Doing aside with the latent political vacuum that still seems to be behind your words, sure. . Others may beg to differ. Saying observation of this world suggests god doesn't exist faces the exact same problems as saying that it does. Are you trying to say that an obvious relationship of necessary cause and effect doesn't lead us towards the (necessary) identity of god? And are furthermore asking why this is the case?
Then maybe you shouldn't leave it to me to make your argument for you. You chose to respond to the question with a series of dodges.
It's not a legitimate question, James. If you were really interested in God, you would find out. Then you would realise how pointless your question is. Jan.
Speak of the Devil: I was considering pointing out how similarly Musika's dodges are to Jan's dodges. Why bother coming to a discussion forum if one is simply going to assert it's pointless to discuss? That's a rhetorical question. A non-answer is a non-answer.
It wouldn't be right to leave James with the impression he's asking a legitimate question. To get good answers, you need good questions. Jan.
So, if JamesR were interested in finding out God, he would certainly not ... ask. Asking is a terrible way to find things out. So sayeth Jan.
My response was straight forward. If a person can't develop an inkling of what "everything" (aside from freewill) might incorporate, it would tend to indicate some sort of specious agenda as opposed to legitimate line of inquiry. At the very least, it appears James didn't suffer the same shortcomings. TBH, I thought your brief comment (ie, the choice of "nothing") meant you were a fanatic (usually Lutheran derived) christian. Some fanatic types view even freewill as thoroughly under the control of God. Thus, to say that absolutely everything is done by God leaves absolutely no space for anything other than God's control to manifest, hence the argument is "won" (at least in their minds). Of course one can never just talk of fanaticism as one extreme (there are always at least two). One of the great comedies of atheism is that it's fanatical elements inevitably subscribe to the exact same sorts of silliness they imagine religion (in its crazier moments) has a monopoly on. As such, the techniques for refuting fanatical theists are practically identical to refuting their similarly (and arguably, sillier) counterparts in atheism. So even if you want to say "everything" is in fact "nothing", the act of you coming here to say "something" about it is a good introduction to the exceeding high levels of counter intuition behind yout position.
You are not arguing in good faith. It is not up to your reader to develop an "inkling" of what you mean. If you have a case, state it.
Does the Big Bang mean the universe requires "constant active activity" from that source? I doubt anyone would argue that it does. In both cases, the origin established all the laws needed for its existence. But we do have activity that is often contrasted with that of nature. Man's activity often does intervene in the otherwise natural order of things. It looks like there is something (free will) that is out of place and exerts itself on the existing nature.
Musika: Well, that must keep God out of trouble. On the other hand, being omnipotent, I guess he can multitask. Sure, but I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that observation of the world doesn't suggest that God exists. See the difference? What do you mean by "necessary"? What particular cause and effect are you talking about, and what makes it "necessary"? Where can we see this "necessary" cause and effect you speak of? Vociferous: I don't know if the big bang established all the laws of physics. I think that's an open question. I agree with you an ongoing input from the big bang is not necessary to keep the universe chugging along today. But recall my original question. I asked what God is doing today. Can I take it that your answer is that God's input today is not required? That would put you in opposition to Musika. Maybe you should argue it out with him. I'll be interested to see the discussion. How so? Human beings are part of nature, are they not? Where is God in all this, then? Anywhere?
Its not so much a question of political trouble but a continuation of a ridiculous framework for a question. For instance, if it is pointed out the problem of saying that consciousness intervenes within one's body, one has to wonder if the point is understood if they next continue to say that it is just as well one is actively active in sustaining their consciousness within their body. And others beg to differ and say it does suggest the opposite. The exact same problems, regardless of which side of the argument one is sitting on, start to manifest when they take such observations beyond "suggest". I thought it was obvious. If you want to move outside of the realm of suggestions, you have to start moving in the direction of necessities. For instance, at the risk of putting words in your mouth, you seem to suggest the identity of God be revealed through observation of effects in this world of growing trees and what not and (your estimations) of their causes. Unless you are willing to say those causes are necessary, its difficult to understand on what basis you are excluding God from the picture.
Musika, I'm having trouble following you. My question in this thread is, I think, a simple one: what does God (if he exists) do here, right now, in the world? I don't see anything inherently ridiculous about asking that question. Your answer was, essentially, that God does everything, although for some reason "free will" is the sole excepted ground on which God will not tread. Again, possibly I'm missing your point. As I understand it, consciousness is generated in the brain. I would say that it is indeed just as well that my brain keeps on doing what it is doing to keep my consciousness chugging along. Moreover, I would say that there's good evidence that my brain is the active factor in keeping my consciousness going. Remove my brain, and I'm confident that my consciousness would disappear. I'm not so sure that if we removed your God then the world would disappear, leaving only an ephemeral puff of free will. I don't think so. You posit the existence of a positive entity that makes stuff happen in the world, literally all the time, by your own description. Yet there appears to be no evidence that directly points to any such thing that stands apart from the world and yet interacts constantly with everything in it. It seems to me that the onus is on you to establish the existence of your God, who appears unnecessary when we look at the available evidence. Occam's razor, I guess. You'll have to unpack this for me, I'm afraid. When I see a growing tree, I can trace back a chain of causation for that, which involves the respiration of the tree, the constituents of the atmosphere and the soil, the genetic makeup of the tree, the seed it came from, and so on and so forth. As far as I can see, there's no hand of God in what the tree is doing right here and now, as it grows. But you're saying that God is right there, doing something to the tree to allow it to live and grow. But what? What is God doing that can't be explained without God?
It is not a direct issue with the thread op, but a detail that you insist on repeatedly bringing forth. I leave it to you to decide whether you want to maintain the detour. Regardless of your understandings of the brain, you don't "intervene" or become "actively active" to keep the show on the road ... like, maybe make sure you have 15 minutes spare in the morning to check your brain is turned on before you start the day (since it would be terrible to go through the whole day and realize you forgot to turn it on). As I said, others beg to differ. They however, like you, fall in to exactly the same problems when they attempt to move beyond "suggestions". IOW one can talk of observations of this world suggesting God does or doesn't exist. Try to move beyond that, and you face difficulties. Just to be perfectly clear since you might have missed it: I don't think you (or anyone) can reliably call upon observations of this world, with its seemingly harmonious balance on a seemingly chaotic fringe, to negatively or positively establish God's existence. Of course you (or anyone) are free to talk about what it suggests, and those suggestions can be further analyzed for merits or faults (as everyone brings out their favourite occam's razor). So you suggest that your exhaustive (although obviously severely limited) analysis of a tree does not reveal a God. Someone else, drawing on your same limited observations, perceives the harmony in biological mechanisms and arrangement as an indication of the intelligence of God. The moment either of you try to take this suggestion beyond the realm of being a mere suggestion, what problems ensue? I will attempt to cut to the car chase, and ask the same question in a more direct manner: What is the problem with tracing necessary cause and effect of action to a person (regardless whether its God or your regular Joe or Jane)?
Rationalists do not try to show that God doesn't exist. They simply ask for evidence that it does. When we examine, for example, the metabolism of a tree, we can see how, bio-chemically, one process leads to another without unexplainable gaps. So we ask: where in there is God acting? Show us something between A and B where it must be the hand of God. There are an infinite number of things one could believe in if one were to not bother asking for evidence. That's why no one suggests that unicorns cause trees to grow.
Musika: What detail do you have in mind? Are you saying that God does not need actively to will the trees to grow for them to do what they do? That he can set it and forget it, so to speak? If so, then I come back to my original question: what is he doing now? If he set everything in motion back at the big bang, what has he been doing with his time since then? And what is he doing now, if anything? I'm not trying to prove that God doesn't exist, here. I'm just asking, if he exists, what he is actually doing. I take your point that he might be tweaking invisible knobs undetectably, and I admit that I have no way to disprove that hypothesis. But I thought theists might have better reasons for believing in him than mere faith that something is tweaking those knobs behind the scenes. You're saying that people just have to have faith in God, right? Also, I have my doubts about that "harmonious balance on a chaotic fringe" stuff you mention. What are you thinking of, specifically, in terms of the harmonious balance? Is this a version of the argument from design? Yes. I'd say the harmony in biological mechanisms is a result of evolution, which doesn't appear to require God. Which brings us back to your point about suggestions, I guess. I still don't know what you mean when you say "necessary", in reference to a cause. Is a necessary cause different in some way to a plain vanilla cause? Suppose I find a freshly-baked cake. I infer that it was made by a person - that a person was its likely cause. That's because I'm not aware of anything else that makes cakes, other than persons. Moreover, I can't come up with any "natural" mechanism that would tend to cause cakes to appear of their own accord. There seems to me to be no analogous problem that requires us to deduce the existence of God, although admittedly we don't know what started the universe yet. With the cake it's a little different, because there is ample evidence that people cause cakes, whereas there's no evidence that gods cause universes. What do you see as the problem in tracing "necessary cause" to a person?
If they also insist that the evidence take the form of observation of this world, the question is not so "simple". So there are no controversies of evidential claims or unexplained gaps that arise from examining trees. Thanks for clearing up that .. .. .. although you may have inadvertantly rendered the world's botantists unemployed. So once again, we are back at the problem of confining a person to necessary relationships.. So just to be clear, you are not suggesting a lack of evidence in "science" can establish God's existence, but you demand that any evidence for God be established within "science".
