You would be familar with Karl Popper and his philosophy of science I expect and it is my view that his approach is most reasonable. If you want to start at the truth please do so although that is no doubt a difficult thing to do when the subject is religion. What truth do you suggest we start with and perhaps if that truth could be arrived at with Karl Popper looking over your shoulder. Theists appear to claim their faith is truth with no support and I refuse to take their claim as useful for no other reason than their claim is unsupported. Alex
It's just the earliest thing we have evidence for. "We just don't know" is perfectly acceptable, and is not an open invite for "It must be God."
The Big Bang Theory is a potential event in the evolution of our universe. Maybe you’d prefer that the BBT be transformed into the Big Bang Dogma, and like you theistic constructs, be given immunity from scrutiny by any form of philosophical critique. And what’s with your continued attacks on empiricism? What kind of conscious state of mind do you think would exist without the knowledge acquired and continually validated through you senses?
Well I will make a list of ten will that be enough to throw out the bath water...I would like to think reference to throwing out babies and bath water hardley bear on the facts I suggest. Scriptures have many flaws ...but the subject is what would be good proof besides asking what have you got to evidence god I will say that my earlier suggestions would be reasonable...so it boils down to this I expect ... there is no evidence that say you could offer or indeed any theist could offer that could approach an acceptable level. How would you go about establishing your world view as a believable reality. You probably would feel uncomfortable expressing what I would call a very personal view of your world view in particular if you ever doubt that world view. Does exposure to an atheist cause you to wonder if they may just be correct? Sorry that would be hard to do I suppose... but I guess everyone must wonder if the other side may be right...I dont☺ Alex
My bold. For context read Bowser here: ''God simply IS. Just like you are an IS. '' So, it's just comes down to ''I think there is a god but don't ask me to explain why, because the mind is limited in understanding this. But, I (self) can show others by demonstration what I (self) experience when I see green light, and we can agree or not agree about is it green or not, but we will agree there is something (light). You can't demonstrate your ''feeling'' that there is a god.
He's already explained God to you. What more do you want? I don't recall him reducing it to a ''feeling'', yet you choose to see it as that. Could that be because that is how you, an atheist, imagine, or even want, God to be. Just a feeling? You don't seem to have any problem reducing theism to a ''gut feeling''. Which has nothing to do with any real definition of the term ''theist''. Yet when I use the actual original meaning of the term atheist, people charge me of being insulting, even though it is the original meaning, not to mention evidentially convincing. Do you have a problem being defined as a person who is without God? jan.
If your god exists and is somehow among us, then we are all with that god. If your god is merely a figment of your imagination, then your god as you perceive it is not among us, and we are all without that god.
It is true that we perceive reality by agreement. But that is when our "best guess" of reality is objectively verifiable and scientific concensus of verification is reached. At that point it may beconsidered an "objectively verifiable controlled best guess" In the case of God, no verification of any kind is available, no matter how many agree on the "best guess" of it's existence. While that can be experienced subjectively, it is and remains a "subjectively unverifiable uncontrolled best guess" also know as a "mass hallucination" This is where the mirror neural system of the brain plays a major role.
More a implanted idea and reinforced commonly called brain washing Many religious people seem to have had their brain go through a industrial strength car wash Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
It’s possible that Jan’s god only exposes itself to those who can access the proper trench coat code, but for such a god to go to those lengths to conceal itself would seem to not only defy the logic of a reasonable human being, but that of a reasonable god as well.
Or maybe there actually are godlike beings playing these silly games with us. Give a god a sunny day, some humans and a magnifying glass, and who knows what may end up toasting on the pavement.
What strikes me most is that at best our gods are metaphorical representations of identifying human motives and behaviors. Every uniquely human characteristic has a god named after it. Humans love, therefore we have a god of Love (good) Humans envy, therefore we have a god of jealousy (bad) Humans hate, therefore we have a god of Hate (evil) Humans make war, therefore we have a god of War (behavior) The list goes on .......................... And the great metaphor for Humanity itself is contained in the single word God, pointing to the greater unifying force of mankind, a completely abstract representation of humanity, and described by smaller personalized metaphors to the general public for ease of acceptance and agreement, such as the stories of virgin birth (immaculate conception) and ultimate purpose (reward), in order to attain transcendence of understanding the word God. I hate to break the news, but what we see today happening in the world is a reflection of the gods and, as expressed by mankind's general behavior, God himself. Hence, in the metaphysical sense, disciplined behavior as taught in religions will receive the favor of the gods (for deeds) and God (for character). Problem is we took it literally and thereby confounded our own language by displaying all the characteristics of all the gods. After all, they are named after us. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!..Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!.............Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I get a kick out of theists who claim that those who question God's motives do so from the limitations of a human perspective, but fail to acknowledge that their own expectations of God come from that same perspective.
Of course, all gods are "man made" and by direct implication reflect our subjective personal perspectives.
The comfort of ignorance prevents some folk from escaping superstition. There are few places left for an invented God to hide. Was a God responsible for the big bang could be asked and like any proposition that could be asked here the honest answer is.. we dont know. The fact we dont know does not mean, as a theist will at this point claim "then God", the answer is God. So the only thing we know about God is made up by men with delussions they had the answers and many of the writing offers evidence of direct conflict with testable science yet such flaws go ignored. So what does faith mean. .I will pull whatever I like out if this good book in the hope someone is in charge of the universe with specific interest in me such that we chat every day. What an interesting thing or notion to think about is what are the implications of a God who is everywhere. And the physical requirements as in necessary particles. A god would be like the net work of the non existent ether, or a sub atomic web through everything... reaching everywhere with a communication net work to comunicate through out and supply energy to any point or many to reform or add to what is there and along those net works all stuff flows for whatever reason..and this network must enjoy instant communiction within and perhaps a now needed outside of the universe..but if we have free will that would indicate that what ever this net work could be it would mean that it could not interact personally with humans and presumably any thing else. So the only way it could make sense is if we dont have free will and everything we type here is this network or God is causing us to do so...just think about the implications of...for it is all written..is there a library with the future of every object recorded...if it is written I would love to see the library.....so a God has already written our next posts...yours mine everyone here and on face book and so on...I would like to think that is unlikely so we have free will which means if there is a God it cant interact with humans. So a made up God is unable to intereact with humans if he does it proves he does not exist. Alex
I don't doubt that someday the life that began here on earth will advance to the point that at least some of the godlike capabilities you listed above will be masted by our successors. And that same evolutionary process may have already played out countless times in many universes. If reality is truly infinite, then it's hard to imagine that any beings, however powerful, could manage to control it all, and it would seem to me that even such gods, master puppeteers in their own right, would likely have some strings attached to them as well.
