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Scientists are the most inclined to doubt the resurrection of Christ... Stephen Hawking says he does not believe in God, because before the big bang, there was no time for God to exist in.
If there were an instant, at a "big bang," when our universe started expanding, it is not in the cosmology as now accepted, because no one has thought of a way to adduce objective physical evidence that such an event really happened.
Frankly I could never have enough faith to be an atheist because I think more logically than atheists do.
That's a funny kind of logic based on an unjustified interpretation.
a person who does not believe in the existence of a god or any gods
Stephen Hawking says he does not believe in God, because before the big bang, there was no time for God to exist in.
An atheist has a poor logical position because he holds that God doesn't exist. Since it's not logically possible to prove that something doesn't exist then the atheist must believe it with no proof.
Do you know what its called when you believe something when you don't have proof of it? It's called faith. Frankly I could never have enough faith to be an atheist because I think more logically than atheists do.
Suppose that there is a scientists in such an advanced civilization who created our universe designed as he chose fit. Then, by the definition of the term, that scientist would in fact be God.
QuoteSuppose that there is a scientists in such an advanced civilization who created our universe designed as he chose fit. Then, by the definition of the term, that scientist would in fact be God.But here we see that we differ wildly on definition - you set a very low bar for your definition of God by allowing an ordinary being to become the "God" of a universe which he has sparked off, even though he knows that he is not a God in his own realm. To me, that is no more a God than any child building a virtual world with a program like Minecraft. That means we aren't using "God" to describe the same thing at all. I set the bar much higher and demand that God has no superiors and must know that he has no superiors, but even God cannot know that he has no superiors because he can't tell if there's a superior God above him who is keeping himself completely hidden from him. I also demand that God be no less than God from the very start - he should not be a natural evolved being that acquired knowledge, mental prowess and other powers later as that would make him no different from us (other than having the luck to come into being first), so he has to exist from the very start in the same advanced state as he will have at any subsequent time, but this strips him of all the credit for his knowledge which he didn't create himself, and it strips him of all the credit for all his genius which he didn't create himself, and it strips him of the credit for all his other powers which he did not create himself. As for the natural bit, if he is merely a mechanistic thing like any other whose functionality can be understood 100% in terms of cause and effect, there's nothing special about him, so he needs to be supernatural, but being supernatural depends on him not having a rational mechanism that can be understood, so if he doesn't understand his own functionality, he falls short of another requirement that I demand he must have, and that is that he understands all things. If he understands all things, he automatically understands that he cannot be supernatural, so again he destroys his own status as God.So, I set the bar high and nothing can get over it, but to lower the bar on any of those points is to fall a long way short of describing God, and given that you have to lower the bar on all of them, you're left with something of such low status that its' merely a powerful natural being who, if it exists in any way, had the luck to get its paws on the levers of power that might control the universe and things outside of the universe, but it's a being which doesn't even know if it's the most powerful one around. It's really nothing more than an alien, and that is what you should call it instead of trampling all over the word "God". "God" includes the idea of a creator, but "creator" does not include the idea of God, so you need to be very careful with the naming of your categories and your definitions of what they mean if you're to avoid tripping up on the faults in the way you frame them.Your alien (which you misname "God") may well exist, but God in the proper sense cannot.
head
1. (in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being.2. (in certain other religions) a superhuman being or spirit worshipped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity.
David,It appears as though your God concept is identical to the Christian God, omnipotent, all-knowing, etc. If so, your God cannot think. Thought, as humans experience it, involves the creation of new concepts, ideas previously unknown.
This is a huge and important issue. Back in the mid-1990s, I was embroiled in disputes over what is called “Open Theism,” which argues that God is open to the future in the sense that he does not have exhaustive knowledge of what is coming in the future.
He may well be capable of lamenting over something he chose to bring about. And God may be capable of looking back on the very act of bringing something about and lamenting that act in one regard, while affirming it as best in another regard.
The Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret [or repent], for he is not a man, that he should have regret [or repent].
Thus it would seem as though such a being cannot create anything, including a universe with animate life and humans.
What is the use of such a God concept in a rational discussion?
Quote from: David Cooper on 13/07/2017 18:50:21It is possible to prove within the bounds of logic that some things don't exist. For example, things that don't exist can't exist. Animals that have two heads but which also only have one head cannot exist. If there is a contradiction of that kind in the definition of something, that thing clearly cannot exist (unless logic itself is broken, but that's why we are usually forced to restrict ourselves to calling things logical proofs rather than absolute proofs).Sorry David but I don't accept your argument as being a logical one. Using a logical contradiction in an attempt to create a logical proof is flawed logical argument and as such cannot be considered to be within the bounds of logic.
It is possible to prove within the bounds of logic that some things don't exist. For example, things that don't exist can't exist. Animals that have two heads but which also only have one head cannot exist. If there is a contradiction of that kind in the definition of something, that thing clearly cannot exist (unless logic itself is broken, but that's why we are usually forced to restrict ourselves to calling things logical proofs rather than absolute proofs).
As for your belief in what God is, that's merely your personal opinion, and a Judeo-Christian one at that. I'm using the term as one uses it in most conversations about God and as defined in the Oxford English dictionary, ... The dictionary is a reflection of how most people use a term and most people use the term God as being that being who created our universe/world and is responsible for our existence. A creator of a universe need not be all-knowing etc.
I also don't accept your view that a being capable of creating a universe is an ordinary being.
1. (in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being.
2. (in certain other religions) a superhuman being or spirit worshipped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity.
That you have certain demands of "God" is your business alone.
By the way. One cannot logically hold that there is a being who knows the future exactly while at the same time hold that Quantum Mechanics (QM) is true since QM holds that the future is undetermined.
You left a somewhat wide ranging (rambling) post which started out being addressed to me, then went elsewhere. The best I can do is reply to a few apparently relevant comments.
Finally, let me try to address this comment of yours: "Not having any new thoughts doesn't imply that such a being cannot have an original physical creation of something such as the universe." This is the level of analysis that I'd expect from a non-engineer, someone who has never used fundamental physics concepts to actually build some sort of functional mechanism.
I'm not even certain why I responded to David since he has very strange notions about everything under the Sun as evidenced by his comment about school of logic you belong to, which showed he had no idea what I was saying.
I have a strong tendency to drift towards the simulation theory, but do not have much value for man-made Gods, though I do not have an issue with people believing in one, because of the God gene.