God and evidence

(Aug 17, 2021 08:25 PM)Magical Realist Wrote:

Quote:The same goes for god. If we knew, as an empirical fact, that god exists, we'd be insane to do anything but believe and try to follow it.

What's wrong with that if that is the fact of the situation? You're saying we lose freewill if God reveals himself. But isn't that what he does--reveal himself so we can make a rational and informed decision. I see no value nor freedom in God hiding his existence from the creatures he created to enjoy his company. This freewill argument is just a elaborate excuse to explain the apparent absence of a God from the universe.

God reveals itself in a way people can still readily convince themselves is nothing or mere coincidence, if they are motivated to do so. Part of any enlightenment/revelation is a person learning to get out of their own way or break old patterns of thinking.
Who said god explicitly created humans for their company?
Since I've already explained how not being sure is necessary to free choice, the only alternative is that things like mental illness are a free choice. If that's your argument, I won't tell you otherwise.

(Aug 17, 2021 11:59 PM)Yazata Wrote: Whatever the unseen answers are, it's expected that they will be relevant and meaningful in our lives. More than that, the answers are expected to be comforting. In many cases they seem to me to be inspiring and uplifting narratives into which the events, major or minor, tragic or glorious, of our lives can be plugged to give them meaning. It's something that transforms life from just 'One damn thing after another' into something like a novel, a story with a plot and a conclusion in which everything works out in the end.

I'm not sure that's always the case, per se. I think it's assumed, with some good reason, that any higher or more fundamental form of being would necessarily be more enlightened. Whether such a being would intend to be or not, people find that idea comforting and aspirational.

Quote:Oh my lol Here I thought you were going to name paranormal activity, Bigfoot, and alien abduction theories. Wink

Touche! lol Yes, I suppose those beliefs contain their own elements of faith to make up for the irrational aspects of it. Alien abductions and cattle mutilations and alien implants are that kind of craziness. The deeper you go into these subnarratives of the ufo phenomena the crazier they become, until you're left with a whole insane belief system of sinister beings performing medieval medical experiments on humans and cattle for godknzwhat reasons.That's why I force myself to hold back and not believe too much about ufos. Just the minimum required to account for the observed facts of the cases. I don't want to have faith in something irrational, so I remain again agnostic and a seeker after more truth.

Eventually should God be proven, the question will be...Where did God come from? So if I was a believer my thoughts are that a proven god should be able to tell us its origins. What if it can’t? Proof of origin should be one of the requirements for proof. Unless you want to create another mystery I guess.

(Aug 18, 2021 03:43 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: Eventually should God be proven, the question will be...Where did God come from? So if I was a believer my thoughts are that a proven god should be able to tell us its origins. What if it can’t? Proof of origin should be one of the requirements for proof. Unless you want to create another mystery I guess.

Even assuming the existence of a god could be proven (not logically likely), who's to say that most people would even be capable of understanding where it came from?

But I can tell you right now where god came from. Nothing. And that gets you no closer to understanding the answer.

Revelations 1:8 offers “I am the Alpha and the Omega, [the beginning and the end]...” That doesn’t necessarily tell us “where” God originated, but it implies that God always existed, as far as our observations of what it means to be aware of our own existence. Maybe we aren’t meant to know all there is to know about God (this is my view), and I’m okay with that.

According to our best, least speculative science, the big bang came from nothing. And if the universe is expanding forever or leads to a big crunch, it's theorized to end in nothing. Beginning and end, the same.

(Aug 18, 2021 03:43 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: Eventually should God be proven

It's trivial to prove the existence of God. Of course, like with all proofs, a proof of the existence of God will only be as sound and convincing as the weakest premise in the proof.

For example

Premise 1. The Universe exists. (Seemingly self-evident.)

Premise 2. For all X, if X exists, then a sufficient reason for X's existence also exists. (Principle of sufficient reason.)

Premise 3. God is the sufficient reason for the Universe's existence. (Traditional in natural theology.)

Lemma 4. A sufficient reason exists for why the Universe exists. (from 1. and 2.)

Conclusion 5. God exists. (from 3. and 4.)

Quote:the question will be...Where did God come from?

Yes, that would be one of my objections to 2., the principle of sufficient reason. It leads inexorably to infinite regresses.

One could continue

Conclusion 6. A sufficient reason exists for why God exists (from 5. and 2.)

And I suppose that one could employ mathematical induction to spin out an infinite succession of these merely by applying 2., the principle of sufficient reason, to the existential conclusion immediately preceding.

Quote:So if I was a believer my thoughts are that a proven god should be able to tell us its origins. What if it can’t? Proof of origin should be one of the requirements for proof. Unless you want to create another mystery I guess.

Looks to me like it will either be an infinite regress or circular at some point.

I guess that's why and where the traditional arguments start talking about eternal necessary beings, beings that (supposedly) can't not exist. So that God's existence somehow becomes the explanation for God's existence.

As you can no doubt tell, I'm not convinced.

(Aug 18, 2021 03:43 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: Eventually should God be proven, the question will be...Where did God come from? So if I was a believer my thoughts are that a proven god should be able to tell us its origins. What if it can’t? Proof of origin should be one of the requirements for proof. Unless you want to create another mystery I guess.

Yah, a god subservient to change and dependent upon a cause to bring it about. Fine, if its adherents admit it's a minor deity that's not prior in rank to certain principles (existential or otherwise) that a universe likewise conforms to.

Even not talking about god at all, most scientists would agree that there must be some necessary, fundamental existence to explain all the contingent existence. In the case of the origin of the universe, a false vacuum in the ground state. This solves the infinite regress of "turtles all the way down" (like our universe being created by a black hole in another, ad infinitum) because QM allows the lowest energy state, as close as we know to nothing, to spark the big bang. This is why Guth called the big bang the "ultimate free lunch."

In any creation myth, that which gives rise to everything is god. Even if it's just a primal demiurge or Deistic watchmaker. That may seem like a stretch from a false vacuum, but that's only because people do not comprehend all the ramifications of nothingness.
God doesn't have to be an existential being to be eternal.

(Aug 18, 2021 04:26 PM)Leigha Wrote: Maybe we aren’t meant to know all there is to know about God (this is my view), and I’m okay with that.

This is a classic cop-out IMHO....no disrespect intended. I take it then, especially after all your faith references, that proof of God is not necessary for you to be convinced. In that regard I think you have plenty of company. 

God would probably originate with the universe I suspect. However to suddenly come from nothing and know everything just doesn’t add up. I suppose I could build a machine with no inherent knowledge and then input all that can be known. Makes me wonder if omniscience needs regular updates? I think most would agree that if God is a machine then it has a definite origin. The idea that an omniscient et al being could suddenly spring from nothing is ridiculous IMO.

I figure the sudden appearance of an omniscient being from nothing should be followed less than a nanosecond later by the creation of the universe should God be the creator I don’t think omniscience requires time to dwell or be inspired, you just do because it’s the right thing. Again, doesn’t add up.