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Aemilius, it seems you are saying that the only scientific response to the concept of "God" is that of the agnostic. I would go with that. In my experience, most objections to God turn out to be objections to religious beliefs and practices. Many of these objections are well founded, but some are based on ignorance/prejudice. Few, if any, say anything about God, certainly nothing with the scientific validity of a simple "I don't know". Why does that seem to be such a difficult thing for some people to say?
[size:14pt]THIS IS GOD. I WANT YOU ALL TO KNOW THAT I DO NOT EXIST. THE ATHEISTS ARE RIGHT ALL ALONG. SO THERE !!![/size]
Creating something out of nothing will either depend on a mechanism or on magic. If the latter, then it is not something that God can understand - understanding something automatically requires it to be mechanistic. If it's mechanistic, then God is not doing anything special by making anything - he is just like a child playing with Lego, even if he can make blocks appear out of nothing.
….and then the intelligence of the listener should be able to do the rest,
My position came out of working on AGI, looking for mechanistic ways to apply reasoning to all things. Soon, every AGI system will be pushing the same arguments about the impossibility of God.
you have to add a God-property of some kind to it, and it's only necessary to attack that property to disprove it.
and that's just crap
Bill S, good to meet you here. I assume you the same one I know at SAGG?
Okay, so we are now part of God, and that means we are going to want to worship ourself...
Quote from: alancalverdand that's just crapand that's just an opinion. It's an interesting response, redolent of those sad schoolyard arguments in which one party runs out of relevant responses and takes the first step towards an exchange of insults. Not going down that path, thanks.
Just an idea.... I'm visualizing something like a hologram infinitely/near infinitely shattered by the Big Bang as a possible analogy/example of a way to approach that, at least informationally, where not only would the one thing a contain all distinct things A, or (A-a), but also where the all the distinct things A would contain the one thing a, or (a-A).That approach would at least seem to point in the direction of something like what Bill S is suggesting.... that, at least informationally, the cosmos (a) contains all distinct things (a-A), and also that all distinct things (A) contain the cosmos (A-a).
In the absence of a large brown animal that turns grass into milk, there is no cow.
Quote from: DCCreating something out of nothing will either depend on a mechanism or on magic. If the latter, then it is not something that God can understand - understanding something automatically requires it to be mechanistic. If it's mechanistic, then God is not doing anything special by making anything - he is just like a child playing with Lego, even if he can make blocks appear out of nothing.This sounds good, but you are still trying to confine your concept of god to the 3+1 dimensions of spacetime. You have no way of knowing if, outside that, the same rules, such as causality or linearity, apply. They may, or they may not.
Quote from: DC ….and then the intelligence of the listener should be able to do the rest,Isn’t that tantamount to saying: if you don’t agree with me, you lack intelligence?
Quote My position came out of working on AGI, looking for mechanistic ways to apply reasoning to all things. Soon, every AGI system will be pushing the same arguments about the impossibility of God.AGI is obviously your thing, so you would be able to tell me if I am wrong in thinking that even AGI would have to base its reasoning on available information. Beyond that would be only speculation.
Quote you have to add a God-property of some kind to it, and it's only necessary to attack that property to disprove it.True, but at best you only disprove that particular god concept.
As far as I can see, no one has given a definition of God that was not derived from the imaginations of people. Nor has anyone provided an argument that did not restrict God to the rules of causality/linearity of our observable Universe. Probably someone will point out that this is not possible; but that, to some extent is the point. It is not possible to provide such a definition, and without that it is not possible to rule out every possible god concept.
Quot hominess, tot sententiae. How dull life would be otherwise.
There are many highly destructive kinds of belief which should, for the well-being of all, be done away with.
Wrong premise, Bill. The essence of atheism is no belief, subtly different from belief in nonexistence. Belief is acceptance of a hypothesis in the absence of evidence. Atheists have no need of the hypothesis.
It could equally well be said that atheists believe they have evidence that God does not exist.
You can only prove the nonexistence of something if you have a consistent definition of it. So far, nobody has offered me a definition of a god that stands up to scrutiny..
Quote from: DC There are many highly destructive kinds of belief which should, for the well-being of all, be done away with.I strongly agree, but let’s put the blame in the right place. It’s people who have these destructive ideas, and fashion their “gods” in such a way as to support their ideas.
Part of my interest in the beliefs of atheists and the possible proof of the non-existence of God is linked to questions about what it might be scientifically acceptable to infer about anything that could be beyond the Universe, given that our experience/observations must be restricted to the Universe.It fascinates me that as a scientist you are able to draw so many conclusions about God, when it seems that it is scientifically unacceptable to claim that there can never have been absolutely nothing. Where do you stand on that?
Perhaps all three groups can be said to be characteristic beliefs.Theistic belief: There is a God.Atheistic belief: There is no God.Agnostic belief: I lack the evidence to say if God exists, and the conceit to claim that I know.
No definition = no existence.
We rational beings only assume the existence of things that are defined by observed properties. And quite often (bogeymen, phlogiston...) we later prove their nonexistence because the observation turns out to have a better explanation.
Otherwise why stop at god? Why don't you assume the existence of zzy or any other combination of letters? According to your logic, the fact that I can't assign any properties to zzy doesn't preclude its existence. As I said earlier, this approach to language stinks of philosophy and is therefore of no possible use or interest.
As I said earlier, this approach to language stinks of philosophy and is therefore of no possible use or interest.
There are scientists who believe in God.There are scientists who believe there is no God.There are scientists who believe that we do not have enough evidence to rule out the possibility of God.