James T

Well I made the attempt to prove god doesn't exist (a thread gradually falling off the end here) and didn't really get any good responses as to why my proof was incorrect. So I'd like to take a different approach here ...

For the sake of this discussion lets accept that God exists. What is it that God does? Not what you do, not what God did but what God does. Present tense, now!

Faith and belief are the old fall backs that apologists have been forced into with the relentless march of science and reason. Good old Nietzsche's God is dead and all. But is this really all that theists have left to fall back on.

Just to repeat, the emphasis here is on now, not creation, not existence or not but actions today.

Spherical Time

He certainly doesn't pay my bills. I'd appreciate it if he did though, so if you could recommend that to him the next time you theists see him, I'd appreciate it.

Agnostic Theist

What it's on the second page?! No wonder I lost it.

I don't get what you're aiming at here. What, if we don't prove God then He doesn't exist? As I've said before, both atheists and theists bear a burden of proof.

Edit: Well of course nobody's gonna refute your proof when you lower the standards for proof

Hedshaker

If there's a god he is (obviously) an atheist, so you can be sure everything he does is reasonable and logical............

Orbit

James T

Well to start with this thread is not intended to be about proof or lack. Rather what on earth it is that God bothers to do these days. Nothing being the obvious answer, does anyone have another?

aside, but you weren't prepared to address the proof issue there

Agnostic Theist

Well I suppose you could say He does nothing if you anthropomorphise Him and limit the consequences of His actions to material events you can actually distinguish from non-deitic occurances.

Ojuice5001

What do the gods do? Affect the outcome of chance events. My thinking is that some events can happen in one of several ways, like the weather, the roll of dice, some human and animal decisions, etc. And the gods influence which of the possible outcomes becomes actual. This concept is of great value in answering the theological question of just how the gods are related to the world.

James T

That is the point of the question, what is a deitic occurance?

The Bible Thumper

Lol, the Atheist refers to Nietzsche. The same philosopher drug addict and social misfit Jim Morrison of the Doors musical rock group referred and admired!

Good going, James T. Nietzsche has quite an (ahem) following...

James T

OK.

Take the weather, it has two elements that tend to make it difficult to predict. One of these is that it has an underlying chaotic nature described by the Lorenz attractor. Chaotic systems have a way of taking very small differences and escalating these to macro scales. This is the butterfly effect. The other problem is the difficulty of knowing the initial conditions precisely. Any error here is sufficient to result in a different outcome.

The point I am working towards is that in assigning God to this role, of loading the dice, you place God in a position where his works could be sufficiently small to be described by mere random fluctuations at near zero energy levels. Much as if God weren't there at all.

While I see your answer as potentially correct, it is no more potentially correct than a God which exists in no other aspect than in the faith of God's believers.