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Does God exist or not exist?


Alan McDougall

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If you are going to require god to be a "person" you are going to have to define what a person is first.

 

Anthropomorphism is defined in my dictionary as 'attribution of human characteristics to a god, animal or thing. - anthropomorphic -adj.

 

God has human characteristics but his ontology is different, our language exists to describe this world and not to describe the numinous world of God, I have no words to describe his ontology or his manifestations. We have to go silent if someone asked us what is sweetness? or what is redness? The revelations of our ancients indicate that he has human characteristics and hence he can be a person.

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The collective evidence of overwhelming consistent beliefs in so sort of god or gods throughout the ages form diverse and once entirely disconnected and mutually isolated cultures suggest that it is a subject of ongoing pervasive magnitude among mankind. The chances of them all being wrong are extremely low. Therefore, the probabilities, in my opinion are the chances are very high... :unsure:

 

 

BAWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

 

Thanks, I needed a laugh today.

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Next time you may want to quote the parts of any offsite link you think are relevant. I know I stopped reading when the author brought up another God-of-the-gaps type argument about no one yet being able to replicate RNA to create life. Maybe not now but we're getting very close, and when we do, another gap in our knowledge gets filled rationally, with natural, real-world explanations.

 

Just saying.

 

Edit to add: Your signature seems quite at odds with creationism. Curiosity is not normally a strong suit with those who deny what reality shows them.

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Anthropomorphism is defined in my dictionary as 'attribution of human characteristics to a god, animal or thing. - anthropomorphic -adj.

 

God has human characteristics but his ontology is different, our language exists to describe this world and not to describe the numinous world of God, I have no words to describe his ontology or his manifestations. We have to go silent if someone asked us what is sweetness? or what is redness? The revelations of our ancients indicate that he has human characteristics and hence he can be a person.

 

 

 

Mathematics and God

Perhaps the most unusual argument for evidence of God has come from mathematics. Some have suggested that the compact formula ei*pi + 1 = 0 is surely proof of a Creator and have called this formula "God’s formula." Edward Kasner and James Newman in Mathematics and the Imagination note, "We can only reproduce the equation and not stop to inquire into its implications. It appeals equally to the mystic, the scientists, the mathematician."

 

 

 

This formula of Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) unites the five

most important symbols of mathematics: 1, 0, pi, e and i (the square root of

minus one). This union was regarded as mystic union containing representatives

from each branch of the mathematical tree: arithmetic is represented by 0 and 1,

algebra by the symbol i, geometry by pi, and analysis by the transcendental e.

 

 

Harvard mathematician Benjamin Pierce said about the formula, "That is surely

true, it is absolutely paradoxical; we cannot understand it, and we don't know

what it means, but we have proved it, and therefore we know it must be the

truth." Mathematics certainly says more in fewer "words" than any other science.

David Eugene Smith in A History of Mathematics in

 

America Before 1900 wrote, "The formula, ei*pi + 1 = 0 expressed a world of thought, of truth, of poetry, and of the religious spirit ‘God eternally geometrizes.’"

 

Next time you may want to quote the parts of any offsite link you think are relevant. I know I stopped reading when the author brought up another God-of-the-gaps type argument about no one yet being able to replicate RNA to create life. Maybe not now but we're getting very close, and when we do, another gap in our knowledge gets filled rationally, with natural, real-world explanations.

 

Just saying.

 

Edit to add: Your signature seems quite at odds with creationism. Curiosity is not normally a strong suit with those who deny what reality shows them.

 

 

You are right! I just posted it from a creationalist point of view, while I am a theist I am not religious I just see some sort of underlying intellegence as the cause of existence

 

 

 

 

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The idea that there is some sort of God underlying reaity, is just the point of view of Idealism, that in primary sense, reality is based on consciousness.

 

Even if one supposedly can not directly disproof this idea, it does not mean that it has any basis in reality. If Idealism in general were true and one could not disproof it, and would accept it as a genuine basis of reasoning, how are we then to conclude that the point of view of solipsism (reality is totally contained within one's own mind) is an absurd world view?

 

The best argument I know why in general Idealism (both subjective Idealism - which is in fact solipsism, and objective Idealism) is untrue, that it is impossible to base reality on consciousness, because the basic feature of any consciousness would be processing information, and how could there be information and information processing without the material?

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If Idealism in general were true and one could not disproof it,

 

 

Its quite easy to disprove idealism, science just have to give an objective account of reality.

 

 

The best argument I know why in general Idealism (both subjective Idealism - which is in fact solipsism, and objective Idealism) is untrue, that it is impossible to base reality on consciousness, because the basic feature of any consciousness would be processing information, and how could there be information and information processing without the material?

 

Not neccesarily, for example Roger Penrose argues that conscious thinking has an element of non-computability in it which means we don't process anything, we just grasp things which already exists in a different realm as Plato says.

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Its quite easy to disprove idealism, science just have to give an objective account of reality.

 

 

 

 

Not neccesarily, for example Roger Penrose argues that conscious thinking has an element of non-computability in it which means we don't process anything, we just grasp things which already exists in a different realm as Plato says.

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The idea that there is some sort of God underlying reaity, is just the point of view of Idealism, that in primary sense, reality is based on consciousness.

 

Even if one supposedly can not directly disproof this idea, it does not mean that it has any basis in reality. If Idealism in general were true and one could not disproof it, and would accept it as a genuine basis of reasoning, how are we then to conclude that the point of view of solipsism (reality is totally contained within one's own mind) is an absurd world view?

 

The best argument I know why in general Idealism (both subjective Idealism - which is in fact solipsism, and objective Idealism) is untrue, that it is impossible to base reality on consciousness, because the basic feature of any consciousness would be processing information, and how could there be information and information processing without the material?

 

Well, here is the sticking point. We cannot, or at least I cannot concieve of anything, grasp anything, or know anything, without me doing the grasping. That I do, though, proves two things to me. That there is me, and there is other than me, to grasp. It is not my consciousness that creates reality, but it is reality that creates my consciouness of it. That is, I am not, actually, anything other than, real. This gives me, my worldview, my personality, and both an understanding that there is other than me, and an understanding that there is a me that is in and of reality.

 

I do not think that this is unrealistic, that is, "idealism" in its basic real form, is me, having an idea. And being a collector and storer of information, my "ideas" are of that information, and that information is about reality. There might be "better" tools than a human, with which to know reality. But there is no other that I have access to. My model of the world, is the only model I can have. I can not have yours. However, I can know that your model, is OF the same world that my model is of. This establishes reality as a separate, existing thing, that is more than just here (TAR2's location) and now (TAR2's moment). But also demands that TAR2 is not in possession of all locations and all nows, but only one point of focus. Here and now.

 

With this basis, it is not unrealistic to "have the idea" that other points of focus exist. We have plenty of evidence of other humans, other "points of focus" whose model of the world corresponds in large part, with mine. The moon for instance, exists in my model, and in yours, quite independantly from any information processing about it, that you or I might do. With this "information", you and I both can take a "God's eye" view of reality, and consider the Moon quite real and existent, regardless of our thoughts about it.

 

That we can take this God's eye view is, to me, both a proof of the Moon's existence and a proof that "other than TAR2's point of focus" exists. What "body", what personage we imagine is holding these other points of focus is immaterial to the fact that these other points of focus exist. That they conceptually or idealistically exist, does not negate the fact, that they actually do exist, and the information that they are currently recieving, will indeed match up with our information, in retrospect. That we can concieve of this "whole ball of wax" is to me, a proof of the existence of a "mind" that can contain it all at once. And that mind, is certainly not TAR2's, or the collective mind of the human race from Lucy 'til now. It must be God's mind, to which we are referring.

 

Regards, TAR2

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This post has been edited by Alan McDougall: Today, 03:00 PM

 

 

The Gnostic Christians seem to have a different creation myth on how the world came about which is very different from as espoused in the Bible.

 

 

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As an aside, talking mostly to Inow, I would add that our ability to put ourself in other "people's" shoes, is not limited to people(humans) but can be done as well with quarks, photons, molecules, cells, flowers, rivers, hurricanes, planets, solar systems, galaxies, the universe or God. When we put ourselves in these things shoes we do not create them, we already have evidence that they exist. We are merely visualizing what it would be like to experience that "other" particular here and now, giving ourselves the proper scope and scale and attributes, that that thing has, inorder to imagine what it would be like, to be that thing.

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I am asserting that God exists only as a concept in human minds, and that the using of productive concepts is an essential human attribute. God is not very useful in filling in the gaps of human knowledge, but God is useful in filling in the gaps of personal understanding. Questions such as: why am I attracted to that person, why do I fear that person, what should I do in this situation, this is where the concept of God normally becomes productive.

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I could bet my money that God does not exist because all scientific evidence so far shows that humans and Earth are especially insignificant in the cosmic scheme of things.

 

This view is called 'Cosmicism' or something...

 

"Cosmicism is the literary philosophy developed and used by the American writer H. P. Lovecraft in his weird fiction.[1] Lovecraft was a writer of philosophically intense horror stories that involve occult phenomena like astral possession and alien miscegenation, and the themes of his fiction over time contributed to the development of this philosophy."

 

"The philosophy of cosmicism states that there is no recognizable divine presence, such as a god, in the universe, and that humans are particularly insignificant in the larger scheme of intergalactic existence, and perhaps are just a small species projecting their own mental idolatries onto the vast cosmos, ever susceptible to being wiped from existence at any moment. This also suggested that the majority of undiscerning humanity are creatures with the same significance as insects in a much greater struggle between greater forces which, due to humanity's small, visionless and unimportant nature, it does not recognize.

 

Perhaps the most prominent theme in cosmicism is the utter insignificance of humanity. Lovecraft believed that "the human race will disappear. Other races will appear and disappear in turn. The sky will become icy and void, pierced by only the feeble light of half-dead stars. Which will in turn also disappear. Everything will eventually disappear. And what human beings do is just as free of sense and meaning as the free motion of elementary particles."

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmicism

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How much is your bet? I'm interested.

 

There is no scientific evidence to state that God does not exist and as far as Cosmicism is concerned Lovecraft is only looking at the future fate of our cosmos but he doesn't recognize how the cosmos was in the past. In fact all scientific evidence shows that we might have a greater purpose for our existence in the cosmos.

 

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There is no scientific evidence to state that God does not exist

 

Yes there is A LOT of evidence in fact to state that God does not exist. People are just too dumb to see it and prefer to believe what suits them while closing their eyes to anything that seems to contradict their religious beliefs.

 

In fact all scientific evidence shows that we might have a greater purpose for our existence in the cosmos.

 

No there is no such evidence. Absolutely none. Or at least I fail to see it.

 

I mean does a rock have a greater purpose for its existence? Does a cockroach or a scorpion have a purpose for its existence?

 

We are not much different from a rock or a cockroach or a scorpion in the big cosmic picture.

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Yes there is A LOT of evidence in fact to state that God does not exist. People are just too dumb to see it and prefer to believe what suits them while closing their eyes to anything that seems to contradict their religious beliefs.

 

No, people are smart and way ahead of us as they know science cannot answer all the questions for them.

 

No there is no such evidence. Absolutely none. Or at least I fail to see it.

 

Then you should watch the video.

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How much is your bet? I'm interested.

 

There is no scientific evidence to state that God does not exist and as far as Cosmicism is concerned Lovecraft is only looking at the future fate of our cosmos but he doesn't recognize how the cosmos was in the past. In fact all scientific evidence shows that we might have a greater purpose for our existence in the cosmos.

 

 

Find an example of a paper arguing for fine tuning that actually does good analysis and considers covariance? Oh, and using an infinite dimensional space for the analysis would be good too since there are actually an infinite number of possible variables most of which just happen to be zero in our universe.

 

Let me know when you do.

 

Then you should watch the video.

 

Why would you want him to watch a video of crap analysis?

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Yes there is A LOT of evidence in fact to state that God does not exist. People are just too dumb to see it and prefer to believe what suits them while closing their eyes to anything that seems to contradict their religious beliefs.

 

 

 

No there is no such evidence. Absolutely none. Or at least I fail to see it.

 

I mean does a rock have a greater purpose for its existence? Does a cockroach or a scorpion have a purpose for its existence?

 

We are not much different from a rock or a cockroach or a scorpion in the big cosmic picture.

 

Seriously Disabled,

 

Perhaps not so important to the "big picture", but then, who do you suppose is capable of looking at the "big picture"?

 

If not God, then who cares about the big picture. We don't get to see it, or know it, except from here and now, like we do.

We can't get "up there" and look down. Not actually. Figuratively yes, but its not like we have the ability to see the final scene of the movie. Or as if we can see all the universe as it currently exists. We can IMAGINE it, but only by analogy, we don't ever get to see the real thing, except as it arrives in the here and now. And come to think of it, our way of looking at the universe is not so terrible. We get to experience the whole thing, at once. Close things immediately, neighborhood things after a few minutes, further stuff in hours or days or years or millenia or millions of years. The "leftover" radiation from when the universe was very young, is just arriving now. What happened at Alpha Centuri a year or whatever ago.

 

Does the God of the Bible exist? is a different question than does God exist? "Does God exist?", Depends on the nature of the envisioned or imagined God. You seem to think that if no "purpose" is evident, then no god is evident. But what if the universe has not yet done what it is going to do next? How would you propose to communicate with the advanced civilization that is huge and powerful, right now, but existing on the other side of the Milkyway? We don't have to worry about any gamma rays they have sent our way, today, for several hundred thousand years. And by the time they get here, the beam will be so wide and dispersed that we might not notice when it hits us. And what would such a race be aiming at? All they currently know about the Earth, is what was happening here, several hundred thousand years ago. They have no way, to be concerned with you and me, and we have no way to be concerned with them. The universe dwarfs them as severly as it dwarfs us. It is all happening now, only in our imaginations, not in actuality. Its only "one" thing to a point of here and now focus, like ourselves, or to God, who can know it all at once. There is not much middle ground.

 

That being said. It still is possible that races from this solar system, or neighboring ones, could drop by the Earth on vacation or safari, and not even consider themselves required to say hello, or feel as if they have no right to be here, much as we don't bother to ask the ant's permission to spread the picnic blanket.

 

Which leaves "purpose" a relative and local thing. It doesn't much matter what a society of giants on some planet on some galaxy on the other side of the universe is doing right now. No one is capable of considering what they are doing and what we are doing as causally related. Not from both ends, as in how we are related to the past AND how we are related in the future. Seems the universe has more than a single purpose. And if it DID have but one, we are too far removed from it, to ever notice. When would we be, or how could we ever be, in a position, to say "there, I told you so."? Other than, of course, here and now, where we can get an inkling of what the universe used to be up to. And where and when we can be rather sure of what the universe is doing right here, right now.

 

If God exists, I would guess that it is rather like our image of it.

 

Regards, TAR2

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To me it is self-evident that God does not exist as a physical entity. However many many things that are critically important to us do not exist as physical entities. We call these things 'concepts' and there are way too many of them for me to waste your reading time giving examples. Humans adopt concepts which are personally productive for them. There is no mystery about God, God is just a human concept. For many people it is such a useful concept that they will live and die by him/her. Note that as God is a concept in each person's mind, everyone is free to tailor God to their own preferences, and they do. For example, atheists tailor God right out of existence. Also where we might use the term 'conceptual', people of antiquity used the term 'spiritual'.

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Find an example of a paper arguing for fine tuning that actually does good analysis and considers covariance? Oh, and using an infinite dimensional space for the analysis would be good too since there are actually an infinite number of possible variables most of which just happen to be zero in our universe.

 

Let me know when you do.

 

There is many literature out there for the fine tuned argument of the universe but I'm arguing about Penrose's argument and his pre-big bang cosmology does have substantial evidence to support it and there indeed seems to be a low entropy state at the begining of the big bang and such an initial condition have to be precise following a definite set of rules and not by random chance.

 

Penrose claims to have glimpsed universe before Big Bang

 

Concentric circles in WMAP data may provide evidence of violent pre-big bang activity

 

Why would you want him to watch a video of crap analysis?

 

The last thing that I would doubt about Roger Penrose is his sound mathematical arguments. Why would you suppress that?

 

 

"I think I would say that the universe has a purpose, it's not somehow just there by chance ... some people, I think, take the view that the universe is just there and it runs along – it's a bit like it just sort of computes, and we happen somehow by accident to find ourselves in this thing. But I don't think that's a very fruitful or helpful way of looking at the universe, I think that there is something much deeper about it."

 

- Roger Penrose

 

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There is many literature out there for the fine tuned argument of the universe but I'm arguing about Penrose's argument and his pre-big bang cosmology does have substantial evidence to support it and there indeed seems to be a low entropy state at the begining of the big bang and such an initial condition have to be precise following a definite set of rules and not by random chance.

 

Penrose claims to have glimpsed universe before Big Bang

 

Concentric circles in WMAP data may provide evidence of violent pre-big bang activity

 

 

 

The last thing that I would doubt about Roger Penrose is his sound mathematical arguments. Why would you suppress that?

 

So, that's a "No"? Thanks. Let me know when you find one that actually does multivariate analysis in an infinite dimensional space.

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Its the fine-tuning of the universe that needs an explanation not an analysis to prove that fine-tuning has actually happened.

 

There's no reason to think there is such fine tuning, because all attempts to show that there was were based on shit analysis done by people who put ideology before science. I notice you've still not found a multivariate analysis in an infinite dimensional space.

 

You can't do shit work, declare it to be the truth and then demand someone explain your faulty conclusions. Fine tuning is crackpottery.

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From Inow's link in 98. The last half of the paragraph proceeding the conclusion of Richard Carrier's essay.

In contrast, what a Creationist theory ought to predict, which a naturalistic theory would not, does not turn up. The laws of physics proceed without any regard for right or wrong, good people or bad, and they proceed relentlessly and monotonously, never demonstrably deviating, much less with anything like a value-laden purpose; resources are arbitrarily limited and randomly distributed without regard for merit; and no clear supernatural events or messages are present in any of our lives--guns are not suddenly turned into flowers, churches are not protected by mysterious energy fields, True Bibles are not indestructible nor do they glow in the dark, preachers cannot regenerate lost limbs, and when we ask God a question, with all sincerity and earnest urging, we never receive a clear, reasoned answer that all can hear and agree upon. Thus, intelligent design is a rather poor explanation for the universe we have, whereas a naturalistic theory fits it like a glove. We are faced with what is ultimately a mindless, careless, silent and blind machine. Doesn't it make more sense that it should have an ultimately mindless, careless, silent aend blind cause? The point is that Intelligent Design really doesn't bring anything to the table as far as explaining our universe, our actual universe. By focusing solely on one single feature, an "ability to produce life," Fine Tuning proponents miss the forest for the tree.

 

Inow,

 

While I would mostly agree with the conclusion of the essay, the idea that the universe is mindless, careless, silent and blind, and a machine at that, is patently and observably false. There is me and there is you that exist in this universe, completely made up of elements of it, completely bound by its constants and laws, and you and I are proof that mindful, careful, noisy, sighted, living things, are existent in the universe. The argument that this is by design is not required, but that this is not indicative of the universe having a mind, is downright ignorant. There still remains US to explain, and it will never be true that we are not possible for the universe to create. To give the universe a bit of "intelligence" on its own, is not too silly, under the circumstances. To think otherwise, would mean that we believe mindfulness, carefulness, speech and sight are things the universe IS NOT capable of, and we pulled them, on our own, out of our impossible and non-existing asses.

 

Regards, TAR2

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