What if you are God?

juvenissun said:

If you post this question to a forum where a lot atheists visit, you may get a lot responses. Faithful Christian will refuse to respond to such a question.

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Complete and utter codswallop.

All knowledge of other beings, their feelings, emotions, and motivations is derived from putting oneself in the other's shoes -- whether the 'other' is a dog, your neighbor, or god.

There is no knowledge of god or the reasonableness of propositions about god without measuring such knowledge against one's own experience.

Tinker Grey said:

Complete and utter codswallop.

All knowledge of other beings, their feelings, emotions, and motivations is derived from putting oneself in the other's shoes -- whether the 'other' is a dog, your neighbor, or god.

There is no knowledge of god or the reasonableness of propositions about god without measuring such knowledge against one's own experience.

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God is overwhelmingly more than us in any sense. With this premise, how could the OP make any sense?

Is god so unknowable as there is no reason to try?

It is amazing hearing this argument from creationists who continually tell us what God must have done, or could not possibly do, because of their indepth understanding of who God is.

NOTE THE [hypothetical] AND THE [/hypothetical] TAGS!

[hypothetical]

Ok. I'm now a god.

I create a universe that lasts many billion years. I set everything up so that life will happen as I want it in this universe with the rules, otherwise known as laws of physics, that I have set up. And I pop some godly cosmic popcorn to watch the show.

Several billion years later, one of my planets starts to show signs of life, which gradually progress over a few more billion years. Eventually, they reach bipedal, sentient organisms on this one planet in a vast cosmos. And I decide I want to tell them about myself and my role and their role in the universe.

So far, so good right?

However, when I decide to reveal myself to these people, they are primitive, and don't have the foundation to understand most of what I would tell them about the makeup of the universe. So, what would I do? Well, I would tell them about myself and what I had done and where they fit in in a way they could understand.

Or, perhaps I decide to hold off till they have an advanced understanding of the universe. Then I would still talk to them in language they understand. But, if they are capable of understanding advanced science and whatnot, then I talk to them about that.

So, the amount I reveal about the workings of the universe is what they can cope with. If they can only really cope with simplified ideas because they really can't comprehend billions of years or space so vast when they don't even know a fraction of the size of their own planet, I talk to them in simplified ideas. Then I can tell them about me instead of about things they really can't understand. Likewise, if they have some idea about the way things work, then I tell them at that level. If they know about spacetime, I include spacetime in my revelations. If they don't really get much beyond a few generations, I don't include billions of years in my revelations.

I would also make sure that my revelations should be obvious to future generations as more myths or allegory than literal truth. And I would make sure I don't make my revelations and the real world contradict each other when read as they should be.

[/hypothetical]

But that's just me.

Metherion

Tinker Grey said:

Is god so unknowable as there is no reason to try?

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We should try to understand God as best as we could.
But that is not what the OP is asking.

And as I said, imagining what you would do in God's place is how one does that.

And that IS what the OP is asking.

Assyrian said:

It is amazing hearing this argument from creationists who continually tell us what God must have done, or could not possibly do, because of their indepth understanding of who God is.

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God gives us a book to study. God also give us His Spirit to teach us. All that are good. So we can say God means this or that based on what we are told.

The OP was suggesting an entirely opposite traffic, which human beings could not do.

Hey guys, stop it. This is a simply logic and it does not deserve such a discussion. Admit the OP made a mistake so he won't do it again.

What mistake do you suppose the OP made?

Seriously.

Don't you understand that it is a completely valid way of gaining understanding to place yourself in another's shoes -- whether that someone is God or not?

mooduck1 said:

I didn't make a mistake. If I had, I'd have admitted it as I have on many occasions in these forums. The purpose of my OP is to ask the question Particularly of Fundamentalists who suggest that since the Bible Says essenctially, in text, that the world was created in 6 days (in spite of the volumes of information to the contrary) that we must accept that. What if your Bible ISN"T wrong but your INTERPRETATION is. It seems that for good logical conclusions to be formed one must be able to say "if this happened, then I should expect to find that" and if you find information that not only does not support your hypothosis but contradicts it, you must assume your hypothesis is incorrect - unless down the line more information becomes availbale. 2000 years ago there was not sufficeint evidence to contradict the fundamentalist claim that the earth was created in 6 days. There is now! Doess that make God a Liar? Certainly not! It just means that he inspired the Bible In such a way that it could be interpreted as our Knowledge and understanding grew.

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I did not think too much on what you said. But I accept it as a valid argument.

But, not the title of the OP.

Juvenissun said:

God gives us a book to study. God also give us His Spirit to teach us. All that are good. So we can say God means this or that based on what we are told.
The OP was suggesting an entirely opposite traffic, which human beings could not do.

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Yet YECs do this all the time. We are told repeatedly if the flood was local God would not have had Noah build an Ark, he would have told him to move out of the area instead. YECs believe God made people and animals out of clay, that is their interpretation of Genesis. But they also know without a shadow of self doubt, that if God hadn't done it that way, he still would never have used evolution. YECs are all the time imagining what God would and wouldn't do, without any basis in scripture, simply what they think is the right thing for God to do.

Hey guys, stop it. This is a simply logic and it does not deserve such a discussion. Admit the OP made a mistake so he won't do it again.

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The difference between the OP and YEC is that the OP recognises it is just pretend. YECs seem to think they really can speak for God.

Wow-You couldnt of word this any better.....Im Impressed...

mooduck1 said:

Ah, well I confess the title is designed to spark people's interest. It might be considered offensive if you take it out of the contest of the actual post. That's sort of where we keep getting hung up on in these debates more than anything else isn't it? IMO contest is everything.

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I don't think so. Title is the head and is the most important of an article.

Assyrian said:

The difference between the OP and YEC is that the OP recognises it is just pretend. YECs seem to think they really can speak for God.

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Yes, YEC interprets. So is TE. We all interpret. What do you suggest we should do?

To be fair, let's simply go literal and do not interpret.

YEC is happy to see that happen. TE is not.

juvenissun said:

To be fair, let's simply go literal and do not interpret.

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Why is it 'fair' to 'go literal'?

Just simply going literal everywhere and not interpreting at all is not 'fair'. It's far far closer to a YEC standpoint then any of the TE standpoints I am familiar with. And it also winds up not making any sense in large parts of the Bible, such as those with apocalyptic styles of writing.

Metherion

And since when does "going literal" not require interpretation?