God and Free Will

[Matt R.]

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But really... the whole concept of religion and God is so retarded I don't really know why I am bothering to respond. There is no God people wake up.

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Phew... it ALL MAKES SENSE NOW. What were all the great minds of the past thinking when considering the ultimate questions of reality? Those dunces. All we ever wanted to know is clearly summed up in this profound and poetic little statement.

I look forward to the imminent publication of your works on a unified theory of physics, which given your confidence presumably explains the very origins of our universe. It is mind boggling that such an astounding intellect could be right under our noses here in SMP.

[luckyme]

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Well this is all fine and well I don't think many theists will agree with you that God knows only what he made knowable and will instead claim that he knows everything. Maybe I am wrong I am no expert but that is what they taught me in God school (church).

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There is no way that theists can solve these issues, their hands are tied in many ways.

luckyme

[chezlaw]

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Well this is all fine and well I don't think many theists will agree with you that God knows only what he made knowable and will instead claim that he knows everything. Maybe I am wrong I am no expert but that is what they taught me in God school (church).

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True but they're silly [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Note they have no basis for their claim. They just chose to interpret a few words in a non-sensical manner.

chez

[chezlaw]

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god has made what he wants knowable, that necessarily means that anything he chose to make un-knowable cannot be known by him (otherwise he hasn't done what he wanted).

The general problem with omnipotence comes when we don't recognise that doing what we want precludes doing other things. Not recognising this makes god powerless to do anything not omnipotent.

chez

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How does the bootstrapping work? How would he know what he wants to know? He would seem to need some a priori kick start or ?

luckyme

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I have no idea.

I think that's always the correct answer to bootstrapping questions [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

chez

[spoohunter]

Sarcasm aside, the question why Einstein et al. were believers is actually quite worthy. I assume it is social conditioning at any early age that hard wires your core beliefs that are for the most part impenetrable to self reprogramming.

[luckyme]

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Sarcasm aside, the question why Einstein et al. were believers is actually quite worthy. I assume it is social conditioning at any early age that hard wires your core beliefs that are for the most part impenetrable to self reprogramming.

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Mostly they didn't have the enough practical knowledge of how the world works and amazingly even without it some of them came right to the wall but couldn't possibly see the door.

Hume's Philo almost discovered evolution just in his head without needing a Beagle journey.

(oh, einstein wasn't a believer, not that it matters other than record correction).

luckyme

[Matt R.]

I think a more interesting question is how can a supposedly "open-minded" atheist consider all sorts of unprovable hypotheses explaining the origin of our universe (infinite # of universes, "spontaneous" big bang from nothingness... whatever). Yet when considering the possibility of a God, they say "Ehh, anything but that one."

[luckyme]

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I think a more interesting question is how can a supposedly "open-minded" atheist consider all sorts of unprovable hypotheses explaining the origin of our universe (infinite # of universes, "spontaneous" big bang from nothingness... whatever). Yet when considering the possibility of a God, they say "Ehh, anything but that one."

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er, uhmmm, perhaps because that's not how they arrive at it ??

luckyme

[chezlaw]

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Hume's Philo almost discovered evolution just in his head without needing a Beagle journey.

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The ancient greeks also came up with the general idea of evolution. They just never bothered to look at the world to see if that's how it worked.

chez

[Matt R.]

There are 2 possibilities:

1) God created our universe.

2) God did not create our universe. (his existence is irrelevant in this case)

So, if the "open-minded" atheist can completely and utterly dismiss possibility #1 he must have a reasonable explanation to how our universe came into existence. If he doesn't have some semblance of proof, then it would be silly to dismiss reasonable alternatives. So, what is the hypothesis? Will it be getting published in respected scientific journals any time soon? If no such hypothesis exists, why would you dismiss everything that includes the word "God"? Isn't that diminishing your options? It would seem this is being rather closed minded.

Note that I only have a problem when people who have no clue what they're talking about start brandishing about statements like "God and religion are retarded". They take a freshman philosophy class and all of a sudden they have the answers to questions people have been debating for millenia.

I have no problem with agnostics or more reasonable atheists (I have a problem with the unreasonable theists as well, typically).