If "God" exists?

seamus

sbsquarepants wrote: »

but there is only something like a .00000001% chance that we exist at all!

There was quite a lot of supposition in the proposal from what I recall.

What I think the concept overall was that as computers become more and more powerful, the more they will be used for modelling the universe and exploring the origins of the universe.
So as they progress further and further into modelling the universe, computers continue to become faster and faster, they will need to continually model our universe over and over and over in order to explore all the permutations. Don't remember the mathematics myself, but the idea was obvious - there was a single universe and contained within it were hundreds, if not millions of perfectly accurate models of that universe. Therefore it's more likely that we are part of one of these models than the actual universe.

It's a mindblowing concept but there's a difficulty with duplication - how do you duplicate the entire contents of the universe in order to model it without getting into infinite recursion or running out of resources?

Turtwig

seamus wrote: »

It's a mindblowing concept but there's a difficulty with duplication - how do you duplicate the entire contents of the universe in order to model it without getting into infinite recursion or running out of resources?

Well if modern physics is correct the entire energy contained within this universe is just a paltry quantum fluctuation away from zero.

antiskeptic

Sam Vimes wrote: »

So a baby born with a congenital defect that will result in death within hours of his birth has done the equivalent of refusing to take medicine to cure himself has he?

When all else fails, drag out the babies and the idiots.

:rolleyes:

Zombrex

antiskeptic wrote: »

When all else fails, drag out the babies and the idiots.

:rolleyes:

More like when theist apologetics gets stupid skip straight to the babies.

Every time an argument against God is made you guys always say maybe they deserved it.

Non-believer/skeptic - Why did God send an earthquake killing all those innocent people
Theist - Who said they are innocent?

Non-believer/skeptic - Why did God make viruses that kill millions of innocent people?
Theist - Who said they are innocent?

Children are a set of people that skips over this apologetic nonsense since we both agree that a 4 year old child is innocent.

Excuses about sin and maybe they deserved it crumble. Theists have struggled since the creation of religion to explain the death of innocents and a loving God. You will notice you haven't come up with one yet.

Sam Vimes

antiskeptic wrote: »

When all else fails, drag out the babies and the idiots.

:rolleyes:

Wicknight wrote: »

More like when theist apologetics gets stupid skip straight to the babies.

Every time an argument against God is made you guys always say maybe they deserved it.

Non-believer/skeptic - Why did God send an earthquake killing all those innocent people
Theist - Who said they are innocent?

Non-believer/skeptic - Why did God make viruses that kill millions of innocent people?
Theist - Who said they are innocent?

Children are a set of people that skips over this apologetic nonsense since we both agree that a 4 year old child is innocent.

Excuses about sin and maybe they deserved it crumble. Theists have struggled since the creation of religion to explain the death of innocents and a loving God. You will notice you haven't come up with one yet.

^
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What he said

ShooterSF

sbsquarepants wrote: »

I once heard this guy on tv argue that it was statisticaly more likely that we (as in the entire world) are more likely to be dead than alive! The argument goes like this, our lifespan is roughly 70 years, the universe is billions of years old, the odds of hitting any particular 70 year segment are extremely remote. He argues, that an extremely advanced race (possibly even ourselves (it gets stranger!), may have recreated the universe inside a super advanced computer, similar to our computer models but in infinitly more detail. Basicaly like the sims!
Now, i can't recall the numbers involved, due to intoxication (which felt very real, i have to admit), but there is only something like a .00000001% chance that we exist at all!
Basically your god is as likely to be a bored 11 year old in the year 7538 as he is a beardy old man from the year 0.




(this makes a lot more sense when stoned, but lets face it, it's no less likely than any given religion)

The Universe has installed updates and needs to restart.

antiskeptic

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Our free will is already limited in myriad ways and if god cannot eliminate suffering without eliminating free will he's not all powerful, simple as that.

Letting you inflict suffering whilst preventing you inflicting suffering is an illogical. A square circle.

Even if you could argue that eliminating suffering entirely would eliminate free will, babies being born with deformities has bugger all to do with free will and could be prevented without affecting it at all.

Another area of discussion. Called the Fall and concerning God's wrath. Are you allowing for wrath - or are you insisting on an only-ever-loving strawgod? Wrath isn't the same a sadism.

It would mean that god is not as sadistic as he could possibly be, just like people who regularly rape their children also feed and clothe them.

What about the people who truly love and care for their children yet who occasionally hurt by omission or commission. The good parent I mean.

You seem to be drawing an abitrary line in the zone of sadism. I can do the same thing in the zone of good. For every suffering baby I can point to a contented one.

I don't have to ignore good at all to call your god sadistic

Not ignore - just spin the good to insignificant bit part.

but you have to come up with pathetic excuses about free will to explain the massive amounts of suffering that he expressly allows, you have to convince yourself that we would be mindless automatons if god prevented schizophrenia, alzheimer's disease and earthquakes. The argument doesn't make any sense

Badness caused by freewill expression (quite a lot as it happens) isn't being forwarded a reason for God not to resolve disease. A fallen, cursed world under the wrath of God is. Avoid conflation.

antiskeptic

Wicknight wrote: »

Theists have struggled since the creation of religion to explain the death of innocents and a loving God. You will notice you haven't come up with one yet.

A wrathful God who has cursed both mankind and the creation he was given dominion over seems to fit the bill. That the love of God provides a way out from under this curse doesn't alter the curse extended to mankind.

robindch

antiskeptic wrote: »

When all else fails, drag out the babies and the idiots.

Not the most convincing piece of theodicy I must say

Sam Vimes

antiskeptic wrote: »

Not ignore - just spin the good to insignificant bit part.

I am neither ignoring it nor spinning it to insignificant. It is significant but even if someone spends their entire lives helping people with every ounce of energy in their body, if they occasionally stop to rape and murder people the good does not erase the bad.

antiskeptic wrote: »

What about the people who truly love and care for their children yet who occasionally hurt by omission or commission. The good parent I mean.

You seem to be drawing an abitrary line in the zone of sadism. I can do the same thing in the zone of good. For every suffering baby I can point to a contented one.

Letting you inflict suffering whilst preventing you inflicting suffering is an illogical. A square circle.

Another area of discussion. Called the Fall and concerning God's wrath. Are you allowing for wrath - or are you insisting on an only-ever-loving strawgod? Wrath isn't the same a sadism.

Badness caused by freewill expression (quite a lot as it happens) isn't being forwarded a reason for God not to resolve disease. A fallen, cursed world under the wrath of God is. Avoid conflation.

When I say sadism, I mean the causing of unnecessary harm. A good parent who occasionally hurts through ommission or commission, i.e. the good parent, does so through their own failings. The fact that they are mostly good does not erase the bad they do but this is to be expected because they are flawed humans. God is not a flawed human and is not supposed to have these failings.

"The fall" was supposedly caused by Eve exercising free will so I am not conflating anything. One woman thousands of years ago succumbed to the failings that she was designed with and now new born babies pay the price for it by living for a few agonising hours and then dying. There is no mercy from god for our failings, we pay in full by living in a fallen world where people suffer and die. God is angry that a woman ate an apple and that is why he causes so much suffering, suffering that he doesn't have to cause but chooses to cause anyway

If that's not sadism, I don't know what is

Zombrex

antiskeptic wrote: »

Letting you inflict suffering whilst preventing you inflicting suffering is an illogical. A square circle.

This nonsense again.

For some reason God set up the laws of nature so I can't put my hand through solid objects. Amazingly I still have free will! How can that possibly be!?!?

Surely if God stops me doing something through the set up of the laws of universe he has limited my free will and this turns me into a mindless robot? Er, no.

This argument has to be the ultimately illogical theist apologetic argument.

antiskeptic

Wicknight wrote: »

This nonsense again.For some reason God set up the laws of nature so I can't put my hand through solid objects. Amazingly I still have free will! How can that possibly be!?!?

Surely if God stops me doing something through the set up of the laws of universe he has limited my free will and this turns me into a mindless robot? Er, no.

This argument has to be the ultimately illogical theist apologetic argument.

Ho hum...

The argument goes that you are, in this world, faced with choices for good and evil and are free to express that choice as a componant in your choosing* for the kind of eternal destination you'll occupy.

Putting your hand through solid objects or not isn't a concern of the above goal and so isn't a factor in your free will being curtailed.

But you know this already. And choose to rehash "I can't fly - therefore God has limited my free will" horsepoo.

*effectively choose. There being no need for you to believe in God in order to accept/reject him.

antiskeptic

robindch wrote: »

Not the most convincing piece of theodicy I must say

I stopped at "Catholic..." It's even worse than reading Dickie Dawkins.

Des Carter

Wicknight wrote: »

Theists have struggled since the creation of religion to explain the death of innocents and a loving God. You will notice you haven't come up with one yet.

I disagree it is quite easy to explain.

Wicknight wrote: »

Non-believer/skeptic - Why did God send an earthquake killing all those innocent people

Answer - Earthquakes and volcanoes have to happen or else the world would overheat and all life would die and suffering would be far greater - This is all to do with geography/plate tectonics etc and nothing to do with religion/God.

Wicknight wrote: »

Non-believer/skeptic - Why did God make viruses that kill millions of innocent people?

Answer - Why did God make humans that kill millions of innocent viruses?
Plus God would need a way to kill off large numbers of humans otherwise the world would become overpopulated and suffering would be far greater.

robindch

antiskeptic wrote: »

I stopped at "Catholic..." It's even worse than reading Dickie Dawkins.

You should try reading it -- it's basically a slightly more verbose version of what you're talking about in this thread.

.

robindch

Des Carter wrote: »

Earthquakes and volcanoes have to happen or else the world would overheat and all life would die and suffering would be far greater [...] God would need a way to kill off large numbers of humans otherwise the world would become overpopulated and suffering would be far greater.

Do you seriously believe this?

antiskeptic

Sam Vimes wrote: »

I am neither ignoring it nor spinning it to insignificant. It is significant but even if someone spends their entire lives helping people with every ounce of energy in their body, if they occasionally stop to rape and murder people the good does not erase the bad.

Nor does the bad erase the good. Yet you plump for one end of the spectrum. The same God that you take to task for permitting murder is the same God who enables all the joy brought by new life.

When I say sadism, I mean the causing of unnecessary harm. A good parent who occasionally hurts through ommission or commission, i.e. the good parent, does so through their own failings. The fact that they are mostly good does not erase the bad they do but this is to be expected because they are flawed humans. God is not a flawed human and is not supposed to have these failings.

Your missing the point.

Your argument was pointing to all the evil in the world and accusing a God who would permit/be responsible for such a thing of being sadistic. That same God permits and is responsible for all the good done in the world. Your assessment of him doesn't take account of that.

"The fall" was supposedly caused by Eve exercising free will so I am not conflating anything. One woman thousands of years ago succumbed to the failings that she was designed with and now new born babies pay the price for it by living for a few agonising hours and then dying.

That isn't quite the full ticket. There was no failing in Eve by design. Just the ability to freely choose in either direction (or so the argument goes). Now if she was programmed to go in on or other direction then you'd have a point. But that isn't the position held.

And because Adam was given dominion over all of creation, because it was an extension of himself it went the way he did.

There is no mercy from god for our failings, we pay in full by living in a fallen world where people suffer and die. God is angry that a woman ate an apple and that is why he causes so much suffering, suffering that he doesn't have to cause but chooses to cause anyway. If that's not sadism, I don't know what is

God does have to respond to evil because his nature is holy. Evil is to holiness what rotten stench is to nostrils - a response is a sure and unavoidable thing stemming from the very nature of God/nostrils.

Whilst God can choose to delay the timing and measure of his response, evil must be fully dealt with finally.

As it happens, events in the garden happen to have set a stage whereby everybody gets to (whether they are consciously aware or not) choose whether to be redeemed from an infection neither they nor God are responsible for. Or whether they would prefer to reject the antibiotics. It seems to be the skeptics prefer to concentrate on the justness of their infection and not on the need for their being cured of it.

Such deflection is a choice. Hopefully not a final one/

Des Carter

robindch wrote: »

Do you seriously believe this?

Which part?

If you have studied any geography you will know that if volcanoes and earthquakes didnt happen then the lava under the earths crust would be unable to escape and would continue to heat up. This would continue to a point where the earth would no longer be able to support life - outside of certain bacteria. By it escaping through shifts in tectonic plates it is able to remain at a suffecient temperature.

Also yes if people didnt die the Earth would become overpopulated - if it not already is - and so food supplies would run out and people would starve.

I dont see how any of this is illogical but if it is please explain.

CerebralCortex

Des Carter wrote: »

Which part?

If you have studied any geography you will know that if volcanoes and earthquakes didnt happen then the lava under the earths crust would be unable to escape and would continue to heat up. This would continue to a point where the earth would no longer be able to support life - outside of certain bacteria. By it escaping through shifts in tectonic plates it is able to remain at a suffecient temperature.

Also yes if people didnt die the Earth would become overpopulated - if it not already is - and so food supplies would run out and people would starve.

I dont see how any of this is illogical but if it is please explain.

The illogical part is an omnipotent God making it that way. Make sense?

Sam Vimes

antiskeptic wrote: »

Nor does the bad erase the good. Yet you plump for one end of the spectrum. The same God that you take to task for permitting murder is the same God who enables all the joy brought by new life.

When talking about an all powerful being, one single instance of bad makes all good incidental. We are not talking about a flawed human being, we are talking about a god. Human beings are called bad regardless of how much good they do because of the sins of their ancestors and god is called good regardless of how much bad he does because he also does some good. Just as god takes the entire human race to task in perpetuity for the sin of one woman thousands of years ago, I take him to task for the immeasurable suffering that he causes to happen.

antiskeptic wrote: »

Your missing the point.

Your argument was pointing to all the evil in the world and accusing a God who would permit/be responsible for such a thing of being sadistic. That same God permits and is responsible for all the good done in the world. Your assessment of him doesn't take account of that.

Yes it does, as I explained above. My assessment takes account of both good and bad, yours takes acccount of good and makes pathetic nonsensical excuses for the bad.

antiskeptic wrote: »

That isn't quite the full ticket. There was no failing in Eve by design. Just the ability to freely choose in either direction (or so the argument goes). Now if she was programmed to go in on or other direction then you'd have a point. But that isn't the position held.

And because Adam was given dominion over all of creation, because it was an extension of himself it went the way he did.

God knows the past and the future. God knew from the moment he started to create Eve what she would do. Even if he didn't actively force her to do it, he still created her with the full knowledge of what she was going to do and all the suffering that he was going to choose to inflict on the entire human race because of what she did.

antiskeptic wrote: »

God does have to respond to evil because his nature is holy. Evil is to holiness what rotten stench is to nostrils - a response is a sure and unavoidable thing stemming from the very nature of God/nostrils.

Whilst God can choose to delay the timing and measure of his response, evil must be fully dealt with finally.

As it happens, events in the garden happen to have set a stage whereby everybody gets to (whether they are consciously aware or not) choose whether to be redeemed from an infection neither they nor God are responsible for. Or whether they would prefer to reject the antibiotics. It seems to be the skeptics prefer to concentrate on the justness of their infection and not on the need for their being cured of it.

Such deflection is a choice. Hopefully not a final one/

At what point did my aunt's still born baby choose?

Des Carter

CerebralCortex wrote: »

The illogical part is an omnipotent God making it that way. Make sense?

Well what other way could he have made it?

And who said God is omnipotent - thats the christian view (and others) it would also be possible that God is nearly omnipotent and thats the best he can do.

Des Carter

Can we please not focus on certain religious teachings (especially the old Testament) as this thread was set up to discuss what a God would be like if he did exist - nothing to do with organised religions as their beliefs so please dont use their teachings to back up points.

Thanks

CerebralCortex

Des Carter wrote: »

Well what other way could he have made it?

However he liked.

Des Carter wrote: »

And who said God is omnipotent - thats the christian view (and others) it would also be possible that God is nearly omnipotent and thats the best he can do.

No because then he would not be a god.

Dades

Des Carter wrote: »

And who said God is omnipotent - thats the christian view (and others) it would also be possible that God is nearly omnipotent and thats the best he can do.

That would suggest that biblical style Gods are kind of demi-gods, who can't change what has already been created by something else, but use whatever meager (relatively) powers they have to play with their ant farm.

CerebralCortex

Des Carter wrote: »

Can we please not focus on certain religious teachings (especially the old Testament) as this thread was set up to discuss what an invisible unicorn would be like if he did exist - nothing to do with organised religions as their beliefs so please dont use their teachings to back up points.

Thanks

FYP

Linoge

Des Carter wrote: »

I think we are missing out on a few points.

1. If a God is all-knowing does that mean he can tell the future?
Does he decide the future or just know what the future is?
Does he have a future himself?
I can know everything there is to know about the world/univers/life/death/humans/mathematics/science/religion etc - this would make me all-knowing but I would still be powerless to change or even know the future.

2. God may be all-powerful but does that mean he has to act on it?
Just cause I can do something doesnt mean I will, it might take a lot out of me - same with God destroying all suffering might be possible for God but may have some negative effect on hiim and so he doesnt bother.

3. Why would humans be so important? Why would we be more important than any other life on this planet/universe?
Would he not care about animals, insects and bacteria just as much as us? if he does then he wouldnt want to destroy certain bacteria that spread disease as if he did he would be reducing human suffering but increasing bacteria suffering.

4.Iv heard people say that "people suffer/are evil and if God is all-knowing then he would know we would have turned out this way and done something differently"
Maybe hes not finished yet and by the time life has finished developing/evolving we will be perfect.
If I tell someone Im making a perfect house out of lego and they come in half-way through they can say "thats not perfect" they would be corrcet but I just wasnt finished

1. Time is a human concept to understand why everything doesnt happen at once. Surely time doesnt mean anything to a god?

2. So he wont bother in case it has a negative affect on him? Sounds a tad selfish. And he is god, what negative effects could ever happen upon him?

3. We are more important because we have highly evolved emotions. bacteria dont realise (nor care) that they are living/dying/dead. Also, to use more Christian language, animals dont have souls and dont go to heaven etc. So let a good human being die so flesh eating bacteria can live. I hope that bacteria makes it to heaven.

4. From this I understood that - god is not perfect; is constrained by time; created the universe and all its wonders to house us but is really finding it difficult to perfect earth and people. Like drawing hands is it?

Des Carter

CerebralCortex wrote: »

No because then he would not be a god.

Well then dont use the word God.

Dades wrote: »

That would suggest that biblical style Gods are kind of demi-gods, who can't change what has already been created by something else, but use whatever meager (relatively) powers they have to play with their ant farm.

The idea of a demi-God is just as (if not more) plausible than an all-knowing all-powerful god is it not?

robindch

Des Carter wrote: »

If you have studied any geography you will know that if volcanoes and earthquakes didnt happen then the lava under the earths crust would be unable to escape and would continue to heat up.

Tell ya what -- you ease off on geography and I won't ask you about written English, Geography or Biology

The point, as CerebralCortex has already said, is that a deity-figure capable of creating the universe should have been able to create a world in which the larger portion of humanity can avoid having lives which are really crap for very simple reasons (disease, accident etc).

The fact that he failed to do this really does suggest that the contradictory qualities that religious believers attribute to their deity-figures are just fabrications.

optogirl

Des Carter wrote: »

Which part?

If you have studied any geography you will know that if volcanoes and earthquakes didnt happen then the lava under the earths crust would be unable to escape and would continue to heat up. This would continue to a point where the earth would no longer be able to support life - outside of certain bacteria. By it escaping through shifts in tectonic plates it is able to remain at a suffecient temperature.

Also yes if people didnt die the Earth would become overpopulated - if it not already is - and so food supplies would run out and people would starve.

I dont see how any of this is illogical but if it is please explain.

So why the feck was the world made with lava bubbling under the surface?

Sam Vimes

Des Carter wrote: »

Well then dont use the word God.

How can you not use the word god when answering a question entitled "if god exists"?

The question then becomes "if X exists?", in which case the answer to what I think it would be like is: absolutely anything because you have told us not to use the only criteria in your question.