Author Topic: Searching for GOD...  (Read 3878182 times)

torridon

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24450 on: December 07, 2017, 01:07:29 PM »
So in the physical scenario there can be no us, or we or you or me in control - only inevitable uncontrollable reactions.  For any of us to exist as creative human beings, the me's and you's must exist as non physical entities with the power to control.

Flawed thinking.

A non-physical entity would not be able to control anything physical.  How do you think a wrestling match between an 18st bloke and a ghost would go ?

Sebastian Toe

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24451 on: December 07, 2017, 01:14:00 PM »
Who violated nature?
Who created humanity?
"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends.'
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wigginhall

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24452 on: December 07, 2017, 01:15:54 PM »
The greater hostility is not from nature but humanity........which has wrought havoc on nature and on itself. Torridon is wrong.

I didn't say 'nature', but the universe.   If the universe is hostile to life, then why did God create it?   
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Stranger

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24453 on: December 07, 2017, 01:16:57 PM »
Who violated nature?

If there is an omnipotent, omniscient creator, then it is omni-responsible too. Quite literally, nothing can happen that isn't its fault.
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Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24454 on: December 07, 2017, 01:22:52 PM »
I didn't say 'nature', but the universe.   If the universe is hostile to life, then why did God create it?
Ah, Here is where I refer to Sean Carroll. We don't know, according to Carroll in a refutation of fine tuning for life, what conditions are necessary for life. Carroll trumps Torridon and the assumption that the universe is hostile to life.

torridon

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24455 on: December 07, 2017, 01:24:27 PM »
Ah, Here is where I refer to Sean Carroll. We don't know, according to Carroll in a refutation of fine tuning for life, what conditions are necessary for life. Carroll trumps Torridon and the assumption that the universe is hostile to life.

It's not my position that the universe is hostile to life.  That belongs to Alan, and my comment was aimed at him.

Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24456 on: December 07, 2017, 01:29:31 PM »
It's not my position that the universe is hostile to life. 
My apologies.

Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24457 on: December 07, 2017, 02:11:47 PM »
Flawed thinking.

A non-physical entity would not be able to control anything physical.  How do you think a wrestling match between an 18st bloke and a ghost would go ?
Can you explain how you know your statement here to be true.
Does the physical not follow mathematical patterns?
Are the laws of physics physical? or are you arguing for a kind of Sheldrakian system?

Alan Burns

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24458 on: December 07, 2017, 02:14:48 PM »
It's not my position that the universe is hostile to life.  That belongs to Alan, and my comment was aimed at him.
I did not mention hostile in my recent posts - just indifferent, implying that unguided forces in nature are aimless and purposeless.  But we do not see the big picture - we may not realise just why some aspects of nature seem hostile to life.  There are many things which I do not understand or seem illogical.  But I trust that God knows best because I know without any doubt that He loves us all.  Without God there would be no love, no compassion, no existence - nothing.
The truth will set you free  - John 8:32
Truth is not an abstraction, but a person - Edith Stein
Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. - CS Lewis
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Shaker

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24459 on: December 07, 2017, 02:16:26 PM »
As Rhiannon so beautifully put it fairly recently: "Aw, that seems quite sweet. Then I remember it's 2017 and you're supposed to be a grown-up."
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

Alan Burns

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24460 on: December 07, 2017, 02:29:04 PM »
If there is an omnipotent, omniscient creator, then it is omni-responsible too. Quite literally, nothing can happen that isn't its fault.
But allowing entities to exist with their own power of free will leads to the inevitable consequence that some of these entities will use their free will to perpetrate evil rather than good by going against the will of their Creator.  God must allow this to happen for free will beings to exist, but God is not directly to blame for the evil they do.
The truth will set you free  - John 8:32
Truth is not an abstraction, but a person - Edith Stein
Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. - CS Lewis
Joy is the Gigantic Secret of Christians - GK Chesterton

Stranger

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24461 on: December 07, 2017, 02:39:48 PM »
But allowing entities to exist with their own power of free will leads to the inevitable consequence that some of these entities will use their free will to perpetrate evil rather than good by going against the will of their Creator.  God must allow this to happen for free will beings to exist, but God is not directly to blame for the evil they do.

While it is arguably the case that "free will" can have a sensible meaning from the point of view of humans (see Compatibilism), from the point of view of an omnipotent, omniscient creator, it is clearly nonsensical.

Have you thought about the question you keep on ignoring yet (#24442)?
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Enki

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24462 on: December 07, 2017, 02:53:21 PM »
To have control in any form, you need a source for that control.  So this source must have the power to initiate a controlling event.  In a physically deterministic scenario involving only material reactions to previous events, there can be no defining source event to initiate a controlling command.  In this scenario, everything is just uncontrollable reactions to previous events.

So in the physical scenario there can be no us, or we or you or me in control - only inevitable uncontrollable reactions.  For any of us to exist as creative human beings, the me's and you's must exist as non physical entities with the power to control.

You seem to be hung up on this controllable/uncontrollable idea. I suspect that you see the word 'control' as an adjunct to some sort of intelligent entity. However the natural world has its own controls  without any intelligence being needed. E.g. life only exists when environmental conditions are such that life can flourish. To this extent the part of nature which we call life is controlled by other parts of nature that we call the environment. What is uncontrollable about that?

Or take the actual process of evolution by natural selection, a two-step process. Mutations are chance events, but their survival is often anything but. What is uncontrollable about that?

Or take photosynthesis, where a plant can assimilate, convert and use photons from the sun. What is uncontrollable about that?
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wigginhall

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24463 on: December 07, 2017, 03:01:07 PM »
Well, my pancreas controls blood sugar levels.   I suppose AB will say that's a reaction, not control.    Or, as enki just said, for AB, control = intelligence.   So we get the illuminating idea that intelligent control involves intelligence.
« Last Edit: December 07, 2017, 03:08:55 PM by wigginhall »
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floo

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24464 on: December 07, 2017, 03:03:09 PM »
It all comes down to faith that our Creator made Himself known to us in the form of Jesus Christ, and it is the only credible explanation I can see for our existence.

But the Biblical god is not credible, anymore than any fairy tale character is.

Gordon

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24465 on: December 07, 2017, 04:18:42 PM »
Well, my pancreas controls blood sugar levels.   I suppose AB will say that's a reaction, not control.    Or, as enki just said, for AB, control = intelligence.   So we get the illuminating idea that intelligent control involves intelligence.

I suspect that Alan uses 'control' as a synonym for 'God': his every premise is 'God' anyway, as is his every conclusion, so everything is just 'God' and the resultant circularity is simply ignored.

Perhaps Alan feels his approach looks more credible is it expressed via 'entities' that have 'conscious awareness' and such like without realising that, given the fallacy-feast that then ensues, it just looks plain silly as well as misguided.

torridon

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24466 on: December 07, 2017, 05:44:04 PM »
But allowing entities to exist with their own power of free will leads to the inevitable consequence that some of these entities will use their free will to perpetrate evil rather than good by going against the will of their Creator.  God must allow this to happen for free will beings to exist, but God is not directly to blame for the evil they do.

but he is directly to blame for creating the Devil and continuing to tolerate the Devil, according to you.  No human has the power to do such things, free will or not.

torridon

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24467 on: December 07, 2017, 05:47:33 PM »
I did not mention hostile in my recent posts - just indifferent, implying that unguided forces in nature are aimless and purposeless.  But we do not see the big picture - we may not realise just why some aspects of nature seem hostile to life.  There are many things which I do not understand or seem illogical.  But I trust that God knows best because I know without any doubt that He loves us all.  Without God there would be no love, no compassion, no existence - nothing.

Does God love rats and cockroaches and head lice too ? After all if he created humans then he created all those other things too.

Or are you being selective rather than unbiased ?

floo

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24468 on: December 07, 2017, 06:26:17 PM »
but he is directly to blame for creating the Devil and continuing to tolerate the Devil, according to you.  No human has the power to do such things, free will or not.

What can be good about a god who created evil?

Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24469 on: December 07, 2017, 06:41:01 PM »
What can be good about a god who created evil?
Evil is disobeying God.

Nearly Sane

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24470 on: December 07, 2017, 06:43:34 PM »
Evil is disobeying God.
So when your god hardened Pharoah's heart, it disobeyed itself in order to indulge in its taste for indiscriminate slaughter.

Shaker

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24471 on: December 07, 2017, 07:22:39 PM »
What can be good about a god who created evil?
... which as I recall "Crashes and" didn't realise was in his book.
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24472 on: December 07, 2017, 07:41:44 PM »
So when your god hardened Pharoah's heart, it disobeyed itself in order to indulge in its taste for indiscriminate slaughter.
God doesn't have a taste for indiscriminate slaughter. The evidence is that mankind does.

Nearly Sane

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24473 on: December 07, 2017, 07:43:26 PM »
God doesn't have a taste for indiscriminate slaughter. The evidence is that mankind does.
The first born were indiscriminate. So  your god if your book is to believed likes to slaughter.

Nearly Sane

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #24474 on: December 07, 2017, 07:46:34 PM »
God doesn't have a taste for indiscriminate slaughter. The evidence is that mankind does.
Oh and BTW, I haven't killed anyone but your god got people to write a collection of books to boast about its liking of slaughter.