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intellgence....you either have it or you don't

variant

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I'm not sure you understand what I've stated. I'm not attempting to establish the idea of 'God' as a demonstrably causative agent...my theology isn't constructed of that orientation.

It doesn't matter what you are trying to establish, my argument is that God doesn't work as an explanation because it explains all possible evidence.

Let me guess...you're one of those who thinks philosophy of science is superfluous to the actual theory and practice of hard science (via Quine). If so, then I guess we'll be speaking past in other, and in circles, so there's little need for us to continue if that kind of disconnect is all that can be expected.
I have no idea what you are talking about here as it seems to have nothing to do with anything I have said.

Evidence not explained by God: the Geologic Column...how's that?
What? No.

Are you really saying that you don't believe God to have the power to make the Geologic column to appear as it does? I don't believe you understand a word of what I am saying now.

I am saying that God is not contradicted by any evidence.

I am saying that if tomorrow I demonstrated a model of how to make a universe scientifically by making one myself it would not provide evidence against God's existence.
 
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2PhiloVoid

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It doesn't matter what you are trying to establish, my argument is that God doesn't work as an explanation because it explains all possible evidence.

I have no idea what you are talking about here as it seems to have nothing to do with anything I have said.

What? No.

Are you really saying that you don't believe God to have the power to make the Geologic column to appear as it does? I don't believe you understand a word of what I am saying now.

I am saying that God is not contradicted by any evidence.

I am saying that if tomorrow I demonstrated a model of how to make a universe scientifically by making one myself it would not provide evidence against God's existence.

OF COURSE GOD IS CONTRADICTED BY THE EVIDENCE...This is a Christian forum, and we are talking about God within the context of the Jewish/Christian scriptures which happen to say that God made the heavens and the earth in 6 days. It doesn't take any brain work to see that 6 days and the Geologic column are incompatible. Therefore, there is an obvious contradiction via the evidence.

You don't get my point...."MY" point is that I don't care how many other people--even a majority--might use the term 'God' in such a way as to evince a claim that the idea of 'God' can be appropriated as a supposed logical proposition wherein it explains anything or any event; BULL!! NO it does not! The truth is that it doesn't, and it philosophically can't actually be consistently applied that way. Sure, we can pull a generic "God of the philosophers" out of our behinds, but then we're not talking about a Jewish-Christian God any longer. The concept of a Jewish-Christian God as it appears in scripture precludes a simple, logical, straightforward subscription to the validity of the Geologic Column as we know it. So, no we can't just...by fiat...claim that the concept of 'God' can be applied to any and every event or physical problem, especially a concept of 'God' that is completely ripped out and away from the context of scripture.

Are you hanging with me now? If not, I guess we're done...
 
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variant

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OF COURSE GOD IS CONTRADICTED BY THE EVIDENCE...This is a Christian forum, and we are talking about God within the context of the Jewish/Christian scriptures which happen to say that God made the heavens and the earth in 6 days. It doesn't take any brain work to see that 6 days and the Geologic column are incompatible. Therefore, there is an obvious contradiction via the evidence.

And yet evidence that the earth did not get made in 6 days doesn't contradict God for any of you. ;) God can and is used to explain the geologic column for you, or the geologic column is disregarded as untrue. So, the evidence (any evidence) can always be explained by God.

If the next step is to throw out all evidence that appears to contradict God then you are just intellectually dishonest, and God isn't an explanation of facts but an idea you hold to regardless of the facts (which doesn't help your case for God being an explanation at all it still isn't an explanation).

If you disregard facts that disagree with your conclusion of God then it still explains all possible facts.

Therefore, God is not an explanation of the facts we observe but rather a goal in the believers thinking.

You don't get my point...."MY" point is that I don't care how many other people--even a majority--might use the term 'God' in such a way as to evince a claim that the idea of 'God' can be appropriated as a supposed logical proposition wherein it explains anything or any event; BULL!! NO it does not!

And yet you have yet to put forward any set of facts that God can not explain.

The truth is that it doesn't, and it philosophically can't actually be consistently applied that way. Sure, we can pull a generic "God of the philosophers" out of our behinds, but then we're not talking about a Jewish-Christian God any longer. The concept of a Jewish-Christian God as it appears in scripture precludes a simple, logical, straightforward subscription to the validity of the Geologic Column as we know it. So, no we can't just...by fiat...claim that the concept of 'God' can be applied to any and every event or physical problem, especially a concept of 'God' that is completely ripped out and away from the context of scripture.

Then your God doesn't exist. Or you have some way of having God explain the geological column.

Are you hanging with me now? If not, I guess we're done...

Well since you are either admitting you aren't a Christian and that God doesn't explain the geological column which undoubtedly exists, in which case I suppose we are done, or you are saying that God does explain the geological column and I am right, in which case we are done.

Or, I suppose you don't think there is a geological column? (disregarding facts that don't agree with your conclusion)

So, which is it?
 
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2PhiloVoid

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[FONT=&quot]Variant, [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I don’t think you realize it, but the whole semantic structure of your uncompromising dichotomy between: 1) A Fundamentalist concept of God, on the one hand, and 2) An Evidential exposition of the concept of God on the other reflects the fact that you are either unaware of other possibilities of 'explanation' involving the Biblical God, or that you choose purposely to ignore those other possibilities.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Furthermore, I see that you are attempting to impale me on the proverbial ‘horns,’ a tactic which in this case seems to me to qualify more along the line of what I call the ‘argumentative straight jacket,’ wherein you drive me insane by implying that Christians who do not hold unswervingly to a Fundamentalist theology cannot, and do not, qualify as authentic Christians. Of course, I think that is a logical fallacy….but at this point, I don’t know whether to slap your hand or to offer you, instead, a chair and a Strawberry Daiquiri as a reward for your undying commitment to "Reason." (Yes, I agree, she is a babe.)[/FONT]
th

[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Ok. Let’s go this route……I’m going to suggest to you that just because some Christians, perhaps many Christians, may apply a generic, philosophically defined concept of ‘god’ to explain just about any physical phenomena, this does not necessitate the conclusion—or our assumption--that the idea of 'God' can, indeed, be used to explain the physical evidence of the world.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Again, case in point: The Geologic Column. Sure, any Christian can open his or her mouth and articulate the words, “God made that.” That’s pretty simple, and probably only a couple of neurons fire in a Christian’s brain when that speech-act takes place. However, this apparently simple act is probably more of an act of desperation to ‘keep the faith’ than it is anything else. Moreover, as we both know, the description of the GC, as a collective physical phenomenon representing eons of physical change, does not appear in the pages of the bible. Hence, it can be accurately said that, in this case, the bible does not equip Christians with the cognitive tools to actually explain the above cited phenomenon.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Therefore, Christians who concede to the validity of the Geologic Column will have to make a choice with regard to retaining their beliefs: they can either a) reject the bible and its god, or b) criticize and qualify their understanding of the Geologic Column to fit the bible, or c) criticize and qualify their existing understanding of the bible, or d) reassess everything, science and bible alike. It should be clear that choice a) is linear, but choices b, c, and d have the potential to be quite divergent, and even to be subject to various permutations. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]As you can see, a Christian isn’t caught necessarily in a dichotomous situation in choosing between either Christianity or something clearly other than Christianity. More specifically, if it is found that a Christian’s original understanding of the nature of the biblical literature (and/or any attending metaphysical or epistemological assumptions) was in error, even while encountering and conceding to the validity of the Geologic Column, then the possibility remains that a new understanding of the way in which the bible may be applicable to human existence on the earth could be attained.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]It is possible for a Christian to resolve a conflict with the evidence of a physical phenomenon—like the GC--by either: a) dropping the Christian faith, or b) discovering a conceptual correction(s) that facilitates the movement to another paradigm. Thus, a Christian can move from a Fundamentalist’s position to one of several other possible theological (albeit Christian) paradigms, some of which may even accommodate, without directly affirming or explaining, the validity of the Geologic Column. Thus, the ‘god’ idea itself is not used—directly or indirectly--to ‘explain’ the physical phenomenon in question (See Conrad Hyers, or Denis O. Lamereaux, among others.), a position that also comports itself somewhat well with “methodological naturalism” within the realm of science. Personally, I can honestly say that, as a Christian, I don’t know IF God had a hand in the Geologic Column, or even if He did, to what extent or by what method it would have been engaged, and I say this regardless of what Creationists or Intelligent Design advocates would proffer otherwise. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
Ok…………is this clear now? Or are you going to force me to put on my Winnie-the-Pooh thinking cap. :swoon:[/FONT]
 
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variant

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Variant,
[FONT=&quot]I don’t think you realize it, but the whole semantic structure of your uncompromising dichotomy between: 1) A Fundamentalist concept of God, on the one hand, and 2) An Evidential exposition of the concept of God on the other reflects the fact that you are either unaware of other possibilities of 'explanation' involving the Biblical God, or that you choose purposely to ignore those other possibilities.

Do any of them allow us to make a distinction between universes where God exists and ones where he doesn't?

Furthermore, I see that you are attempting to impale me on the proverbial ‘horns,’ a tactic which in this case seems to me to qualify more along the line of what I call the ‘argumentative straight jacket,’ wherein you drive me insane by implying that Christians who do not hold unswervingly to a Fundamentalist theology cannot, and do not, qualify as authentic Christians. Of course, I think that is a logical fallacy….but at this point, I don’t know whether to slap your hand or to offer you, instead, a chair and a Strawberry Daiquiri as a reward for your undying commitment to "Reason." (Yes, I agree, she is a babe.)

I'm not requiring you to be a fundamentalist, I just think that such people are prone to simply ignore or deny inconvenient evidence in cases where evidence contradicts their conceptions of reality.

No, I asked you for a single observable detail which the concept of God can not be made to explain.

Do you have one?

The advantage of the fundamentalist conceptions of God is that they actually are often conceptions, and they tell us what the world should look like if God exists according to the Bible. Your conception might be more nebulous and accommodating of facts by not doing this, but if it accommodates all facts it is not a conception at all.

Ok. Let’s go this route……I’m going to suggest to you that just because some Christians, perhaps many Christians, may apply a generic, philosophically defined concept of ‘god’ to explain just about any physical phenomena, this does not necessitate the conclusion—or our assumption--that the idea of 'God' can, indeed, be used to explain the physical evidence of the world.

Then define God, and explain what would or would not happen if God does or does not exist.

Again, case in point: The Geologic Column. Sure, any Christian can open his or her mouth and articulate the words, “God made that.” That’s pretty simple, and probably only a couple of neurons fire in a Christian’s brain when that speech-act takes place. However, this apparently simple act is probably more of an act of desperation to ‘keep the faith’ than it is anything else. Moreover, as we both know, the description of the GC, as a collective physical phenomenon representing eons of physical change, does not appear in the pages of the bible. Hence, it can be accurately said that, in this case, the bible does not equip Christians with the cognitive tools to actually explain the above cited phenomenon.

Does the geologic column count as evidence against God? No.

Thus proposing a universe with a God in it is not contradicted by the geologic column, thus it is not evidence against God.

A theory of a universe with God in it explains a data set where the geologic column exists.

A theory of a universe with a God in it, thus explains the geologic column, as it explains all facts. There are no facts that can dispute God's existence.

Therefore, Christians who concede to the validity of the Geologic Column will have to make a choice with regard to retaining their beliefs: they can either a) reject the bible and its god, or b) criticize and qualify their understanding of the Geologic Column to fit the bible, or c) criticize and qualify their existing understanding of the bible, or d) reassess everything, science and bible alike. It should be clear that choice a) is linear, but choices b, c, and d have the potential to be quite divergent, and even to be subject to various permutations.

Right you either discard the theory, modify the theory or discard the evidence.

There is no evidence that will ever require you to disbelieve in God though as it is a theory so nebulous that explains any possible set of data if you wish it to.

As you can see, a Christian isn’t caught necessarily in a dichotomous situation in choosing between either Christianity or something clearly other than Christianity. More specifically, if it is found that a Christian’s original understanding of the nature of the biblical literature (and/or any attending metaphysical or epistemological assumptions) was in error, even while encountering and conceding to the validity of the Geologic Column, then the possibility remains that a new understanding of the way in which the bible may be applicable to human existence on the earth could be attained.

Right God can always explain everything in the end. The Geologic Column can be explained by God. That is my point. All facts can be. Always. Without reservation.

I have no doubt that you can distort the situation so that you can believe in God no matter the evidence present that is indeed MY THESIS.

It is possible for a Christian to resolve a conflict with the evidence of a physical phenomenon—like the GC--by either: a) dropping the Christian faith, or b) discovering a conceptual correction(s) that facilitates the movement to another paradigm. Thus, a Christian can move from a Fundamentalist’s position to one of several other possible theological (albeit Christian) paradigms, some of which may even accommodate, without directly affirming or explaining, the validity of the Geologic Column. Thus, the ‘god’ idea itself is not used—directly or indirectly--to ‘explain’ the physical phenomenon in question (See Conrad Hyers, or Denis O. Lamereaux, among others.), a position that also comports itself somewhat well with “methodological naturalism” within the realm of science. Personally, I can honestly say that, as a Christian, I don’t know IF God had a hand in the Geologic Column, or even if He did, to what extent or by what method it would have been engaged, and I say this regardless of what Creationists or Intelligent Design advocates would proffer otherwise.

So, you admit you haven't presented me with even a single example of an observable fact that can not be explained by your conception of God?

Because that is what I'm reading here.

Ok…………is this clear now? Or are you going to force me to put on my Winnie-the-Pooh thinking cap. :swoon:[/FONT]

The entire thing has always been clear to me. You can't give me an example of a possible observable fact that can not be explained by God because there aren't any.
 
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keith99

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AND it shows checking a huge crate of ammo and NOT checking the guns.

The narration says "examine the ammunition", which may refer to checking the spent cartridges that remain the fired guns. Blank cartridges often have a distinctive appearance, even after firing.

440px-Buffalo_Blanks_Mounted_Shooting_Blanks.jpg


The person doing the animation may not have known this, or what was meant by that reference in the script.
 
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2PhiloVoid

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Do any of them allow us to make a distinction between universes where God exists and ones where he doesn't?



I'm not requiring you to be a fundamentalist, I just think that such people are prone to simply ignore or deny inconvenient evidence in cases where evidence contradicts their conceptions of reality.

No, I asked you for a single observable detail which the concept of God can not be made to explain.

Do you have one?

The advantage of the fundamentalist conceptions of God is that they actually are often conceptions, and they tell us what the world should look like if God exists according to the Bible. Your conception might be more nebulous and accommodating of facts by not doing this, but if it accommodates all facts it is not a conception at all.



Then define God, and explain what would or would not happen if God does or does not exist.



Does the geologic column count as evidence against God? No.

Thus proposing a universe with a God in it is not contradicted by the geologic column, thus it is not evidence against God.

A theory of a universe with God in it explains a data set where the geologic column exists.

A theory of a universe with a God in it, thus explains the geologic column, as it explains all facts. There are no facts that can dispute God's existence.



Right you either discard the theory, modify the theory or discard the evidence.

There is no evidence that will ever require you to disbelieve in God though as it is a theory so nebulous that explains any possible set of data if you wish it to.



Right God can always explain everything in the end. The Geologic Column can be explained by God. That is my point. All facts can be. Always. Without reservation.

I have no doubt that you can distort the situation so that you can believe in God no matter the evidence present that is indeed MY THESIS.



So, you admit you haven't presented me with even a single example of an observable fact that can not be explained by your conception of God?

Because that is what I'm reading here.



The entire thing has always been clear to me. You can't give me an example of a possible observable fact that can not be explained by God because there aren't any.

th
 
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2PhiloVoid

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Variant

I have no doubt that you can distort the situation so that you can believe in God no matter the evidence present that is indeed MY THESIS.
Hmmm....well, if you have "no doubt" about any attempt I can put forth, and that all I'll do is "distort the situation" no matter the evidence, then it seems a fools errand for me to continue. Wouldn't you agree? Because that would mean by necessity that even if I were to present some coherent explanation of my position, even one that perhaps could fantastically gain the attention of the other 99.999999999% of the world's population, you on the other hand would dismiss it out of hand, since there is already "no doubt." Alright, then.

Have a Merry Christmas anyway, Variant. :liturgy:

Peace
 
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single eye

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lost999, You say, "I want to know why I am here." Finding our purpose has nothing to do with intelligence, it is about knowing where to look. The straight gate and narrow way do not go through the o.t., they go through The Apocryphon of John. Once we were created it became about free-will. Free-will means that no one makes us do anything we don't want to, ever, period. Yes, you do care or you would not be talking about it.
 
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TheImmortalJellyfish

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One might say that. One would be wrong, but one might still say it.

Really? That would completely obliterate every claim against God's existence? If you could look at God right now, would you bow down and ask forgiveness?
 
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durangodawood

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Really? That would completely obliterate every claim against God's existence? If you could look at God right now, would you bow down and ask forgiveness?
Yes. Personal experience that leads one to believe in God obviously knocks down any arguments, for that person.
 
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Davian

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variant

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Hmmm....well, if you have "no doubt" about any attempt I can put forth, and that all I'll do is "distort the situation" no matter the evidence, then it seems a fools errand for me to continue. Wouldn't you agree?

My confidence comes from experience with believers and their genuine inability to give me a straight answer on this topic.

My confidence in your inability to answer my question doesn't mean I would not invite the surprise that you do indeed have one.

Because that would mean by necessity that even if I were to present some coherent explanation of my position, even one that perhaps could fantastically gain the attention of the other 99.999999999% of the world's population, you on the other hand would dismiss it out of hand, since there is already "no doubt." Alright, then.

Have a Merry Christmas anyway, Variant. :liturgy:

Peace

I have no intention of dismissing you out of hand, I intend to dismiss you with reason (the reasoning of the argument I already presented).

The posturing is cute though, but meaningless, it would be more principled for you to just concede the point that you don't have a satisfactory answer.
 
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keith99

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Davian

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So throw away any inconvenient information and backfil by assuming whatever makes a failed statement work.

Sorry that is a losing argument. What they did in their video is what they did.

Yes, that could have been done better, but does that poison the entire video for you?
 
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