Fine detail in the gospels: made up or not?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Steve H,

Probably. Who cares?

Well, if you want to be taken seriously when you post then you probably should. Posting in quick succession positions that contradict each other just undermines your credibility.

[Spud]

How did you calculate the odds of being able to recapture the hamster without prayer?

I find it amazing that anyone actually thinks God intervenes to rescue a hamster!

At the time, I wasn't thinking of it as an experiment.
It was a case of knowing I needed help to get out of a mess, having let him escape.
Regarding the issue of why God doesn't heal every person prayed for from disease, suffering etc. It seems God actually wants us to pray, because even if he choses not to heal someone he will.always bless in response to prayer. He wants us to rely on him. If there was no suffering, everyone would forget he existed and all would be ultimately condemned.

[Maeght]

At the time, I wasn't thinking of it as an experiment.

Think it through now.
 

It was a case of knowing I needed help to get out of a mess, having let him escape.
Regarding the issue of why God doesn't heal every person prayed for from disease, suffering etc. It seems God actually wants us to pray,....

On what to yiu base that assumption.

.... because even if he choses not to heal someone he will.always bless in response to prayer.

What does that mean?

He wants us to rely on him.

On what do you base that?

If there was no suffering, everyone would forget he existed and all would be ultimately condemned.

Why would people forget he existed?

Why does he help you save a hamster but not save people with life changing or life ending conditions?

Just fir a moment try to imagine a world where prayers aren't answered. Wouldn't it look just like the world w live in?

[Maeght]

Probably. Who cares?

Really?!

[jeremyp]

If someone has terminal cancer and is prayed for, and the cancer disappears, you can't prove that it was the result of prayer, but it seems likely.

No it doesn't.

[jeremyp]

You might as well say that someone recovering from cancer after chemotherapy was a coincidence.

That's why they do medical trials, to establish if there is a correlation between having chemotherapy and surviving. In general, of course, correlation is not causation, but the studies are carefully designed so that we can be confident that the chemo was the cause of survival.

When we say chemotherapy causes cancer to go into remission, we have a huge quantity of scientific evidence to back that up. Not so with prayer.

[jeremyp]

I am of the opinion prayer might act as a placebo, and may help in the healing process, which is instigated by the medics.

As has already been mentioned above, one of the few studies showed a slightly negative effect of prayer on people who knew they were being prayed for.

[jeremyp]

I don't absolutely rule out the possibility, but it probably doesn't, except perhaps via the placebo effect.

Just to clarify, in post 1300 you said that the prayer having an effect seems likely. Your recent posts, however, suggest that you believe the opposite ie. it actually seems unlikely. Is there perhaps a typo in reply 1300?

[Spud]

I have given a number of possible answers based on what is currently known but actually it's totally irrelevant to any question of the existence of some god - it's up to those people who propose the idea (or any idea) to provide some reason to take it seriously.

You started off with the universe looking like it's designed for life (which it isn't),

I think I was referring to the fine tuning of the universe, which seems to be an accepted fact.

then it was that order needed explaining but you can't explain an ordered god and now it seems to be down to the ever shrinking god of the gaps.

I will return to my point that a god is (at best) a baseless guess that explains nothing; it just changes the subject of the question. Instead of why this universe exists, it becomes why this god exists.

Because he (if he exists) made us, God is by definition not possible to fathom completely - we can understand how his creation works, but not its origin - so what if something else created God? There's no way we can ever find out why he exists unless he tells us.

Thus the point that order in the universe suggests a creator still stands. And my point was that having inferred this, the next step is to ask him to reveal himself.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Spud,

I think I was referring to the fine tuning of the universe, which seems to be an accepted fact.

No it isn’t, or at least not in the sense you imply of being created just-so so it suits us. We fit the universe, not the other way around.

Because he (if he exists) made us, God is by definition not possible to fathom completely - we can understand how his creation works, but not its origin - so what if something else created God? There's no way we can ever find out unless he tells us.

Makes no sense. Even if there is a god (or lots of them) that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’d know whether he in turn was created by something else. And nor would that something else necessarily know….etc etc. Why then bother positing “god” as an answer to something when it actually answers nothing at all? 

Thus the point that order in the universe suggests a creator still stands.

No it doesn’t. We know that order emerges spontaneously in all sort of circumstances with no grand designer behind it, and there’s no reason to exempt the universe in general from that. Moreover, the universe only appears to be ordered for us because that’s our reference point; a differently structured universe that happened to spit out a different species somewhere else would appear just the same way to that species too. That’s what happens when you make the reference point error. 

And my point was that having inferred this, the next step is to ask him to reveal himself.

No it isn’t because your inference is hopeless (see above).

[wigginhall]

I don't think fine tuning is a fact.  For one thing, do we know what the conditions for life might be?   There might be all kinds of life which can arise, which are nothing like  earth life.

There is also an interesting point about God and fine tuning - why would he bother?  Why not just create life?   This also relates to stuff like quantum mechanics - is the proposal that God has created electrons to be wave-like?   Again, why would he do that?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I don't think fine tuning is a fact.  For one thing, do we know what the conditions for life might be?   There might be all kinds of life which can arise, which are nothing like  earth life.

That doesn't exclude fine tuning for life since presumably it would have arisen in the same universe with the same constants. The test would be could it exist if the constants were different.

There is also an interesting point about God and fine tuning - why would he bother?  Why not just create life?   This also relates to stuff like quantum mechanics - is the proposal that God has created electrons to be wave-like?   Again, why would he do that?

Dunno

[wigginhall]

"Certainly an all-powerful creator could have made a universe delicately balanced to produce life. But he also could have made life exist in any kind of universe whatsoever, with no delicate balancing act necessary. So if the universe is, in fact, fine-tuned to support life, it is more—not less—likely to have had a natural origin."

Stenger, 'The Fallacy of Fine Tuning'. 

Or you could say that it's odd that God has produced a universe which obeys natural laws.   What a coincidence!

[Walt Zingmatilder]

"Certainly an all-powerful creator could have made a universe delicately balanced to produce life. But he also could have made life exist in any kind of universe whatsoever, with no delicate balancing act necessary. So if the universe is, in fact, fine-tuned to support life, it is more—not less—likely to have had a natural origin."

Stenger, 'The Fallacy of Fine Tuning'. 

OK up to the last sentence which Stenger seems to pull out of a hat.
Also the  idea of nature having a natural origin suggests self creation. He cannot therefore avoid invoking the multiverse making his claim to be considering fine tuning a bit suspect.

[BeRational]

OK up to the last sentence which Stenger seems to pull out of a hat.
Also the  idea of nature having a natural origin suggests self creation. He cannot therefore avoid invoking the multiverse making his claim to be considering fine tuning a bit suspect.

How is it fine tuned?

How do you know the 'constants' could have any other value?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

How is it fine tuned?

How do you know the 'constants' could have any other value?

Fine tuning means that there are constants and that they aren't wobbling about all over the place.
In other words we can turn your question around and ask ''why these values and no other?'' since Stenger suggests a natural cause that seems to be a fair question?

If of course a constant could be observed changing.........then we would know that they could.

[BeRational]

Fine tuning means that there are constants and that they aren't wobbling about all over the place.
In other words we can turn your question around and ask ''why these values and no other?'' since Stenger suggests a natural cause that seems to be a fair question?

If of course a constant could be observed changing.........then we would know that they could.

We don't know that they can change, and we don't know they could have any other values.

We don't know, seems to be a theme here.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

We don't know that they can change, and we don't know they could have any other values.

We don't know, seems to be a theme here.

Yep.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vladdo,

Fine tuning means that there are constants and that they aren't wobbling about all over the place.

No it doesn't. It means that, whatever those constants happen to be, they fit within the very narrow parameters necessary for our existence.
 

In other words we can turn your question around and ask ''why these values and no other?'' since Stenger suggests a natural cause that seems to be a fair question?

No it isn't. "How" is legitimate but "why" isn't because it begs the question of a "something" to decide on the why a priori.

If of course a constant could be observed changing.........then...

...it wouldn't be a constant.

...we would know that they could.

That what could what?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

 
No it isn't. "How" is legitimate but "why" isn't because it begs the question of a "something" to decide on the why a priori.

No it doesn't.
You are talking shit.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vladdo,

No it doesn't.

Yes it does. That's what the word "why" entails - a reason, a purpose etc. You are, as ever, wrong about this... 

You are talking shit.

...as you've just inadvertently conceded.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Wiggs,

There is also an interesting point about God and fine tuning - why would he bother?  Why not just create life?   This also relates to stuff like quantum mechanics - is the proposal that God has created electrons to be wave-like?   Again, why would he do that?

Just to add the question the 12-year-old me asked (and has still never had answered): why too would a god concerned to install his favourite species bother with several hundred millions of years-worth of dinosaurs before getting around to us just a few seconds before midnight relatively speaking?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vladdo,

Yes it does. That's what the word "why" entails - a reason, a purpose etc.   

No it doesn't......... that, I move, is just a fanatical antitheistic mind working overtime.

[wigginhall]

'Why' is question begging, since it means 'for what purpose'?  Hang on, who has said that there is one?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

'Why' is question begging, since it means 'for what purpose'?  Hang on, who has said that there is one?

Sorry Mr Zen....i'll use the word How in the presence of ''you people''.