one is calling "god", not some old white guy in a robe, then I have no problem with that.

 

[B_spiker067]

Ultimately though Spike, I can't see any point in what you want to do. Where does it go?

Three lab rats have been thrown (by a lab tech named Barney) into a biosphere experiment that keeps them fat and happy. They float on a platform in the middle of a large pool where they can't touch bottom or swim to the edge. Off platform its dark, they can only see so far. This has been their entire life experience.

Philosophical assertion:
Rat One: "There is nothing outside of this Universe, no god"

Rat Two: "What are you talking about?"

Rat One: "Well you know a super smart guy who just created everthing for us to exist within. That made this self contained biosphere."

Empirical query:
Rat Two: "Oh, can you prove that empirically?"

Rat One: "No, I just go on faith alone."

The two ask the third rat: "What do you think?"

Third Rat: "Well guys I don't know there could be a god because everthing we see here goes through a creation process. So somebody may have created the biosphere, or maybe not cause I've never seen him. I don't know, I guess I'll reserve judgment. But it is an interesting question it might explain why mathematically my big bang theory works from a few second and on but not any closer to the actual event."

This is no more or less a contrived an example than the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

*****************

Atheist: Rat One
Stooge: Rat Two
Agnostic/Scientist: Rat Three


You may disbelieve a Christian God, a Jewish God, a Moslem God, even Thor, perfectly rational and reasonable in an empirical context. But to disbelieve in any God whatsoever is also a faith in an empirical context.

Disbelief in any and all versions of god(s) is the definition of atheism. To disbelieve in any god is the intellectual equivalent to believe in a specific kind of God, both are unfounded.