on discussing god and religion

Except for deductive demonstrations such as in maths and logic, philosophy and science do not deal in “conclusive proofs,” so your claim is a strawman.

Whatever that means.

In any event, my intent on this thread revolves more around those who claim that their own religion or their own spiritual narrative reflects the One True Path to immortality and salvation.

I invite them to explore this by connecting the dots between the behaviors they choose on this side of the grave given what they would want the fate of “I” to be on the other side of the grave.

Thus revolving less around whatever you claim that my claim is here in regard to “the gap” that we are all the embodiment of.

Really? You don’t know what that means?

Not without a particular context in which to explore this…

“Except for deductive demonstrations such as in maths and logic, philosophy and science do not deal in ‘conclusive proofs,’ so your claim is a strawman.”

…more substantively.

But, again, this thread was created by me in order to zoom in existentially on the religious and spiritual beliefs of those connecting the dots between morality here and not and immortality there and then.

But you and I seem to share the same No God prejudice rooted in dasein.

How about another context? There are clearly arguments that philosophers and scientists can make even in regard to “I” in the is/ought world that would seem to be more conclusively true than others. And certainly arguments relating to physics, chemistry, biology etc., that, in particular, seem demonstrably conclusive.

A new thread perhaps?

Biggie is the most respectful poster on the internet and a fine philosopher, the best, says everyone. :evilfun:

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A Change of Mind for Antony Flew
Peter S. Williams
at the bethinking web site

But then the distinction that each of us as individuals will come to between following an argument wherever it leads, and reconfiguring the argument into something that we want to believe. Only here, the reality of human psychology, in my view, becomes entangled in complexities that none of us really have the capacity to untangle such that we come to the most rational assessment. It all gets jumbled instead into a convoluted mishmash of genes and memes and individual experiences and individual sets of circumstances embodied in dasein and in a life that is ever and always unfolding amidst what can be a torrent of contingency, chance and change.

And since with God and religion there is so much at stake on both sides of the graves how much can we really trust the conclusions that we come to “here and now”?

One hint today, a very different hint tomorrow. Or next week or next month or next year.

A Change of Mind for Antony Flew
Peter S. Williams
at the bethinking web site

One can only imagine the day [if that day ever comes] when scientists are in fact able to make that unequivocally crucial chemical leap from wholly non-living matter to living matter. And then that man-made living matter evolving on its own in ways that suggest how it might have happened “naturally” before human beings were ever around.

Now, when I was younger and watched documentaries like Cosmos I came upon segments like this: youtu.be/g90gzvsO1DU

I figured that surely before I died, science would accomplish this task. So, have they?

nist.gov/news-events/news/2 … s-normally

Of course we don’t even know for sure whether life on Earth originated on Earth. It might have come from something “out there” that smashed into Earth.

Now it just comes down to whether any of this is finally resolved before each of us one by one falls over into the abyss that either is or is not oblivion.

That and more or less blind “leaps of faith” of course.

Bions may be just that.
Riech was able to culture bions from non living matter that was sterilized and heat-treated at very high temperature.

In theory bacteria are like snowflakes.
When the conditions are right, they are produced.

Okay, but that still leaves theodicy, right? :wink:

God allows death and suffering otherwise they would not exist.

Same as the arguments for the existence of Satan.

It’s somehow necessary.

Not really, but somehow, it is anyway.

If I was God i wouldn’t create anything without giving it a lot of thought.

Have you ever heard of “stupid design?”

Attributes in genetic codes that all animals should have but only a few or just 1 has it.

Like tiger shark’s salt releasing gland.

Some lizards can regrow lost arms. I think it was lizards. Or newts or something like that.

Wolves have crazy good sense of smell but everyone would be better off with that upgrade.

Birth defects is also part of the stupid-design argument.

As I noted on another thread, it’s pointless for us to discuss things like this.

At least beyond this – :wink: – anyway.

Our basic assumptions are just too far apart.

On the other hand, sure, some new experience, relationship or access to information, knowledge and ideas might nudge one of us close to the other’s frame of mind. Then we’ll see.

A Change of Mind for Antony Flew
Peter S. Williams
at the bethinking web site

In other words, God is nature and nature is the universe or God is a God, the God, my God.

And that makes all the difference in the world to some philosophers.

The part that still makes absolutely no sense to me. To “think” or to “believe” that God is the universe? Okay, and how is that not just another way of configuring human interactions into a reality whereby everyone of us is necessarily embedded in his or or her own inherent niche and there is thus never any possibility of it being some other niche instead. How can there be right and wrong behaviors when all behaviors are natural behaviors and could never have been other than what they are. And death? That’s just part of nature too. Along with oblivion when “I” do go.

No, with one or another a God, the God religion, the human condition can revolve around a Creator that provided us with free will. And an actual immortality and salvation linked to Him. With a No God religion none of that is around.

This God:

Okay, but only if and when we are able to understand how a No God Nature managed to actually bring this about. “Entirely on our own devices”…how? What does that mean in regard to the components of my own philosophy…identity, value judgments and political economy. Every last one of us being “at one with nature” as though that actually explains anything at all in regards to the lives that we live from day today.

Talk about a “general description spiritual contraption”! What part of man does reflect “the best”? The parts embraced by “one of us” or by “one of them”?

A Change of Mind for Antony Flew
Peter S. Williams
at the bethinking web site

Or, more to the point, until the existence of living matter culminating [so far] in the human brain is unequivocally explained by science with no need to include a God, the God, my God, then a God, the God, my God is still one possible explanation. And it’s not for nothing that, for some, the deeper we go into grappling with the astounding complexities involved in the creation of biological life – not to mention the staggering mysteries embedded in the universe itself – that an omniscient Creator isn’t ruled out entirely.

On the other hand, given the sheer complexities involved, why would God be bound by them? Is God Himself necessarily anchored to the laws of nature? Was He not able to create a simpler, less “vast” cosmological reality for mere mortals like us?

On the other hand, suppose science does provide “a satisfactory naturalistic explanation for [all] facets of biological reality”. Won’t the religionists merely rationalize that? Just think back to the time when the church stopped persecuting those astronomers who were pointing out things about the Earth going around the Sun or the orbits of the other planets that were not consistent with Earth being the center of God’s universe. Or those who squared the existence of dinosaur bones with Creationism: thoughtco.com/how-do-creati … rs-1092129

So what if science is successful yet again in accomplishing something thought to be solely within the purview of God? Or of something described as consistent with “intelligent design”.

Besides, how intelligent can the design of biological life be when there are hundreds and hundreds of different afflictions we can come into the world with; and hundreds and hundreds of afflictions that can impale us all the way from the cradle to the grave.

Nope, as long as God is seen to be the only viable access to immortality and salvation, all the scientific accomplishments in the world will merely be subsumed in His mysterious ways. Religion isn’t about being rational; instead it’s the mother of all psychological defense mechanisms. With oblivion itself on the horizon.

A Change of Mind for Antony Flew
Peter S. Williams
at the bethinking web site

Okay, it’s not the God of Moses and Abraham, but there must exist a God, the God? Even if someone is not able to say with any degree of exactitude what it means to them as my God?

Suppose hypothetically science was somehow able to pin down that there must be a God, the God? But were not able to really go much further?

Would that work for you?

Because it certainly would not do much for me. Yes, it is established that up there/out there somewhere there is a God. But how does that in and of itself help me to pin down the behaviors I am obligated to eschew on this side of the grave in assuming that this newly discovered God actually is the gateway to immortality and salvation.

That’s really what religion is all about in the end, right? The font for distinguishing vice from virtue so as to enable you to avoid oblivion. Or damnation.

Sure, it would be fascinating to discuss and debate this existing God. But basically all the denominations that exist now would stay the same: God does in fact exist so it must be our God.

One possible alternative however: “minimal deism”.

God created us but now we are basically on our own to sink or swim? No Scripture to divine objective morality here and now? No immortality and salvation awaiting us there and then?

That kind of God?

Maybe. But still no less a God that is defined or thought up into existence.

And for those Christians who point to Flew and say, “what about him, Mr. Atheist?”, he’s still a long, long way from their God.

So Flew ties himself to Jefferson and his 18th century deist conception of God based on a Newtonian conception of the universe. Oh well.

Duplicate post

Oh well? In what sense? Given the manner in which you connect the dots between morality here and now and immortality there and then.

A Change of Mind for Antony Flew
Peter S. Williams
at the bethinking web site

Again, the deist God [much like the pantheist God], ever and always brings me back to this: Where’s the beef?

If these Gods are not involved in laying down the foundation for morality on this side of the grave, bringing about a Judgment Day and then, depending on whether you pass or fail, being immortal up or down, what’s the point of them existing at all?

After all, it’s not for nothing that the preponderance of religious denominations that most are familiar with, are very much intent on connecting the dots between morality here and now and immortality and salvation there and then.

When it comes to religion, THAT IS THE BEEF!!

Spinoza’s God.

Given that He – It? – has no “preferences either about or any intentions concerning human behavior or about the eternal destinies of human beings” what on earth did he imagine awaited him on the other side of the grave.

Spinoza and God…now.

It seems to me that the Gods of the deists and pantheists are basically just the Gods that intellectuals think up. The philosopher’s God. For the preponderance of humanity however that God just doesn’t cut it. They can’t appeal to this God when their life is in the toilet. Or when they need to be absolutely certain they are doing the right thing. Or if they need to believe that in doing the right things, they get to see all their dead loved loves again on the other side.

The real God in other words.

A Change of Mind for Antony Flew
Peter S. Williams
at the bethinking web site

And, for someone like me, that is a crucial distinction. When I look around me at the world we live in, the planet we reside on, all of the many, many ways in which terrible things can happen to us that are more or less completely “beyond our control”, it’s not the existence of God that fascinates me nearly as much as theodicy. Sure, a God, the God can never be completely ruled out as an explanation for existence. In fact, for many, that’s the first thing that will pop into their head.

But when, over and over and over again, you hear this God described as both “loving, just and merciful” and “omniscient/omnipotent” how can you not sit back and think, “What the fuck?!!!”

Again, of what actual use is that God given the primary function of religion: morality here and now, immortality there and then.

It just allows you to use Him to explain why there is something instead of nothing, and why this something and not something else. He does exist “up there” or “out there” somewhere, but that need not concern you.

Of course. Why else would the faithful have to include His “mysterious ways” in the script? Or figure that somehow this infinitely good Creator was not infinitely powerful. The universe got away from Him and He is just as pained by the consequences for His creations [us] as we are.

Either that or another alternative: God is basically a sadistic monster.

God and logic.

Cue pood?

A Change of Mind for Antony Flew
Peter S. Williams
at the bethinking web site

This is how the “analytic” God can shift back and forth depending on the definitions you use. But in the end you are always defining something that is basically just “thought up” in your head in the first place.

Primary cause/secondary cause. And “within creation”. Try to factor that into your day to day interactions with others.

Okay, but science has only been at it now for that proverbial blink of an eye given how long the species has been around. Prompting us to raise questions like this. And now that Flew is dead of course there is no way in which he will be around when, a hundred or a thousand years from now, we may well be creating or own rendition of life. Besides, does the deist God have any particular reason to care that non-living matter evolved into living matter evolved into us?

Life evolved out of matter containing no life at all. God set it all into motion. Perhaps as the primary cause, perhaps as the secondary cause. But what’s that got to do with us? If, from His point of view, nothing at all then I suspect that some will insist there may well have been no God at all once He got the ball rolling.

So, okay, if this “deist” account of God works for you such that you are willing and able to take your own existential leap away from atheism, take that all the way to the grave. For me though a God of this sort is more or less completely irrelevant regarding what I construe to be the whole point of religion insofar as it is able to “comfort and console” me. Does the existence of this ghost-like God allow me to feel less fractured and fragmented? Does it make it any more likely that death does not equal oblivion?

And, again, that’s before we get to the part where this God is still just defined or “thought up” into existence.