posted
I have proposed several tests for specific kinds of creators. That they are not the sort you believe in is hardly my fault. They are, however, the kind I'm interested in. It does seem that we were using the word in rather different senses at the beginning of this discussion, which may account for the confusion.
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You have proposed tests for prayer-answerers. If you snuck a creator test in there, I apologize for missing it.
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Even if prayer is shown to work--even if it is show to work and be repeatable--the mechanism of prayer would be separate from its efficacy. After all, we acknowledge that gravity works, even though we're not yet sure how.
Prayer may work and there still would not need to be a God to make it work. The proof or disproof of the existence of a God (or god) would remain a separate issue.
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1) I did not "make sh&% up" and respond to it. I really just didn't pay much attention to what you said; I just heard this incessant whining in the background...
2) But dkw did say it. She said,
quote:Short answer definition: God is the ground of being – the beingness without which even the property of existence would not exist.
Well, maybe you are right...she mentioned nothing about God having created the "beingness," just that God "is" the beingness. So that's even less of a God than I originally thought.
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posted
Sigh... Most prayer-answerers that are actually believed in are also creators, and indeed vice-versa. Really, Dag, are you being intentionally obtuse here?
But ok, suppose we look at pure creators. Now, a creator that is of any interest is an intelligent being, right? I mean, there could certainly be some kind of undefinable 'creative urge', but I don't see how that's any different from the explanation we've got now, to wit, 'the Big Bang just happened'.
So then, intelligent beings. Well, we can certainly see that this being is nothing like me, because I would not have designed the Universe so badly. So that rules out a whole class of creators right there. We can also see that the hypothetical creator really likes log scales, or the different forces would be much closer in strength. (Or else the creator was only going to be around for a few 10^-36 of a second, and didn't care what happened to the forces after that.) Further, it is clear that the creator did not use the methods described in Genesis.
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quote:Sigh... Most prayer-answerers that are actually believed in are also creators, and indeed vice-versa. Really, Dag, are you being intentionally obtuse here?
Gee, I wanted to ask you the same thing. I thought we were being scientific.
And, in fact, most prayer answerers (if you go by numbers as professed by various systems of belief) are not thought to be the "creator" that would be at issue in the big bang.
quote:But ok, suppose we look at pure creators. Now, a creator that is of any interest is an intelligent being, right? I mean, there could certainly be some kind of undefinable 'creative urge', but I don't see how that's any different from the explanation we've got now, to wit, 'the Big Bang just happened'. So then, intelligent beings. Well, we can certainly see that this being is nothing like me, because I would not have designed the Universe so badly. So that rules out a whole class of creators right there. We can also see that the hypothetical creator really likes log scales, or the different forces would be much closer in strength. (Or else the creator was only going to be around for a few 10^-36 of a second, and didn't care what happened to the forces after that.) Further, it is clear that the creator did not use the methods described in Genesis.
Is there an experiment in there?
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posted
Yes. 'Look at the data and draw inferences about the underlying distribution'.
Now, how about this one? Find a way to expose the singularity at the center of a black hole; there are some really interesting solutions to GR with sufficiently high angular momenta, so I'm not drawing this out of a hat. See if, as is theorised, there is a new Universe at the center. If there is, why, you have a perfectly good universe that is plainly uncreated. You can make an arbitrarily high number of such universes, and see how they match up against ours. If you can detect major differences, why then, splendid evidence of a creator.
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posted
Dag, dkw offered no other reason for her definition other than:
quote:And I don't find the definition I gave to be meaningless, although it certainly is outside the realm of science. But again, that's pretty much my point.
She never actually explained how she finds meaning in a God who is just the core of beingness, or even what meaning she finds there. Just that it was her intent (her "point") to define God in a way that pllaced him outside the realm of science, since that is the point she was trying to make.
Please stop making sh$% up.
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quote:She never actually explained how she finds meaning in a God who is just the core of beingness, or even what meaning she finds there.
No, because it would not be very possible in this forum. She did, however, explain that she did not intend her definition to list all the properties of God.
You see now why I wouldn't respond to the requests for a short definition? Because I knew what someone like you would do with it.
"I asked you for a short definition, and now you're adding to it when I make up an argument based on the incredibly faulty assumption that any definition lists all the properties of an entity. It's not fair."
quote: Just that it was her intent (her "point") to define God in a way that pllaced him outside the realm of science, since that is the point she was trying to make.
No - her point is that God is outside science, not that she was defining God with the intent of placing him outside science.
Which you might have realized if you weren't being so holier-than-thou. Irony intended.
quote:If there is, why, you have a perfectly good universe that is plainly uncreated.
"Plainly uncreated"? You have a strange idea of "plainly."
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quote:Dag, dkw offered no other reason for her definition other than:
...
Please stop making sh$% up.
She did give a reason for her definition:
quote:Boothby171, you asked for a definition of God. You did not ask for a list of everything I believe God has done/is doing. That would, as Dag pointed out, be much longer.
Dictionary.com defines human as "a bipedal primate mammal of the genus Homo" That doesn't tell us anything about whether or not humans eat lunch, surf the web, or bake chocolate chip cookies. But neither does it deny that they do.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I have proposed several tests for specific kinds of creators.
I can just picture the creators whining when they get this announcement. "I didn't know there was going to be a test on this!" "Is it multiple-choice?" "Can I borrow your notes?" "No fair -- I was absent that week!"
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She listed, what? ONE property of God? His "core of the beingness" thing? And then she stopped. Just like you.
But then you whine on about how "no short definition" would be any good, and about how the rest of us would just spin it around.
And then you complain that to properly define God would take more than this poor UBB could handle (what, are you planning on uploading the bible?).
What, you got no medium sized definitions for God? Sounds to me like you really don't understand what it is you believe in. Unless, of course, that's the whole point of God. He's so big (great, wonderous, etc.) that nobody can understand him.
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quote:I took your definition. "God is the Creator and the Creation," or some such thing.
Well, you’re half right. The other half I can’t see how you possibly got from anything I said.
quote:Well, if the Universe is God,
While that would be an interesting discussion, I don’t believe it and it came from nothing I posted. I believe there is an absolute distinction between the Creator and the creation. (And one of the results of that distinction is that one of them can be measured by science, the other cannot.)
I also don’t appreciate you assuming you know what I believe. About anything.
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quote:Originally posted by Boothby171: I really don't know how to respond to that. it allows you to see an undefined God in everything, while (at the same time) it allows me to see an ill-defined God in absolutely nothing at all. Amazing.
Yes. It is amazing. That God would remain unprovable so that each of us could choose which of those to believe. A God who is scientifically provable would be a tyrant. We would have no choice but to believe. That we are allowed this choice may make God "useless" to you; to me it is an amazing gift.
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quote:Find a way to expose the singularity at the center of a black hole; there are some really interesting solutions to GR with sufficiently high angular momenta, so I'm not drawing this out of a hat. See if, as is theorised, there is a new Universe at the center. If there is, why, you have a perfectly good universe that is plainly uncreated. You can make an arbitrarily high number of such universes, and see how they match up against ours. If you can detect major differences, why then, splendid evidence of a creator.
No, that just might mean that we don't understand all of the factors that determine the principles of a universe found within a singularity. Unless you suggest that all of these universes have the same difference in relation to our universe. But that just adds another level of complication without actually resolving anything. For example, one solution would be that universes at different levels have different properties. All universes found within our universe will have different properties than ours, and the universes found within those universes will have even more different properties, and on and on. We could then assume that perhaps our universe is actually from a singularity found within an even greater universe, also with different properties than ours. Does that prove or disprove a creator? Hardly.
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quote:And then you complain that to properly define God would take more than this poor UBB could handle (what, are you planning on uploading the bible?).
Interestingly, "And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written."
I think it's probably a pretty hard task to define anyone in only a few sentences.
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posted
What if we have another universe inside a box, and inside that universe is a box with our universe in it?
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Yes. It is amazing. That God would remain unprovable so that each of us could choose which of those to believe. A God who is scientifically provable would be a tyrant. We would have no choice but to believe. That we are allowed this choice may make God "useless" to you; to me it is an amazing gift.
Ah so. And then, when you believe in the wrong one - oopsie, off to eternal hellfire you go. Bit of a buggerment, that. (I'm aware that you perhaps do not believe this, but many people do.)
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quote:A God who is scientifically provable would be a tyrant.
Would you be interested in a separate thread on this topic? I find this opinion understandable but dramatically and intrinsically flawed.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Yes. It is amazing. That God would remain unprovable so that each of us could choose which of those to believe. A God who is scientifically provable would be a tyrant. We would have no choice but to believe. That we are allowed this choice may make God "useless" to you; to me it is an amazing gift.
Ah so. And then, when you believe in the wrong one - oopsie, off to eternal hellfire you go. Bit of a buggerment, that. (I'm aware that you perhaps do not believe this, but many people do.)
So argue that with them.
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I do feel that any 'philosophy' that can be convincingly imitated by a phrase generator does not actually qualify as an argument. [/QB]
KOM, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance is critically aclaimed work and the foundation for a philosphical school. His works are widely regarded as a completion of Nietzche's effort to redefine ethics in humanistic rather than theological terms. I quoted him in an effort to illustrate that the concept that there are things which are real and important but can not be studied scientifically is not limited to theists but there has been the subject of humanist philosophy for generations.
If your best refutation of Persig's work is that it can be convincing imitated by a phrase generator, then you clearly have not made even the slightest effort to understand the issue and are not worthy of the debate.
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quote:Short answer definition: God is the ground of being – the beingness without which even the property of existence would not exist.
I don't even begin to pretend to know what you think or believe. I hope I never said, "This is what dkw believes..." What I do know is what you wrote. And what you wrote stated that part of your definition for what God is, is that he is the "ground of being," which I later referred to as "the core of beingness."
You did not state that you believed that God was the creator, only that he was the beingness at the core of the universe. Tom Davidson pointed that very thing out, and you seemed not to have a problem with it (at least, perhaps as far as that particular definition went).
When you were asked for additional information, you refused to provide any:
quote:Boothby171, you asked for a definition of God. You did not ask for a list of everything I believe God has done/is doing. That would, as Dag pointed out, be much longer.
Well, refused or were incapable of answering. God being very, very big, and all. And complicated.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: If your best refutation of Persig's work is that it can be convincing imitated by a phrase generator, then you clearly have not made even the slightest effort to understand the issue and are not worthy of the debate.
I'm sorry you feel that way. Have a nice day.
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quote:Well, refused or were incapable of answering.
Neither. I pointed out that I had not done so because that was not what was asked for. I'm being precise. Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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