Why I believe in God

[bhsmte]

If our faith is based on reason, we of all men should be pitied.

Why?

 

[Received]

I can leave it as an interesting observation.

Yeah, just an interesting observation with no subtext at all, right?

" a critical examination, observation, or evaluation : trial; specifically : the procedure of submitting a statement to such conditions or operations as will lead to its proof or disproof or to its acceptance or rejection <a test of a statistical hypothesis> (2) : a basis for evaluation" - Merriam Webster.

The specifics of the test would depend on how he defines "God". Where has the OP gone, anyway?

Ok, so I'm taking that to mean the non-scientific usage. Given this, why on earth would you use "test" and "hypothesis", which both indicate the scientifically rigorous definition? This is a recurring tendency in your (and others') posts. God should be capable of being "tested", which opens up the question "why?" and implicit scientism (therefore self-negating statement implicit this standard, that all things capable of being considered true can be tested) IF you mean "test" in the scientific sense; BUT you don't clarify your use of test (except after being rigorously pressed for it, as here), which opens ambiguity to your listener, who doesn't know if you mean it scientifically or (as the definition you chose above indicates) just generally, i.e., "something is testable if it can be proven true, not falsifiable."

All of which could have been resolved very easily if you just defined your term when I asked for it rather than assuming I have some evil motive or just stalling arbitrarily. Thanks for defining it.

The OP is in the same place. Or are you saying you've never, ever had an argument with a person that differs in content than what the OP explicitly states?

Daaaaavviiaaaannnn.

Do you find your participation in these forums to be therapeutic?

Lol, you'll have to define therapeutic, because I don't know what you're getting at here too. Do you mean I get some edification from these forums? Not when you make certain comments we've discussed before; partially when I'm able to push you for more details (in the sense that catching your reasoning is like a subtle scavenger hunt where I'm stimulated by all the searching).

 

[Eudaimonist]

If the universe had a beginning, either there is an eternal multiverse or succession of universes, or God created it. To say it just happened without a cause I see as highly irrational, but for sake of argument I'll pretend it is possible.

As I see it, if the past is finite then the universe may simply be uncreated. It has a beginning, but it didn't have the sort of beginning in which it pops into existence out of nothing. At t=0 something very simple and uncreated existed, and it was in the nature of that entity to change, starting what we think of as time. That change led to what we see today.

There is nothing irrational about that, and it doesn't involve any special pleading for God.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Received]

As I see it, if the past is finite then the universe may simply be uncreated. It has a beginning, but it didn't have the sort of beginning in which it pops into existence out of nothing. At t=0 something very simple and uncreated existed, and it was in the nature of that entity to change, starting what we think of as time. That change led to what we see today.

There is nothing irrational about that, and it doesn't involve any special pleading for God.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Interesting thing is that your exact sentence is how a person could describe God as the cause: "At t=0 something very simple and uncreated existed, and it was in the nature of that entity to change, starting what we think of as time." Except it's special pleading when we consider it God, and not when we consider it the universe itself doing something so very mysterious, unverifiable, and counter to anything we've ever seen.

 

[Eudaimonist]

Interesting thing is that your exact sentence is how a person could describe God as the cause

Yes, true.

My notion is simply more parsimonious because I don't posit anything supernatural to explain the natural.

Except it's special pleading when we consider it God, and not when we consider it the universe itself doing something so very mysterious, unverifiable, and counter to anything we've ever seen.

It's special pleading when only God is capable of being uncreated. If you allow that logical possibility to a natural entity as well, there is no special pleading.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Resha Caner]

It's special pleading when only God is capable of being uncreated. If you allow that logical possibility to a natural entity as well, there is no special pleading.

Logical fallacies often seem to have a flavor of, "It's in the eye of the beholder." It's not special pleading to say electrons have a negative charge and protons don't. Why? Because the exception is justified.

Why is it special pleading to say God is an exception to "natural" (i.e. material) entities when an uncreated state is speculation for both? Neither has a justification, so it seems to me that if you allow speculation about the one, you have to allow speculation about the other.

 

[Davian]

Yeah, just an interesting observation with no subtext at all, right?

What subtext? You misrepresented what I wrote.

Ok, so I'm taking that to mean the non-scientific usage. Given this, why on earth would you use "test" and "hypothesis", which both indicate the scientifically rigorous definition? This is a recurring tendency in your (and others') posts. God should be capable of being "tested", which opens up the question "why?" and implicit scientism (therefore self-negating statement implicit this standard, that all things capable of being considered true can be tested) IF you mean "test" in the scientific sense; BUT you don't clarify your use of test (except after being rigorously pressed for it, as here), which opens ambiguity to your listener, who doesn't know if you mean it scientifically or (as the definition you chose above indicates) just generally, i.e., "something is testable if it can be proven true, not falsifiable."

The specifics of the test would depend on how he defines "God". He may define "God" as "a warm fuzzy feeling when I think of kittens". What can be done with that?

All of which could have been resolved very easily if you just defined your term when I asked for it rather than assuming I have some evil motive or just stalling arbitrarily. Thanks for defining it.

Was google broken at your house, that you could not look up the word?

The OP is in the same place. Or are you saying you've never, ever had an argument with a person that differs in content than what the OP explicitly states?

Daaaaavviiaaaannnn.

No, I meant, it appears he has abandoned the thread. Do you do this in real life, read a whole bunch extra into whatever others say (incorrectly)?

Lol, you'll have to define therapeutic, because I don't know what you're getting at here too. Do you mean I get some edification from these forums? Not when you make certain comments we've discussed before; partially when I'm able to push you for more details (in the sense that catching your reasoning is like a subtle scavenger hunt where I'm stimulated by all the searching).

I was just 'yanking your chain'.

 

[Percivale]

Wish I had internet at home, this is the most active thread I've started yet looks like.

From this argument, I define God simply as an eternal being with the intelligence, volition, and power necessary to create a universe. Note that I did not title the thread "why I am a Christian". A timeless being with a will can have the desire to create, which provides a cause for time beginning. Timeless matter seems to me to be impossible, doesn't matter rely on motion to exist? If there is motion, there is time. Causation, at least physical causation, requires time, so any material first cause of the universe must already be in time, thus there cannot be a material first cause. That's how I see it anyway, these are hard concepts to wrap one's mind around.

If there is a multiverse that is not eternal, I would say the same arguments apply and God would be the best explanation for it. I could also toy with the idea that God is the multiverse. i.e. that the multiverse is conscious.

Can this be tested? scientifically, I think all the options for the origin of the universe are in the same boat, too far away in time and space to test definitively. Of course, God can be tested in other ways, such as if you're lucky enough to witness a miracle. But it seems God generally follows the Prime Directive (Star Trek), so those are rare. I've only seen one or two small ones. There are some good reasons God might follow the Prime Directive, such encouraging our growth and scientific development as a species.

 

[Davian]

Wish I had internet at home, this is the most active thread I've started yet looks like.

From this argument, I define God simply as an eternal being with the intelligence, volition, and power necessary to create a universe.

How much intelligence and power are required to create a universe? How did you determine this?

Note that I did not title the thread "why I am a Christian".

Indeed. You seemed to have glossed over the part where and how you determined that this "God" that you imagined is the Christian "God".

A timeless being with a will can have the desire to create, which provides a cause for time beginning.

I do not know what 'timeless' exactly means, but it does leave me wondering how a 'timeless being' could get around to doing anything.

Timeless matter seems to me to be impossible, doesn't matter rely on motion to exist?

To declare something impossible, you would have to understand it very well.

If there is motion, there is time. Causation, at least physical causation, requires time, so any material first cause of the universe must already be in time, thus there cannot be a material first cause. That's how I see it anyway, these are hard concepts to wrap one's mind around.

How do you know that the rules of causation, as we observe them within the cosmos, apply prior to its instantiation?

If there is a multiverse that is not eternal, I would say the same arguments apply and God would be the best explanation for it. I could also toy with the idea that God is the multiverse. i.e. that the multiverse is conscious.

Word salad.

Can this be tested? scientifically, I think all the options for the origin of the universe are in the same boat, too far away in time and space to test definitively.

Including gods? If they are "too far away in time and space to test definitively", why should we care about them?

Of course, God can be tested in other ways, such as if you're lucky enough to witness a miracle.

How would a miracle (whatever that is) validate your "God" as a creator of the universe? What is a miracle?

But it seems God generally follows the Prime Directive (Star Trek), so those are rare. I've only seen one or two small ones. There are some good reasons God might follow the Prime Directive, such encouraging our growth and scientific development as a species.

If this "God" is interacting with human activities, there should be evidence of this. What evidence do you have for your "God" doing this?

 

[Received]

Yes, true.

My notion is simply more parsimonious because I don't posit anything supernatural to explain the natural.



It's special pleading when only God is capable of being uncreated. If you allow that logical possibility to a natural entity as well, there is no special pleading.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Parsimony is one thing, but treating matter as having the properties of God by giving it a characteristic strangely like consciousness or at least opposite of its tendencies given inertia and causality is another thing. Parsimony is about the least complicated answer. Imputing deity-like characteristics onto matter and saying it's more parsimonious to believe matter can do things like this isn't parsimony.

I don't think parsimony really applies to big questions like this given the incredible complexity involved in theistic or atheistic explanations. The beginning of the universe is a spooky and by definition irrational (to some degree) idea. Either matter is doing really screwy things, or we have completely unfalsifiable claims to multiverses and such and so on, or we have a deity doing screwy things (such as creating a universe). Screwy A or screwy B. I'm not saying they're equal, but I don't think parsimony fits here.

 

[Received]

What subtext? You misrepresented what I wrote.

The subtext here:

"I can leave it as an interesting observation."

No subtext here, surely.

The specifics of the test would depend on how he defines "God". He may define "God" as "a warm fuzzy feeling when I think of kittens". What can be done with that?

Not much.

Was google broken at your house, that you could not look up the word?

Most words have multiple meanings, and the meaning ultimately is up to the person who intends the term in a particular way. Dictionaries do nothing to resolve terms which have multiple meanings given the context in which they're used.

No, I meant, it appears he has abandoned the thread. Do you do this in real life, read a whole bunch extra into whatever others say (incorrectly)?

No.

I was just 'yanking your chain'.

Cool.

 

[Gottservant]

God is the inevitable, inevitability of inevitability that is inevitable.

Why do you think I believe in Him?

 

[Eudaimonist]

Parsimony is one thing, but treating matter as having the properties of God

LOL! We don't even know what God is supposed to be composed of! Godonium? Godomantite? Whatever properties theologians speak of are simply quick and dirty fixes to various philosophical questions anyway.

Why shouldn't there be an uncreated aspect to the universe? That's certainly better than inventing an additional entity, "God", with unknown powers of creation to solve the problem.

by giving it a characteristic strangely like consciousness

I'm not suggesting that the Cosmic Egg (what I call whatever existed at t=0) is in any way conscious. Self-existence (being uncreated) is nothing like consciousness, even though theologians might want their conceptual god-construct to have that property.

or at least opposite of its tendencies given inertia and causality is another thing. Parsimony is about the least complicated answer.

No, parsimony in the sense I mean here is about explanation without creating unnecessary entities. God is an unnecessary entity to explain the existence of the universe. If God can be uncreated, why not the universe?

Consider gravity. Albert Einstein's theory of gravity is very complex and above the heads of most people. However, the invisible leprechaun theory of gravity, while being so simple even a child could understand it, is less parsimonious because it multiplies entities unnecessarily.

Imputing deity-like characteristics onto matter and saying it's more parsimonious to believe matter can do things like this isn't parsimony.

What I am doing is parsimonious. I'm not saying that matter (or, rather, physical reality) is deity-like. I'm saying that it doesn't depend on deities for its existence. It can simply "just exist" in the sense of being uncreated. That's not a deity power, it's a natural one. The only reason that it seems like a deity power is because theologians have clouded the issue for centuries.

Granted, I'm making a philosophical argument and not a strictly scientific one. However, nothing I'm saying here conflicts with, say, Hawking's ideas about the Big Bang.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Interesting thing is that your exact sentence is how a person could describe God as the cause: "At t=0 something very simple and uncreated existed, and it was in the nature of that entity to change, starting what we think of as time." Except it's special pleading when we consider it God, and not when we consider it the universe itself doing something so very mysterious, unverifiable, and counter to anything we've ever seen.

Except that this isn't how a person would typically describe God as the cause. They would usually say that God, an intelligent agent, decided to create the universe ex nihilo. Religious apologists are seldom, if ever, heard saying "At t=0 something very simple and uncreated existed, and it was in the nature of that entity to change, starting what we think of as time." That's not how they typically conceive of God.

 

[Received]

LOL! We don't even know what God is supposed to be composed of! Godonium? Godomantite? Whatever properties theologians speak of are simply quick and dirty fixes to various philosophical questions anyway.

I disagree with this to infinity. So thinking of the characteristics of God is just as arbitrary as thinking up the characteristics of abracadabra? You don't think there are very limited metaphysical constraints on how God could be given his role as a creator of the universe?

Why shouldn't there be an uncreated aspect to the universe? That's certainly better than inventing an additional entity, "God", with unknown powers of creation to solve the problem.

Because uncreated presupposes an eternal universe. An eternal universe gives rise to an infinite regress. And infinite regresses exist coherently only in set theory; in real life they don't allow for a present moment, see Hilbert's Hotel, etc. Therefore, because an eternal universe is either impossible (because of an infinite regress) or involves a complete suspension of the principle of sufficient reason if we somehow hold to an infinite regress not being a problem in application to the universe's beginning (which really equates to faith), an uncreated universe as you've presented is at best very metaphysically questionable. Then you also have the other problems I've already mentioned: matter acting in very strange and non-matter-like ways (e.g., going against intertia or causality as we know them), we have absolutely no scientific justification for this event (in the sense that it's observable, replicable, and predictable), but we do have fancy mathematical and theoretical models which (because they don't involve observation, replicability, and predictability) aren't science and just cleverly concealed philosophical ideas.

I'm not suggesting that the Cosmic Egg (what I call whatever existed at t=0) is in any way conscious. Self-existence (being uncreated) is nothing like consciousness, even though theologians might want their conceptual god-construct to have that property.

Right, I'm saying it's *like* consciousness given its non-matter-like qualities (see above).

No, parsimony in the sense I mean here is about explanation without creating unnecessary entities. God is an unnecessary entity to explain the existence of the universe. If God can be uncreated, why not the universe?

1) Parsimony only applies to scientific explanations, and the problem of the beginning of the universe is a strictly philosophical problem even though it might masquerade as science (as I've argued above); 2) even as a scientific explanation there are serious science-related philosophical challenges to parsimony; 3) "unnecessary entities" could apply to the whole universe, if you really think about it. I.e., it's more parsimonious for us to assume that matter doesn't do incredibly strange things contrary to its nature and therefore from nothing nothing comes; OR we suspend parsimony because things are so blasted complicated (see previous post), which isn't at all an argument for God.

 

[PsychoSarah]

God is the inevitable, inevitability of inevitability that is inevitable.

Why do you think I believe in Him?

People believe various things for even more various reasons.

 

[Percivale]

The cosmic egg theory,

at time t=0 something simple existed, and it was the nature of it to change

, contains a contradiction I believe. 'at time t=0 means before time began: the cosmic egg existed timelessly. To exist timelessly is to exist changelessly. So the sentence quoted can be rephrased, 'A changeless object existed, whose nature was to change. So the object had the properties of changelessness and change. A logical contradiction, thus the statement is false and there could not have been a 'cosmic egg.'

 

[Davian]

God is the inevitable, inevitability of inevitability that is inevitable.

Why do you think I believe in Him?

Because it gives you a warm fuzzy feeling, like when you think of kittens?

 

[Beechwell]

The cosmic egg theory, , contains a contradiction I believe. 'at time t=0 means before time began: the cosmic egg existed timelessly. To exist timelessly is to exist changelessly. So the sentence quoted can be rephrased, 'A changeless object existed, whose nature was to change. So the object had the properties of changelessness and change. A logical contradiction, thus the statement is false and there could not have been a 'cosmic egg.'

I think you misunderstand. The 'cosmic egg' isn't something that exists before or outside of time, but rather is the universe at the beginning of time (t=0). I don't understand why you interpret t=0 to be before time; t=0 is the beginning of time, before any time has passed, but still within time. If we take the concept of a beginning of time seriously, there cannot be such a moment as "before time began". There only exist moments within time (t>=0). Thus the universe has always been changing, the cosmic egg being the initial state at its very beginning.

I see it this way: The universe has always existed, 'always' being roughly 14 billion years. There is this human notion that 'always' should mean an infinite amount of time, but according to our current understanding of the world, this isn't true.
This would also mean that there could not have been an act of creation that 'caused' the universe, because such an act or cause would require time.

 

[Deidre32]

If believing in a god makes you feel fulfilled, I wouldn't talk anyone out of that. I was once a Christian, and my faith made me feel fulfilled in many ways. I sometimes miss that level of fulfillment, that I haven't yet found since deconverting.