Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Can a person deny there is a Creator? Yes. Free will allows a person to do that.
Yes, of course free will allows one to deny it, just as free will allows someone to deny that the Earth is a sphere. But I'm going for something stronger. I'm suggesting that the Creator - if there is one - could have purposefully designed natural laws to logically allow "self-starting" (i.e., "Big Bang") and self-organizing (i.e., cosmic evolution, bio-genesis, biological evolution, neural net dynamics, etc. - all basically in accordance with the general ideas proposed by science).
If this is how God did it, then there would literally be no reason - based on logic and evidence - to believe that God exists. And, if this is correct, then theists are misguided when they try to argue - on the basis of logic and evidence - that there are good reasons to believe that the world was created by an ID. If I'm correct, then this is a battle that theists are guaranteed to lose. Why? Because (per my hypothesis) God purposefully designed the world to be self-starting and self-organizing based on natural laws discoverable by science. Thus, when science discovers this, all logic/evidence-based reason to believe in God will drop to zero. So, then, what would theists be left with at that point? Faith. Plain and simple. And my further suggestion is that if, in fact, God created our world to be self-starting and self-organizing, then theists are shooting themselves in the foot by trying to convince non-believers of God's existence on the basis of logic and evidence.
If I'm right, then theists are completely off the rails in virtually all of their arguments based on the need for ID, etc. Not only are they literally wrong (because the world was literally designed to be self-starting and self-organizing, just as science is finding), but they are also going off on a tangent that God did not intend and does not want. This brings us back to the purposefulness of God's design. Why would God purposefully design the world to be self-starting and self-organizing? I think it is because God does not want belief based on reason and evidence. He either want's faith, pure and simple, or he doesn't actually care whether humans "believe in God" or not. Perhaps God has something completely different in mind. I don't know. All I'm suggesting is that my hypothesis - if it were to be widely believed by theists - could radically change the nature of most "debates" over the existence of God. Basically, there would be no "debates" at all because theists would realize that such debates (1) are destined to fail, based on the very nature of God's clever design, and (2) are contrary to what God actually wants theists to be doing with their time and effort (which is, perhaps, part of the reason why God designed the world that way in the first place).
So, if I'm correct about this, then what should theists be doing, if not debating God existence based on logic and evidence? I don't really know; that would be for theists to figure out, but my off-hand suggestion might be something roughly like this: Simply live in faith in such a way as to demonstrate that faith via compassion, good works, etc. They would, of course, continue to "spread the word" but "spreading the word" would not be in debate format. It would be simply be "this is my faith" and, based on my faith, I live this way. Period. They would not insist that science has to be wrong about the Big Bang, or bio-genesis, or evolution, or the self-organizing nature of neural networks, etc. As far as they're concerned, science could be totally correct about all of that. No debate necessary or desired.
On the flip side, atheists have to realize (and, so far as I can see, most of them do realize) that God is a logical possibility and that there is nothing wrong with having faith in God, so long as faith doesn't lead to science-denial. The only time any debate would arise is when some theist (contrary to my suggestion above) insists that science has to be wrong about this or that because of this or that faith-based belief, or when atheists insist that God "can't exist" for this or that reason - in which case the burden would be on them to show the logical impossibility of some particular conception of God.
Last edited by Gaylenwoof; 06-20-2018 at 06:48 AM..
On the flip side, atheists have to realize (and, so far as I can see, most of them do realize) that God is a logical possibility and that there is nothing wrong with having faith in God. The only time any debate would arise is when some theist insists that science has to be wrong about this or that because of this or that faith-based belief.
I have zero issue with these types of atheists. I do have an issue with atheists that claim the science is wrong when we point to "something" being more rational than "deny anything because some of us believe religion is so dangerous that ...."
denying a creator and showing one is not need are two different notions.
Science does not show a creator is "not needed" because science lacks that capacity. Just like science lacks the capacity to explain qualitative experience which is the point of the opening post. Philosophy and logic also lack that capacity. What people are saying is "nature did it" without the capacity to explain how or why.
"Life emerges" and "it is self organizing" are no different than "magic" and "poof it happens." The same people with the same mindset with the same inability to explain and inability to understand use those same phrases.
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 06-20-2018 at 06:57 AM..
Science does not show a creator is "not needed" because science lacks that capacity.
Even if it lacks that capacity at the moment, there is no guarantee that it will always lack that capacity. My central theme is that if science can incorporate phenomenology then, in principle, it my be possible to show that consciousness and intelligence always emerge via principle of complexity (and thus, they are not necessarily the primordial state of Existence).
Science does not show a creator is "not needed" because science lacks that capacity.
It has done so far. From snowflakes to evolution, it has always turned out not to be a god.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
Just like science lacks the capacity to explain qualitative experience which is the point of the opening post.
Yet. And should it never get to this, even then you can not claim a god did it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
Philosophy and logic also lack that capacity. What people are saying is "nature did it" without the capacity to explain how or why.
Philosophy and logic also do not tell you how to bake a cake.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
"Life emerges" and "it is self organizing" wow! There was a big bang golly gee whiz are no different than "magic" and "poof it happens." The same people with the same mindset with the same inability to explain and inability to understand use those same phrases.
Yes, of course free will allows one to deny it, just as free will allows someone to deny that the Earth is a sphere. But I'm going for something stronger. I'm suggesting that the Creator - if there is one - could have purposefully designed natural laws to logically allow "self-starting" (i.e., "Big Bang") and self-organizing (i.e., cosmic evolution, bio-genesis, biological evolution, neural net dynamics, etc. - all basically in accordance with the general ideas proposed by science).
If this is how God did it, then there would literally be no reason - based on logic and evidence - to believe that God exists. And, if this is correct, then theists are misguided when they try to argue - on the basis of logic and evidence - that there are good reasons to believe that the world was created by an ID. If I'm correct, then this is a battle that theists are guaranteed to lose. Why? Because (per my hypothesis) God purposefully designed the world to be self-starting and self-organizing based on natural laws discoverable by science. Thus, when science discovers this, all logic/evidence-based reason to believe in God will drop to zero. So, then, what would theists be left with at that point? Faith. Plain and simple. And my further suggestion is that if in fact, God created our world to be self-starting and self-organizing, then theists are shooting themselves in the foot by trying to convince non-believers of God's existence on the basis of logic and evidence.
If I'm right, then theists are completely off the rails in virtually all of their arguments based on the need for ID, etc. Not only are they literally wrong (because the world was literally designed to be self-starting and self-organizing, just as science is finding), but they are also going off on a tangent that God did not intend and does not want. This brings us back to the purposefulness of God's design. Why would God purposefully design the world to be self-starting and self-organizing? I think it is because God does not want belief based on reason and evidence. He either want's faith, pure and simple, or he doesn't actually care whether humans "believe in God" or not.Perhaps God has something completely different in mind. I don't know. All I'm suggesting is that my hypothesis - if it were to be widely believed by theists - could radically change the nature of most "debates" over the existence of God. Basically, there would be no "debates" at all because theists would realize that such debates (1) are destined to fail, based on the very nature of God's clever design, and (2) are contrary to what God actually wants theists to be doing with their time and effort (which is, perhaps, part of the reason why God designed the world that way in the first place).
So, if I'm correct about this, then what should theists be doing, if not debating God existence based on logic and evidence? I don't really know; that would be for theists to figure out, but my off-hand suggestion might be something roughly like this: Simply live in faith in such a way as to demonstrate that faith via compassion, good works, etc. They would, of course, continue to "spread the word" but "spreading the word" would not be in debate format. It would be simply be "this is my faith" and, based on my faith, I live this way. Period. They would not insist that science has to be wrong about the Big Bang, or bio-genesis, or evolution, or the self-organizing nature of neural networks, etc. As far as they're concerned, science could be totally correct about all of that. No debate necessary or desired.
On the flip side, atheists have to realize (and, so far as I can see, most of them do realize) that God is a logical possibility and that there is nothing wrong with having faith in God, so long as faith doesn't lead to science-denial. The only time any debate would arise is when some theist (contrary to my suggestion above) insists that science has to be wrong about this or that because of this or that faith-based belief, or when atheists insist that God "can't exist" for this or that reason - in which case the burden would be on them to show the logical impossibility of some particular conception of God.
And again you are missing the point that (except in your head) it has never been about debate. It has never been about "science denial" because except for the few odd fringe extremists people have no problem integrating science and Divinity, people do it easily and successfully without it becoming a "tortuous mess."
Learning and incteased understanding have nothing to do with debate. It's not a battle.
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 06-20-2018 at 07:21 AM..
Yes, this is key. Science (and phenomenology) can legitimately "extrapolate back" from current evidence to the logical conditions for the possibility of this or that phenomena, in light of current knowledge. Faith has no need for objective (i.e., inter-subjectively agreed upon) evidence of this sort. Faith can be (and, probably, pretty much always ought to be?) based on subjective evidence stemming from intuitions, prayer/meditation (and divine revelations, if such things exist).
Last edited by Gaylenwoof; 06-20-2018 at 07:33 AM..
Science does not show a creator is "not needed" because science lacks that capacity. Just like science lacks the capacity to explain qualitative experience which is the point of the opening post. Philosophy and logic also lack that capacity. What people are saying is "nature did it" without the capacity to explain how or why.
"Life emerges" and "it is self organizing" are no different than "magic" and "poof it happens." The same people with the same mindset with the same inability to explain and inability to understand use those same phrases.
I don't think you understand how we work. We look around and describe, to the best of our ability, what is going on.
the universe "being born" fits nicely traz. It explains 'self organizing", offers a mechanism to life arising, and make predictions on life evolving far better than "omni-god" and "from nothing".
Its also handles the "emotional needs" of people. I say that because if people are emotional, that means, at least, small volumes of the universe are emotional also. That's just a fact. the universe has parts of itself that "love traz". Like the volume of the universe we call ... 'your mom". Now my more literal "deny everything because we hate religion" sect of atheism will run from that. But hey, we have people that think Bush attacked us in 9-11, so they are here and we don't have to play with them.
Some science people, like myself, will take this notion one step further and try to make it empirical. What that means is that we make it as clear as we can for people that do not know the in's and outs of science and engineering. We take it form 'universe" and make that a volume smaller.
enter the biosphere. Many biologist treat the biosphere as an organism. well, the biosphere came from the universe. It wasn't "self organised". People can from the biosphere, we didn't come from nothing. How the universe started is an unknown. "born" is not a bad guess.
omni-god is far less valid. Covering up, shunning, minimizing, and ignoring "born" because we're afraid of religion is flat out deceitful.
But traz, being "born" in no way implies that a creator, as some religions teach, had to do it. Why do you need a creator?
And again you are missing the point that (except in your head) it has never been about debate. It has never been about "science denial" because except for the few odd fringe extremists people have no problem integrating science and Divinity, people do it easily and successfully without it becoming a "tortuous mess."
Learning and understanding have nothing to do with debate. It's not a battle.
But you say:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
Science does not show a creator is "not needed" because science lacks that capacity.
...which is your version of asserting a counter-position. How is that not debate?
It seems to me that you have a negative view of "debate" and I do not. You are certainly correct to say that learning does not need to be (and basically should not be) an emotionally negative "battle", but I would say that "debate" isn't necessarily a "battle" in that sense. At its core, debate is like a friendly game of tennis. The ultimate goal is not to "beat your opponent" - that is, at most, just a transitory testing ground. The ultimate goal is to improve, and an excellent way to improve is to enter a testing ground - i.e., the area of "reality checks" and exchanges of ideas (to see if you can keep "getting the ball back over the net"). From my perspective, you are the one who keeps interpreting my "hitting the ball back" as being some sort negative thing. I don't see it that way. I'm just hitting the ball back to see how long I can keep successfully hitting the ball back. It's basically fun and games for me, but it also builds strength, endurance, and skill. (BTW: "Fun and games" doesn't imply a lack of underlying serious intent. I'm sincerely seeking the deepest truths available. This is simply one of my ways of doing it.)
But, yeah, I am highly motivated to keep hitting the ball back into your court to see what you can do with it. And, yeah, that's basically what "debate" is. But I don't see it in a negative light (although it can acquire negative energy if people turn it into personal attacks and ad hominem arguments - but none of us is perfect; sometimes we stray over that line).
Last edited by Gaylenwoof; 06-20-2018 at 08:15 AM..
It has done so far. From snowflakes to evolution, it has always turned out not to be a god.
Yet. And should it never get to this, even then you can not claim a god did it.
Philosophy and logic also do not tell you how to bake a cake.
Except one has evidence, the other does not.
this is actually not true. What science seems to be showing is that an omni-god type thing is not needed. It doesn't show that 'something' isn't needed.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
