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WHAT CONVINCED YOU?
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Oh dear, quite chippy. The OP (your good self, I believe) asks, and I quote, "What convinced you ". My response was merely an attempt to respond to your question, which I had, erroneously, it appears, assumed was asked in a spirit of genuine enquiry/debate and not as an attempt to provide a launchboard to browbeat and harangue. Thats my answer, freely and fairly given, take it or leave it....I pretend to no higher spiritual or esoteric knowledge...merely a personal response to a personal question...sorry if it offends you, but then, I find thats the default setting for most of you God-freaks, is it not?
You're right. Sorry
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I think it explains things quite well. If I go into the bakers and ask the girl behind the counter how did all the cakes get in the display window and she tells me that the baker in the back made them early this morning and then put them where I can see them, then that would be a good enough explanation to me, because it intuitively makes sense. The cakes are there, that is obvious. But how? Is not so obvious. Someone made them and put them there. Who? The baker who works in the shop. All these things make sense to me. I do not need to know who the baker is, where he lives, what his date of birth is, what are his favourite cakes and so on infinitum to have a good explanation as to how the cakes came to be in the display window. The girl's simple explanation makes perfect sense to me and I can leave the shop cake in-hand confident in the my knowledge from the explanation given of how the cakes got there. But if somebody outside the shop has a better explanation then I'm all ears but until I hear one I shall go with the girl's explanation, simple and all that it is.Because it isn't an explanation (as it is said so often, it is merely an excuse to stop asking any questions). It doesn't explain anything.It is as useful as saying "Bob did it". The next question to "Bob did it" is "Ok, what is Bob, what did he do and how did he do it?". To which there is obviously no actual answer. Saying "Bob is the thing that did that" doesn't provide any additional information or understanding, it is simply a feedback loop (just like saying God is the creator of the universe provides no additional information). I can't tell you what Bob did, nor how he did it.
It is the same with "God did it".
Wrong. You do not need to have any kind of explanation for the explanation in order for that explantion to be a good explantion. You do not need to comprehend God in order to understand that God created the universe. You are Wicknight and I know you posted what I am replying to but I don't need to know anything else about you in order to understand that the explanation that your post was posted because you posted it is the right explantion.Though for some reason most religious people some how find "God did it" satisfactory. "Oh God did it, now I understand!"
For many that is all they need. What else do they need? They are entitled to have this most basic of beliefs without having to explain it, just like you are entitled to believe that that you exist without having to explain it either. The only time you can challenge their belief is when you have incontrovertible proof that they are wrong to believe it.I wonder would they find "Bob did it" equally satisfactory.
Unless one of God's names is Bob then maybe they might.
Anytime you want to insert "God did it" insert "Bob did it" first and see if that is equally satisfactory.
If we define Bob as the greatest conceivable being as we do God then it would be quite logical to deduce that Bob did it. Just because a belief is simple and an explanation is simple does not make it invalid. That God did it, is a good explanation, just like some believe that the universe is eternal is a good explanation. Both explanations are as simple as each other and don't need an explanation of themselves in order that they be the explanation of how the universe came into being. How they came into being themselves does nothing to make the explanation -they did it- any less valid.0 -
So belief in God is not a choice, but to choose from a variety of Gods is a choice?Belief in god is not a matter of choice (although I accept that belief in the christian god as opposed to some other deity might be).
I choose to believe that God is a good explanation as to how the universe came into being. The scripture says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God, so if this is correct then my faith came about by hearing the Word of God. The question then remains, did I choose to hear the Word of God? And the answer to that is Yes as far as I know. So indirectly I chose to believe in God. But if Paul's letter to the Ephesians is correct then God chose me before He even created the universe. How? I don't know. If we gel this doctrine of predestination with Jesus' words that "No man comes to the father save the spirit draws him" then the point at which I came to believe is a preordained event to which I did not chose. But I am free to turn from this path put before me at any time and live a life according to my own will, but that would be spiritual suicide for me and I am not willing to commit to that. But I will admit that there are times when I find myself in states of doubt and rebellion, not wanting this path for me and even doubting God’s existence, but these states can be overcome by prayer, devotion to ministry service, reading and listening to others who have also found themselves in like states and how they dealt with them.
I inadvertently answer this already above.So... if we are able to simply choose whether or not to believe in god, why don't you choose not to believe in him for a while and let us know how you get on?0 -
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Soul Winner wrote: »If I go into the bakers and ask the girl behind the counter how did all the cakes get in the display window and she tells me that the baker in the back made them early this morning and then put them where I can see them, then that would be a good enough explanation to me, because it intuitively makes sense.
Yes, but that is because you know what baking is, and you know what bread is, and you know how someone puts something in a shop window, and you know what a shop window is etc etc
If you didn't know any of these things someone telling you "the baker did that" (they wouldn't even say the baker because that in itself infers information about the process) that doesn't explain anything.
The explanation from "The Baker did it" comes from the fact that you understand what baking is. If you didn't then being told the baker did it would mean nothing to you. It would not explain anything.
Say you look up at the moon and wonder "How did that get there" and I said "Jim did that" does that increase your understanding? Not in the slightest, because it doesn't explain how Jim did it or what he did.
If you can explain what God actually did in technical terms (not "he spoke" which is either a metaphor or very silly) or even how a god would go about creating the universe if one were so inclined, I'm all ears.Soul Winner wrote: »I do not need to know who the baker is, where he lives, what his date of birth is, what are his favourite cakes and so on infinitum to have a good explanation as to how the cakes came to be in the display window.
You don't need to know anything about the baker because you already understand the process of baking You know a baker takes flour and ingredients, mixes and then bakes in an oven. The fact that it is a baker infers this process for making a cake. That is exactly the point. By simply knowing it was "a baker" you know almost exactly how the cakes were produced.
And that is exactly what you don't have with the explanation "God did it" for the universe. You don't have the process of which a god produces a universe, so the assertion that a god produced the universe tells us nothing because that is an unknown process.
Imagine that instead of being told that a baker make the cakes you were told "Bob did it". Your first question would be "How? And why?" because "Bob did it" doesn't tell you anything about how or why the cakes were made because you don't know who Bob is or how he would produce cakes. Did he bake them, did he buy them, did he make them out of cardboard to look like real cakes etc etc.Soul Winner wrote: »Wrong. You do not need to have any kind of explanation for the explanation in order for that explantion to be a good explantion.
I know you don't because you are not seeking understanding, you are simply seeking a confirmation that God exists, a place where you can slot your god in, a god of the gaps as it where.
It would be the same as simply being happy to know there is a Bob some where in the world, independent of any desire to understand how, why, or even if, he produced the cakes.
Understanding the cakes is irrelevant to this, just as understanding the universe is irrelevant to you. You don't want to understand the universe, to explain the universe, you simply want some where to hang your god. Saying "God did it" doesn't increase understanding of the universe in anyway, any more than saying "Bob did it" increases understanding of how the cakes got in the window.
And more importantly because you still know nothing about the cakes, you have no method of determining if Bob actually did make the cakes or not, just as with attempt to determine what God is supposed to have done there is no way to determine if God actually did create the universe. But then you probably don't care. That isn't the point to you.
So at the end of the day it comes down to priories. Do you want to know how the cakes got there or are you happy to simply know Bob may or may not have done something, irrespective of what he did.
Correct, you need to understand the process(es) a god would create a universe by, in the same way you need to understand the process Bob would use to create the cakes.Soul Winner wrote: »You do not need to comprehend God in order to understand that God created the universe.
You don't need to know much about Bob to know this, Bob's second name or birth day are irrelevant. But you need to know how he is supposed to have actually made the cakes. Is he a baker, is he supposed to have baked the cakes? Is he a deli every man, is he supposed to have delivered the cakes.
You need this to understand a) how the cakes actually got there and b) to determine if Bob is responsible or not. If Bob is supposed to have baked the cakes and it turns out that the cakes were machine made, then Bob obviously didn't bake them.
The same applies for God. You don't need to fully comprehend God but you certainly need to know what he is actually supposed to have done to create the universe. Without that you have nothing, no understanding, no knowledge, you can't even tell if he actually did or did not create the universe.
Yes because you understand how I posted this post. You know I have access to a computer, you understand that Boards.ie is an internet bullettin board, you understand how a person goes about posting on it.Soul Winner wrote: »You are Wicknight and I know you posted what I am replying to but I don't need to know anything else about you in order to understand that the explanation that your post was posted because you posted it is the right explantion.
Imagine you were explaining how Wicknight produced a post on here to someone from the 4th century (or simply someone who didn't know the process you use to post on the internet)
If they asked "How did that happen?" and you said "Wicknight did it" do you think that provides an explanation to them? Of course not, because they have no idea what Wicknight is supposed to have done. They still don't have a clue how it happened, and they certainly can't determine if Wicknight actually did do it or not.
Again it depends on what they want. If they want actual understanding then they need a lot more than that. If they simply want some where to hang their god in a gap then this is perfect.Soul Winner wrote: »For many that is all they need. What else do they need?
Again it is the difference between wanting to know how the cakes got in the window and simply wanting something that you can say Bob did, without any understanding of the cakes.Soul Winner wrote: »They are entitled to have this most basic of beliefs without having to explain it, just like you are entitled to believe that that you exist without having to explain it either. The only time you can challenge their belief is when you have incontrovertible proof that they are wrong to believe it.
I swear if someone mentions "proof" again I'm going to scream. SW you really should know better.
Yes but that is the point. "Bob", "God", "Jim", "Joe" ... it doesn't matter. None of those "explanations" actually explain anything.Soul Winner wrote: »Unless one of God's names is Bob then maybe they might.
You throw away Bob Jim and Joe not because they are any less of a explanation, but because you are not trying to find a gap for Bob, Jim or Joe.Soul Winner wrote: »If we define Bob as the greatest conceivable being as we do God then it would be quite logical to deduce that Bob did it.
Why? Can only the greatest conceivable being produce a universe? How do you know that?
Here you are simply introducing nonsense assumptions. Only someone named Bob can create a universe, someone named Jim can't. Again doesn't mean anything, its nonsense.
You have no reason to assume it, you can't demonstrate that you certainly can't test it. I could just as easily say both the greatest conceivable being and the 2nd greatest conceivable being can produce universes. There is no response to that, it is nonsense. We are just making stuff up.
Heck I could say the 2nd greatest being produces the 1st greatest being, so if God is the first being to exist then he is the 2nd greatest and produced something greater than him. If he is the greatest then he wasn't the first.
You may say that doesn't work, how can the 2nd greatest go on to produce the 1st greatest, but we are talking about completely assumed supernatural nonsense here. You have no rules, no model of how things are or are not supposed to work. You have no way to determine any of that, nor anyway to test it.
This is the difference between understand and not understand.
You don't understand how anything about how a deity is supposed to produce a universe so you can say nothing about the process, how it is or is not supposed to be. You can't say if a deity is actually needed to produce a universe.
It is nothing to do with being simple. I love simple explanations. This is neither simple or complicated, it simply isn't an explanation either way.Soul Winner wrote: »Just because a belief is simple and an explanation is simple does not make it invalid.
It explains nothing because it doesn't map back to anything. "The baker did it" explains something because you know what a baker does.
God did it doesn't explain anything because you don't know what a god is supposed to do.0 -
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