|
|
Re: Why God exists
[Re: ICEman]
#144939
09/30/07 11:21
09/30/07 11:21
|
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 8,177
Netherlands
PHeMoX
Senior Expert
|
Senior Expert
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 8,177
Netherlands
|
I agree with what you've said, just another opinion.   In my opinion intelligent design makes even less sense than a holy creator with divine powers and magic and the whole show of 6 days creation and 1 day resting. That reminds me, why in heavens name does a God need to 'rest' anyways? Why one day? Lol, I won't bother asking 'how we know' this... Anyways, this magical creation stuff is definitely something I consider to be extremely extremely unlikely, if not infinitely close to truly impossible. But yeah, it definitely comes down to observability like you've said and at least for now, we just have to accept that our knowledge is (severely?) limited... Perhaps, I tend to jump to conclusions myself, but I'm quite sure real magic in the classical sense does really not exist. Cheers
|
|
|
Re: Why God exists
[Re: PHeMoX]
#144940
09/30/07 17:48
09/30/07 17:48
|
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 535
Michigan
ICEman
Developer
|
Developer
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 535
Michigan
|
Quote:
I agree with what you've said, just another opinion. In my opinion intelligent design makes even less sense than a holy creator
Why? We create with our knowledge and application of the sciences( when we're not trying to make bombs with it, that is).. Why isnt it plausible that.. something with near infinitely more knowledge and probably near proportionate wisdom (something we lack),(therefore having infintely more power) can create something infinitely more complex? Why wouldn't that make sense? We know from studies of our own environment that.. things don't just spring into being.. lifeforms dont spontaneously generate, nor occur as a result of any amount of accidental circumstance. Most of the things in our world that aren't in their natural state.. cities.. monuments.. technology.. were created.. by something with a plan, forsight, and knowledge.
Why can't we have been? Are we too special to be the result of a blueprint and lines of programming code? Isn't that more or less what Deoxyribonucleic Acid sequences are?
Quote:
That reminds me, why in heavens name does a God need to 'rest' anyways? Why one day? Lol, I won't bother asking 'how we know' this...
That's again, indivinating "God". Divinities don't need rest, (that being why the concept of divine beings doesnt make sense in our physical universe, even on the most basic levels). Anything less.. even a being more energy than matter.. probably would (and this is what I'm saying that "God" is, or was.) You're right to say we don't know.. but it just follows that anything that does work expends energy, and therefore needs time to recouperate. There are no exceptions to that in the physical universe.
Quote:
But yeah, it definitely comes down to observability like you've said and at least for now, we just have to accept that our knowledge is (severely?) limited... Perhaps, I tend to jump to conclusions myself, but I'm quite sure real magic in the classical sense does really not exist.
No magic.. only what we do and don't understand. In my research, I'm trying to strike a medium between the existence of an intelligent source for our design and a logical explanation, though for the next... 50-300 thousand years it wil be a theory at best. I'm more or less taking a scientific, and open approach to the inquiry.
Most of earth fails to reach a concensus because one half believes that it's all God, and science is only our invention and is useless after a point.. and the other half believes that everything is the result of natural cycles.. which still negates that there has to have been a catalyst.. like tropical storms and mating cycles in the animal kingdom all have.. a catalyst which is at fault for their onset. That side just doesnt seem to want to accept that an actual intelligence may have been the catalyst for all that we see, hear, and know, no different than our own intelligence is responsible for our various creations and triumphant applications of knowledge and the power that comes with it.
What I think is that.. we all have half of the truth. I mean.. between humans, even our tallest tales and legends have a basis in the truth.. its just truth that has to be broken back down to the realistic version of what took place. And our instruments and detectors can only see so far into space, and so far into our planet. That and science is often obscured and sensored by various government interests.
What I'd like to do is take our two half truths.. and make one whole from it by going where we have not for whatever reasons, investigation wise. First.. we have to embrace that we don't know.. both sides. And.. take what we do know.. and what might make normal, logical sense.. and go with that.
We just have to be willing to start from the beggining, and accept that all our best hypothesis may indeed be totally wrong.. because we've all started the wrong way.. else we'd be alot further along than we are if we really knew so much.
Last edited by ICEman; 09/30/07 17:52.
I'm ICEman, and I approved this message.
|
|
|
Re: Why God exists
[Re: ICEman]
#144941
09/30/07 21:21
09/30/07 21:21
|
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 8,177
Netherlands
PHeMoX
Senior Expert
|
Senior Expert
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 8,177
Netherlands
|
We don't actually create as such a divine being would. It's a bit difficult to explain, but a plane is a plane because we assemble the parts together and gather the resource needed, not because we created the parts and/or the resources of those parts... it's a different kind of 'creation'. Quite literally we are creative with what's already here in some way or another. What we do is gather resources, change them using certain methods and assemble parts, but I think it's save to say that we can't create all ingredients needed for a plane out of thin air.. In a way it's similar to why people always wonder "why we are here", I think there might not be a real reason other than that life found a way ending up where it is now, us included. Why would something háve to make sense? On the other hand it's absolutely normal that things often do not seem to make any sense because of our lack of knowledge. Quote:
What I'd like to do is take our two half truths.. and make one whole from it by going where we have not for whatever reasons, investigation wise. First.. we have to embrace that we don't know.. both sides. And.. take what we do know.. and what might make normal, logical sense.. and go with that.
The best thing to do would be to go with what we dó know and not too fantasize too much about what or how it *could* be. And if our knowledge is not enough to base logical or valid conclusions upon, then perhaps we should not try to do it anyways? This sounds more agnostic than it was meant.
However, if you think that somewhere a giant ball must exists and you think to know that it must have a color, but you obviously do not know which color exactly because you haven't seen this giant ball and technically can't know for sure if it exists, then why claim that it's blue anyways?? That doesn't make sense (nor is it half of the truth). Most atheists do not think that there even is a giant ball, but religious people often mistake our opinions as if we are saying that it's not a blue ball but a red one... It's exactly the reason why I do not believe in any religion, they pretend to know things they can not know.
Perhaps the moment religious people start to accept all kinds of discoveries already made long ago that disprove all kinds of parts of the Bible and so on, the easier it'll be to investigate this subject without bias and together. Science is often biased too you might say, but at least it's based on evidence and not just emotion and wishful thinking.
Personally I think it's a lost cause trying to uncover more about God through combining these 'two truths'. Science can not prove everything and the religious or perhaps philosophical aspects of why a divine entity should/could or must exist can't quite be proven either. How can you test those ideas when the 'main subject' is either not there or not physically reachable? We can't. In short, I believe we can only find evidence of why God is unlikely to exist and nothing more.
Quote:
Why can't we have been? Are we too special to be the result of a blueprint and lines of programming code?
I do not believe in aliens before ever having seen one, but I don't think there's a good reason to assume that we are special. If 'we' can happen once then there's no reason to assume it can not have happened twice elsewhere.
Our history has shown many times that inventions got lost and that people needed the same things in the same situation and eventually ended up inventing nearly the same things.
Quote:
No magic.. only what we do and don't understand.
Yes, which is exactly why people shouldn't hold on to outdated beliefs, in the historical sense religion has always been both a tool of control and an 'easy answer to tough questions' whatever their nature. That's something that's not helping very much either... If people would have more knowledge about other religions and how similar they all are in terms of 'make a large group controllable', there would be a lot less religious people. Why is it easy for people to totally not believe in for example Egyptian Gods or Allah and laugh at it as if it's one big childish myth, but still believe in their own "God" as if that's less fictional?
Is it really to easy to simply think that the whole idea of a God is ridiculous in the first place and should we therefore continue searching for something when we don't even know what to look for?
Cheers
|
|
|
Re: Why God exists
[Re: PHeMoX]
#144942
10/01/07 00:17
10/01/07 00:17
|
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 535
Michigan
ICEman
Developer
|
Developer
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 535
Michigan
|
Quote:
We don't actually create as such a divine being would. It's a bit difficult to explain, but a plane is a plane because we assemble the parts together and gather the resource needed, not because we created the parts and/or the resources of those parts... it's a different kind of 'creation'. Quite literally we are creative with what's already here in some way or another. What we do is gather resources, change them using certain methods and assemble parts, but I think it's save to say that we can't create all ingredients needed for a plane out of thin air..
That's again assuming it takes a divine level of skill or ability to create life. That's an assumption we attribute to the fact we can't do it, nor can we come close.. so we assume that it takes divine power to do it. My contingent is that it doesnt.. and that as far beyond our ability as it might be.. it still doesn't take a divine power to do it.. just an extremely superior intellect.
And also.. i really dont refer to the machine's weve'e made but.. for all we know.. the universe could be a machine. Does it not have similar characteristics to one?
We've split the atom, decoded DNA, plotted surgical procedures.. I hardly mean our constructs so much as our applications of the knowledge we uncover and hone. Our knowledge gives us power, and we use that power in our applications.
Why is it so unfeasible that creation is the result of principally similar learning, honing and applying? Certainly makes more sense than anything we've theorized fo far.
Quote:
The best thing to do would be to go with what we dó know and not too fantasize too much about what or how it *could* be. And if our knowledge is not enough to base logical or valid conclusions upon, then perhaps we should not try to do it anyways? This sounds more agnostic than it was meant.
You can't begin to solve a question if you don't form a logical hypothesis based on what you know. Scientists, CSIs, Officers all do it, and their jobs are to solve inquiries. Admittedly, scientists come closer than the religious to doing so.. but still even they are closed to all possibilities. That's the main reason they dismiss God. (Rightfully so.. all powerful beings who are thus just because.. dont make sense.. but whatever's responsible for this universe.. didnt have to be all powerful either).
You have to ask the right questions, and develop comprehensive leads to follow to get you started.. if you expect to get the right answers. So far, neither side of the debate has done that, and that's why we are stuck, one side clenching their good books, the other clenching their textbooks.
Quote:
However, if you think that somewhere a giant ball must exists and you think to know that it must have a color, but you obviously do not know which color exactly because you haven't seen this giant ball and technically can't know for sure if it exists, then why claim that it's blue anyways?? That doesn't make sense (nor is it half of the truth)
Well.. giant balls and God are.. kind of apple and oranges. One.. well i couldnt begin to equate it but a giant ball existing or not existing would have shreds of evidence that the speculating originates from.
One thing about humans is that we are not iriginal creatures. Everything we imagine is inspired by something. Some partial truth that did happen.. regardless of how we stretched it.
So.. supposing we did believe in the big giant ball. You can bet that at some point.. there may have indeed been a collosal ball. It might not have cured sickness or been shining gold, or blinded all who looked upon it.. but at some point.. there mustve been a ball. Might notve been a special one.. and it might nto exist anymore. But, like with God, the way you approach that question is 1- Dismiss the divinity and pencil erase the talltale, 2 dont hold the fact that it has many stretched truths or made up parts discount the whole thing alltogether.
Then.. you infer, and you speculate a logical.. nonspecial theory.. of what and where this giant ball might have existed. You dont know, ut this is how all investigative people form a trail. Theorizing.
Then you start digging.. going elsewhere and digging.. and forensically investigating.. until the pieces of the ball.. and the great big dent one which the ball mightve once rested.. are found.
Quote:
I do not believe in aliens before ever having seen one, but I don't think there's a good reason to assume that we are special.
You dont neccesarily have to believe something for it to be.. but you'll never know its there if you don't acknowledge the possibility.
We can.. not believe in aliens all we want.. but the only way we'll know if they exist is if we have the openmindedness to get out there and seek them out. and be willing to challenge our beliefs.
Quote:
If 'we' can happen once then there's no reason to assume it can not have happened twice elsewhere.
Our history has shown many times that inventions got lost and that people needed the same things in the same situation and eventually ended up inventing nearly the same things.
That's the very same type of inference I'm using. Taking what you know to be true..infering.. theorizing.. my next step, if I owned a warp capable private ship and some excavation equipment.. would be to investigate. I just happen to believe, based on the idea that nothing complex occurs without forthought and creation, and that our universe is exactly an infinitely more complicated manifestation of forthought and creation .
I could easily be wrong.. but it makes more sense than.. it springing forth just because.. or from natural cycles that have no specific catalyst that set off the big bang and started the whole chain. As I further substantiate my theory, it might well become the best basis for comprehensive pursuit of the question.
Quote:
Quote:
No magic.. only what we do and don't understand.
Yes, which is exactly why people shouldn't hold on to outdated beliefs, in the historical sense religion has always been both a tool of control and an 'easy answer to tough questions' whatever their nature. That's something that's not helping very much either... If people would have more knowledge about other religions and how similar they all are in terms of 'make a large group controllable', there would be a lot less religious people. Why is it easy for people to totally not believe in for example Egyptian Gods or Allah and laugh at it as if it's one big childish myth, but still believe in their own "God" as if that's less fictional?
Well.. you have religious communities who are unwilling to admit they might be wrong, and most of the scientific world is also guity of that. Nobody's willing to compromis,e much less start over.. which is why our pursuit so far has bene anything but productive.
Quote:
Is it really to easy to simply think that the whole idea of a God is ridiculous in the first place and should we therefore continue searching for something when we don't even know what to look for?
Cheers
Yes, it is too easy. Nothing in our universe has a simple answer. If it did, we wouldnt need science or math to make sense of it where the answers arent apparent.. and sometimes even when they are.
Part of the reason we're so lost on this is because one side believes in a magical, all powerful (because he's magical) God. The other half believes its totally ridiculous.. there's nothing out there capable of a universe without being magical.. and neither side is willing to challenge that basis.
My contingent is that complex things dont just spring into being.. accidentally, from thin air, as the result of originless natural process.. just as atoms dont spontaneously coaless and form compounds unless something induces it.. that something being an intelligence that wants to induce the fusion, fission, or distabilization in order to make a result.
This is just a theory, but it makes a great deal more sense than divine magic, and its much less open ended than originless natural processes. I'm willing to start over if someday I find myself wrong, but that's why it's a theory.. and I wouldnt live my life or base my career on certainty in the half-truth, like almost all modern humans are doing.
(I term religious teaching.. and modern science as halves of the truth because theyre not totally and compeltely off.. just missing alot of fact and leading people astray because they chose to embrace both as the complete truth).
I'm ICEman, and I approved this message.
|
|
|
Re: Why God exists
[Re: ICEman]
#144943
10/01/07 23:37
10/01/07 23:37
|
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 8,177
Netherlands
PHeMoX
Senior Expert
|
Senior Expert
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 8,177
Netherlands
|
Quote:
That's again assuming it takes a divine level of skill or ability to create life. That's an assumption we attribute to the fact we can't do it, nor can we come close..
Yeah, it's an assumption indeed, but that's just me going with what we know sort of. I'm confident we will be able to create life at some point in time, but most probably never out of nothing like *poof* there it is... That's the supernatural aspect about divine creation that doesn't make sense.
Quote:
Why is it so unfeasible that creation is the result of principally similar learning, honing and applying? Certainly makes more sense than anything we've theorized fo far.
I do agree with you to some extent, perhaps we will be able to create, but I hardly think it will be similar to this divine creation people attribute to God.
If anything, there might be some sense in a designer taking advantage of the evolution principles that if in place will alter life automatically creating new lifeforms constantly, but this whole process seems so automated and 'natural', that I clearly do not see why divine design and ultimately creation at the start of it makes sense.
Cheers
|
|
|
Re: Why God exists
[Re: PHeMoX]
#144944
10/02/07 23:04
10/02/07 23:04
|
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 535
Michigan
ICEman
Developer
|
Developer
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 535
Michigan
|
Quote:
Quote:
That's again assuming it takes a divine level of skill or ability to create life. That's an assumption we attribute to the fact we can't do it, nor can we come close..
Yeah, it's an assumption indeed, but that's just me going with what we know sort of. I'm confident we will be able to create life at some point in time, but most probably never out of nothing like *poof* there it is... That's the supernatural aspect about divine creation that doesn't make sense.
Indeed it doesn't make sense. Our own physical universe to date proves that there's more to it than just poof. So it stands to reason that the method of creation was more than just "poof, there it is".
(Although.. I happen to think that the moment described in religious text when God said "Let there be light" might be what he said to himself (the same way some people working on a project often do when there's no one around and their in the zone) flipped the switch on his machine (our universe) and hoped it all worked and dominoed correctly.
Next moment... fooosh... the "Big Bang" happens.. and for the few seconds he lives, or from wherever distance away, he watches as his calculations execute.. and all the loose atoms he used fly apart and start spreading and coalescing into molecules, and molecules into compounds.. so on so forth.. just the way he designed it to. Then somewhere along came the reactions that created a special carbon arrangement that encompasses a whole section of his chalkboard.. a carbon arrangement to be the base of our kind of life.. perhaps other atomic arrangements to be the bases for other forms of life in his design.)
This.. is where we seem to agree.. and why my theory-in-progress de-devinifies "God".. as being more of an ultra-advanced scientist/ mathematician than a magician.
I may get stoned for it, but for me, and anyone who approaches it with logic would see the argument and see the realism (granted the scale is hard to fathom if you stay confined to what it and isnt possible for us humans to do). It stands to reason.. and is far too widely accounted (though the latter doesnt mean much) that some kind of deliberate intelligence set things into motion. The universe, and we, are far too complex to be accidents.
What's more.. it stands to universe wass created and things continue to be created.. by us and through continuation of what we see as natural process.. according to the processes dictated by science and predictable by math. The way things live, function and die out all make mathematical/scienfitic sense, so it stands to reason it was created by means abiding by said principals.
We most likely are an advanced experiment; the final product"God"'s own life's work.. first and final scientific marvel. Not just poof.. there. More like.. years of calculation.. years of formulation.. years of predicting and years of designing. Years of developing a method and means of manifesting.. all the same processes we go through when we want to create with our knowledge.
It only doesnt seem like such is possible without magic.. but that's because we can't do it, nor will we be able to for a long long time into our future. We humans gage alot on what we can't do and what we can't imagine.
That's why God was given divinity. Rest assured a creator was there.. he just became a tall tale, just like there was a real Daniel Boone and a real John Henry who were larger than life people.. only people made that so in a literal sense over time.
For me, there's only two (though big) things what separate us from whoever "God" was:
One.. our level of knowledge. We're far too young to do much of anything. Not even knowledged enouhg to get off our own planet.
And then there's main reason why that is: and why we will not soon create such things as life: Our level of wisdom is not proportionate to our knowledge.. as His/hers/it's must've been in order to be inspired thusly.
Of course.. when there's nothing around to destroy (what seems to be our most carnal instinct).. what else can you do but create?
To me the strongest evidence of anything being responsible is inference.. inference and logic. While we know nothing of who or what..
We know things like life, engines, stars, volcanoes, nuclear reactors and such dont just spring into being from incoherent atoms.. and we also know nothing poofs them into being. Neither of those makes sense.. and both arguments are essentially what the current world accepts. What we also know is that there is a method to how we are born.. no different then there is methond behind the mechanes we engineer.. and that this method makes scientific sense.
So that's why my current theory that I am fleshing out is that someone.. not a magical being.. but obviously an intelligence.. obviously powerful because of that, capability wise.. and much further along the chain of mathamtical and scientific prowess.. used that knowledge to craft (not poof.. craft) all that you see and you hear and you know into being. We aren't "divine" design. There's nothing divine about us. What I'm proposing is that it's the the result of far superiour intellect's design. No diviinity included.
Something didnt want to be alone.. maybe it was a man.. maybe a sentient gas cloud.. maybe a grouping of electrons that became self aware.. but it didnt want to be alone.. and there was nothing to tear up.. so it learned.. and it learned until it could take the incoherent atoms around it.. and some of itself.. and create something to exist when its gone.. the most extreme of those somethings he imagined.. life forms.
I might not know enough to say that this is what's definately true, but you must admit it makes a great deal of realistic sense. I think I'm closer to home (far as starting with a realistic, but homaged guess) than most religious teachings, and much less arrogant than current science.
We'll see in about 250,000 years. I just wish we'd all embrace the idea that the whole answer is not here on earth, isnt complete in any of our books.. and that we are starting with all the wrong preclusions.. and that is why we are getting pretty much nowhere on the question.
I wish we'd also understand that we don't need the right answer to get along as a species.. we need to formulate the right theory.. and the right question in order to come up with a true answer. The next step is to make ourselves better so thta we can develop what we need to get out there and find the answer.
The thing is.. we aren't the way we are because we do or don't know who God is. If someone told us the absolute truth, it wouldnt change us much.. even if we all accepted it. We have more immediate knowledges and wisdoms we are in need of.
"God" really is one of us.. in that he's just an exceptional being. He can't save us. We have to change and behave differently, if we plan to live beyond the next few centuries. No "God" can save us.. because he'dve done so by now.. irreversibly.. if he had that power. Don't contend that I don't know the way "God" works. Even he has to make sense, magical or not.
As a parent, no one let's their child.. the result of years of love and labor.. make fatal mistakes and be gone forever, and as a creator.. you don't just let your creation.. the product of your hardwork... destroy itself.. if you can help it.. no matter how much you want it to leanr a lesson about it's mistake.
He created this universe to make sense.. and thats why it does. To do this, he had to also be a master logician. So.. even if he were magical.. letting even one tiny sect of work he truly cares about tear itself apart wouldnt make sense if he had the divine ability to stop it.
Life and death are a part of his design, but not self inflicted extinction. That's we're given intellect and ability to save ourselves. Our problem, and the tragedy of this world and the humans on it is.. we are not applying our own power, nor the full extent of the wisdom we do have.. and that's why we are headed the way we are.. and why we are not where we want to be.
Our biggest problems, to me, are here on earth and not in heaven,:). I dont understand why we even want to find out who or where God is.. seek him out.. and bring him home to see us.. when our house is dirty, our bodies are unkept, and we fight and behave, as a race, like snotty, rivalling children still.
Last edited by ICEman; 10/02/07 23:54.
I'm ICEman, and I approved this message.
|
|
|
Re: Why God exists
[Re: ICEman]
#144945
10/03/07 02:39
10/03/07 02:39
|
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 8,177
Netherlands
PHeMoX
Senior Expert
|
Senior Expert
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 8,177
Netherlands
|
You bring up some interesting points. The one that started the universe doesn't have to have been all-powerful at all, 'creation can't simply be *poof* and there it is' and so on. I actually agree with you on quite a lot of those points. Problem is by definition "God" is claimed to be all those things or be able to do his 'instant magic'. That doesn't make sense, even if creation to some extent does make sense For example it may seem illogical that there would have been or are things that simply exist and that's it, no creator, no start, just existing.. But then again, there are all kinds of logic. It doesn't take much to come to the conclusion that the "God" as it's usually is defined; allpowerful, doing his 'poof' creation and so on, is simply impossible... I think the whole idea of creation is an extension of his ancient attributes. People wanted to look up to something that was huge, so huge that it has to be allpowerful and be able to create with the snap of his finger or even a mere thought would do. Quote:
(Although.. I happen to think that the moment described in religious text when God said "Let there be light" might be what he said to himself (the same way some people working on a project often do when there's no one around and their in the zone) flipped the switch on his machine (our universe) and hoped it all worked and dominoed correctly.
The Bible may have meant it as such, and it is a nice metaphor to describe that something 'activated' or 'started' indeed. However, it's totally logical that this was written in a scripture as the Bible. That line is there for a reason and our language is actually limited, so yeah, it's not that strange that they wrote 'And then there was light' or 'Let there be light' (because we don't really know the original line anymore, it's one of the more famous lines that also has changed through time). Apart from that it's also subject to different interpretations, like many great parts and often almost cryptic parts of the bible.
It could mean so many things and this really only shows how limited our language is and how 'undefined' the line is. So.. although I do see logic in your interpretation, it could mean so many things.
Off course, then I haven't even started about why I think that the Bible itself can not even hold information about this creation, nor God because quite frankly it's impossible for a creation story to accurately survive being told in (oral) stories for centuries and centuries and centuries and so on... in fact, humans are a rather young species, especially the more intelligent ones, how come they 'get' to know about this in the first place???? Doesn't make much sense to me, why would we receive things that other species do not? Although we are currently quite different from most species in regard to intelligence and so on, there has been times where we were just dumb naked monkeys for million of years.... How does that fit into your picture of the grand scheme?
Cheers
|
|
|
Re: Why God exists
[Re: PHeMoX]
#144946
10/04/07 17:20
10/04/07 17:20
|
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 535
Michigan
ICEman
Developer
|
Developer
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 535
Michigan
|
Quote:
You bring up some interesting points. The one that started the universe doesn't have to have been all-powerful at all, 'creation can't simply be *poof* and there it is' and so on. I actually agree with you on quite a lot of those points. Problem is by definition "God" is claimed to be all those things or be able to do his 'instant magic'. That doesn't make sense, even if creation to some extent does make sense For example it may seem illogical that there would have been or are things that simply exist and that's it, no creator, no start, just existing.. But then again, there are all kinds of logic.
Then I guess "God" is the wrong word alltogether. I use it more as a name. What I'm (and we all probably should be) looking for is a creator.. not a God at all
Quote:
It doesn't take much to come to the conclusion that the "God" as it's usually is defined; allpowerful, doing his 'poof' creation and so on, is simply impossible...
I think the whole idea of creation is an extension of his ancient attributes. People wanted to look up to something that was huge, so huge that it has to be allpowerful and be able to create with the snap of his finger or even a mere thought would do.
Maybe not that they wanted to see something huge.. but put yourself as one of the first species of intelligent life.. maybe before there ever were humans or arborial species. You're alot closer to the point of beggining, so the data's alot more fresh. Any words that were uttered for the universe to hear are thousands of generations less distorted. Even so.. they saw this.. and it was far beyond their comprehension how the universe could be the work, much less the concept, of a mortal being.. or physical being of any kind.. even the little they understand of the working.. most of it still seems to heavy and too complex for any living thing.. but their being closer to the evidence leads them to know it was in fatc an exceptional individual.. and then as the generations pass.. and as its passed from species to species so that some part of the original story survives.. it gets shaped and exxagerated until the creator who was maybe witnessed by the very first of all sentient intelligent life.. becomes a God.. and is made so from then on.
That's how all tall tales happen. If you've ever done that experiment in a college class where someone starts with one story and passes it to the next person, and how it changes completely by the time it gets to the last, you'd see what I mean.
The Bible may have meant it as such, and it is a nice metaphor to describe that something 'activated' or 'started' indeed. However, it's totally logical that this was written in a scripture as the Bible. That line is there for a reason and our language is actually limited, so yeah, it's not that strange that they wrote 'And then there was light' or 'Let there be light' (because we don't really know the original line anymore, it's one of the more famous lines that also has changed through time). Apart from that it's also subject to different interpretations, like many great parts and often almost cryptic parts of the bible.
It could mean so many things and this really only shows how limited our language is and how 'undefined' the line is. So.. although I do see logic in your interpretation, it could mean so many things.
Quote:
Off course, then I haven't even started about why I think that the Bible itself can not even hold information about this creation, nor God because quite frankly it's impossible for a creation story to accurately survive being told in (oral) stories for centuries and centuries and centuries and so on... in fact, humans are a rather young species, especially the more intelligent ones, how come they 'get' to know about this in the first place???? Doesn't make much sense to me, why would we receive things that other species do not? Although we are currently quite different from most species in regard to intelligence and so on, there has been times where we were just dumb naked monkeys for million of years.... How does that fit into your picture of the grand scheme?
This is why I say religious teachings are half true. They contain some of the knowledge, obviously.. just like any survived information.. but I don't buy into them for two reasons: One..they are too theistic.. too ready to leave it at "God made us".. and two.. if they were the complete truth, the Torah, Bible, Koran and so forth would all say exactly the same thing.. and they can't all be right .
Quote:
How does that fit into your picture of the grand scheme?
See..I'm nto concretely sure.. but I don't really accept that ALL humans came from Monkeys.. on the basis that you dont seem them changing in anyway today.
As research continues on the various human forms that exist today, all thats been said about the differences in brain structure and mass and such is being challenged and shattered. Just so I'm not blowing smoke I'll try to find a transcript from a particular national geographic ep where they explored these different pigmi and "subhuman" tribes who, according to Darwinist writings about differences in brain structure making a difference in intellect and cognitive ability.. should not have been the least bit as smart as a modern human.
But what they found was that these species, though tribal,.. and with very different brain structures.. were at least as smart and as capable as modern humans just smaller and with different shaped meat slabs.. erm..brains.
What this says to me is that they are also wrong about neanderthals, sapiens and so forth. I can't say that they werent human.. or different humans than we are now.. but what's also being found are older skeletons of modern sapien humans.. some brushing shoulders with the dinosaurs, time-wise.
So.. what I think is that humans were always.. more close to how they are now.. perhaps considerably bigger.. due to the higher concentrations of oxygen that existed from that time to now.. but they occured in different forms too..which is where you get sapiens, neands and such. I think we all came from an imprint human closer to modern man, though. Offbranches happened, but it's being continually uncovered that we at least existed in modern form for much longer than originally though.
I have an entire theory of evolution as well, but I doubt you'd be interested lol.
I'm ICEman, and I approved this message.
|
|
|
Re: Why God exists
[Re: ICEman]
#144947
10/04/07 18:42
10/04/07 18:42
|
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 535
Michigan
ICEman
Developer
|
Developer
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 535
Michigan
|
@ Phemox: So then, between you and me at least.. the concensus seems to be that 1- There is not, never was, and never will be a "God".. because "God"..being defined as an all powerful divninity who has it all and can do it all with nothing more than the tip of a finger.. makes no sense in the physical universe in which everything else.. whether or not we understand it all...does. and 2- It also stands to reason, though it isn't fact.. it just makes alot of sense... that SOME.. kind of DELIBERATED.. and therefore INTELLIGENT.. and.. far SUPERIOR..(DUE TO HAVING OR ACQUIRING IN HIS/HER/ITS' LIFETIME.. FAR SUPERIOUR INTELLECT, WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE).. being.. is very likely the one who got the bowling ball rolling. Not a special, magic being.. just one far more powerful.. (perhaps close to all powerful) through knowledge and wisdom. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems we might have accidentally come to the same pages on those two thoughts. So.. if we agree on that.. then maybe I might pose another question to you.  What do you think said creator was like? Some people have argued that we can't know the gender.. or if it was in fact an individual's responsibility.. as opposed to a whole race's. I think, that too can be inferred, logically. So here's my thoughts.. and this I guess is where my totally arbitrary opinion starts but.. now that we seem to have a general agreement, let's go from there to mroe specific speculation It'll be fun. So.. I think... said creator.. was an individual.. on the basis that.. groups, crowd, races of people.. we don't agree on anything.. not readily.. and not enouhg to create a sensible whole. Think back to your school projects.. usually it took ages when you worked in groups.. to come to a agreed whole ..and when you did.. you could always see the elements of each person in the final product. If it was ever done quickly or smoothly, or to a fluid design, it's because the one agreement you did come to was to let the one or two smartest in the group do all the work . There is no such thing as total harmony within a group unless they are malleable and gullible.. and you can't be wise enough for such creation as the universe, even if you have all the knowledge.. if you are gullible and malleable. You might be capable of great things.. just not that. Groups and societies have politics.. they have agendas.. bottom line being that all of this would've kept thme in a constant state of dissagreement about what to use the knowledge for.. and how it should be. Forthermore.. I think it was either asexual.. or female. Male's have too strong an inclination toward violence and destruction.. and not forthwith enough an inclination toward creation and beauty. About the only reason you dont know about any female painters from Van Gogh to now is most likely because females were barred from alot of contribution to society.. in just about every society.. until fairly recently. Were they not barred and prohibited by male dominant societies, you would certainly find that there were more female (and more talented) artists and inventors than the males we acknowledge into history. The famale of any species is put here with the task of creation and nurture. This is what she has done for ages since the begigning of sexual distinction for animal life. This is why she is better than us at giving life, teaching life, and taking care of life. Females are capable of more compassion and tenderness than any male.. their instincts are much stronger, and that seems to be why they are the mothers . Given this knowledge, the first thing most women would do is create.. be it a child or.. something else mobile and with beauty. For a male.. it would be maybe the second, after we realize there's nothing to blow up with it. This is a difference in our basic instincts.. one which we dont always abide to but this is why overall, the female is the mother, and so forth. In houses where there is just the mother, like mine growing up, you'll notice they do alot better, because a single mother is alot more steadfast and dedicated and selfless than the average single father. Not that single fathers are bad, but they do not have the instinctual devotion to do the job as well. More often than not, it's more dutiful than extention of their own life for a male. That reflects in the quality of the child. So.. this is why I believe ..well I dont want to use the G word because we just got out of that monkeycrapfling... our creator..was either more feminine.. or female alltogether.. and was a single person.
I'm ICEman, and I approved this message.
|
|
|
Re: Why God exists
[Re: ICEman]
#144948
10/04/07 19:23
10/04/07 19:23
|
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 8,177
Netherlands
PHeMoX
Senior Expert
|
Senior Expert
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 8,177
Netherlands
|
Quote:
See..I'm nto concretely sure.. but I don't really accept that ALL humans came from Monkeys.. on the basis that you dont seem them changing in anyway today.
The evidence does point quite clearly in that direction though. The line between monkeys and humans is a gradient stretched over a long time-span. It's perhaps difficult to accept the idea, but why would other species evolve from one kind into the next and we don't? It's not like monkeys now are thát much different from us either, eventhough there's still a reasonably huge evolutionary difference (don't walk upright, not so smart and so on).
Quote:
Then I guess "God" is the wrong word alltogether.
Yes it is. Simply because it's our definition. We can't know what God is, well except for the "God" we defined...
Quote:
but put yourself as one of the first species of intelligent life.. maybe before there ever were humans or arborial species. You're alot closer to the point of beggining, so the data's alot more fresh. Any words that were uttered for the universe to hear are thousands of generations less distorted. Even so.. they saw this.. and it was far beyond their comprehension how the universe could be the work, much less the concept, of a mortal being.. or physical being of any kind.. even the little they understand of the working.. most of it still seems to heavy and too complex for any living thing.. but their being closer to the evidence leads them to know it was in fatc an exceptional individual.. and then as the generations pass.. and as its passed from species to species so that some part of the original story survives.. it gets shaped and exxagerated until the creator who was maybe witnessed by the very first of all sentient intelligent life.. becomes a God.. and is made so from then on.
That's how all tall tales happen. If you've ever done that experiment in a college class where someone starts with one story and passes it to the next person, and how it changes completely by the time it gets to the last, you'd see what I mean.
Yes, off course the tale itself will change dramatically, but there are no witnesses who could possibly know. That's my biggest problem actually. Off course I do not believe in Jesus and all the other prophets with their messages, so religious people would probably consider me biased, but just because they (or someone else) wrote down their thoughts of what they were convinced doesn't mean their stories can't be wrong, end up getting mixed up by the tell tale mechanic and so on. There's little real value because of how stories end up being completely different because of how people tell these stories to others... in a classroom it's perhaps one week that people talk about the story and change it, the content of the Bible (especially in the early years) was being told for years and years at least.
Quote:
They contain some of the knowledge, obviously.. just like any survived information..
Perhaps it was meant as entertainment? There are some good entertaining stories that talk about morality and so on just the same. (lol, think Star Wars.) I don't believe any information has survived simply because of the role this scripture has played in history and because of how in became a tool instead of a valuable source.
Quote:
But what they found was that these species, though tribal,.. and with very different brain structures.. were at least as smart and as capable as modern humans just smaller and with different shaped meat slabs.. erm..brains.
What this says to me is that they are also wrong about neanderthals, sapiens and so forth. I can't say that they werent human.. or different humans than we are now.. but what's also being found are older skeletons of modern sapien humans.. some brushing shoulders with the dinosaurs, time-wise.
Brushing shoulders? As far as we can tell there's a gigantic time between humans and dinosaurs. Don't forget that dinosaurs went extinct over 65 million years ago (based on our current knowledge). There's no way the human species can be thát old.
As far as brain size and intelligence... yes, I guess scientists might have been wrong indeed. But there have always been some scientists that said that size doesn't matter, because you don't know whether the brain would have a very dense structure or not along with some other characteristics that are believed to influence the 'intelligence'. But... how do you measure intelligence if size doesn't matter? I think as far as tool making human species, you can conclude that they weren't all that stupid, but it's still totally impossible to compare to us whether they were equally as smart. It's not technology that defines how smart you are, but neither is brain size apparently.
Quote:
I think we all came from an imprint human closer to modern man, though. Offbranches happened, but it's being continually uncovered that we at least existed in modern form for much longer than originally though.
The evolutionary gradient between monkeys and humans are those earlier human species. Our generation of people that lived the last 1000 years obviously doesn't come from the monkeys that lived 7 million years ago or so, but from species closer to us that have parents that have parents and so on that did come from those monkeys.
The difference between point 0 in time (monkeys) and point 7 million (us right now) can't be covered with just one step.
I don't believe we as a modern species lived longer, because lately there have been some changes in what is considered 'modern' and what not. I think dating the finds in most cases show that there are gaps that don't fit that theory, eventhough I wouldn't be surprised if the modern species did live longer. It's not like our knowledge is perfect on this. We can easily be wrong about the time spans, but newer finds are needed to say anything useful about this.
Quote:
1- There is not, never was, and never will be a "God".. because "God"..being defined as an all powerful divninity who has it all and can do it all with nothing more than the tip of a finger.. makes no sense in the physical universe in which everything else.. whether or not we understand it all...does.
and
2- It also stands to reason, though it isn't fact.. it just makes alot of sense... that SOME.. kind of DELIBERATED.. and therefore INTELLIGENT.. and.. far SUPERIOR..(DUE TO HAVING OR ACQUIRING IN HIS/HER/ITS' LIFETIME.. FAR SUPERIOUR INTELLECT, WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE).. being.. is very likely the one who got the bowling ball rolling. Not a special, magic being.. just one far more powerful.. (perhaps close to all powerful) through knowledge and wisdom.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems we might have accidentally come to the same pages on those two thoughts.;)
Yes, I do agree indeed, but I do not agree that it's "very likely" that there has been a creator as described in point 2. I do think that it's a possibility, but in terms of likeliness we disagree. In my opinion certain aspects of creation do not make sense, but it's both difficult to describe why I think so and difficult to defend too. At some points it might feel contradicting, on other points not at all when it comes to logic.
Quote:
There is no such thing as total harmony within a group unless they are malleable and gullible.. and you can't be wise enough for such creation as the universe, even if you have all the knowledge.. if you are gullible and malleable. You might be capable of great things.. just not that. Groups and societies have politics.. they have agendas.. bottom line being that all of this would've kept thme in a constant state of dissagreement about what to use the knowledge for.. and how it should be.
This would be all the more reason for me to think of 'creation' as an accident actually. The whole idea of an all powerful being is completely nuts. There's no such thing as a being with infinity knowledge. But off course this is again about the 'defined' "God". I do think that it's quite valid for the 'creator' still though, and furthermore would infinity knowledge be required to be able to create? I don't think so.
Quote:
Forthermore.. I think it was either asexual.. or female.
I don't think we can say anything useful about that, because neither are females always the lesser dominant part of a species nor do we know whether the creator must have been part of a species itself. Is it likely that there were a whole bunch of creators? If the universe is flooded with life perhaps yes to some extent, but since, at least in our closest proximity, we haven't found extraterrestrial life... it's an open question. Off course we also know the philosophical question too; "if a creator created us, then who created the creator?". Somehow, and I guess that's my opinion, it logically implies that it's impossible to have a creator as a being itself.
Cheers
|
|
|
|
