By the way Pete, what is your view on this non-religious god? Do you see it as sentient creature/being? Or would you compare it the collective being that is nature for example?
Just curious.
Just curious.
A Problem with God
- Thread starter Robbo
- Start date
Dived in?, i merely aired a view which was an answer to your original question, albeit a "short and to the point" answer. Does that make it any less valid, certainly less pretentious.
That sounds like a cool place.Calm down fellas, no need to get your backs up. This is the part of the forum where we discuss things while sitting in comfy chairs, smoking cigars and being served by wenches. This is not the boxing ring of Speak Your Brains.
Play nice.
Like a child playing with his toys and trying to pretend his dad isn't beating his mum just outside his room, I will answer the frist post only. In theory, God could play out any eventuality from any series of events (the ultimate chessmaster), so if Huntley kills two girls, God needed that to happen for some reason and had it figured into the "plan". If the question is agknowledging that, but asking "could he do it anyway if he decided to change it?", then I'd say the question conflicts with the ontology of the questioner. Basically, the premise you're asking the question on contradicts the question. If God is omnipotent and omniscient then he doesn't need do-over, so whether he could or not is irrelevant. That's my perspective anyway.
Now that's a good question. An analogy for some of the arguments I've seen against the idea of God on here would play out like this "all cheese is rubbish because cheddar is ****e". Before one can argue against God, one has to establish what they're arguing against. Religious gods are easy to pick apart because of the fallible nature of the various churches that are their proponents. My standpoint is that if there is a god, then it's far too complicated/big for me to comprehend, so I don't try. I simply agknowledge that there is a god, and try to figure out what I can do to get in tune with it. My conception is fluid, sometimes assuming a sentient being, sometimes not. It doesn't matter because it'll never be correct (sounds like a cop out, I know, but I do my best). The only solid belief I have is that I can talk to it and ask it for help. Sounds wack, but don't knock prayer 'til you've tried it.
I have edited my post above, and so please re-read that guys and hopefully it will make my position clear.
But I'd still like to know if you see this god as one person (for lack of a better term), or, more like myself, the divine is to be found in the whole collective of all that is, meaning no single sentient über being that started it all, but rather nature itself.*
I personally don't think there was nothing before the big bang. I have no evidence to back this up obviously, but it would fit in with the current thinking that the universe expands and then shrinks again. Perhaps we aren't living in the first universe... Well, not the first expanding universe.
* By nature, I don't mean the birds and the bees, people! I mean everything that exists.
I personally don't think there was nothing before the big bang. I have no evidence to back this up obviously, but it would fit in with the current thinking that the universe expands and then shrinks again. Perhaps we aren't living in the first universe... Well, not the first expanding universe.
* By nature, I don't mean the birds and the bees, people! I mean everything that exists.
a famous person once said
"we both believe in a supreme being, you call it God I call it nature"
thought it had relevance after buddha's post
"we both believe in a supreme being, you call it God I call it nature"
thought it had relevance after buddha's post
Sounds like his Friday bit is wrong for a start.And to throw in another intriguing paradox at this point just to attune the mind, I shall share the Prisoner Paradox with you and then we can all go screaming to the loony bin together.
Two prisoners are banged up awaiting execution, they have no idea when they are gonna be executed until one fateful Saturday night when the guard comes into their cell and declares, 'Good evening gentlemen, I have some news for you, you will both be executed at some time in the next 7 days, I am gonna leave it as a surprise as to which day you do get executed; And so have fun in the time you have left guys, however much time that is, cheerio'.
The prisoners look at each other but one of the prisoners has a grin from ear to ear, his friend looks on in disbelief and questions the smile upon his cellmate's face.
The guy with the grin explains, 'it's OK, we can't be executed, we are safe, woooo hooo'.
The other prisoner can't believe this and desperately asks for him to explain why he thinks that....'well, my friend, the guard said, it would be a surprise as to what day we would be executed and since we can only be executed in the next 7 days, the last possible day that could happen would be Saturday'.
The bemused friend nods silently in eager agreement.
'Well, the guard also said it would be a surprise and so it couldn't be Saturday because if we got to Friday night without being killed then Saturday wouldn't be a surprise at all, it would be obvious to us both it would have to be the next day, but it can't coz then it wouldn't be a surprise'
The bemused friend once again nods silently in agreement.
'Well, if we know it ain't gonna be Saturday, then it can't be Friday either by the same reasoning' ........' and the same argument for Thursday and so on'
The bemused friend suddenly doesn't look so bemused and he too is then wearing a grin from ear to ear ........
The point is, they do executed but where is the flaw in his thinking ....?
He can't use the same reasoning for Friday, because Friday is not the last of the days. They can't go to Thursday, and say, "Right, it's Thursday night, which means we will not be surprised when we are executed on Saturday..."
If that makes any sense? I've been deeply confounded by most of the rest of the stuff on this thread.
That prisoner thing is simple (at least to my evil mind). Since they convinced themselves that they won't be executed on any of those days, whenever you shoot them will be a surprise to them, so the surprise will be achieved.
So what comes before this amazing creator that/who neatly simplified creation for us by 'snapping his creator fingers'? A nobel prize winner once said that 'science does not do miracles' and it seems to me that this creator would have to be a miracle worker, yet create a world where miracles are not possible, a universe where the laws of science apply and nothing more. Pretty amazing stuff. I think its flawed reasoning, much like the prisoner, to assume that the very start itself can only come from a creator, simply because we do not understand or (at the least) lack evidence for other explanations.