Why does God leave no tracks?

[Nihilist Virus]

Actually God doesn't have ears or eyes. Remember He is a non-physical being.



Not if He is not an effect, then He doesn't need a cause, and there is nothing illogical about something being a cause and not an effect. And in fact, that is what He is.



No, again, not if He is not an effect then He doesn't need a cause or creator.

So your argument is that God is personal, has a purpose, and etc., but is uncaused because ___________, and yet the universe is personal, has a purpose, and etc. and for those reasons must be caused.

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑
Actually I made a mistake I was responding to different post.

dav: I know.

ed: As far as my mind reading skills my years of experience debating atheists and agnostics helps me to understand their mindset, just like you understanding your wife better the longer you are married to her.

dav: I do not see how you get to "just like", unless you are actually living with these atheists and agnostics that you claim to understand so well. I have not seen you demonstrating this understanding here.

Well you are entitled to your opinion but it nevertheless is true. I have talked to them for over 25 years and they all have certain similar mindsets and certain similar arguments when it comes to discussing Christianity.

ed: Yes, but you cannot prove scientifically that she loves you.

dav: Sure I can. I can form a hypothesis, conduct experiments, and produce repeatable results. You are not married, are you?

That does not mean she loves you, she could behaving certain ways that have absolutely nothing to do with love but appear to be love to you.

ed: Primarily through His written word

dav:...your interpretation of the bible...

Not just my interpretation but the interpretation of millions for 2000 years.

ed: and prayer

dav: ...chance and confirmation bias..

Not according to the experience of millions for 2000 years.

ed: but also circumstances, experiences,

dav:...more chance and confirmation bias...

Again not according to the experiences of millions for 2000 years.

ed: and other believers.

dav:...doing the same thing.

See above.

dav: As "communication" goes, that is pretty weak.

No less real than your communication with me on the computer.

 

[Davian]

Well you are entitled to your opinion but it nevertheless is true. I have talked to them for over 25 years and they all have certain similar mindsets and certain similar arguments when it comes to discussing Christianity.

It may be that they saw you as wrong in the same way. All that shows is that you are wrong in a consistent manner.

That does not mean she loves you, she could behaving certain ways that have absolutely nothing to do with love but appear to be love to you.

Sure, someone has been paying her big bucks behind my back for her to spend more than half her life with me, acting as my wife.

rotflmao

• Davian
• Sep 26, 2015

Not just my interpretation but the interpretation of millions for 2000 years.

Fallacious appeal to popularity, even if it were so.

Not according to the experience of millions for 2000 years.

Unevidenced assertion. You do that a lot.

Again not according to the experiences of millions for 2000 years.

Unevidenced assertion. Again.

See above.

This just demonstrates that the human ability for self-deception is a common trait.

No less real than your communication with me on the computer.

Unevidenced assertion. Again. Just more pathetic than usual.

You have really hit a low point here.

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑
Actually God doesn't have ears or eyes. Remember He is a non-physical being.



Not if He is not an effect, then He doesn't need a cause, and there is nothing illogical about something being a cause and not an effect. And in fact, that is what He is.



No, again, not if He is not an effect then He doesn't need a cause or creator.

nv: So your argument is that God is personal, has a purpose, and etc., but is uncaused because ___________, and yet the universe is personal, has a purpose, and etc. and for those reasons must be caused.

No, the reason that the universe must be caused is because it is an effect as confirmed by the BB theory.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

No, the reason that the universe must be caused is because it is an effect as confirmed by the BB theory.

If you think the Big Bang Theory confirms the Big Bang is an effect, then you don't actually understand Big Bang Theory.

Haven't you tried even a casual Google search?

http://www.deepastronomy.com/what-caused-the-big-bang.html

 

[Hawkins]

I suspect I asked this question before in a different form, because I wonder about it a lot. Sometimes I like to imagine a benevolent God that I can talk to and so forth. I tell myself that maybe the Judeo Christian God is fiction, but my more generic chameleon-like God might actually exist.

The problem is that science can never find God's tracks. I ask myself if there is some inherent aspect of God that makes it impossible for Him to leave tracks. I ask myself if God can actually do anything meaningful without leaving tracks. Then there is the imaginary friend possibility. Imaginary friends serve a purpose and leave tracks in the real world even though they exist only in a human's imagination. I suppose the imaginary friend God that exists in human imaginations leaves tracks. Is it possible that God is real, but He restricts Himself to our imaginations? In other words, there is a real God that inspires humans to create imaginary friend Gods in their minds that then interact with the world? Could science tell if there was a real God behind these imaginary friend Gods?

Humans today all rely on faith to be saved, in accordance to the covenant. God thus leave traces to only His chosen direct witnesses for all others to choose to believe or not. It's the only way works and there's no other way round.

 

[cloudyday2]

Humans today all rely on faith to be saved, in accordance to the covenant. God thus leave traces to only His chosen direct witnesses for all others to choose to believe or not. It's the only way works and there's no other way round.

So who are his chosen direct witnesses? Do you mean the Twelve Disciples?

 

[Crandaddy]

Not a problem at all. Family and work have stepped in to interrupt my time here, and I appreciate the thoughtful response, as I will attempt here myself.

That picture may not be the best example, as it was constructed in a manner that purposely creates interference with our vision system.

And we do use methodology, but that methodology may range from "does that look real to you, George?" to "Let's analyze this with state of the art instrumentation, with control groups and double-blind data gathering, and publish our data for peer review, based on this testable, falsifiable hypothesis", with understandably differing degrees of accuracy.

Sure. This all looks fine to me.

From what I gather, we rely on our cognitive faculties to produce accurate results until they don't. The Earth looks flat until we climb a high peak. The speed of light appears to be instantaneous until it doesn't. What we observe at the macroscopic scale is not necessarily reflected in the quantum level.

Yes, I agree that our cognitive faculties all by themselves are limited in their ability to accurately tell us how the world works, but I still don't see how we have any choice but to trust -- I might even say to have faith -- that they're reliable enough to tell us which methods and/or instruments successfully augment our ability to ascertain accurate results and which do not.

At this point, do you mean "true", or "accurate"? While I believe that the surface on which my computer monitor resides is solid, it might be more accurate to describe it as mostly empty space, or more accurate to describe it as space filled with quantum... stuff.

I call a belief “true” only if its conceptual content correctly, or accurately, represents the way that the world actually is. Its truth depends on the conceptual content that's “packaged into” the believed proposition.

Let's take the proposition that “the surface that your computer monitor sits upon is solid.” The truth of this proposition depends on the conceptual content that one intends to convey in any linguistic expression that is meant to assert it. Now let's isolate the word “solid” and try to unpack what content one might mean to convey by inserting it into the proposition in question. One possibility is that the asserter of this proposition might intend to convey that the surface has no visible holes or cracks or seams. So if this holds up as an accurate description of reality, then the person who asserts it does so truthfully (at least insofar as the “solid” part goes; for the sake of expediency, let's just assume that the remainder of the proposition's content also accurately represents reality). However, if by “solid” the utterer of said proposition means to assert that the surface contains no empty space whatsoever -- not even between the electrons and nuclei of atoms -- then his assertion is false, and if he believes it, then that belief is false.

Most of the time? And how do we pick this "most"? When we like the results? When it the "makes sense" when compared to our other [preconceived] notions?

I don't think we can, because any attempt to determine the reliability of our cognitive faculties would have to presuppose the reliability of our cognitive faculties in order to do so, and so any such argument to that effect would be circular. I think we just have to have faith that our faculties are truthful/accurate more often than not. I see this as a bedrock assumption that we just have to make if we're to have any hope of gaining genuine understanding of the world. Even in cases where we discover that our previously-held beliefs about the world are mistaken, we rely upon our cognitive faculties to have truthfully/accurately told us so in some way or other.

I do understand, that if the Bible claims are true, and we need to believe (or else!), then they are justified in their motivation to convey their interpretation of this message to whomever will listen; however, in a venue such as this, they should be prepared to have their "message" and how much (or how little) of it comports with observations of reality, rather than arguing from a position of infallibility.

Except they're not justified because such a monstrous tyrant of a deity as that wouldn't be worthy of such pious reverence, and they ought to know that.

I am very familiar with WLC's attempts at a theistic slight-of-hand, where he trots out all of the non-specific "greatest being/kalamity/etc" arguments, calls this thing he describes as "God", and then, as if no one is going to notice, attempts to swap in the God-of-the-Bible, declaring them to be the same thing.

I will note that WLC does not openly declare that virtually all of mainstream science must be wrong in order to accommodate his beliefs, preferring to waffle and evade that topic when cornered.

Well, I'll neither defend nor criticize Craig's debate tactics here, but I do believe his writings show him to be a serious and rigorous scholar, regardless of whether or not he's right in what he claims or how well (or poorly) he performs in debates.

FWIW, I have a number of disagreements with Craig. I've already mentioned his rejection of God as Ipsum Esse Subsistens; I also think his Kalam argument has some serious issues that I've yet to see him satisfactorily resolve.

Indeed, it surprises me when I see two religionists agree on more than a few points.

Like I told you once before, it's a neverending exchange of canons and missals!

I have no idea of what you mean by a "typical religious experience". Without evidence to the contrary, I can only conclude that they are all simply imagined.

Religious experiences typically seem to be described in otherworldly or supranatural terms, and as having been caused by something that we can't ordinarily perceive with our natural senses, if they can be described at all. The so-called “mystical” experiences, however, are typically claimed to be so radically transcendent of our everyday experience that anything approaching an accurate description of them is impossible.

Is that all it takes? What about the birth of a child, or a brush with death? Does this not trivialize the "religious" experience to make it really no different than other experiences?

Well, that in conjunction with the other two. I don't see why a religious experience always has to confer some profound insight. I think they usually do, but I don't see why they always have to.

That was not where I was going with my point; I can assume reality is that which is observable, repeatable, and testable (if it acts like reality, assume it is reality) and it doesn't matter if the experience is "genuine" or not, or if the person is being sincere or is delusional, or is lying; it boils down to what is most parsimonious: if what the person relates from their "supernatural/religious" experiences is indistinguishable from an experience that is simply a product of their internal imagination, then it can safely be treated as such, whether is be a psychic's prediction, a dowser's pointing, or a religionist's revelation.

Again, I'd say that what you're justified in believing depends on what epistemic resources you have access to. If you've never had such an experience and encounter two complete strangers -- both of whom could be pathological liars or prone to fantastical delusions/hallucinations, for all you know -- who both tell you a very similar (if not identical) fantastic story, then you might perfectly well be justified in believing that both stories are lies/delusions/products of wild imaginations.

If, on the other hand, you yourself have had a similar experience, and you know one of these people and have good reason to believe that he's of sound mind and isn't prone to telling tall tales, then you might have good reason to believe he's had what I call a genuine religious experience.

I don't think there is one privileged epistemic vantage point from which we can all look out and reach universal agreement on which experiences (if any) are genuine and which are not. What might be the most plausible explanation for one person (and justifiably so) might not be for another person (and again, justifiably so).

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑
Well you are entitled to your opinion but it nevertheless is true. I have talked to them for over 25 years and they all have certain similar mindsets and certain similar arguments when it comes to discussing Christianity.

dav: It may be that they saw you as wrong in the same way. All that shows is that you are wrong in a consistent manner.

Maybe, maybe not.

ed: Not just my interpretation but the interpretation of millions for 2000 years.

dav: Fallacious appeal to popularity, even if it were so.

Sometimes popularity is right. Such as the belief that the earth is round.

ed: Not according to the experience of millions for 2000 years.

dav; Unevidenced assertion. You do that a lot.

Read a good book on the history of Christian doctrine.

ed: Again not according to the experiences of millions for 2000 years.

dav: Unevidenced assertion. Again.

Read a good history of Christianity.

ed: See above.

dav: This just demonstrates that the human ability for self-deception is a common trait.

Not necessarily.

ed; No less real than your communication with me on the computer.

dav: Unevidenced assertion. Again. Just more pathetic than usual.

You have really hit a low point here.

So you don't believe you are communicating with me on your computer?

 

[Ed1wolf]

If you think the Big Bang Theory confirms the Big Bang is an effect, then you don't actually understand Big Bang Theory.

Haven't you tried even a casual Google search?

http://www.deepastronomy.com/what-caused-the-big-bang.html

Nothing in that article or video refutes that it is an effect even the article admits that it is one but then just asks what caused God, but since God is not an effect then He doesn't need a cause.

 

[bhsmte]

Nothing in that article or video refutes that it is an effect even the article admits that it is one but then just asks what caused God, but since God is not an effect then He doesn't need a cause.

Special pleading 101

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Nothing in that article or video refutes that it is an effect even the article admits that it is one but then just asks what caused God, but since God is not an effect then He doesn't need a cause.

Your reading comprehension skills are deficient.




It was an unusual and highly counterintuitive event. It was not an explosion, it did not occur inside anything, rather, everything that we are familiar with: left, right, up, down, cause and effect, the stage for all physical laws, was getting larger.

We possess a natural curiosity of the world around us. We want to know how and why things are the way they are.

This curiousity has served us well because it carries significant survival benefits. If we see an event and ask ourselves why it happened or what caused it, we are more likely to spot a threat before it becomes dangerous in the future.

Our curiosity gives us the ability to look beyond the present moment. From it, we have evolved an urge to look for causes, it is an inseparable part of our biology. Because of this, we really can't help ourselves when we attempt to find a cause for creation, it is second nature for us to ask, 'What Caused the Big Bang?'

Any answer to this problem must begin with a key realization: both time and space are contained within the universe and came into existence only AFTER the Big Bang occurred. The cause of the universe must not include them, they are not available to us. It must come from outside our experience.

In this realm, the solution, whatever it is, will seem very strange to us, and it will almost certainly make no sense to our brains because here, it is possible to have an event with no cause. There is no time, there is no before in which the Big Bang could have occurred, there simply is no cause and effect.

We must somehow come up with a solution that exists outside time and space.

GOD MADE IT HAPPEN

For many "God caused the big bang" is a perfectly reasonable response. This seems to help many cope with the unsatisfying prospect of an event without a cause.

The problem of course is that one is then immediately forced to ask, "From where did the creator come?"

If the answer is "he always existed" then we have a situation, from a causality standpoint, that is no more satisfying than a universe that springs forth from nothing. A creator that has always existed is an entity that somehow exists without a cause.

So this answer doesn't solve the causality issue whatsoever.

 

[Davian]

Sure. This all looks fine to me.



Yes, I agree that our cognitive faculties all by themselves are limited in their ability to accurately tell us how the world works, but I still don't see how we have any choice but to trust -- I might even say to have faith -- that they're reliable enough to tell us which methods and/or instruments successfully augment our ability to ascertain accurate results and which do not.

Or, we can tentative conclude that we have established methods and/or instruments to successfully augment our ability to ascertain accurate results until we have information that they do not. No need to invoke "faith".

I call a belief “true” only if its conceptual content correctly, or accurately, represents the way that the world actually is.

Which simply begs the question, how do we determine the way the world actually is?

Its truth depends on the conceptual content that's “packaged into” the believed proposition.

Let's take the proposition that “the surface that your computer monitor sits upon is solid.” The truth of this proposition depends on the conceptual content that one intends to convey in any linguistic expression that is meant to assert it. Now let's isolate the word “solid” and try to unpack what content one might mean to convey by inserting it into the proposition in question. One possibility is that the asserter of this proposition might intend to convey that the surface has no visible holes or cracks or seams. So if this holds up as an accurate description of reality, then the person who asserts it does so truthfully (at least insofar as the “solid” part goes; for the sake of expediency, let's just assume that the remainder of the proposition's content also accurately represents reality). However, if by “solid” the utterer of said proposition means to assert that the surface contains no empty space whatsoever -- not even between the electrons and nuclei of atoms -- then his assertion is false, and if he believes it, then that belief is false.

I agree, other than your inclusion of the word "truth". The accuracy of a term depends on context in which it is used.

I don't think we can, because any attempt to determine the reliability of our cognitive faculties would have to presuppose the reliability of our cognitive faculties in order to do so, and so any such argument to that effect would be circular.

Not at all, as we need not rely on only our own faculties, we rely on those of others, to repeat and replicate our findings.

I think we just have to have faith that our faculties are truthful/accurate more often than not. I see this as a bedrock assumption that we just have to make if we're to have any hope of gaining genuine understanding of the world. Even in cases where we discover that our previously-held beliefs about the world are mistaken, we rely upon our cognitive faculties to have truthfully/accurately told us so in some way or other.

I do not have that faith. The more I learn of cognitive science and philosophy of mind, the less "faith" I have in what my faculties hand off to my "phenomenal self".

See this thread.

Except they're not justified because such a monstrous tyrant of a deity as that wouldn't be worthy of such pious reverence, and they ought to know that.

Indeed. This brings to mind the book I heard about yesterday, The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction.

link

I just don't wan't to make the [fallacious] argument that the nastiness of the god portrayal has any correlation to the likelihood of its existence.

Well, I'll neither defend nor criticize Craig's debate tactics here, but I do believe his writings show him to be a serious and rigorous scholar, regardless of whether or not he's right in what he claims or how well (or poorly) he performs in debates.

I do consider debates to be a poor means of exploring reality. You can win the debate, and still be wrong.

FWIW, I have a number of disagreements with Craig. I've already mentioned his rejection of God as Ipsum Esse Subsistens; I also think his Kalam argument has some serious issues that I've yet to see him satisfactorily resolve.

But he does have the outfit to go with the argument:

Kalamity Craig

• Davian
• Feb 1, 2016
• wlc

Like I told you once before, it's a neverending exchange of canons and missals!

Religious experiences typically seem to be described in otherworldly or supranatural terms, and as having been caused by something that we can't ordinarily perceive with our natural senses, if they can be described at all. The so-called “mystical” experiences, however, are typically claimed to be so radically transcendent of our everyday experience that anything approaching an accurate description of them is impossible.

I don't see why describing them as "wholly imagined" is not accurate, from the observer's perspective.

Well, that in conjunction with the other two. I don't see why a religious experience always has to confer some profound insight. I think they usually do, but I don't see why they always have to.



Again, I'd say that what you're justified in believing depends on what epistemic resources you have access to. If you've never had such an experience

Exactly how does one know if one has had such an experience?

and encounter two complete strangers -- both of whom could be pathological liars or prone to fantastical delusions/hallucinations, for all you know -- who both tell you a very similar (if not identical) fantastic story, then you might perfectly well be justified in believing that both stories are lies/delusions/products of wild imaginations.

If, on the other hand, you yourself have had a similar experience, and you know one of these people and have good reason to believe that he's of sound mind and isn't prone to telling tall tales, then you might have good reason to believe he's had what I call a genuine religious experience.

I don't think there is one privileged epistemic vantage point from which we can all look out and reach universal agreement on which experiences (if any) are genuine and which are not. What might be the most plausible explanation for one person (and justifiably so) might not be for another person (and again, justifiably so).

That is still not where I was going. Try this:

You encounter two complete strangers -- both of whom could be pathological liars or prone to fantastical delusions/hallucinations, for all you know -- who both tell you a very similar (if not identical) fantastic story of perpetual motion machines and immortality drugs. Ultimately, it does not matter to me if one or both of them are lying, or delusional, if neither of them can substantiate their claims.

 

[Davian]

Maybe, maybe not.

You being wrong in a consistent manner does have explanatory power, and we have observed you to be wrong in a consistent manner in these forums.

Sometimes popularity is right.

Such as the percentage of astrophysicists that lack belief in God.

Such as the belief that the earth is round.

Or, that the belief that the Earth is spherical. Do try to keep up.

Read a good book on the history of Christian doctrine.

Too lazy to look one up yourself?

Read a good history of Christianity.

Too lazy to look it up yourself?

Not necessarily.

The point you bring up is evidence for the human ability for self-deception as a common trait. It has explanatory power, particularly in light of religionists, such as yourself, to demonstrate the existence of their gods, and how they sometimes descend into pathetic equivalencies of their religious experiences to those that rise above chance and confirmation bias.

So you don't believe you are communicating with me on your computer?

That would be misrepresenting what I said. Besides being intellectually dishonest, it does nothing to distract from your failure to demonstrate that this "communication" that you claim to have with your particular "god" rises above chance and confirmation bias.

You hit your low point, then broke out the shovel and started digging.

 

[Peter1000]

It's not time travel because you are not being displaced in time. Time is dilating. There is a difference.

Why would it take them a few minutes on their own clock to reach a distant galaxy? Because they're travelling very close to c. What is the causal link there? Einstein laid that out in his theory of Relativity. You have an internet connection, so there's no excuse for not knowing how it works.





Correct. Use that internet connection of yours to look up something like "Confirming Relativity using atomic clocks."



If something traveled at c, it would falsify Einstein's theory.



Here, this is the first thing that popped up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafele–Keating_experiment

I didn't even read it. I have that much faith in search engines.

Thanks, that was interesting. I believe it.

 

[Peter1000]

It's easy enough to pop over to Cosmoquest and post your understanding of GR, and see how it stands up to scrutiny by credentialed professionals. Let me know if you would like to try your luck with that.

Common sense is not science.

I would probably fail in my understanding of GR. But my common sense nature likes your sign in the window. Thanks for that.

 

[Peter1000]

And how do you know your particular "id" created the universe? It sounds very generic.

Peter1000 says:
I only know, from a scientific perspective, there has to be an intelligence that is able to do what random chance cannot do. The knowledge of Him is limited, but it is what it is. Faith is the abiding principle at this time. The bible and the BOM and other scripture give us a better idea who He is, but faith is still king.

 

[Davian]

I only know, from a scientific perspective, there has to be an intelligence that is able to do what random chance cannot do.

<citation missing>

The knowledge of Him is limited, but it is what it is. Faith is the abiding principle at this time. The bible and the BOM and other scripture give us a better idea who He is, but faith is still king.

In the way you are using the word 'faith', it would appear interchangeable with 'gullibility'.

 

[Ed1wolf]

Special pleading 101

In what way?

 

[SkyWriting]

The problem is that science can never find God's tracks. I ask myself if there is some inherent aspect of God that makes it impossible for Him to leave tracks. I ask myself if God can actually do anything meaningful without leaving tracks. Then there is the imaginary friend possibility. Imaginary friends serve a purpose and leave tracks in the real world even though they exist only in a human's imagination. I suppose the imaginary friend God that exists in human imaginations leaves tracks. Is it possible that God is real, but He restricts Himself to our imaginations? In other words, there is a real God that inspires humans to create imaginary friend Gods in their minds that then interact with the world? Could science tell if there was a real God behind these imaginary friend Gods?

God is Spirit. You can watch Ghost Chasers on TV to see how hard it is to
spot a spirit. I don't think they've documented one yet.


15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
16 For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible
and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.