Many theists use the low “chances” of life on earth–as an “argument” so support “God” [chances are so low, it must have been “God”].
Allow me to debunk:
If chances of it happening by something other then “God’s” will are too low, would you be so fair as to consider that God having that will and existing, has even lower odds then a random and chaotic event causing existence of matter, energy or an event?
God is [theoretically] more complex and powerful then the universe that he supposedly created, therefor his existence has even lower odds then the existence of his creation.
Most planets not being able to support life, unstable stars and hostile chaotics, do not support a wise and perfectly planned creation by “God”–they more easily support the idea of a random explotion and reality being “thrown into” existence; all parts of a multiverse that where stable enough to still exist, whilst the other less-stable universes did not and could not exist. We are left with our own temporary, low-odds-of-existing earthly life, to squander on a service to a “God” that wasn’t even there, and die–day dreaming about an immortality that never had any proof, explanation or reason other then our own desporate and deluded desire?
Or what is this? Really? What’s with all of the pro-theistic “evidence”? Often it is logically opposite of “creation”, yet twisted so that it is presented in a more humane and comforting light?
But if Tab was correct about religious-morality helping nations or races to survive and prosper, then perhaps how religious humans are now [even if this religious nature was incorrect]–perhaps this spiritual nature exists because it was so useful to us before [much like the mating and consumption instincts that are destroying the future of humanity, though originally they where good and needed, but now we have issues of overpopulation? Compare this argument to our religious nature.], and natural selection fueled our religious nature, as humans?
End:
Say no to spell-check [Yes, that was a joke. Bye.]
It is not appropriate to speculate about the odds of God existing, because statistics are a consequence of the laws of nature, and God transcends nature. Our brains are governed by the laws of nature. Therefore, our brains cannot explain the transcendent power of God.
Existence of many places that do not support life is not a legitimate argument against God having created the universe. Some feel that anything can happen if given enough chaos and time. However, the laws of nature do not make everything imaginable possible. You could imagine all you want that the decimal solution to the square root of 2 is 3.14159265358979323, but nothing your could fancy up will ever change it from what it immutably is.
From a naturalistic point of view, the mulitverse you mention does certainly increase the probability of life. There would be no end of new universes arising from quantum-mechanical vacuum fluctuations. Therefore, the number of universes would either be always infinite or would be finite but continually growing without bound into an infinite future. An infinite multiverse ensures an infinite amount of life. The laws of nature would determine what fraction of the infinite mix of all existing things is life. There may be a lot of non-life in the mix, but the laws of nature would predestine a precise fraction of the mix to be life. Furthermore, the laws of nature would predestine a precise fraction of the vast mix to be the essence of what you are. This fraction may be extremely minuscule, but given an infinite amount of mix over the infinite multiverse, the essence of what you are would exist in an infinite amount.
The naturalistic point of view presents serious problems for the biblical view. How can men be appointed to die once and then be judged if the essence of every person becomes endlessly manifest in an infinite multiverse? Also, the laws of nature make the resurrection of Jesus from an advanced state of death radically improbable. This is where transcendent reality is essential. What is impossible by the laws of nature becomes possible by the transcendent laws of God. God can not possibly be sovereign at all by through laws of nature alone, but God is absolutely sovereign through the whole of the laws of reality.
I’m no math whiz but I’m not sure that the laws of nature tell us what the decimal value of the square root of 2 is. Isn’t the notion of a square root not a natural thing? It seems to me that we could actually define the root of 2 to be 3.14… if we agreed that “2” represented the square of pi. Am I correct?
What are the laws of reality? And, for that matter, what is reality?
The decimal solution to the square root of 2 is proven in physical processes. You can programme a computer to calculate it without any prior knowledge of the solution. If the computer is programmed correctly, it will produce the same answer in any universe, unless it is alien to nature. The decimal solution to the square root of 2 follows from the definition of the number 2, the definition of the square root operation, and the definition of the decimal number system. These definitions along with the laws of nature exclude the possibility of the solution being 3.14159265358979323.
Science is a process of understanding the laws of nature. If there were no laws of nature, then science would be meaningless. Our brains are dependent on the laws of nature, so science can go no further than nature. This does not mean that reality is limited to nature. Even Quentin Smith, who denies the reality of God, admits that nature has a transcendent origin. He discusses this in his Time Was Created by a Timeless Point paper. At minimum, reality must consist of nature plus everything from which nature originated. I could say that reality consists of everything that exists, but this would leave the problem of defining existence. This also leaves the problem of defining the reality of God, because existence is a dependent reality, whereas God is an independnet reality. It may not be appropriate to say that God exists, but rather that God simply is.
This is not a challenge in any way, but could you tell me what the definition of the number two, the definition of the square root operation, and the definition of the decimal number system are?
I’m genuinely curious about what these definitions are, I’m very ignorant of mathematics. I would be pleased to learn these.
I’m particularily interested in the sense of the word definition in use here.
Considering how capable “God” is of transcendance, “he” can’t seem to reply to even one prayer, and at the same time–the guys that prayed to him & thought that he heard and answered, didn’t know jack-shit about anything other then their own fantacies! Do you really think it was right that people in general trusted these ancient mystics?
If “God” can transcend something, then why doesn’t he prove it? Before there can be a true theory, there should be at least a small amount of experience and proof.
If “God” is to be the only one that all impossible things are accounted to, perhaps also his existence is impossible.
The square root operation outputs a positive number which when mutiplied by itself becomes equal to the input number.
The decimal number system represents real numbers as a sequence of digits, each of which is an inteteger from zero to nine.
If I asked you to use a calculator to calculate the square root of two to as many decimal places as it will display, I think you would need no further definitions to give me the answer I would expect.
I think you may be looking for accessable physical evidence. I like that kind of evidence too, but there are times for all of us when we have to depend on the character and word of eyewitnesses. I read about someone who claims that the visits of men to the Moon are a hoax. I suppose he would not be satisfied with the evidence unless he could go to the Moon himself.
Impossible by the laws of nature- Yes. Impossible by the ultimate laws of reality- Definitely no.
I am not an agnostic. I trust the biblical account of God’s character and work throughout history, including the accounts of Jesus’s virgin birth, crucifixion, and resurrection from death.
Are you so sure that the gospels contain the more-or-less faithful transcription of eyewitness testimony about Jesus?
Keith Parsons explains on the Internet Infidels site why he is not a Christian. He presents a broad overview of textual criticism concerning the New Testament, in particular the gospels and miraculous accounts like the resurrection. His nonbelieving position seems to be thoroughly researched and cogently argued. I would recommend it as a good starting point to getting a nonreligious viewpoint on the New Testament.
I think it is more interesting to argue about specific religions than to argue about generic concepts of god (as mere ‘creator’ or ‘designer’, for instance) that have little practical significance.
I’m having a hard time seeing how what you’re saying isn’t a tautology…
Its true that under the definitions you give the same answer would be arrived at in any universe.
But my question is, what does the number two have to do with nature? Where does the number two exist in nature? Where does multiplication exist in nature? Where do numbers exist at all?
What do the laws of nature have to do with the laws of mathematics?
By this reasoning, all of mathematics is simply a tautology. Perhaps all the laws of physics are a tautology also. It is interesting that thousands of PhD’s were earned and many great minds were honoured for simply writing down tautologies. Suppose you wanted to calculate the decimal solution of 1/3. You could design a small, one digit machine, to do this by first displaying a decimal point and then by flashing the number 3 a trillion times. Calculating the decimal solution of the square root of 2 cannot be done with a small machine. A huge amount of memory is required. As the number of digits computed increases, so does the amount of memory required increase without bound. If the solution is a tautology, then why is so much memory required to explore it?
You have two parents. Nature did not allow you just one. Cells divide and rabbits multiply. I read that there are about a quadrillion ants in the world. That is quite a number.
Mathematics are developed by intelligent minds. Intelligent minds operate by the laws of nature.
There are numerous scholarly criticisms of the Bible. There are also numerous scholarly defences of the Bible. The same thing happens in science. The scientific community agrees well on the simpler propositions. There can be much disagreement on the most difficult propositions.
This is quite true, except that the simpler concepts are of real value also. I discussed the simpler concepts because Dan~'s post concerned the origin of the universe.
I didn’t ask you for things that occur in pairs - I am smart enough to know how many parents I have. I asked you to show me where the number two is in nature. I’m asking you for the existence of the number two - not two parents.
You also misattributed in your last post - aporia said it not me.
It may help here to distinguish between the essence of an entity and the physical manifestations of an entity. A physical manifestation of an entity is certainly real, but the essence of the entity is even more real. The number two has a very simple essence and has extremely numerous physical manifestations in nature. The essence of what elephants are is extremely complex and has much fewer physical manifestations in nature than the number two does. A squirrel that has been compressed by a tyre has much less the essence of squirrel than does a live and healthy squirrel. A mouse that has been thoroughly digested by a snake does not continue to have its essence physically manifest inside the snake. When an electron collides with a positron, the photons that emerge from the collision are not a physical manifestation of the annihilated electron or positron, because they have a different essence. A physical manifestation of an entity is mutable and perishable, but the essence of an entity is immutable and imperishable.
The distinction between the essence of an entity and its physical manifestations is likely of extreme relevance to you when it concerns the essence of who you are. If a physical manifestation experiences an extreme of happiness or sorrow, I would think you would care a lot whether that physical manifestation has your personal essence or the essence of another person. Suppose your present physical manifestation could be disintegrated and then replaced with another physical manifestation. Is there not some essence to what you are that would determine whether the recreation is truly you?
I must have had you in the copy buffer when I pasted for the second quote of aporia. I edited the post with a note of correction.
A: From what I have been reading you all are trying to explain god in physical terms and comparing him to the physical or physics of this realm or deminsion. The physical canot explain the metiphysical simply because they exist as diferent deminsions with diferent variable’s and then you have the human vessal which acording to physics is empty space. This coporial vesal is the in between, the form that allows the howsing of the metaphysical essance, consiouness, or soul, whatever you want to call it. What applies to us here in this Physical realm does not aply to the metaphysical. Also this coporial form for most is not evolved enough to even begin to contemplate, understand or fathom the depths of metaphysical creation and existance. Nor are you all giving enough credit to the Universe itself. It is what all things exist in, Physical, metaphysical, Mental, Spiritual, Psychological. It is everything that can be has been or will be, anything that can be imagined or thought of exist’s and has form wether coporial or not. It contains all realms deminsion adn multiverses it is infinite and ever changing. This that we here exist in the physical is but a small fraction and life does not necesarily have to be created anywhere or depend on the physicle for such creation. There is no begining and no end to it, The thought’s and actions of all inside cause things to hapen in other places inside itself. It is ever looping and congulating. I am haveing difficulty explaining it because language is a barrier to knowledge. Some thing’s you can not put in word’s but could readily share given the ability.There is a good book by issac asimove that explains this theory of thought in the future creating the past that create’s the future. I cant remember the name of it though,Hmm been a long time since i read it, Anyway.
B: Reality, what is it? It is what you percieve it to be. Nothing more. True this realm has certain laws that well, for now cant be broken but eventualy that to will change. Reality, yours specificaly is determined by what you are capable of doing in it. What you are capable of depend’s the metaphysical make up of your coporial form. And that metaphysical make up depend’s on what you are willing to do and experiance to gain it.
Does god exist? We are all argueing about him as if he does so aparently the answer is yes. If he did not Then we would not be discussing wether or not he did now would we?
The mere thought of him makes him exist and belief that he has power grant’s him such.
(Just want to say I am stateing an oppinion not a fact. But then again what is philosophy but an oppinion of the truth?)
A: From what I have been reading you all are trying to explain god in physical terms and comparing him to the physical or physics of this realm or deminsion. The physical canot explain the metiphysical simply because they exist as diferent deminsions with diferent variable’s and then you have the human vessal which acording to physics is empty space. This coporial vesal is the in between, the form that allows the howsing of the metaphysical essance, consiouness, or soul, whatever you want to call it. What applies to us here in this Physical realm does not aply to the metaphysical. Also this coporial form for most is not evolved enough to even begin to contemplate, understand or fathom the depths of metaphysical creation and existance. Nor are you all giving enough credit to the Universe itself. It is what all things exist in, Physical, metaphysical, Mental, Spiritual, Psychological. It is everything that can be has been or will be, anything that can be imagined or thought of exist’s and has form wether coporial or not. It contains all realms deminsion adn multiverses it is infinite and ever changing. This that we here exist in the physical is but a small fraction and life does not necesarily have to be created anywhere or depend on the physicle for such creation. There is no begining and no end to it, The thought’s and actions of all inside cause things to hapen in other places inside itself. It is ever looping and congulating. I am haveing difficulty explaining it because language is a barrier to knowledge. Some thing’s you can not put in word’s but could readily share given the ability.There is a good book by issac asimove that explains this theory of thought in the future creating the past that create’s the future. I cant remember the name of it though,Hmm been a long time since i read it, Anyway.
B: Reality, what is it? It is what you percieve it to be. Nothing more. True this realm has certain laws that well, for now cant be broken but eventualy that to will change. Reality, yours specificaly is determined by what you are capable of doing in it. What you are capable of depend’s the metaphysical make up of your coporial form. And that metaphysical make up depend’s on what you are willing to do and experiance to gain it.
Does god exist? We are all argueing about him as if he does so aparently the answer is yes. If he did not Then we would not be discussing wether or not he did now would we?
The mere thought of him makes him exist and belief that he has power grant’s him such.
(Just want to say I am stateing an oppinion not a fact. But then again what is philosophy but an oppinion of the truth?)
How does a single cell–so small it cannot even be seen–how does this become the man you are today?
Well, DNA is a code, information is symbolic, relative to reality and stored upon a medium.
This principal applies to knowledge aswel.
All knowledge is a reaction to reality, stored upon the memory medium.
Once we begin to compare 1 second to the other, and one object to the other, similarities and differences arise. This is the beginning of general relativity. This is when we realize that there are “two” or more. We then create “natural laws” depending on predictable patterns, relative patterns, behaviors, etc.
Making up a transending God figure is like saying “I can fly, but I don’t want to right now so I wont.” It’s bullshit, it doesn’t work or exist, but it has no proof to disproove. It’s just a mind game, a mask that is set overtop of their hunger for superiority–their lust for “the truth of God”, and their arrogance, in claiming what they cannot prove, and in claiming what is not true.
Since it can not be proved that god exist’s niether can it be proved he/it does not. However we can prove and have the the metapysical realm does exist and being’s who are not coporial within exist also. Any being superior to any race on a metaphysical or technological level beyond human understanding can indeed be considered a god especialy if the specific being we are trying to explain cannot be explained by our curent standard’s or abilities.
Can you disproove the claim that I was sent by Hashnia?
I am the second destruction of earth,
when all nature becomes a processed product of man.
In the beginning there was the Barrox, who existed within the Splitex. This force began to actuate itself, and its only tool was chaos. As it created diversity and control on any planet able, Hashnia was born and grew. It was much like the son who killed his violant father.
Yeeeah, schizorific holy wordz!
Wait.
Are things false antil proven true,
or are they true antil proven false?
And how about that ever-ignored principal of things being focused on, even whilst irrelavent?
Did we evolve?, (* Random, self advancing, grandual. )
Or did God create us?, ( poof, that was easy, and retarded! )
Or did an anien super-race do it? ( Experiment #75, how to waste time creating inferior life forms. Experiment #76, beer, porno and a vibrating UFO all at the same time. *)
To be fair:
This was an anti-creation argument, not an anti-“god” argument.
Ofcourse “gods” exist, but damned if they ever get some high-quality space-travel machines and have enough “heart” to help us out.
Antil then, ‘gods’ are useless “mental masterbation”.