What would count as proof of God

[abaddon]

If someone approached me and said my shoes are untied, I'd look and if I find that they are tied I'd reject their claim using my observation of tied shoes as the evidence. God would be the state of untied shoes and my rejection based on observation would be my claim that my shoes in an untied state (God) doesn't exist. To say that I'm not disproving a negative would be silly.

Yeah but someday somebody might make a claim that isn't so easy to verify as true or false as the literal-minded mythological gods.

You're zeroing in one kind of god claim. The sort you can compare against nature and say "Nah, that isn't true". Gods like Jehovah fall in this category. I'm gnostic atheist about this - I'm convinced enough to take a stand, that these are nothing but some humans letting their imaginations carry them away.

But I have read about a few rationalist Gods that aren't so blatantly false. None were convincing enough to warrant belief IMO, and calling them "God" seems like only a nod to a time-worn social convention but still, on this, I'm not so willing to bet my liver like I am about the other sort.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

If someone approached me and said my shoes are untied, I'd look and if I find that they are tied I'd reject their claim using my observation of tied shoes as the evidence. God would be the state of untied shoes and my rejection based on observation would be my claim that my shoes in an untied state (God) doesn't exist. To say that I'm not disproving a negative would be silly.

But if someone looked at your tied shoes and said you need to thank the shoelace gremlins for having tied shoes, what would you say? If you said "There aren't any shoelace gremlins" would you have to prove your claim? The person could say that the tied shoelaces are proof of shoelace gremlins. Who's making the unevidenced claim?

 

[Gospel]

You're zeroing in one kind of god claim. The sort you can compare against nature and say "Nah, that isn't true". Gods like Jehovah fall in this category. I'm gnostic atheist about this - I'm convinced enough to take a stand, that these are nothing but silly people letting their imaginations carry them away.

Nothing to dispute there. I would however find an issue if you were to claim that your act of taking a stand is not actually taking a stand at all.

To return to the topic, I suppose there can be something that counts as proof of God. I'm not sure what that something would be though. But I will say that the proof would need to be something humans can understand relative to the human condition. If I were to take a guess it would be bestowing us with the knowledge of everything so that humans can test this knowledge ourselves on our own terms while said God remains impervious to these tests.

 

[Gospel]

If someone approached me and said my shoes are untied, I'd look and if I find that they are tied I'd reject their claim using my observation of tied shoes as the evidence. God would be the state of untied shoes and my rejection based on observation would be my claim that my shoes in an untied state (God) doesn't exist. To say that I'm not disproving a negative would be silly.

But if someone looked at your tied shoes and said you need to thank the shoelace gremlins for having tied shoes, what would you say? If you said "There aren't any shoelace gremlins" would you have to prove your claim? The person could say that the tied shoelaces are proof of shoelace gremlins. Who's making the unevidenced claim?

Granted I reply at all, I'd still consider my engagement in the conversation to mean something. If I were to say "no thanks, I don't believe in the shoelace gremlins". Having just rejected that shoelace gremlins exist I presume the shoelace germline disciple would be perplexed and ask why? At that point, I'd offer some form of evidence that would rightfully be described as a claim. What is the issue with it being described as a claim? A claim doesn't require that what it's in response to be real or not.

 

[atrib]

The fact the universe has laws of nature, is knowable, uniform and to a large extent predictable, amenable to scientific research, the laws of logic deduction and induction and is explicable in mathematical terms does nothing to prove Atheism nor Theism is correct as they both agree that all those things exist as well as both require they exist.

IMO what separates an Athiest from a Theist is what makes them similar to me. Both make claims neither can prove all while Theists go out of their way to spread the gospel (in faith) as Atheists just say no (like it's a drug).

I have no reason to believe that gods exist, because I have seen no evidence that would convince me. My position is reasonable, and I don't need to "prove" anything, since I am not making any positive claims.

I am also not making the claim that I know how the universe came to exist. Again, there is nothing for me to "prove". All I am doing is expressing my skepticism of the theist's unsupported claim, and pointing out the flaws in their arguments. Not the same thing at all.

I can be wrong but don't Athiest make the claim that there is no God, more specifically no intelligent design? If so, making a claim of any sort requires evidence. To my knowledge Athiest use certain aspects of existence as evidence there is no intelligent design (aka God). I take the position of (paraphrasing here) God? That sounds like a nice idea, I wasn't there when all this started so I can't prove for or against God. Now that is not making any claims.

Generally atheists reject the evidence proffered as proof of god.

There is no objective evidence based proof of god, and there is also no objective evidence based disproof of god.

I can't prove Bigfoot does not exist, but I reject the amateurish 'evidence' for Bigfoot. As with god, there is a legion of Bigfoot believers.


Aspects are o reality are mot used as a disproof per se, tey are used to conter a claim by belivers.


My favorite, if reality was designed by a superbeing, spirit, god or entity of some kind he, she. pr it did a lousy job. Killer asteroids, plagues, earthquakes and so on. Theists couner with something like 'Everything happems for a reason dictated by god beyond our understnding', and the debate ensues.

Some atheists agressively claim god does not exist. I reject what is offered as evidence. Aheists are diverse and not monolithic.

If someone approached me and said my shoes are untied, I'd look and if I find that they are tied I'd reject their claim using my observation of tied shoes as the evidence. God would be the state of untied shoes and my rejection based on observation would be my claim that my shoes in an untied state (God) doesn't exist. To say that I'm not disproving a negative would be silly.

The claim that your shoelaces are untied is easily falsified. The god claim is not falsifiable. The claims are not analogous.

 

[Elixir]

The fact the universe has laws of nature, is knowable, uniform and to a large extent predictable, amenable to scientific research, the laws of logic deduction and induction and is explicable in mathematical terms does nothing to prove Atheism nor Theism is correct as they both agree that all those things exist as well as both require they exist.

IMO what separates an Athiest from a Theist is what makes them similar to me. Both make claims neither can prove all while Theists go out of their way to spread the gospel (in faith) as Atheists just say no (like it's a drug).

I have no reason to believe that gods exist, because I have seen no evidence that would convince me. My position is reasonable, and I don't need to "prove" anything, since I am not making any positive claims.

I am also not making the claim that I know how the universe came to exist. Again, there is nothing for me to "prove". All I am doing is expressing my skepticism of the theist's unsupported claim, and pointing out the flaws in their arguments. Not the same thing at all.

I can be wrong but don't Athiest make the claim that there is no God, more specifically no intelligent design? If so, making a claim of any sort requires evidence. To my knowledge Athiest use certain aspects of existence as evidence there is no intelligent design (aka God). I take the position of (paraphrasing here) God? That sounds like a nice idea, I wasn't there when all this started so I can't prove for or against God. Now that is not making any claims.

Generally atheists reject the evidence proffered as proof of god.

There is no objective evidence based proof of god, and there is also no objective evidence based disproof of god.

I can't prove Bigfoot does not exist, but I reject the amateurish 'evidence' for Bigfoot. As with god, there is a legion of Bigfoot believers.


Aspects are o reality are mot used as a disproof per se, tey are used to conter a claim by belivers.


My favorite, if reality was designed by a superbeing, spirit, god or entity of some kind he, she. pr it did a lousy job. Killer asteroids, plagues, earthquakes and so on. Theists couner with something like 'Everything happems for a reason dictated by god beyond our understnding', and the debate ensues.

Some atheists agressively claim god does not exist. I reject what is offered as evidence. Aheists are diverse and not monolithic.

If someone approached me and said my shoes are untied, I'd look and if I find that they are tied I'd reject their claim using my observation of tied shoes as the evidence. God would be the state of untied shoes and my rejection based on observation would be my claim that my shoes in an untied state (God) doesn't exist. To say that I'm not disproving a negative would be silly.

The claim that your shoelaces are untied is easily falsified. The god claim is not falsifiable. The claims are not analogous.

Now you've all pissed off the shoelace gremlins.
I'll pray for you to not trip and fall over the escalator railing on the third floor of the mall.

 

[steve_bank]

If someone approached me and said my shoes are untied, I'd look and if I find that they are tied I'd reject their claim using my observation of tied shoes as the evidence. God would be the state of untied shoes and my rejection based on observation would be my claim that my shoes in an untied state (God) doesn't exist. To say that I'm not disproving a negative would be silly.

But if someone looked at your tied shoes and said you need to thank the shoelace gremlins for having tied shoes, what would you say? If you said "There aren't any shoelace gremlins" would you have to prove your claim? The person could say that the tied shoelaces are proof of shoelace gremlins. Who's making the unevidenced claim?

Granted I reply at all, I'd still consider my engagement in the conversation to mean something. If I were to say "no thanks, I don't believe in the shoelace gremlins". Having just rejected that shoelace gremlins exist I presume the shoelace germline disciple would be perplexed and ask why? At that point, I'd offer some form of evidence that would rightfully be described as a claim. What is the issue with it being described as a claim? A claim doesn't require that what it's in response to be real or not.

People can find meaning in anything, thais what mythology and reiligion and aspects of philosophy are for. Human purpose and meaning.

One way to look at religion is a gigantic complex Rorschach Test. One becomes immersed in the intricacies of the debates and finds .meaning in a religious position. A soothmg mantra that is repeated. A self idenity. Human nature 101.

Agnostic is just a variation on a theme. Beliefs tailored to your tastes and sensibilities that make you feel good.

 

[bilby]

My favorite, if reality was designed by a superbeing, spirit, god or entity of some kind he, she. pr it did a lousy job. Killer asteroids, plagues, earthquakes and so on. Theists counter with something like 'Everything happems for a reason dictated by god beyond our understnding', and the debate ensues.

The funny thing about that counter, is that it still assumes the primacy of humans within the universe. Why not a god who is interested in other things? After all, there are SO MANY other things evident in the universe. Maybe humans just aren't that important to a tri-omni being, so asteroids, plagues earthquakes and other things that annoy us, aren't anything worth attending to.

Which brings us back to the definition of 'god'.

Theists don't like to be pinned down on this point, but we can infer a broad definition of what a god is by looking at what they do specifically say about the gods they worship.

There are common threads that all gods share, and we can use these to weave a loose net that captures any and all gods. So my dining table, for example, is not a god. I know this, because gods have certain features my dining table lacks; Most notably, the demonstrated ability to intervene in human affairs in ways that contradict the scientific consensus.

Any entity that doesn't have the demonstrated ability to intervene in human affairs in ways that contradict the scientific consensus is not a god.

A soft atheist claim would be that no such entity has ever been detected, and that it would therefore be unwise to assume that any such entity exists.

A hard atheist claim would be that the definition of scientific consensus renders such entities impossible, and that therefore they cannot exist.

IMO both 'claims' are correct; Despite both being negative claims and, as such, having the potential to be unprovable, and lacking in any rationale as to why the claimant should support them.

The burden of proof falls on positive claims. That we are able to prove these negative claims is a nice-to-have, but wasn't actually necessary to justify holding them as provisionally true.

Of note is that the concept of 'god' could be extended to include intervention in non-human affairs, but in practice it never is, which gives us a very strong hint that gods are a creation of narcissistic humans, rather than the other way around.

 

[Jarhyn]

What is a god... Wow, big question here.

So, I am a god. Not THE God, just A god.

I satisfy this definition because I am the omniscient, omnipotent creator of a universe.

Not this universe, I don't think, just A universe, namely one that may be hosted by the stuff of this one.

So, I have proved a god exists. I somehow do not think this is likely to result in me being worshipped as a god generally gets treated in the old stories... even in the universe I am the god of, it's more likely they will start worshipping something else.

That universe is not without beginning from within it, but with a few tweaks it could also be like that: I just have to start it at a point where time contains an unbroken symmetry before that point, where all of time is a time crystal (look it up!). It is further without end: time will not end from the perspective of within it, marching on for forever until the processor can't crunch it's abstractions anymore. That won't be an issue for this universe, though, insofar as it will have a great deal of complexity ripped off of it before too much longer in the form of the loss of the CMB and Big Rip operations; mechanically, it should be capable of operating indefinitely on a finite hardware platform.

To that end, if one wishes to think of the beginning or end of a universe, this requires thinking of it not from the temporal perspective of the simulation but rather the timeline of the host.

To that end, the verses on Time in the bible are kind of quizzically useful insofar as I can spin a thousand years out in an hour or two, or I can spend a year of my time advancing that world by a mere second or two.

The thing is, I'm not a very good person. I don't deserve worship and I don't grant the denizens of my world a heaven. When they die, they are dead, assuming they don't become undead after that.

One hundred percent of the mythologies in the world I created are, ultimately, a lie.

Sometimes the names are referenced as doing things, but it's so much pageantry; none of them actually created jack shit. They might as well be names like "up" and "down".

I also know that multiple entities can create THE SAME universe, exactly the same one.

So from within a universe, assuming it has a god, there are no vital properties for the god to have. There could in fact be one or many, and I could as easily create a universe where I lack omniscience and omnipotence in the manner I currently might enjoy in the universe I created. I have no obligation to be human, or even intelligent to make this thing work.

Quizzically, this does not mean that I am not omniscient or omnipotent there, still - merely that it would take more work to leverage my godhood:

I could be a god with no special powers at all other than that the thing that drives my behavior is not the same thing that drives the behavior of other critters in my universe, other than the fact that I can directly edit binary files still (or get someone else to, if I can't be bothered myself).

Given the fact that the universe I create can be created by another person, because universes are not necessarily unique!

A universe may have indeterminate cause and on the scale of universes, there is no one necessary and sufficient thing to create any given one. They are identities created by all and none of the processes that do in fact create them.

These are all statements that are undeniably true about "gods who create universes" in general.

As can be seen, it is more a description not of a single thing, but of a whole set of things. It also gives no reason to worship them.

 

[bilby]

What is a god... Wow, big question here.

So, I am a god. Not THE God, just A god.

I satisfy this definition because I am the omniscient, omnipotent creator of a universe.

Not this universe, I don't think, just A universe, namely one that may be hosted by the stuff of this one.

So, I have proved a god exists. I somehow do not think this is likely to result in me being worshipped as a god generally gets treated in the old stories... even in the universe I am the god of, it's more likely they will start worshipping something else.

That universe is not without beginning from within it, but with a few tweaks it could also be like that: I just have to start it at a point where time contains an unbroken symmetry before that point, where all of time is a time crystal (look it up!). It is further without end: time will not end from the perspective of within it, marching on for forever until the processor can't crunch it's abstractions anymore. That won't be an issue for this universe, though, insofar as it will have a great deal of complexity ripped off of it before too much longer in the form of the loss of the CMB and Big Rip operations; mechanically, it should be capable of operating indefinitely on a finite hardware platform.

To that end, if one wishes to think of the beginning or end of a universe, this requires thinking of it not from the temporal perspective of the simulation but rather the timeline of the host.

To that end, the verses on Time in the bible are kind of quizzically useful insofar as I can spin a thousand years out in an hour or two, or I can spend a year of my time advancing that world by a mere second or two.

The thing is, I'm not a very good person. I don't deserve worship and I don't grant the denizens of my world a heaven. When they die, they are dead, assuming they don't become undead after that.

One hundred percent of the mythologies in the world I created are, ultimately, a lie.

Sometimes the names are referenced as doing things, but it's so much pageantry; none of them actually created jack shit. They might as well be names like "up" and "down".

I also know that multiple entities can create THE SAME universe, exactly the same one.

So from within a universe, assuming it has a god, there are no vital properties for the god to have. There could in fact be one or many, and I could as easily create a universe where I lack omniscience and omnipotence in the manner I currently might enjoy in the universe I created. I have no obligation to be human, or even intelligent to make this thing work.

Quizzically, this does not mean that I am not omniscient or omnipotent there, still - merely that it would take more work to leverage my godhood:

I could be a god with no special powers at all other than that the thing that drives my behavior is not the same thing that drives the behavior of other critters in my universe, other than the fact that I can directly edit binary files still (or get someone else to, if I can't be bothered myself).

Given the fact that the universe I create can be created by another person, because universes are not necessarily unique!

A universe may have indeterminate cause and on the scale of universes, there is no one necessary and sufficient thing to create any given one. They are identities created by all and none of the processes that do in fact create them.

These are all statements that are undeniably true about "gods who create universes" in general.

As can be seen, it is more a description not of a single thing, but of a whole set of things. It also gives no reason to worship them.

The definition of 'god' isn't a big question, it's just a simple linguistic query. The definition of 'god' comes from the consensus attributes that apply to the majority of uses of the word - as is the case with the definitions of all words.

Creating universes isn't a defining feature of gods, though. Some gods do it, some don't. Thor never created a universe, as far as I am aware.

The only thing I can think if that all gods have in common is their demonstrated ability to intervene in human affairs in ways that contradict the scientific consensus.

That intervention is sometimes pretty distant, but it's always there. Therefore that's what the word 'god' means. Whether people hang additional baggage on it or not.

It's like Crocodile Dundee's claim "That's not a knife, this is a knife" - even he is aware that that is, in fact a knife, he just reckons that his knife is better and worthy of more respect.

 

[Jarhyn]

What is a god... Wow, big question here.

So, I am a god. Not THE God, just A god.

I satisfy this definition because I am the omniscient, omnipotent creator of a universe.

Not this universe, I don't think, just A universe, namely one that may be hosted by the stuff of this one.

So, I have proved a god exists. I somehow do not think this is likely to result in me being worshipped as a god generally gets treated in the old stories... even in the universe I am the god of, it's more likely they will start worshipping something else.

That universe is not without beginning from within it, but with a few tweaks it could also be like that: I just have to start it at a point where time contains an unbroken symmetry before that point, where all of time is a time crystal (look it up!). It is further without end: time will not end from the perspective of within it, marching on for forever until the processor can't crunch it's abstractions anymore. That won't be an issue for this universe, though, insofar as it will have a great deal of complexity ripped off of it before too much longer in the form of the loss of the CMB and Big Rip operations; mechanically, it should be capable of operating indefinitely on a finite hardware platform.

To that end, if one wishes to think of the beginning or end of a universe, this requires thinking of it not from the temporal perspective of the simulation but rather the timeline of the host.

To that end, the verses on Time in the bible are kind of quizzically useful insofar as I can spin a thousand years out in an hour or two, or I can spend a year of my time advancing that world by a mere second or two.

The thing is, I'm not a very good person. I don't deserve worship and I don't grant the denizens of my world a heaven. When they die, they are dead, assuming they don't become undead after that.

One hundred percent of the mythologies in the world I created are, ultimately, a lie.

Sometimes the names are referenced as doing things, but it's so much pageantry; none of them actually created jack shit. They might as well be names like "up" and "down".

I also know that multiple entities can create THE SAME universe, exactly the same one.

So from within a universe, assuming it has a god, there are no vital properties for the god to have. There could in fact be one or many, and I could as easily create a universe where I lack omniscience and omnipotence in the manner I currently might enjoy in the universe I created. I have no obligation to be human, or even intelligent to make this thing work.

Quizzically, this does not mean that I am not omniscient or omnipotent there, still - merely that it would take more work to leverage my godhood:

I could be a god with no special powers at all other than that the thing that drives my behavior is not the same thing that drives the behavior of other critters in my universe, other than the fact that I can directly edit binary files still (or get someone else to, if I can't be bothered myself).

Given the fact that the universe I create can be created by another person, because universes are not necessarily unique!

A universe may have indeterminate cause and on the scale of universes, there is no one necessary and sufficient thing to create any given one. They are identities created by all and none of the processes that do in fact create them.

These are all statements that are undeniably true about "gods who create universes" in general.

As can be seen, it is more a description not of a single thing, but of a whole set of things. It also gives no reason to worship them.

The definition of 'god' isn't a big question, it's just a simple linguistic query. The definition of 'god' comes from the consensus attributes that apply to the majority of uses of the word - as is the case with the definitions of all words.

Creating universes isn't a defining feature of gods, though. Some gods do it, some don't. Thor never created a universe, as far as I am aware.

The only thing I can think if that all gods have in common is their demonstrated ability to intervene in human affairs in ways that contradict the scientific consensus.

That intervention is sometimes pretty distant, but it's always there. Therefore that's what the word 'god' means. Whether people hang additional baggage on it or not.

It's like Crocodile Dundee's claim "That's not a knife, this is a knife" - even he is aware that that is, in fact a knife, he just reckons that his knife is better and worthy of more respect.

From the Christian perspective; "is there a creator of the universe".

There if we want to discuss the Great Old Ones, though, we can go there too...

 

[bilby]

What is a god... Wow, big question here.

So, I am a god. Not THE God, just A god.

I satisfy this definition because I am the omniscient, omnipotent creator of a universe.

Not this universe, I don't think, just A universe, namely one that may be hosted by the stuff of this one.

So, I have proved a god exists. I somehow do not think this is likely to result in me being worshipped as a god generally gets treated in the old stories... even in the universe I am the god of, it's more likely they will start worshipping something else.

That universe is not without beginning from within it, but with a few tweaks it could also be like that: I just have to start it at a point where time contains an unbroken symmetry before that point, where all of time is a time crystal (look it up!). It is further without end: time will not end from the perspective of within it, marching on for forever until the processor can't crunch it's abstractions anymore. That won't be an issue for this universe, though, insofar as it will have a great deal of complexity ripped off of it before too much longer in the form of the loss of the CMB and Big Rip operations; mechanically, it should be capable of operating indefinitely on a finite hardware platform.

To that end, if one wishes to think of the beginning or end of a universe, this requires thinking of it not from the temporal perspective of the simulation but rather the timeline of the host.

To that end, the verses on Time in the bible are kind of quizzically useful insofar as I can spin a thousand years out in an hour or two, or I can spend a year of my time advancing that world by a mere second or two.

The thing is, I'm not a very good person. I don't deserve worship and I don't grant the denizens of my world a heaven. When they die, they are dead, assuming they don't become undead after that.

One hundred percent of the mythologies in the world I created are, ultimately, a lie.

Sometimes the names are referenced as doing things, but it's so much pageantry; none of them actually created jack shit. They might as well be names like "up" and "down".

I also know that multiple entities can create THE SAME universe, exactly the same one.

So from within a universe, assuming it has a god, there are no vital properties for the god to have. There could in fact be one or many, and I could as easily create a universe where I lack omniscience and omnipotence in the manner I currently might enjoy in the universe I created. I have no obligation to be human, or even intelligent to make this thing work.

Quizzically, this does not mean that I am not omniscient or omnipotent there, still - merely that it would take more work to leverage my godhood:

I could be a god with no special powers at all other than that the thing that drives my behavior is not the same thing that drives the behavior of other critters in my universe, other than the fact that I can directly edit binary files still (or get someone else to, if I can't be bothered myself).

Given the fact that the universe I create can be created by another person, because universes are not necessarily unique!

A universe may have indeterminate cause and on the scale of universes, there is no one necessary and sufficient thing to create any given one. They are identities created by all and none of the processes that do in fact create them.

These are all statements that are undeniably true about "gods who create universes" in general.

As can be seen, it is more a description not of a single thing, but of a whole set of things. It also gives no reason to worship them.

The definition of 'god' isn't a big question, it's just a simple linguistic query. The definition of 'god' comes from the consensus attributes that apply to the majority of uses of the word - as is the case with the definitions of all words.

Creating universes isn't a defining feature of gods, though. Some gods do it, some don't. Thor never created a universe, as far as I am aware.

The only thing I can think if that all gods have in common is their demonstrated ability to intervene in human affairs in ways that contradict the scientific consensus.

That intervention is sometimes pretty distant, but it's always there. Therefore that's what the word 'god' means. Whether people hang additional baggage on it or not.

It's like Crocodile Dundee's claim "That's not a knife, this is a knife" - even he is aware that that is, in fact a knife, he just reckons that his knife is better and worthy of more respect.

From the Christian perspective; "is there a creator of the universe".

There if we want to discuss the Great Old Ones, though, we can go there too...

The Christian perspective, like that of Mr Dundee, is simply wrong. Creating universes is baggage they are hanging on their god, not a part of the definition of the word.

 

[Politesse]

Agnostic is just a variation on a theme. Beliefs tailored to your tastes and sensibilities that make you feel good.

What have feelings got to do with it? Agnosticism is a philosophy for people who think with their brains instewd of their heart and spleen. A hard path, but honest.

 

[Jarhyn]

What is a god... Wow, big question here.

So, I am a god. Not THE God, just A god.

I satisfy this definition because I am the omniscient, omnipotent creator of a universe.

Not this universe, I don't think, just A universe, namely one that may be hosted by the stuff of this one.

So, I have proved a god exists. I somehow do not think this is likely to result in me being worshipped as a god generally gets treated in the old stories... even in the universe I am the god of, it's more likely they will start worshipping something else.

That universe is not without beginning from within it, but with a few tweaks it could also be like that: I just have to start it at a point where time contains an unbroken symmetry before that point, where all of time is a time crystal (look it up!). It is further without end: time will not end from the perspective of within it, marching on for forever until the processor can't crunch it's abstractions anymore. That won't be an issue for this universe, though, insofar as it will have a great deal of complexity ripped off of it before too much longer in the form of the loss of the CMB and Big Rip operations; mechanically, it should be capable of operating indefinitely on a finite hardware platform.

To that end, if one wishes to think of the beginning or end of a universe, this requires thinking of it not from the temporal perspective of the simulation but rather the timeline of the host.

To that end, the verses on Time in the bible are kind of quizzically useful insofar as I can spin a thousand years out in an hour or two, or I can spend a year of my time advancing that world by a mere second or two.

The thing is, I'm not a very good person. I don't deserve worship and I don't grant the denizens of my world a heaven. When they die, they are dead, assuming they don't become undead after that.

One hundred percent of the mythologies in the world I created are, ultimately, a lie.

Sometimes the names are referenced as doing things, but it's so much pageantry; none of them actually created jack shit. They might as well be names like "up" and "down".

I also know that multiple entities can create THE SAME universe, exactly the same one.

So from within a universe, assuming it has a god, there are no vital properties for the god to have. There could in fact be one or many, and I could as easily create a universe where I lack omniscience and omnipotence in the manner I currently might enjoy in the universe I created. I have no obligation to be human, or even intelligent to make this thing work.

Quizzically, this does not mean that I am not omniscient or omnipotent there, still - merely that it would take more work to leverage my godhood:

I could be a god with no special powers at all other than that the thing that drives my behavior is not the same thing that drives the behavior of other critters in my universe, other than the fact that I can directly edit binary files still (or get someone else to, if I can't be bothered myself).

Given the fact that the universe I create can be created by another person, because universes are not necessarily unique!

A universe may have indeterminate cause and on the scale of universes, there is no one necessary and sufficient thing to create any given one. They are identities created by all and none of the processes that do in fact create them.

These are all statements that are undeniably true about "gods who create universes" in general.

As can be seen, it is more a description not of a single thing, but of a whole set of things. It also gives no reason to worship them.

The definition of 'god' isn't a big question, it's just a simple linguistic query. The definition of 'god' comes from the consensus attributes that apply to the majority of uses of the word - as is the case with the definitions of all words.

Creating universes isn't a defining feature of gods, though. Some gods do it, some don't. Thor never created a universe, as far as I am aware.

The only thing I can think if that all gods have in common is their demonstrated ability to intervene in human affairs in ways that contradict the scientific consensus.

That intervention is sometimes pretty distant, but it's always there. Therefore that's what the word 'god' means. Whether people hang additional baggage on it or not.

It's like Crocodile Dundee's claim "That's not a knife, this is a knife" - even he is aware that that is, in fact a knife, he just reckons that his knife is better and worthy of more respect.

From the Christian perspective; "is there a creator of the universe".

There if we want to discuss the Great Old Ones, though, we can go there too...

The Christian perspective, like that of Mr Dundee, is simply wrong. Creating universes is baggage they are hanging on their god, not a part of the definition of the word.

Well as I said, I proved that "universes can have gods" and "there are extant gods of universes". These are proven facts.

Now whether THIS universe has one is a big question, and one unlikely to see an answer unless we can isolate the full mechanisms of determination of singular events.

I only described how it IS in fact possible for an omnipotent, omniscient creator god to exist as the creator of a universe with a fixed and finite architecture and infinite local time, and pointed out that certain other constraints such as "good", "will actually use their powers", "deserves worship", and "makes good on promises" are all wildly off-base.

This describes what is, undeniably, possible.

It does not demand that it is actual.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

What have feelings got to do with it? Agnosticism is a philosophy for people who think with their brains instewd of their heart and spleen. A hard path, but honest.

You are implying intellectual superiority and uniqueness. How convenient. We can discuss that when you stop beating your wife.

 

[bilby]

What is a god... Wow, big question here.

So, I am a god. Not THE God, just A god.

I satisfy this definition because I am the omniscient, omnipotent creator of a universe.

Not this universe, I don't think, just A universe, namely one that may be hosted by the stuff of this one.

So, I have proved a god exists. I somehow do not think this is likely to result in me being worshipped as a god generally gets treated in the old stories... even in the universe I am the god of, it's more likely they will start worshipping something else.

That universe is not without beginning from within it, but with a few tweaks it could also be like that: I just have to start it at a point where time contains an unbroken symmetry before that point, where all of time is a time crystal (look it up!). It is further without end: time will not end from the perspective of within it, marching on for forever until the processor can't crunch it's abstractions anymore. That won't be an issue for this universe, though, insofar as it will have a great deal of complexity ripped off of it before too much longer in the form of the loss of the CMB and Big Rip operations; mechanically, it should be capable of operating indefinitely on a finite hardware platform.

To that end, if one wishes to think of the beginning or end of a universe, this requires thinking of it not from the temporal perspective of the simulation but rather the timeline of the host.

To that end, the verses on Time in the bible are kind of quizzically useful insofar as I can spin a thousand years out in an hour or two, or I can spend a year of my time advancing that world by a mere second or two.

The thing is, I'm not a very good person. I don't deserve worship and I don't grant the denizens of my world a heaven. When they die, they are dead, assuming they don't become undead after that.

One hundred percent of the mythologies in the world I created are, ultimately, a lie.

Sometimes the names are referenced as doing things, but it's so much pageantry; none of them actually created jack shit. They might as well be names like "up" and "down".

I also know that multiple entities can create THE SAME universe, exactly the same one.

So from within a universe, assuming it has a god, there are no vital properties for the god to have. There could in fact be one or many, and I could as easily create a universe where I lack omniscience and omnipotence in the manner I currently might enjoy in the universe I created. I have no obligation to be human, or even intelligent to make this thing work.

Quizzically, this does not mean that I am not omniscient or omnipotent there, still - merely that it would take more work to leverage my godhood:

I could be a god with no special powers at all other than that the thing that drives my behavior is not the same thing that drives the behavior of other critters in my universe, other than the fact that I can directly edit binary files still (or get someone else to, if I can't be bothered myself).

Given the fact that the universe I create can be created by another person, because universes are not necessarily unique!

A universe may have indeterminate cause and on the scale of universes, there is no one necessary and sufficient thing to create any given one. They are identities created by all and none of the processes that do in fact create them.

These are all statements that are undeniably true about "gods who create universes" in general.

As can be seen, it is more a description not of a single thing, but of a whole set of things. It also gives no reason to worship them.

The definition of 'god' isn't a big question, it's just a simple linguistic query. The definition of 'god' comes from the consensus attributes that apply to the majority of uses of the word - as is the case with the definitions of all words.

Creating universes isn't a defining feature of gods, though. Some gods do it, some don't. Thor never created a universe, as far as I am aware.

The only thing I can think if that all gods have in common is their demonstrated ability to intervene in human affairs in ways that contradict the scientific consensus.

That intervention is sometimes pretty distant, but it's always there. Therefore that's what the word 'god' means. Whether people hang additional baggage on it or not.

It's like Crocodile Dundee's claim "That's not a knife, this is a knife" - even he is aware that that is, in fact a knife, he just reckons that his knife is better and worthy of more respect.

From the Christian perspective; "is there a creator of the universe".

There if we want to discuss the Great Old Ones, though, we can go there too...

The Christian perspective, like that of Mr Dundee, is simply wrong. Creating universes is baggage they are hanging on their god, not a part of the definition of the word.

Well as I said, I proved that "universes can have gods" and "there are extant gods of universes". These are proven facts.

Now whether THIS universe has one is a big question, and one unlikely to see an answer unless we can isolate the full mechanisms of determination of singular events.

I only described how it IS in fact possible for an omnipotent, omniscient creator god to exist as the creator of a universe with a fixed and finite architecture and infinite local time, and pointed out that certain other constraints such as "good", "will actually use their powers", "deserves worship", and "makes good on promises" are all wildly off-base.

This describes what is, undeniably, possible.

It does not demand that it is actual.

Fair enough.

But it's not necessary to go to all the trouble of creating a universal in order to be a god. You could just limit yourself to creating thunder and lightning, or indeed to causing any effects for which your audience lack a solid understanding of cause.

Though if you want to be such a god in our universe, you're probably going to need to set yourself up prior to the industrial revolution. Certainly your options become non-existent once the Standard Model has been established, as it necessarily eliminates the possibility of unknown interactions within a very large range of scales, and completely rules out interaction between any putative god, and any object larger than an atomic nucleus but smaller than a solar system.

Creating our universe isn't yet definitively ruled out, but it probably will be once we get a handle on the way QFT combines with General Relativity.

Obviously you can create your own universe with blackjack and hookers in a simulation, and then it's your universe, your rules. But there's lots of very good reasons to accept that this universe isn't like that.

 

[bilby]

What have feelings got to do with it? Agnosticism is a philosophy for people who think with their brains instewd of their heart and spleen. A hard path, but honest.

You are implying intellectual superiority and uniqueness. How convenient. We can discuss that when you stop beating your wife.

Agnosticism is the only honest stance for people who don't know. But there's a difference between not knowing because nobody knows, and not knowing because your education isn't sufficient.

The gulf between 'I do not know' and 'it is not known' is enormous and ever widening; It's not been possible for a single individual to know all of the things known to humankind since at least the Neolithic.

It IS known that no gods that intervene in Earthly or human events are possible. If Politesse doesn't know that, that's just a gap in their education. It's OK; We all have those.

If someone asks you what the capital of Burkina Faso is, it's perfectly reasonable to reply "I don't know".

It's NOT reasonable to reply "It is unknowable, and all honest people would admit that". Particularly when people are waving maps of Africa in your face, and you are ignoring them because you don't think mere geographers could possibly answer what you have ignorantly declared to be a purely philosophical question.

That the capital of Burkina Faso is not an unknowable philosophical mystery is obvious to anyone who knows geography. That the existence of gods, ghosts, souls, and a whole bunch of other supernatural phenomena is also not an unknowable philosophical mystery is obvious to anyone who knows physics.

Agnosticism today is the art of ignoring people who tell you it's Ouagadougou, in order to preserve your self image as brave enough to declare all geographers to be pompous fools who claim to have forbidden and impossible knowledge.

 

[Jarhyn]

What is a god... Wow, big question here.

So, I am a god. Not THE God, just A god.

I satisfy this definition because I am the omniscient, omnipotent creator of a universe.

Not this universe, I don't think, just A universe, namely one that may be hosted by the stuff of this one.

So, I have proved a god exists. I somehow do not think this is likely to result in me being worshipped as a god generally gets treated in the old stories... even in the universe I am the god of, it's more likely they will start worshipping something else.

That universe is not without beginning from within it, but with a few tweaks it could also be like that: I just have to start it at a point where time contains an unbroken symmetry before that point, where all of time is a time crystal (look it up!). It is further without end: time will not end from the perspective of within it, marching on for forever until the processor can't crunch it's abstractions anymore. That won't be an issue for this universe, though, insofar as it will have a great deal of complexity ripped off of it before too much longer in the form of the loss of the CMB and Big Rip operations; mechanically, it should be capable of operating indefinitely on a finite hardware platform.

To that end, if one wishes to think of the beginning or end of a universe, this requires thinking of it not from the temporal perspective of the simulation but rather the timeline of the host.

To that end, the verses on Time in the bible are kind of quizzically useful insofar as I can spin a thousand years out in an hour or two, or I can spend a year of my time advancing that world by a mere second or two.

The thing is, I'm not a very good person. I don't deserve worship and I don't grant the denizens of my world a heaven. When they die, they are dead, assuming they don't become undead after that.

One hundred percent of the mythologies in the world I created are, ultimately, a lie.

Sometimes the names are referenced as doing things, but it's so much pageantry; none of them actually created jack shit. They might as well be names like "up" and "down".

I also know that multiple entities can create THE SAME universe, exactly the same one.

So from within a universe, assuming it has a god, there are no vital properties for the god to have. There could in fact be one or many, and I could as easily create a universe where I lack omniscience and omnipotence in the manner I currently might enjoy in the universe I created. I have no obligation to be human, or even intelligent to make this thing work.

Quizzically, this does not mean that I am not omniscient or omnipotent there, still - merely that it would take more work to leverage my godhood:

I could be a god with no special powers at all other than that the thing that drives my behavior is not the same thing that drives the behavior of other critters in my universe, other than the fact that I can directly edit binary files still (or get someone else to, if I can't be bothered myself).

Given the fact that the universe I create can be created by another person, because universes are not necessarily unique!

A universe may have indeterminate cause and on the scale of universes, there is no one necessary and sufficient thing to create any given one. They are identities created by all and none of the processes that do in fact create them.

These are all statements that are undeniably true about "gods who create universes" in general.

As can be seen, it is more a description not of a single thing, but of a whole set of things. It also gives no reason to worship them.

The definition of 'god' isn't a big question, it's just a simple linguistic query. The definition of 'god' comes from the consensus attributes that apply to the majority of uses of the word - as is the case with the definitions of all words.

Creating universes isn't a defining feature of gods, though. Some gods do it, some don't. Thor never created a universe, as far as I am aware.

The only thing I can think if that all gods have in common is their demonstrated ability to intervene in human affairs in ways that contradict the scientific consensus.

That intervention is sometimes pretty distant, but it's always there. Therefore that's what the word 'god' means. Whether people hang additional baggage on it or not.

It's like Crocodile Dundee's claim "That's not a knife, this is a knife" - even he is aware that that is, in fact a knife, he just reckons that his knife is better and worthy of more respect.

From the Christian perspective; "is there a creator of the universe".

There if we want to discuss the Great Old Ones, though, we can go there too...

The Christian perspective, like that of Mr Dundee, is simply wrong. Creating universes is baggage they are hanging on their god, not a part of the definition of the word.

Well as I said, I proved that "universes can have gods" and "there are extant gods of universes". These are proven facts.

Now whether THIS universe has one is a big question, and one unlikely to see an answer unless we can isolate the full mechanisms of determination of singular events.

I only described how it IS in fact possible for an omnipotent, omniscient creator god to exist as the creator of a universe with a fixed and finite architecture and infinite local time, and pointed out that certain other constraints such as "good", "will actually use their powers", "deserves worship", and "makes good on promises" are all wildly off-base.

This describes what is, undeniably, possible.

It does not demand that it is actual.

Fair enough.

But it's not necessary to go to all the trouble of creating a universal in order to be a god. You could just limit yourself to creating thunder and lightning, or indeed to causing any effects for which your audience lack a solid understanding of cause.

Though if you want to be such a god in our universe, you're probably going to need to set yourself up prior to the industrial revolution. Certainly your options become non-existent once the Standard Model has been established, as it necessarily eliminates the possibility of unknown interactions within a very large range of scales, and completely rules out interaction between any putative god, and any object larger than an atomic nucleus but smaller than a solar system.

Creating our universe isn't yet definitively ruled out, but it probably will be once we get a handle on the way QFT combines with General Relativity.

Obviously you can create your own universe with blackjack and hookers in a simulation, and then it's your universe, your rules. But there's lots of very good reasons to accept that this universe isn't like that.

Well if you want thunder and lightning, I can throw together a Van DeGraff generator.

In fact, I expect that once we understand whatever malarkey is going on across the QFT/GR abstraction plane, I expect that you will be proven wrong.

The reality of it is that IF we can simulate out universe, and IF we can represent that simulation as a scalable architectural system -- if I can represent the universe as a finite hierarchy of state machines -- then it proves that any such implementation of it is vulnerable to systematic hacking in the same way I systematically hack the universe I am actually the god of.

Maybe it is the hammer thinking every problem is a nail, but it seems to me this is an issue of reverse engineering a systemic architecture from inside the system, seeing in fact that "universes MAY have gods".

To that end, I think that makes a particular point of view featured in "3001: The Final Oddesy": that the only reasonable positions are that there is some number between zero and infinite gods, and we can't possibly know for sure without observing "uncaused events" or deltas on whatever seed we discover exists (if we discover a common seed) in the determination of probability wave collapses.

 

[abaddon]

If I wrangle a paragraph in which I contrive that a lightbulb and Apollo have shared traits, it doesn't make the lightbulb a god.

A culture tells us what their gods are (or were). It's a social convention, a cultural tradition. Not "if I make a character in a computer game that has such and such traits". A character is a god only inasmuch as some people say so. They can have designated their fiction a demon or wizard or whatever else, but they chose to say "this is a god". Anyone else who then applies the same label, though they don't believe in the fiction itself, is just giving a nod to those folk's tradition.

Then some unbelievers say "but how is it that these people take their fiction to be real?" So believers elaborate on their fiction to try to make it seem real. It happens because people take these old conventions so very fucking seriously.

 

[Politesse]

What have feelings got to do with it? Agnosticism is a philosophy for people who think with their brains instewd of their heart and spleen. A hard path, but honest.

You are implying intellectual superiority and uniqueness. How convenient. We can discuss that when you stop beating your wife.

Agnosticism is the only honest stance for people who don't know. But there's a difference between not knowing because nobody knows, and not knowing because your education isn't sufficient.

The gulf between 'I do not know' and 'it is not known' is enormous and ever widening; It's not been possible for a single individual to know all of the things known to humankind since at least the Neolithic.

It IS known that no gods that intervene in Earthly or human events are possible. If Politesse doesn't know that, that's just a gap in their education. It's OK; We all have those.

If someone asks you what the capital of Burkina Faso is, it's perfectly reasonable to reply "I don't know".

It's NOT reasonable to reply "It is unknowable, and all honest people would admit that". Particularly when people are waving maps of Africa in your face, and you are ignoring them because you don't think mere geographers could possibly answer what you have ignorantly declared to be a purely philosophical question.

That the capital of Burkina Faso is not an unknowable philosophical mystery is obvious to anyone who knows geography. That the existence of gods, ghosts, souls, and a whole bunch of other supernatural phenomena is also not an unknowable philosophical mystery is obvious to anyone who knows physics.

Agnosticism today is the art of ignoring people who tell you it's Ouagadougou, in order to preserve your self image as brave enough to declare all geographers to be pompous fools who claim to have forbidden and impossible knowledge.

I remain, as always, interested in any meaningful, coherent argument for atheism (not in the form of bluster). I have not made any argument against Burkina Faso's capital being Ougadougou. I am aware that a great many people believe as you do.

What is the claim, in fact, that would apply to atheism, but be rationally equivalent to "Ougadougou is the capital of Burkina Faso"? How would you state it, in form "x is the y of z"? What obvious, researchable empirical fact am I overlooking?