Arken

Why do you believe it is 'not in God's character to ever change natural laws'? If you take the bible as truth, God, through Joshua, made the Earth stop spinning, yet everyone survived unscathed. If you don't take the bible as truth, then why do you believe there's a god?

emotional

Arken,

Could you please consult my profile before posting such things? A short look at my profile should clarify that I'm not a Christian and I don't believe the Bible to be God's Word. Thank you.

Aria

Perhaps then you shouldn't speak on things as if you believed them?

It's really rather sensible, what is being asked in this thread. The god of the bible is said to have done X, Y, and Z.

So do X, Y and Z.

The idea that something is intrinsically untestable is just absurd. If there is something powerful enough to call itself a god, than it can give us a display of it's ability. A constant, unending display of power would be infinitely easy for an omnipotent creature to sustain, right?

Arken

Thank you, Aria. My thoughts exactly.

Now, in your profile, it says you are a deist. This doesn't, of course, answer my question as to what makes you believe in a god if you don't believe the bible is true.

And since you are a deist, do you believe that this god is omnipotent or does it have limitations? If so, what are those limitations and why are they there?

Ojuice5001

In a way this is irrelevant since, though I am a supernatural theist, I think miracles may or may not be possible. But:

Wrong. Think about what a "constant, unending display of power" would be. It would either stay the same or change. If it stayed the same, within a millenium it would be more of a natural feature of the universe, and would no longer be seen as pointing to a deity. The claim that the gods rearranged the stars a very long time ago (for instance) would seem just like any other claim that once, a long time ago, the gods made the world the way it is now. So if the 31st-century skeptics don't believe those stories, they won't believe this one. Nor would it help to rearrange the stars regularly; that would merely look like the stars have a natural tendency to rearrange themselves.

If it were different, it would soon undermine natural laws. After all, the gods would have to radically change a different part of the world every time. It would be like this: "Okay, we rearranged the stars four hundred years ago, but people have become blase about that. What about creating new species ex nihilo? No, we did that, and while it shut up the Darwinians, now people think that new species just create themselves. People are also used to those mountains we created that have rich deposits suitable for chocolate mining. Let's see, what haven't we done? Well, we could always make air as thick as water."

Do you see why the gods might rather let people doubt their existence than make the universe into that kind of place? And even if they did, the world would seem more like the naturalist strawman of supernaturalism than like what actual supernaturalists believe.

It's kind of irrelevant since I think the gods are not omnipotent, and work within natural laws just like everything else. But the reason I felt compelled to respond is that the gods do have a "constant, unending display of power." It's called fate. The failure of determinism leads to the idea that the laws of physics do not compel evey event to happen in one particular way. So why do they happen this way? The explanation must lie outside the discoveries of physics, and there is nothing unreasonable about the explanation that they happen because of things traditionally called supernatural--gods, the spiritual properties of objects, etc.

My point being that there is a "constant, unending display of power," in the form of divine guidance of the world, but because it has always been here, it's possible not to notice it, in the same sense as not everyone tends to notice the air, or gravity.

emotional

Must the Bible or Qur'an be the only source of belief in God? You do give our ancient tribal monotheists too much credit...

I believe in God because I'm afraid of death, and the existence of God provides background for the afterlife. Nothing having to do with compelling evidence, reason or logic. I'm a voluntary fideist - belief by sheer will to believe.

I believe God is omnipotent, but He chose to rule the universe by means of immutable natural law. This law operates constantly and consistently and cannot be broken. I believe God is hidden from us when we are clothed in our material body, but becomes manifest after we leave the material body.

Arken

If it cannot be broken, then he isn't omnipotent. If he chooses not to, then the law can be broken, it just isn't. Please explain which it is.

emotional

Oops. Mea culpa inclaritatis.

Creatures cannot break the law. He can, but He chooses not to. He is not a god of miracles.

Arken

Okay, so in essence you are saying that the god you believe in would do nothing to prove his existence and it doesn't matter whether or not we believe in him because of this. Am I correct?

emotional

That's right. All that matters is that you lead a moral life. That's all that counts in the sight of God when one comes to the afterlife.