Church Admits Darwin Was Right

[mosaix]

"If reality is "limited" in extent and had a temporal beginning point, then necessarily at some point there was a "time" where reality did not exist. This means that there was "nothing." Thus in order for reality to come to be some thing must have created something from nothing. This violates more than just science. Passing on a quality that one does not possess is a contradiction. Nothing definitionally lacks all qualities. So this leaves one possibility: something which can encompass infinite contradictions (creation of all things from nothing) must have created reality: God." MTF

...and the question begged is "where then did God come from?" If the answer is he/she just is; then as TEIN says why couldn't the current state of the universe just be?

And if one still persists who created god?

God as Occam might say is one phenomenon too many. Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.

Explaining a very difficult to understand aspect of the universe by invoking an impossible to prove god is not an explanation.

"Listen Thag, to the sound the sky makes."
"God is angry."

We now know it as thunder.

None of this of course disproves god, indeed it is impossible to disprove; just unnecessary and improbable in the extreme.

Good post.

 

[Urien]

Thank you sir.

 

[ManTimeForgot]

There exist no multiple exigent circumstances or agencies here. Occam should be satisfied. Perfection (aka God as prime motivator) must necessarily be extent regardless of reality. Perfection cannot afford to be limited in anyway, including being limited by "mere" existence. Perfection must be able to embody all traits and none; it exists in the logical state of indeterminancy.


So asking the question: "What created God?" is functionally meaningless... Might as well ask: "What is airless air like?" The presumption of faculty of being creatable is the flaw here. Perfection cannot be created as it must supercede all things, and the presumption that some agency can be superior to it as a function of having created it necessarily invalidates the state of being perfection.


When looking at the individual instance of a cease of reality one cannot assume that the reality is extent eternally (that is one of the presumptions after all). But if one assumes an infinite reality, then by all means reality and God become synonymous. The reason for this declaration is simple: eventually it will become necessary (however many billions of years down the road it may be) to plumb the deepest depths of reality (if that is indeed at all possible). At which point it will need to be established whether reality is indeed completely understandable (limited in some way) or inscrutable in its completeness (reality is perfect and thus attempt to encompass it would require infinite information storage and infinite processing capability; which means perfection).



I don't think you all understand that I am not making a religious or spiritual argument. Religion is an institution. Spirituality is something deeply personal, and if you can't find it on your own, then you are not ever going to find it. What I am making is a metaphysical assertion about deep level cosmology.

Can reality be without God? If reality in its complete form, that is to say taking into account all that is, is equivalent with God, then the question is tautologically, Yes. I will admit that a tautological answer does not lend itself to practical application, but it is a truth nonetheless. But this leaves the scenario outlined wherein God and reality are not synonymous; what then? I contend that the answer to the question: "Can reality be without God?" is still no. And that answer while impractical for our current use is not entirely without merit. Knowing that reality has an endpoint (whereupon we can start branching out our search for knowledge into greater interrelations) is useful knowledge to a limited extent...



Daisybee:

I won't lie to you and say I believe in Jehovah. I contend that the Bible is written by men, and as such even if divine revelation did occur (which I don't believe since my conception of a deity precludes such contact; contact with a more advanced being than ourselves is not precluded though), the truth of what was learned would inevitably be "watered down" by its translation into the words of man.

But this does not mean that no truth can be found in the Bible. The creation story is an attempt at understanding things which could not be properly understood given early man's grasp of the universe's principles. So how is it a bad thing if "When God said let their be light" your mind is put to the Big Bang? It was afterall just energy for like the first 10 -43 seconds (rapid expansion phase; this likely corresponds to the universe's one and only true white hole ever to exist...).

And as far as days are concerned... What is a day for God or for any being which exists outside of our space time? If I was an ET billions of years advanced on humans having originated in another section of reality altogether; does the orbit of a chunk of rock really have any meaning to me? Why couldn't a billion years be like unto a day for such a being?


If the Bible is a source of strength for you, then don't let it cease to be just because someone tells you that science is physically correct. There is more to life than being correct as a matter of observation. The faithless will never understand the appeal of faith. The imaginationless will never understand the value of metaphor. And the historyless will never understand the value of tradition. Sometimes a well-timed story or well-chosen parable is all that it takes to make a change in someone for the better. Don't give up on your strengths to try and adopt someone else's.

MTF

 

[Urien]

"Perfection (aka God as prime motivator) must necessarily be extent regardless of reality." MTF

Er no it mustn't. That's even before we question the nature of perfection. What is perfection and perfection differs for different people. This is one of the places where Descartes fell over. I paraphrase: I can conceive of perfection, perfection can have only one source, therefore God exists. Needless to say He got a good intellectual kicking for that.

Just because reality might prove to be not understandable to us, does not mean god must exist. We are intellectually limited. An ant cannot under any circumstances understand what I have just written. It can never fully comprehend reality. It does not prove god exists.

There is no logical proof for god. None.

There is however faith, and faith no matter how much one might want it to be so is not fact, nor even supported hypothesis. I believe MTF that you have faith, and good for you, but your tortuous grapplings with infinity are seeking a factual basis that just does not exist.

There is no need for a magical being in the mysteries of the universe.

Good luck to you MTF. I'll leave the debate to others now, as I've done these before and they just turn into trench warfare.

Cheers and best

AVS

 

[daisybee]

Daisybee:


If the Bible is a source of strength for you, then don't let it cease to be just because someone tells you that science is physically correct. There is more to life than being correct as a matter of observation. The faithless will never understand the appeal of faith. The imaginationless will never understand the value of metaphor. And the historyless will never understand the value of tradition. Sometimes a well-timed story or well-chosen parable is all that it takes to make a change in someone for the better. Don't give up on your strengths to try and adopt someone else's.

MTF

Hi MTF-

I should mention here that I do not believe in God, or to phrase that better I put no faith in organised religion.

I do think that science and religion can work together-I think that science may explain the how's of a so called miracle, but still stumbles at the why of such things.

I think I like the 7 day story because of its boldness, and brilliance.

However it is just a distillation of an idea, and I treat it as such.

It seems that sometimes the big questions like why we are here and how we came to be sometimes overshadow the real point of it all. We do exist. Even if just our thoughts, or yours or mine, are all that is-it still is.

We are here, so we should be grateful and try our best to give our brief little blips of lives a purpose that resonates for us-on an individual scale. I am guilty of not being true to this all the time, but find the older I get the more I think, the only "purpose" to life is that we give ourselves.

 

[AE35Unit]

the older I get the more I think, the only "purpose" to life is that we give ourselves.

The only purpose of life is to create more life! And we are shockingly good at that!

 

[Parson]

The only purpose of life is to create more life! And we are shockingly good at that!

All hail the God of evolution.

(I, for one, refuse to believe that life has no meaning; which is exactly where you must go, if you all there is, is chance.)

 

[daisybee]

All hail the God of evolution.

(I, for one, refuse to believe that life has no meaning; which is exactly where you must go, if you all there is, is chance.)

Meaning can be defined by each of us individually though-and thinking that we are all here by cosmic chance doesn't devalue what we have, if anything makes it infinitely more precious.

AE-I think those that cannot reproduce would take exception at that!

 

[Fried Egg]

Why do I keep reading this title as: "Churchill Admits Darwin Was Right" ?

 

[Ursa major]

Why do I keep reading this title as: "Churchill Admits Darwin Was Right" ?

Is it because you think that Churchill, MB is twinned with Darwin, NT and that they've been involved in some sort of dispute (perhaps who pays how much for the air fares)?

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

Daisybee:

I think I like the 7 day story because of its boldness, and brilliance.

I'm surprised you feel this way given the flawed technique and methods allegedly employed.


A. Let there be light.

Now lets face it if I'm an all powerful transcendental... etc etc... being apparently comfortable in a non existing space aware of everything that can or ever will happen why do I need the benefit of a 60W bulb to work. Surely I would work feverishly on my little hobby getting everything ready for the big switch on so that any being able to admire my work would get the full impact of what I'd done.

In which case

Let there be light should be the last thing in the story (followed by the big band intro)

Then there's the obvious mess up (my original got stared out - that's a new one) regarding the late arrival of the leading lady of the story. Now I'm as macho and self centred egotistical as the next guy but I have to admit if asked the female form is by far more symmetrical and therefore nearer to perfection than the gangling odd shape of the male so surely if I was a perfect being not only would I be female I would produce something less awful to look at than a man.

And that he should need to start hacking into this man thing (supposedly perfect) creation to find the material to manufacture a female sounds a little desperate to me. I mean the worlds never been short of clay to mold so why not repeat his efforts of the day/week/month/century before.

I haven't time to draw up a proper work schedule at this time (lets not forget we have so little of that left) however it seems to me that for a perfect being this god has a lot to learn about proper working practises.

I won't even go near the health and safety/ product liability issues left in the wake of what was created.

 

[daisybee]

TEIN- spoilsort!

As a story it is cool. Not perfect.

Some of the best stories I know are utterly ridiculous on closer inspection.

I just think as an introduction to or of God, the creation story rocks. And conveniently works its way to completion in a handy seven day period...

By saying it is essentially metaphorical rather than The Truth, the dudes are punking out of what they argued about forever. I can imagine a mass recall of bibles, where footnotes are inserted in Genesis and the whole thing collapses under a bunch of **.

I like to think that by stating women were created second, the writers were admitting that man was a flawed design, and we were the perfected version. If women came first I reckon they'd have been hard pressed to find a plausible reason to create man... we'd have dismissed the story as unbelievable.

 

[Interference]

Perfection cannot be judged without comparative imperfection. God created Ferrari. Hmmm, thinks God. Better make a Mazda to do the shopping in.

I think TEIN's TA-DAAAA moment is what God would have done if he'd thought of it, too.

But come on. Nodeity's perfect

 

[ManTimeForgot]

Side Note: I never said I agreed with Descartes in the slightest. I took college philosophy too. Perfection by its very nature is utterly inconceivable in its actuality. Perfection is definitionally that which supercedes all things; containing, defining, not containing, indefinite, illogical, logical for all qualities of existence and non-existence.


My argument has nothing to do with being unable to conceive of how things could be. My argument is that if A (reality is infinite), then A (God is infinite therefore reality and God are equal); again I know this is tautological. OR If reality is B (limited), then at some point reality must not have existed and something must have created it, and the only which can't exist and still exist is perfection.

MTF

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

Wait a minute though - Who said god was perfect.

Heard a lot of claims about what god is but never that.

I mean look the many mistakes - us for instance.

As for perfection superseding all things what evidence is there for that.

I might suggest that chaos is a better contender.

As for this :- all pens are blue therefore that which is blue must be a pen argument I don't see it holding water :-

Numbers are infinite god is infinite therefore god is number and the number shall be known as 'one'. All praise the 'one' true god - sort of reasoning..

 

[dustinzgirl]

If you consider yourself a mistake, why are you still alive?

People often forget that a day in heaven is not the same as a day on earth.

I'm sorry, but all too often people simple make judgments on what they have heard from other people rather than what is actually said in the Bible. Especially Catholicism as laws dictated from the Church and its Popes.

God is, in fact, perfect. And there is in fact more than one god. Otherwise, why would God care about false idols to other gods?

Anyways, I have my beliefs and others have theirs, and as long as we aren't judging or hurting each other because of those beliefs, all should be well in the universe. Making statements that generalize all persons of a specific religious doctrine or creed really annoy me. I don't think all Christians, Jews, Muslims, or Buddhists or Wiccans are the same type of person, nor do they all follow the same doctrines, nor do they all follow the same ideology.

 

[Interference]

....more than one god. Otherwise, why would God care about false idols to other gods?

I'd assumed it was because He didn't want us to make fools of ourselved by following people who say they're gods, but couldn't possibly be, because He's it, as far as Godiness is concerned.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

If you consider yourself a mistake, why are you still alive?

Presumably because god wants me to be.

Although given the short time we all have left not for much longer.

However, for the moment we seem to getting along just fine.

DG:
God is, in fact, perfect. And there is in fact more than one god. Otherwise, why would God care about false idols to other gods?

This doesn't compute.

god is perfect is fine as a stance however, it doesn't allow for other gods since they would either be more or less perfect. This would beg the question which is the more perfect. Obviously worshipping something less than perfect would be silly so there we have a dilemma.

If we allow the existence of other gods, then god couldn't object to the worship of them, since the idols wouldn't be false. They would be things that god allowed to exist presumably in order that they can be worshipped.

It's nice and harmonious to think that all forms of religion are in fact just facets of the one god however in most cases the character of the gods worshipped are so opposed to each other that it would be ludicrous to propose they were all one and the same.

 

[dustinzgirl]

TEIN,

If you constantly try to fit everything that could ever be possible in the entire universe into a tiny human computational, statistical, or logical box of knowledge, you will be constantly disappointed in my definitions and explanations.

Of course it doesn't compute. God does not compute. That is why it is called faith.

Silly TEIN! (jokingly)