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Oh yeah?
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Originally Posted by Auricauricle
RGA, If I follow what you are saying, belief in a higher power is a whim borne from duress. If we look upon God as a sentient, humanoid being that is capable of all of our passions and thoughts, the proposition of such a God might engender certain theistic ideologies ...
Well the Greek gods were anthropomorphic, weren't they?
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Originally Posted by Auricauricle
... however, I don't think that the relief of suffering or its absence is necessarily conducive to non-belief.
Apparently it isn't, (though maybe it should be). Question then is what is God good for? No use on earth but good for Heaven maybe? Pertaining to Heaven, as a good Calvinist I would believe that God has preordained the Elect and nothing I do or belief will change that. The two together would make God's utlity zero and his existance or non-existance functionaly irrelevant.
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Originally Posted by Auricauricle
; There is a phrase, "useful fiction" which is used to describe putative posits to describe the undescribable, to ponder the imponderable. Might God be such an entity? Does the presence of God-as-idea or "useful fiction" make God less extant?
How useful are "putative posits" anyway if they pertain to the imponderable? Not at all, I should say. Then again to say we can't or shouldn't ponder God is a bit of a cop-out, isn't it?
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I think that we are on the same page--it happens when you discuss things for a while. On the other hand, while I think the existence of God is moot, the belief in such an entity serves a purpose, hence the horrible phrase (putative posit). I don't think using such thought experiments are useless, but important springboards for hypothesis generation...
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Auricauricle
I think that we are on the same page--it happens when you discuss things for a while. On the other hand, while I think the existence of God is moot, the belief in such an entity serves a purpose, hence the horrible phrase (putative posit). I don't think using such thought experiments are useless, but important springboards for hypothesis generation...
Scientists would insist that hypotheses are useful in so far as they can be subject to objective evidence, usually, though not necessarily, obtained by experimentation. Does the God Hypothesis meet this critieron of usefulness? (We are talking now about the espistemological search for the metaphysical.)
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(Mike pokes his head in, listens for a minute, and develops a huge headache)
Anyone have an aspirin?
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Isn't there a point in science when even the most fundamental principles and partricles dissolve into an unknown singularity? Remember when Einstein came ever so close to reconciling the forces of nature? When pressed to explain he said, "God does not play dice"? While I am not saying that the invocation of God is necessary, I do think that the conceptualization of a unifying force that gives a sense of cohesiveness and comprehension to our universe is useful. Or is God simply Lord Occam's immortal razor?
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(And that's when Mike's head exploded)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Auricauricle
Isn't there a point in science when even the most fundamental principles and partricles dissolve into an unknown singularity? Remember when Einstein came ever so close to reconciling the forces of nature? When pressed to explain he said, "God does not play dice"? While I am not saying that the invocation of God is necessary, I do think that the conceptualization of a unifying force that gives a sense of cohesiveness and comprehension to our universe is useful. Or is God simply Lord Occam's immortal razor?
Some would say that God is antithetical to Occam's Razor, (the scientific principle of parsimony of hypotheses). This is, postulation of a god is unnecessary to scientific explanation.
When Einstein famously said "God does not play dice", he was referring to idea of quantum randomness which was relatively new at the time and at odds with the Special Theory of Relativity, (or was it the General Theory?). Einstein was a very secular Jew and it should not be construed that he was advocating God as a prime mover.
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Originally Posted by GMichael
(And that's when Mike's head exploded)
FA gets hit by the splatter.
"EWWWWWW! GROSS!"
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I did not mean to indicate that Einstein was anything but secular; the statement was one of frustration and despair and his conviction that the universe is anything but random. I still wonder if the notion of God is a useful heuristic to some, who just can't embrace an ex nihilo genesis, but instead beat their head against the pillars of Xeno's Paradox (sorry GM).
Hey, FA! Need a face-cloth?
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Originally Posted by Auricauricle
I did not mean to indicate that Einstein was anything but secular; the statement was one of frustration and despair and his conviction that the universe is anything but random. I still wonder if the notion of God is a useful heuristic to some, who just can't embrace an ex nihilo genesis, but instead beat their head against the pillars of Xeno's Paradox (sorry GM).
Hey, FA! Need a face-cloth?
That's about it. Personally I haven't had a problem with ex nihilo genesis in many decades. In any case, as I've previously stated, the insinutation of God as an explanation for anything is simply absurd because to do so is to beg the question, where did God come from?
Xeno's Paradoxes, or some of them, still pose an intellectual challenge as I gather. But their logic is immediately refuted by empirical evidence.
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Originally Posted by ForeverAutumn
FA gets hit by the splatter.
"EWWWWWW! GROSS!"
That's me. All over you.
Again.
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Well far be it for me to get in the way of Auric and Feanor's Sisyphusian endeavors, but on the question of pre-ordainment, the simple answer that I've always found titillating is that time has no meaning to God (as defined by either Auric or Feanor).
GM, that panky is quite osé in a thread debating the existence of god - being all-knowing and omnipresent, I would suggest caution with that hanky.
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Thanks....Wait....Who're you callin' a sissy puss?
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Man has always needed to believe in something. For some of us it's God, for other of us it's the belief in our selves etc etc.
Myself, I believe in the Church of Jimmy Hendrix.
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LDB, that reminded me of an episode of Family Guy where Peter started the Church of Fonzie.
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Well, he could do some pretty amazing things....What he did with the pinball machine at Arnolds was nothing short of miraculous.
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