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"Why is it that I can apply Aquinas' ideas about 'the God of the Philosophers' so easily to modern physics?"
Well, I thought the entropy thing was actually a bit of a stretch, mind you -- but since both Aquinas and modern metaphysics had as their goals the understanding of the universe (and particularly its beginnings), it's not surprising that some of the broad philosophical arguments underpinning each are similar. The difference between physics and Aquinas is merely one of degree (which I mainly attribute to the growth of human knowledge and refinement of the scientific method in the intervening period; I think if Aquinas had lived today, he would have found much greater joy as an atheistic logician.)
A physicist might speculate on the beginning of the universe and say, "Something must have started all this. I'll call it Particle X. Now, what can equations tell us about Particle X based on the behavior of existing particles?"
Aquinas says, similarly, "Something must have started all this. I'll call it God. And because I'm uncomfortable with the alternatives, we'll resolve that God is good and wonderful -- because it's good and wonderful that we're around."
There's BOUND to be more than a little overlap.
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As to the weak anthropic principle being a cop-out: me, I've always thought the invention of an omnipotent being was the biggest cop-out in history. To use the cookie jar example: "Son, why is your hand in the cookie jar?" "Mom, God made the cookie jar appear around my hand. It's not my fault."
Both these extreme examples -- Jacare's and mine -- miss the point: that the simplest explanation (i.e. that the boy stuck his own hand in the jar to extract a cookie) is the most likely.
What Jacare fails to realize is that the invention of a Supreme Being is not, in fact, "simple."
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Jacare, this guy refutes you better than I could hope to:
quote: This book argues that even if there is a very high improbability of the universe existing with observers, the properties of the universe that allow us to exist are also what allow us to observe the universe with properties compatible with the existence of observers. If the universe did not have these properties, then we would not exist to observe the incompatible properties.
The idea that we must observe that the universe contains properties compatible with the existence of an observer because if it did not, no one would be here to observe it, is called the anthropic principle or the Weak Anthropic Principle (WAP). The WAP is significant in that it makes the improbability of any one universe (i.e. our own) irrelevant. We should expect that our universe has features compatible with our existence, since, after all, we exist.
quote: What Jacare fails to realize is that the invention of a Supreme Being is not, in fact, "simple."
I am not sure what you mean by this, xará. I do, however, agree with you that Creationism is generally a cop-out as well. My earlier statement applies to this case as well: if there is no mechanistic explanation then there is no explanation. My greatest problem with the creationist point of view is this: If one posits the existence of a God who created all things, physical laws included, why would he then proceed to break all of those laws in the creation of the earth? Was he in a big hurry?
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Morbo- I really don't see how this is supposed to stand as a refutation.
quote: We should expect that our universe has features compatible with our existence, since, after all, we exist.
It argues for a mechanism from end results. It is rather like saying "We should expect that horses evolved to run fast. They are, after all, chased by predators."
There is no information there, nothing regarding cause or effect or anything at all. It is more a base assumption, rather like cogito ergo sum . Or in this case "I exist therefore I exist"
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Jacare> One could posit that God was, in fact, in a big hurry--in a manner of speaking. No, I do not mean that God is bound by time and was impatient because of it.
It appears to me that God's primary interest in the universe is the existence of sapient beings like, but unlike, himself. To this end there need to be conditions capable of supporting such beings, whatever those conditions might be, but it is entirely possible that God is not much interested in the other results of those conditions. Perhaps this is normal--any such creations would be trivial matters, but the same may not be true of other free-willed intelligences. Why not cut to the chase, then?
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Jacare, the reason the Weak Anthropic Principle "works" is that, clearly, we do exist. Therefore, even if the odds of our existence are remarkably low, we beat those odds. Period.
Now, you can argue that the odds of our existence are SO low that they're actually lower than the odds of the existence of a Supreme Being, and therefore it's likelier that we were created or "Intelligently Designed," even if your theory is complicated by the creation of a hypothetical God. But since we don't actually know the numbers on that one, either way, it breaks down once you start to talk probability. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Macc- Why cut to the chase? If God is eternal he must be a very patient fellow. If time is not measured unto God then why hurry things along at all?
Your hypothetical situation seems to require that God worries about time.
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Why does Creationism deny the use of a mechanism?
Don't confuse all creationists with the ones who label themselves as such.
Interesting side point, if the timelines I have seen for the creation of the universe were correct, the matter of the universe in the seconds following the big bang significantly exceeeded the speed of light and completely disobeyed the rules of relativity. The scientists then proceeded to announce that this was because the laws of the universe were different for the first few seconds of existence. What creationists stand accused of is literaly true of modern cosmologists.
However, I'm with the cosmologists on this one, the fundamentalist interpretation of six literal days seems to me like insisting that you've found the location of Camelot based on a description in Morte d'ArthurPosts: 2112 | Registered: Sep 1999
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Alright, let me put it another way, Jacare....
A vast amount of material exists on the internet, all of which ultimately derives from the creative actions of a relatively small group of people. However, those people presumably would not find all that material to be of equal interest. Assuming that they are alive to do so, one would expect them to be found clustered around websites that deal with subjects they are interested in.
Time, as such, is not important. God will be most present "where the action is", dealing with those matters that interest him most. I once posited a universe in which God "backfills" a real history (not an illusory one) for the objects he creates; in such a universe creation and evolution would be well-nigh indistinguishable. Unfortunately, such a universe is neither very scientifically interesting (at least unless and until humans were to begin engineering space-time directly) nor very useful to creationists, except as a last redoubt.
I think it's worth bringing up that at this point I don't know if it's appropriate to describe me as a creationist per se. I have become something of an agnostic on the matter. I would certainly not claim that creationism is scientific, nor would I consider that necessary for creation to be a physically real event. Likewise, I can easily imagine that evolution may well be the best current or even the best possible scientific explanation without actually being true. At present I am standing somewhere in the muddled middle.
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asQmh, honestly, I've tried a couple translations, but I haven't found a comfortable one. I do find the beginning of Fear and Trembling a great, radical, but somehow resonant take on the story of Abraham and Isaac.
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TAK- Are you a theistic evolutionist? Because I am out of the closet now. My friends all thought I had gone atheist till I explained.
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quote:If "evolution" means a positive thing called an ape turned slowly into a positive thing called a man, then it is stingless for the most orthodox, for an all-powerful God might as well choose to do things slowly as quickly.
quote: Why does Creationism deny the use of a mechanism? Don't confuse all creationists with the ones who label themselves as such
Well, since I believe that God organized the universe I am a Creationist too, but only in the sense that I believe that God did it. Must often Creationist is used to refer to those who insist that the Universe was created in six literal days. This is what I am arguing against. It seems only reasonable that if God instituted the laws of physics that he also followed them in the creation of the earth. This is not to say that we understand all of those laws, but surely we understand many of the basic principles.
quote: Jacare, the reason the Weak Anthropic Principle "works" is that, clearly, we do exist. Therefore, even if the odds of our existence are remarkably low, we beat those odds. Period.
The reason that the Weak Anthropic Principle DOESN'T work when it is used by Atheists to deny the necessity of a prime mover is that it presupposes that all of the mechanisms involved in bringing about our existence were solely those which fit their materialistic world view. The WAP contains exactly as much validity if we presuppose that the reason we exist is because God created us such that we were optimized for the universe in which we live. The way the is generally used in debate is to portray the universe as a great lottery which we happened to win because we exist. There is certainly no reason to suppose that the creation of the universe is a sheerly random event, hence the supposition on which the WAP rests is itself unproveable and of no more use than orthodox creationism in unveiling how the world came to be.
quote: Time, as such, is not important. God will be most present "where the action is", dealing with those matters that interest him most.
However, those who are orthodox creationists also believe that God is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent, which is to say there is no need for him to be "where the action is", for he is always everywhere, knows everything and it requires neither greater interest nor greater effort to one thing than it does another.
quote: I once posited a universe in which God "backfills" a real history (not an illusory one) for the objects he creates; in such a universe creation and evolution would be well-nigh indistinguishable.
To what end? If God has all of the time of eternity, why set up rules and then ignore them? It simply doesn't make sense.The only reason to even suggest any of these ideas is because a somewhat ambiguous Hebrew word for day is taken literally in the midst of actions which are clearly symbolic.
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Jacare: you misunderstand the Weak Anthropic Principle (and I think it has been misrepresented somewhat on this thread).
All it says is, we are here because we got here somehow.
It doesn't matter how improbable that thing was, it did happen.
Now, that thing may be God, or it may be something else. It may be a interstellar wombat name Billy Bob. But whatever it is happened.
Even if the odds of it happening were two hundred trillion trillion to one, it did happen.
All it does is show how low probabilities do not invalidate a theory. It isn't an argument against God; in fact, it says nothing at all with respect to God.
However, while probabilities may be calculated as to what is most likely to have happened and such, ultimately all that will matter is what did happen.
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Fugu- I don't believe that I misunderstand the principle. I think that it is simply useless information. In the first place, how can we say what probability there is of human life existing? We have nothing to compare it with. We don't know how human life (or any life at all) came to be and so we have no idea whatsoever whether life is very probable or very improbable. Until we know all of the mechanisms involved and have an idea of the abundance of life in a significant portion of the universe speaking of probabilities is meaningless. You said that the principle could be reduced to "All it says is, we are here because we got here somehow. It doesn't matter how improbable that thing was, it did happen." which is an utterly useless statement. Of course we got here somehow. Nobody disputes that fact. Of what possible value is such a statement in any discussion?
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"Of what possible value is such a statement in any discussion?"
Because it admits two possibilities that Creationists often ignore:
1) Life UNLIKE ours can theoretically exist, or COULD theoretically exist if the situation were different.
2) It is not necessary for a God to exist in order for life to exist. The likelihood of God's existence must be measured against the likelihood of spontaneous evolution.
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quote: Because it admits two possibilities that Creationists often ignore:
1) Life UNLIKE ours can theoretically exist, or COULD theoretically exist if the situation were different.
2) It is not necessary for a God to exist in order for life to exist. The likelihood of God's existence must be measured against the likelihood of spontaneous evolution.
It does no such thing. Both of your conclusions are based on unfounded assumptions. As to your first point- We have no idea if life unlike ours can exist. How could we possibly speak to such a thing? To the best of our scientific knowledge life may only exist within very narrow bounds. How can the WAP contradict this?
Secondly, the WAP is often used as a pseudo-scientific justification that we don't need God. But it doesn't work. It begs the question. "If we assume that only the materialistic exists and that life was created by materialistic processes then no matter how unlikely it is that those processes ocurred randomly we can see that they must have occurred because we exist" that is what your interpretation of the WAP must mean if you take it to negate the need for a prime mover.
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It is incorrectly used to try to disprove God in any way.
And it is not useless.
Firstly, as I stated, it does not allow us to "say what probability there is of human life existing". It says nothing at all about specific probabilities.
And the statement I gave you is not utterly useless. It completely defeats the counterargument that "things happening by random chance is an incredibly low probability, therefore it did not happen" argument. This counterargument presupposes that things which are improbable are not likely to have happened, which the weak anthropic principle clearly shows us is not so (given that other theories of creation have a similarly low probability).
Now, beyond such specialized cases it is not particularly useful, and it does not prove anything (it pretty much is useful for disproofs). This is because it is a trivial statement. It is useful only for attacking presumptions about probabilities of existence, which is most common in counterarguments. This is why it is called the weak anthropic principle.
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"It begs the question. 'If we assume that only the materialistic exists and that life was created by materialistic processes then no matter how unlikely it is that those processes ocurred randomly we can see that they must have occurred because we exist.'"
It does, indeed, beg that question. However, you only have to ask it if you want; it's not exclusively useful for that purpose.
Some people believe that the existence of an omnipotent, invisible Supreme Being is more likely than a number of other random processes; the WAP doesn't particularly speak to this belief at all, except insofar that it agrees that, yes, it's POSSIBLE that such a Supreme Being may exist if indeed the existence of a Supreme Being would be necessary.
However, for those of us who do NOT consider belief in a Supreme Being to conform to Occam's Razor, the WAP makes it possible for us to say that there are other alternatives, no matter how unlikely, that explain our existence.
I'm afraid you'll have to cope with that. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Proving a negative (we could NOT have gotten here randomly) is always difficult.
For me, it's not a matter of probability or Occam's Razor so much as my own version of Pascal's Wager which finalizes my selection of sides:
If there is nothing above and beyond nature, then there can be no freewill because every action is the result of natural processes and obeys natural laws. It's true that there is ample room in science to have those natural reactions *look* like people making choices and excercising wills, but they are still not, in the sense we talk about the word, acts of "will". In short, if the world is purely materialistic, it must also be purely deterministic. In this case, all my actions, choices, emotions and thoughts are entirely pre-determined, including whether or not I am a theist. It literally makes no sense for me to try to find the truth because there is no "me" to try anything. I will do what I do and that is the end of the matter.
But, when I examine myself, I find a hunger for truth, a will that can shape the world around me rather than merely react to it, and desires, emotions, and a mind that I can consciously influence. When I examine others, I see that they appear to be the same way. It is entirely possible that this is all an illusion. It is entirely possible that this is a mere appearence given to the world around us because evolution has favored existentialism.
But the most striking thing I see when I look at others is that even those who propose that the will is all an illusion do not, themselves, treat it like one. Everyone behaves as though they have a soul, even when they deny its existence. They argue. They convince. They attempt to sway each other's decisions. They attempt to influence my actions. Perhaps they cannot help it. Perhaps being aware of the illusion is not enough to break them free of it.
I, not surprisingly, am with Chesterton on this:
quote:I find, for some odd psychological reason, that I can deal better with a man's exercise of freewill if I believe that he has got it.
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Given that Free Will has never been adequately defined, it is not at all clear whether or not it could arise out of natural processes.
Furthermore, quantum mechanics at the very least indicates that not everything is predetermined, even if there is no God. Some things are truly random.
I am not theistic, yet I think there is Free Will. I see no problem with totally natural processes bringing about a construct that can "make choices" (whatever the heck that means). The universe is pretty darn amazing to me, and to suggest something is incapable of happening in the universe without some "external" push seems pretty short-sighted to me.
And of course, then one has the paradox of where God's Free Will came from (though there is of course the common argument that God has no Free Will, by virtue of there being one perfection, and hence one way in which God will act, but that causes problems in Christian theology).
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Fugu, I do not mean this to be insulting so please pardon me if it comes off that way. Your post seems far more like the Tom's complaints against Aquinas than Aquinas' arguments.
You say "making a choice" is too difficult and nebulous a phrase while blythely discussing the "Weak Anthropic Principle" a few posts up. I don't buy that.
I certainly am not saying that the universe is capable of producing events. I am saying that the universe is the *only* thing capable of producing events if materialism is true. There is either something in you and me called a "will" which can feed events into the universe or there isn't, and you and me are merely billiard balls bouncing off of each other on a pool table, however well chaos theory or "the game of life" might explain the complexity of our behavior.
You cite quantum physics as proof of indeterminacy in nature, but the fact is that quantum indeterminacy *only* occurs at the quantum level. This is an ENORMOUS stretch of quantum theory. The behavior of any body of particles larger than an electron is almost strictly Newtonian/Einsteinian. I'll go so far as to say the behavior of any organic molecule sized body *is* strictly Newtonian/EinsteinianThe reactions in your brain which would be the cause of your thoughts in a materialistic world would not be given a random nature by quantum behavior and, even if they were, that's still a mechanism-- you are substituting a dice roll (and loaded dice at that) for the human concept of will.
I think your solutions are inordinately complex ways of saying what I said at the beginning of my last post: "it could be ..."
I agree, it could be. If it is, however, than it's of no consequence. We will be how we will be regardless. I choose to act as if my choice matters and as if its my own.
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quote: And the statement I gave you is not utterly useless. It completely defeats the counterargument that "things happening by random chance is an incredibly low probability, therefore it did not happen" argument. This counterargument presupposes that things which are improbable are not likely to have happened, which the weak anthropic principle clearly shows us is not so (given that other theories of creation have a similarly low probability).
In this case, Fugu, it seems we are arguing our agreement. I say that the WAP is useless because it seems that its only value is to defeat the argument you noted. However, I dismiss that argument out of hand because it is ridiculous. If we have no idea how life came about then clearly we cannot calculate odds of such a thing happening. In short it seems to me that the WAP is spun sugar used to counter woven moonbeams.
quote:However, for those of us who do NOT consider belief in a Supreme Being to conform to Occam's Razor, the WAP makes it possible for us to say that there are other alternatives, no matter how unlikely, that explain our existence.
I'm afraid you'll have to cope with that.
Just so long as you recognize that its only value is as a proof based on a baseless assumption then I suppose we are in agreement. It will be tough, but I think that I can cope with it Posts: 4548 | Registered: May 2001
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TAK, I think you see the words but miss the concepts. The Weak Anthropic Principle is a very easy principle to grasp because it is weak and trivial. It does not say much. Free Will seems like such a simpler concept, yet it is an incredibly complex concept.
For instance, you seem to assert Free Will "feed[s] events into the universe". Okay, so if we consider this outside region beyond the universe as part of our system (just the sum total of all events we are considering), suddenly everything is determined again? Doesn't that imply we have no actual "free" will as everything is still determined?
There has never been an adequate definition of Free Will, unlike the Weak Anthropic Principle, which has been quite adequately (if trivially) defined.
Then you misunderstand quantum physics. everything is quantum physics. Everything is made up of these small, truly random particles. It's just that there are so many that the probabilities tend to balance out in aggregate. That does not mean things are determined, it means that the distribution of randomness is very narrow. It's like flipping two trillion coins: the ratio of heads to tails will be almost exactly one, simply because in the long run it approaches one. That does not mean it will never be that every coin is tails, just that the likelihood is miniscule.
And if you think quantum effects never matter on the macro leve, you need to take another look at quantum computing, or heck, even current microprocessor technology. Quantum tunneling (due precisely to that pure randomness) happens all the time.
I think it was Feynman who once wrote a paper on why quantum effects were so important to everyday life, though I cannot find a reference. If you can, you should go read it.
Jacare: we are basically agreeing. The reason the Weak Anthropic Principle exists is twofold: one, science can't just say an argument is silly, it has to give a reason, and two, the Weak Anthropic Principle is in a very general form, so it works against a lot of similar arguments without having to reformulate it.
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That's not an assumption of the Weak Anthropic Principle, though I'm not sure you're saying that. Could you clarify what you're saying it's an assumption of?
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quote: That's not an assumption of the Weak Anthropic Principle, though I'm not sure you're saying that. Could you clarify what you're saying it's an assumption of?
Tom said:
quote: Because it (the WAP) admits two possibilities that Creationists often ignore:
1) Life UNLIKE ours can theoretically exist, or COULD theoretically exist if the situation were different.
2) It is not necessary for a God to exist in order for life to exist. The likelihood of God's existence must be measured against the likelihood of spontaneous evolution.
to which I replied:
quote: Secondly, the WAP is often used as a pseudo-scientific justification that we don't need God. But it doesn't work. It begs the question. "If we assume that only the materialistic exists and that life was created by materialistic processes then no matter how unlikely it is that those processes ocurred randomly we can see that they must have occurred because we exist" that is what your interpretation of the WAP must mean if you take it to negate the need for a prime mover.
What I am arguing with is the standard tactic of many atheists I have read trotting out the WAP as if it proved somehow that God is unnecessary to the creation of the universe. It does no such thing since all the WAP can say is that we exist therefore it doesn't matter how probable our existence is. In order to be twisted into relating to God you must add the baseless assummption that the universe is solely randomly mechanistic- in other words that life evolved from inanimate materials.
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"In order to be twisted into relating to God you must add the baseless assummption that the universe is solely randomly mechanistic- in other words that life evolved from inanimate materials."
Except, of course, that the existence of God is itself a baseless assumption, and the DEFAULT assumption, consequently, is that life arose without the assistance of invisible beings. By default, any logic that involves the interaction of known mechanisms is "simpler" than one that requires the invention of new mechanisms, particularly if those new mechanisms cannot be tested in any way (or fail tests when tested.)
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That's correct, it doesn't prove in any way that God is unnecessary. It does prove that there is no probabilistic reason for God to be necessary, which is a much more limited statement.
The WAP is much maligned for things it doesn't say .
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quote: Except, of course, that the existence of God is itself a baseless assumption, and the DEFAULT assumption, consequently, is that life arose without the assistance of invisible beings. By default, any logic that involves the interaction of known mechanisms is "simpler" than one that requires the invention of new mechanisms, particularly if those new mechanisms cannot be tested in any way (or fail tests when tested.)
See Tom, this is where your unfounded assumption comes in. Why should the default be your particular point of view? See, there is no scientifically known way for life to originate from non-life. It can't happen by any process we know therefore it is clearly NOT the default. It fails the very criteria which you set eg the "invention of any new mechanisms" one. There is no default, for to the best of my knowledge life has also never been shown to originate from non-life even with human intervention.
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"See, there is no scientifically known way for life to originate from non-life. It can't happen by any process we know therefore it is clearly NOT the default."
Except that we actually have testable hypotheses for this process, and are testing them. Where's your testable hypothesis for God, exactly?
Let's use Occam's Razor, here:
Given that God does not exist, and that life cannot arise from non-life, what's the simplest solution? Clearly, that life has always existed in its present form.
Unfortunately, this is demonstrably false, based on our current understanding of the universe. So that brings us to conclude that EITHER a bunch of known processes combined in a way we don't understand to produce life, or a completely unknown process created life in a way we don't understand.
Even as a second-string option, God doesn't make the cut.
quote: Except that we actually have testable hypotheses for this process, and are testing them. Where's your testable hypothesis for God, exactly?
The best scientifically testable hypothesis that I've heard of is intelligent design. If we find evidence that any creature were tampered with to make it as it is then we would have proof of intelligent design.
That hypothesis is at least as viable as what you are proposing.
quote:Let's use Occam's Razor, here:
Given that God does not exist, and that life cannot arise from non-life, what's the simplest solution? Clearly, that life has always existed in its present form.
Occam's razor is a useless construct. The simplest solution is very rarely the right one, primarily when the concern at hand is biological.
quote: EITHER a bunch of known processes combined in a way we don't understand to produce life, or a completely unknown process created life in a way we don't understand.
See here's the problem yet again. There is no room in scientific explanations for events which are not solely the result of physical laws. Let us suppose for an instant that life on earth originated with a comet from another solar system. How can science test that hypothesis? The conclusion is completely untestable, though at least some hold that the mechanism has been proven.
The very paradigm which makes science so useful also makes the results completely wrong if the basic assumptions of a test are false.
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Ok, you've beaten the WAP to death, now on to Occam's Razor:
Occam does not say that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one, (as is usually paraphrased). He says not to multiply complexity unnecessarily.
Translated, this means that given two possibilities to investigate, you should investigate the one with the fewest variables first. (or just: the easier one to investigate) If you can disprove it, you won't have wasted much time. If it appears true, you can continue to investigate it because, well, it appears true.
What Tom is arguing is that the introduction of God into the investigation of the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything, makes things more complicated, because in order to answer it, you have to explain god as well.
Note: if God arises from the investigation then it would be more complicated to try to formulate alternate theories, just because you are trying to exclude God. But since God does not arise from any scientific study, it's better left to theology, not science.
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Likewise you can use Pascal's wager to argue that belief in god is a waste of time.
We got into argument by authority over on the other side, too, regarding Einstein. I've got great respect for Pascal, William, Galilei, Newton and Darwin. All were theists. This doesn't diminish their work.
BTW, I've been thinking I should post this. It's on topic, but not so serious as the rest of the thread:
posted
Haven't absorbed this WAP thing, but I'd like to address the original question. I think the role of reason in my own life is to try to bring my beliefs around to revealed knowledge. A nod to Kierkegaard and the sacrifice of Isaac: Why would God demand something so unreasonable?
My answer has been that if our reason is adequate to govern us, God is unneccessary. If God exists, then, he will demand the unreasonable. I have not yet found a way to make it reasonable, but I am working on it. I am working on it with my reason. This is the role of reason in my own cosmology.
posted
Pascal thought that you should choose to believe in God because it would enrich your life, and you would lose nothing. Basically if I'm right and there is a God, you go to hell. However if I'm wrong then I still have lived an enriched life.
Doesn't sound like a waste of time to me.
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1) Someone set up us the bomb. 2) We get signal. 3) Main screen turn on. 4) How are you, gentlemen. 5) All your base are belong to us. 6) What you say! 7) You have no chance to survive make your time. 8) Ha ha ha ha.... 9) Move *zig.* 10) You know what you're doing. 11) For great justice, take off every *zig.* 12) Therefore, God exist.
quote: 222. ARGUMENT FROM WARREN ROBINETT
1) There's a secret message in the video game "Adventure." 2) It reveals that the game was Created by Warren Robinett. 3) It's the same way with the world. Look for the secret messages, and you will find the World's Creator. 4) Therefore, God exists.
I thought about being offended for a moment, but then I realized that that's the exact way that atheists get treated by some christians. (shakes head sadly)
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I think this whole thread is a good illustration of the fact that reason is of no use whatsoever as a foundation of a person's beliefs. Reason cannot and does not make anyone believe or disbelieve in God. You believe in God because you do; you don't believe in God because you don't. What reason can do is distill, refine, and support the structure of your belief system. But it's never the actual cause of your belief. Because the existence of God is not something that anyone has ever concretely proven or disproven by means of logic. Because it can't be done.
Jacare:
quote:The only reason to even suggest any of these ideas is because a somewhat ambiguous Hebrew word for day is taken literally in the midst of actions which are clearly symbolic.
I was having a conversation with a friend and his wife about some stuff I didn't understand about Genesis, stuff that didn't make sense to me. And my friend's wife immediately responded with the idea that Genesis is symbolic, and should not be taken literally. My friend, who is nonetheless firm in his belief, responded to her by saying that at some point, everyone took it literally. So I am having a little trouble with your use of the word "clearly." That is, it seems to me that whoever wrote the Bible, or, in the case that it comes from an oral tradition predating the written book, whoever started telling the story of Genesis (whether divinely inspired or not), probably believed the literal meaning of his/her (well, probably his) words. I'm not trying to debunk the Bible here, but I do think that you shouldn't be so cavalier with words like "clearly."
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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[refrains from starting a whole new debate over the meanings and intents of the author(s?) of Genesis]
Posts: 2112 | Registered: Sep 1999
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Ryan: google for "'Pascal's Wager' flaws" and read through a number of the links. Pascal's Wager is an incredibly illogical argument that is not at all persuasive. We've been through it on this board before, and it's really not worth going through again as most of the flaws are so bald-faced.
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