God, Quasars, and Coin Flips

[David Sklansky]

If there is a personal God who cares about human beings in a way he doesn't care about giraffes, and if that God is omnipotent in a way that means he can choose to obey or disobey the laws of physics at his whim, then why are there quasars and why has nobody ever achieved 40 consecutive passes at the dice table?

The point is that God is only relevant if he has the ability to, and sometimes chooses to, break the known laws of physics and probability. If he doesn't, he is the God of deism, which even Not Ready says is equivalent to atheism.

If God can make a universe out of jelly beans and have it behave as he wishes, why is EVERYTHING behaving as if he NEVER interjects himself? It is understandable that he doesn't interfere with humans thoughts so as to give them free will. It might even be understandable that he doen't perform modern day miracles so that irrefutable proof of him doesn't take the place of faith. But why bother with complex physical phenomenon a billion light years away that can be explained well by modern day physics but was totally unknown to people even 100 years ago. And why be constrained by the laws of probability such that rare events, when examined, seem to happen almost exactly as often as predicted? Quasars and the non occurrence of four Royal Flushes in a row are NOT needed to test peoples faith, as opposed to the non healing of amputees would be.

In other words, quasars and true probabilities are consistent with no God, or a disinterested God, or a non omnipotent God. They are not consistent with a God who is particularly interested in humans even if you postulate that he is going out of his way to make his existence less than perfectly obvious (because he wouldn't be obvious even if there were no quasars or if he did occasionally allow the quadrillion to one shot).

[chezlaw]

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If God can make a universe out of jelly beans and have it behave as he wishes, why is EVERYTHING behaving as if he NEVER interjects himself?

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if I write a program or design a machine to do something I only interject if it doesn't work properly. god would probably be bug-free.

chez

[Max Raker]

I think you think that it is weird that math can explain the universe. It is not so weird if you think that math was created TO explain the universe.

[luckyme]

There are always theist ways around logical stances, but essentially this DS statement seems similar to the one we hear from most scientists ..'the universe is acting exactly as if there were no god.'
Theists can say that doesn't prove there isn't one ( or 6th dimensional science projects). It also fits the 'god is dead' versions that don't argue with the concept that there was once a god, he did his create thing and left.

Your point that he doesn't need to tinker if he did it right the 1st time fits that also ...??

luckyme

[NotReady]

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In other words, quasars and true probabilities are consistent with no God, or a disinterested God, or a non omnipotent God.


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Just making a wild guess I think that may have something to do with why He gave us His Word.

[btmagnetw]

yeah DS seemed to have forgotten that ltitle period when god was flooding the earth and turning people into pillars of salt.

[PairTheBoard]

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In other words, quasars and true probabilities are consistent with no God, or a disinterested God, or a non omnipotent God. They are not consistent with a God who is particularly interested in humans

[/ QUOTE ]

You describe the situation loaded with assumptions and ill defined terms. You look but cannot find an answer to your question of why. You then proclaim your conclusion as the only possible one "consistent" with the conundrum you have conjured.

Logic according to Sklansky.

PairTheBoard

[btmagnetw]

senility is not a laughing matter.

[bluesbassman]

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It is understandable that he doesn't interfere with humans thoughts so as to give them free will.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not really. If he's omniscient, I can't understand the difference between creating humans while knowing everything that is subsequently going to happen (including what choices we will make according to our 'free will'), and interfering with humans' thoughts later. They are surely equivalent from God's point of view.

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It might even be understandable that he doen't perform modern day miracles so that irrefutable proof of him doesn't take the place of faith.

[/ QUOTE ]

One must wonder why God feels compelled to play these coy mind games. He acts like some of the nutty women I have dated.

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But why bother with complex physical phenomenon a billion light years away that can be explained well by modern day physics but was totally unknown to people even 100 years ago.

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Yes, we could point to a gazillion facts about the universe which make no apparent sense in the context of a personal, omnipotent God who gives a crap. You need to make the irrational leap of faith to believe in such nonsense, and once you do, these facts are simply rationalized away.

[ALawPoker]

Maybe God's purpose in life is to make as many people happy as possible while still maintaining what appears to us as a perfectly predictable sense of order. Don't underestimate the power of omniscience. If I jump off a steep cliff, God can't do anything that doesn't flagrantly defy everything in my eyes. But if I lose control of my car, maybe sometimes God can nudge a few things around to help me.

Why does he want to maintain this sense of order? Maybe because since He gives us free will, he wants to test what we do with it. It's probably a better test when we're acting on predictable observations than randomly on faith in His random interference.