Does God need to prove He exists?
in [Physics]
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From: The Loan Arranger on 17 Jul 2008 12:06 rbwinn wrote: > On Jul 17, 4:11 am, The Loan Arranger <no...(a)nowhere.invalid> wrote: >> ...and any psychopath with temporal lobe epilepsy or schizophrenia who >> believes that massacring groups or whole races is OK, because they've >> God on their side. However, the point that you're trying to dodge, and >> failing, is that as much evil is done in the name of religion, in this >> case Christian religion, as is done by those with none - probably more. >> If you don't find that an uncomfortable truth, you need to recalibrate >> your humanity. >> >> TLA- Hide quoted text - >> > Well, I don't really see much evidence of it. Stalin and Pol Pot were > both atheists. Yes, and the Crusader Popes, and the Bush family, and Hitler, and several genocidal factions of the Serbo-Croat wars, and the warring factions in Northern Ireland were Christians, mostly (Hitler excepted) killing in by they considered to be their version of God's will. We can both find examples until the cows come home, and each successive example advances the argument not one jot. I said it before, and it bears repeating - neither Christian nor atheist can claim the moral high ground when it comes to genocide or mass murder or war-making. > But politicians who killed large numbers of people > cannot compare with the numbers of people killed by abortion, which > was done by governments controlled by atheistic political factions. You're confusing secular with atheist. You really don't understand what "atheist" means, do you? Or rather, you choose not to make the distinction between atheist, agnostic, satanist, secular, and so on. It's either ignorance, wilful stupidity, or trolling, and the jury's out. TLA
From: Ben Dolan on 17 Jul 2008 12:17 Alex W. <ingilt(a)yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > Well, Christian are those that say they follow a god of love, who in > fact follow one of the most evil deities of all history. > > ====== > > I guess it depends on your definition of "love". > If you include the obsessive-compulsive stalking sadistic bunny-boiling kind > of love, Christians are right on track .... Or the crazy, "fantasy confused with reality" cartoon-story superhero on a stick kind of love, Christians are right on track ....
From: Alex W. on 17 Jul 2008 13:50 "Ben Dolan" <ben_dolan_III(a)reet.com> wrote in message news:1ik7tav.1aovut8wr1yksN%ben_dolan_III(a)reet.com... > Alex W. <ingilt(a)yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > >> Well, Christian are those that say they follow a god of love, who in >> fact follow one of the most evil deities of all history. >> >> ====== >> >> I guess it depends on your definition of "love". >> If you include the obsessive-compulsive stalking sadistic bunny-boiling >> kind >> of love, Christians are right on track .... > > Or the crazy, "fantasy confused with reality" cartoon-story superhero on > a stick kind of love, Christians are right on track .... IME, most love confuses fantasy with reality. Hormones, cultural conditioning and our innate ability to believe six impossible things before breakfast usually ensure a never-ending source of work for divorce lawyers and romance writers ....
From: James Burns on 17 Jul 2008 13:53 Antares 531 wrote: > On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:35:16 +0200, Helgo Land > <members(a)nospam.com> wrote: >>The real question is 'Does God need to exist'? ;) > > Define "God." > > The natural laws, order and control of the multiverse? > Cosmic sentience? My toaster? It's always an option to widen the definition of "God" until whatever is defined exists. (In case you were wondering, my toaster exists, and I can prove it.) However, changing the definition merely dodges the original question, replacing it with one that seems the same superficially. Suppose you can prove (in some sense) the existence of God -- meaning the existence of natural laws, order and control (causality?) of the multiverse or the existence of a cosmic sentience, how does that advance the project of proving the existence of God -- where "God" /now/ refers to some sort of being that people actually care exists or does not exist? I don't think people will care whether your god exists: Pascal Boyer notes in /Religion Explained/(2001) that the Fang (an ethnic group in Africa) have two creators: Mebeghe, creator of natural things and Nzame, creator of cultural things. However, they do not pay much attention those two. The Fang do treat the spirits of their ancestors in what we might think of as a religious way: they sacrifice pigs to them, they ask for help with crops and diseases, and, most importantly, /they assume the spirits have strategic information/. "Strategic information" seems to be a technical term. A being with strategic information knows who has been breaking taboos, who has been keeping their word, and so on. They "know if you've been bad or good; so be good, for goodness sake." When missionaries convinced some of the Fang that Nzame has this strategic information, it became reasonable from the Fang point of view to transfer the rituals, sacrifices and prayers to Nzame, instead of their ancestral spirits. "The powerful gods are not necessarily the ones that matter; but the ones that have strategic information always matter." (Boyer 2001, p160) It seems to me that this God of the laws of physics has a lot in common with the (pre-missionary) creator Mebeghe of the Fang. I strongly suspect that, even if you prove it exists, interest in it will fade away -- probably to be replaced by interest in some other supernatural being, probably completely unsubstantiated, but definitely interested in what we humans do to each other. Jim Burns
From: Alex W. on 17 Jul 2008 13:54
"Antares 531" <gordonlrDELETE(a)swbell.net> wrote in message news:bdnu74tq6vk6t2jln5ak4bvkj5p4a65cuj(a)4ax.com... > On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:35:16 +0200, Helgo Land <members(a)nospam.com> > wrote: > >>Jon Green schrieb: >> >>> rbwinn wrote: >>>> Atheists are the people who are trying to make the Bible disappear. >>>> Robert B. Winn >>> >>> No, atheists are the people for whom the Bible is someone else's >>> problem. >> >>The real question is 'Does God need to exist'? ;) >> > Define "God." > > The natural laws, order and control of the multiverse? Cosmic > sentience? Gordon Irrelevant. The answer is always "no". It is in the nature of belief that it does not require the existence of the object of said belief. If you have faith, you act and think *as if* your deity does exist. If I believe that I have a system for beating the odds on roulette, I will act accordingly, regardless of its (f)actual merits. |