Chimp

The problem seems to be anthropomorphising the ultimate causal factors for the universe.

Does anyone with an analytical, logical approach to the "Does God exist?" question, actually think that God has a long white beard, and is sitting on a kingly throne??? Does this mythological God of ancient history actually exist??? Does this God of mythology angrily toss thunderbolts at the disobedient humans???

Why not postulate the existence of a theoretical abstract "God-causal factor" that is the totality of all that is real? Or a causal nexus? A highest possible level of generalization, then from the fundamental principle, derive the properties of existence.

Actually, attempting to explain that everything is some sort of accident really explains NOTHING.


Life exists.

It is very clear from the abundant evidence, that life evolves through a process of selection. Darwin's "natural selection" for example. Life is an evolutionary process No?


There is also "Cosmic Evolution".



There is a 2nd law of thermodynamics, and entropy always increases. But on a global scale for the universe, it can be said that order has increased, and from the theory of the inflationary universe, it appears that reality is the ultimate free lunch. The total energy of the universe is zero. The positive energy of matter is exactly canceled out by the negative gravitational energy.

To say that ultimately, reality is totally meaningless and random, is basically equivalent to explaining that a big Zeus with beard and robes snapped his fingers and "poof" reality. It is saying unknown forces did it. HAHAHA.


:banghead:

Personally, I think the big chimp in the sky created everything!

:notworthy

Chimp

Eric H

DMB

Sorry I seem to have overlooked your post,


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Eric: you seem to have a somewhat precarious understanding of probability.

It is true that a normal unbiased coin has about a 50 % chance of coming up heads and a 50 % of coming up tails, but not all binary choices carry this sort of probability.
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Yes I have a small understanding of the laws of probability as you describe them, but when you go down this road there are to many complications. So in a way it prevents you giving a positive yes or no answer.

I can sit here writing this and ask, Have I got at least one ten pound note in one of my trousers pockets?

If you say maybe that is totally wrong, because I cannot have a maybe ten pound note, it exists in my trousers pocket or it doesn’t

What if I don’t have any trousers or all my trousers have no pockets or I have given all my trousers to Aunt Mary, or the ten pound note is a fake. You can keep asking all these philosophical questions and they will prevent you giving an answer, or they cloud over the question so much it also prevents you from making a simple decision.

All I want is a simple meaning, have I got a ten pound note in one of my trouser pockets that I can take to a shop and get goods to that value.

With God the first most important question to answer is,

Is there a God who created the universe, Yes or No?

Maybe is not an option to me, at some point I have to say yes or no and get on with life.

If you are asking does extra terrestrial life exist, that is a totally separate question, we will just have to keep looking.

Obviously you are at will to pursue the questions that have a greater importance and meaning for yourself.

Peace

Eric

Eric H

Hello QoS

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Why is this a sacrifice? Maybe it makes you happy to give people money, so you are actually gaining something from giving them money. Maybe you can write off the ten pounds as a charitable donation on your taxes.

But the way I see it, is that you love yourself more because you keep ninety percent for yourself.

Is this assuming that you don't need the other 90% for food, medicine or shelter?
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How about stepping outside the western comfort zone, where most people have assets of thousands, and credit companies are falling over themselves to loan you more.

Supposing I was on my own travelling round one of the poorest countries in the world with no access to a phone system, no credit cards and only had this hundred pounds.
Supposing I did need the other 90% for food and shelter, supposing the person I was giving this ten pounds to was one of the thousand million people on this Earth who live on a dollar a day and live in a state of continuous starvation.

In that situation there is no doubt that this person would need the hundred pounds as much as I would,

We can look at endless ways to describe love and how you show it, but getting back to how this question arose.

What would be the greatest purpose for a God to create the universe?



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It makes more sense that if you are going to have children, you would look for the greatest purpose for yourself and also the greatest purpose for the life that you create.

Actually, if I was going to have children, I would expect them to find their own "greatest purpose" when they reached maturity, rather than expecting them to always live by whatever standards I chose.
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That is exactly my point, if God loves us as he loves himself, he must set us free, he must give us the freedom to love in our own way.

Did Mrs. Hitler love Adolph, did she set him free to find his own purpose, (this is just an example, I have no idea of the relationship between the Hitlers) to set some one free means to give them true freedom.

Presumably Mrs Hitler never told Adolph or forced him to invade Poland and do all the things he did. Can we blame her for her sons actions?

You hope your children will find a good purpose but you can never really know when you give a person true freedom.

Your arguments are very rational, if there is a God would you also expect him to have at the very least your own moral judgement, or something greater?

Meaning a greater good judgement.



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And it is said that we should love our enemies and even pray for them.

Could you explain the relevance of this?

We cannot even ask God to punish our enemies on our behalf,

Relevance, etc?

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It seems God wants us to love our enemies, would this be because God loves his enemies also? Would he ask us to do something that he would not do himself?
Maybe God lives by a greater moral good than we give him credit for, maybe we associate God more with hell and damnation then we do with love.

That’s enough I sense I am ranting again

Peace

Eric

Queen of Swords

Originally posted by Eric H
How about stepping outside the western comfort zone...

Yes, how about it? I live in the Middle East and come from a Third World country.

Supposing I did need the other 90% for food and shelter, supposing the person I was giving this ten pounds to was one of the thousand million people on this Earth who live on a dollar a day and live in a state of continuous starvation.

In that situation there is no doubt that this person would need the hundred pounds as much as I would,

And yet, according to your definition, you could give them only fifty-two pounds or dollars and still be loving them more than you loved yourself?

What would be the greatest purpose for a God to create the universe?

Describe a range of possible purposes.

That is exactly my point, if God loves us as he loves himself, he must set us free, he must give us the freedom to love in our own way.

And if we love in our own way, he will never punish us for it?

Presumably Mrs Hitler never told Adolph or forced him to invade Poland and do all the things he did. Can we blame her for her sons actions?

If she was omniscient and knew what he was going to do, and if she was omnipotent and could have stopped him, but didn't, yes, she would be to blame.

You hope your children will find a good purpose but you can never really know when you give a person true freedom.

You can only hope that you react in a rational and compassionate way, rather than lashing out at your children because they don't do exactly as you want.

Your arguments are very rational, if there is a God would you also expect him to have at the very least your own moral judgement, or something greater?

Not necessarily. Is there any law that says a god has to have my judgement?

It seems God wants us to love our enemies, would this be because God loves his enemies also?

How does God show his love for his enemies?

Would he ask us to do something that he would not do himself?

I don't know. Would he worship someone? If not, does he ask us to do so?

Maybe God lives by a greater moral good than we give him credit for, maybe we associate God more with hell and damnation then we do with love.

That would depend, perhaps, on which god you were referring to.

Eric H

Hello QoS

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What would be the greatest purpose for a God to create the universe?

Describe a range of possible purposes.
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We could each be created in the way that we would desire, with power, fame, fortune, good health.

We could be created Immortal and never suffer sickness and death.

We could have the ability to conquer the universe, we could have the knowledge to build a universe.

I do not pretend to be any authority on why a God would create the universe, and in the original post I did say it was just a collection of words for the reader to challenge.

I can only say from my own way of thinking that the freedom to love unconditionally would be a greatest purpose to be created. And to a degree it seems an explanation of why evil exists.

Can you see any greater qualities that humanity could have? Would you like to live in a world without freedom, once you have already experienced freedom.
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quote
Presumably Mrs Hitler never told Adolph or forced him to invade Poland and do all the things he did. Can we blame her for her sons actions?

If she was omniscient and knew what he was going to do, and if she was omnipotent and could have stopped him, but didn't, yes, she would be to blame.
===================


I am confused as to what you feel is greatest because here you seem to be saying that a God should step in and intervene if he knows evil is about to happen. This implies that you would not give a person a true freedom, if you had the power to stop them doing evil.

Yet on a previous post you said that if you had children you would give them the freedom to find their own purpose in life. I presume you would qualify that by saying any good purpose.
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quote
Actually, if I was going to have children, I would expect them to find their own "greatest purpose" when they reached maturity, rather than expecting them to always live by whatever standards I chose.
=======================


I suppose it comes down to the fact that we want true freedom for ourselves because we can justify what we do ourselves, But we don’t always want total freedom for other people because we cannot always justify what they do, and their actions can infringe on our own freedom.

We seem to have a will that drives us to do things, it can sometimes seem beyond our control. One extreme case is sex offenders, it seems if they are imprisoned for a sex offence they often commit the same crimes again when they are released from prison.

To protect innocent people it could be said that if a person is convicted of a sex offence, they should never be released from prison, yet this seems to go against basic human rights.
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Quote
That would depend, perhaps, on which god you were referring to.
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That’s the frightening thing, humanity worships thousands of images of God, I have my own image.

Yet if there is a creator surely it must be that the same God created all of us, irrespective of whether we are Christian, Hindu, Muslim etc.

In peace

Eric

Amie

Hi Eric
I very much enjoyed reading your article

Mageth

Yet if there is a creator surely it must be that the same God created all of us, irrespective of whether we are Christian, Hindu, Muslim etc.

Why "surely"? Is there some uber-universal law, apparently ABOVE god(s), that limits the uber-universe to one creative god? And if so, how did you come to find out about it, since you're apparently limited to this lil' ole' universe?

Infinity Lover

Hello Eric. I don't think you were trying to pull of the literary equivalent of a mathmetical formula here, but rather presenting some of your thoughts, to perhaps inspire others and get some sort of discussion going. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. (Some off course will be more set on breaking than making in their response; to each their own.)

For one I consider it a good thing that you place such importance on loving ourselves and one another. Personally I don't think that comes from a predestined goal from a divine maker, some higher goal, but rather see it as our responsibility, a nessecity for our survival and prosperity. Not because we're made to do so, but because things turn ugly if we don't.

Different angles, but placing importance on the same thing; positivity, love and togetherness. And where atheist and theists meet, it might be better to find comon ground sometimes.

Best regards

Marcel

Kubulai

It's not complicated, it's flim flam
its a boys band with uniforms and a guarantee that if you follw my system you will be able to play by fourth of july

just because and answer is yes or no doesn't make it a fifty fifty chance of either, as your little device tries to suggest. only a fifty fifty chance of being right if you randomly choose yes or no.

you keep sidestepping the issue with comments about maybe's and whatever but you don't admit the whole concept as you presented it is fundementally flawed

if there is a ninety percent chance of no being right and a ten percent chance of yes being right there is still a fifty fifty chance of being right by picking one or the other at random

chill
Kube


Chimp

if you want to talk about logical reasoning try occam, positing an imaginary god causal factor explains less than nothing. Now we have a cause that we don't even know exists how can that improve the situation. An uncaused universe or a universe caused by a supposedly uncaused something we know nothing about, sure it's possible but what does it achieve. Prove to me that universe needs a cause and we are at least making headway, but you haven't
are you suuggesting that the entropy of the universe is actually decreasing? thats a new one on me, where did you get that one?

Queen of Swords

Originally posted by Eric H

We could each be created in the way that we would desire, with power, fame, fortune, good health.

A society in which every person had equal amounts of power, etc. would be either unfeasible or mind-numbingly boring, IMO.

We could be created Immortal and never suffer sickness and death.

The world would quickly become overpopulated and we'd probably start searching for ways to kill ourselves. I read a science fiction story (in 100 short short SF stories, edited by Asimov) where the Earth is basically composed of billions of living human bodies - massive overpopulation. It would also be a strain on us psychologically; after a few thousand years, I think death would come as something of a relief.

We could have the ability to conquer the universe, we could have the knowledge to build a universe.

This is closest to what I would consider a good reason for a god to create the universe.

I can only say from my own way of thinking that the freedom to love unconditionally would be a greatest purpose to be created. And to a degree it seems an explanation of why evil exists.

So much of evil comes from things like natural disasters, and affects so many innocent people, including children. How this is caused by the freedom to love is not immediately clear to me.

Can you see any greater qualities that humanity could have?

Intelligence.

Would you like to live in a world without freedom, once you have already experienced freedom.

You would have to define what exactly is meant by the terms "freedom" and "without freedom". In this world without freedom, for example, what would I not be able to do? Live alone? Hold down a job? Have a first name?

I am confused as to what you feel is greatest because here you seem to be saying that a God should step in and intervene if he knows evil is about to happen.

Only if this god feels that evil is something to be discouraged. On the other hand, if this god wishes evil to occur, there would be no reason for him to step in and intervene.

This implies that you would not give a person a true freedom, if you had the power to stop them doing evil.

I'm not sure that anyone in the world has "true freedom". I don't, for example, have the freedom to walk into a bank and take all the money there.

Yet on a previous post you said that if you had children you would give them the freedom to find their own purpose in life. I presume you would qualify that by saying any good purpose.

They would have the freedom to find their own purpose in life. I would also have the freedom to pick up the phone and call 911 if I heard them planning to murder someone. Freedom doesn't mean that everyone else's rights can be infringed upon.

I suppose it comes down to the fact that we want true freedom for ourselves because we can justify what we do ourselves,

We do? I wasn't aware that I wanted that.

As I've said before, I'm not sure that I've ever experienced true freedom, because I don't think that's possible when living in a society and being subject to its code of behavior.

To protect innocent people it could be said that if a person is convicted of a sex offence, they should never be released from prison, yet this seems to go against basic human rights.

Sex offences vary in type and severity. The sentence should similarly vary. Moreover, I'd have to be convinced that a "basic human right" is to live outside prison, especially after one has been convicted of a crime.

That’s the frightening thing, humanity worships thousands of images of God, I have my own image.

That's frightening?

It would be much more scary, IMO, if all of humanity worshipped the same god and followed it like the rats followed the Pied Piper.

Yet if there is a creator surely it must be that the same God created all of us, irrespective of whether we are Christian, Hindu, Muslim etc.

Why? I don't follow your reasoning. Is it not possible that different gods created different types of people?