We can say one thing. The four facts I've submitted in favor of theism have to be true for theism to be true
Your “four facts” have to be true for a lot of imagined things to be true.
that does not make your imagined thing true. At all.
You claim (by extension) that leprechauns are more likely true than not because 4-leaf clovers exist.
You claim that the Loch Ness monster is more likely than not because of the existence of Loch Ness.
Of course you're being illogical. You believe that there is an elephant in my fridge.Let me offer evidence of another belief and see if you accept the facts of evidence I offer is valid or if I'm just being illogical
(in no particular order )Virtual universes already exist within our universe. So our universe is probably a virtual one within an even more real one. This raises the question-Look! The sky is green!
Also, just for Drew’s edification, a virtual universe is not the same thing as an actual universe.
In the 1930s, a couple of kids invented Superman. Presto! Superman is real, and those kids were gods!
Is the @Learner god the god of this universe, or of the universe within which ours is contained, or the one within which that one is contained, or … is it turtles all the way down, and Learner’s god only had to create turtles?
Important shit, people. I hope y’all get it sorted out before all those turtles wander off….
Of course you're being illogical. You believe that there is an elephant in my fridge.Let me offer evidence of another belief and see if you accept the facts of evidence I offer is valid or if I'm just being illogical
Open your mind!(in no particular order )Virtual universes already exist within our universe. So our universe is probably a virtual one within an even more real one. This raises the question-Look! The sky is green!
Also, just for Drew’s edification, a virtual universe is not the same thing as an actual universe.
In the 1930s, a couple of kids invented Superman. Presto! Superman is real, and those kids were gods!
Is the @Learner god the god of this universe, or of the universe within which ours is contained, or the one within which that one is contained, or … is it turtles all the way down, and Learner’s god only had to create turtles?
Important shit, people. I hope y’all get it sorted out before all those turtles wander off….
Gday Exlir, I'm not actually a virtual reality or matix proponant. This I thought I'd better make clear.
An interesting idea, considering the data or information would have to travel considerable faster than light, e.g. the refresh rate needing to go throughout the universe - light is said to be constant in our reality and apparently, nothing can travel faster than light (that idea could have its own issue).
And of course, there are no turtles all the way down in the bible, that's content thievery from another religion
Open your mind!(in no particular order )Virtual universes already exist within our universe. So our universe is probably a virtual one within an even more real one. This raises the question-Look! The sky is green!
Also, just for Drew’s edification, a virtual universe is not the same thing as an actual universe.
In the 1930s, a couple of kids invented Superman. Presto! Superman is real, and those kids were gods!
Is the @Learner god the god of this universe, or of the universe within which ours is contained, or the one within which that one is contained, or … is it turtles all the way down, and Learner’s god only had to create turtles?
Important shit, people. I hope y’all get it sorted out before all those turtles wander off….
Gday Exlir, I'm not actually a virtual reality or matix proponant. This I thought I'd better make clear.
An interesting idea, considering the data or information would have to travel considerable faster than light, e.g. the refresh rate needing to go throughout the universe - light is said to be constant in our reality and apparently, nothing can travel faster than light (that idea could have its own issue).
And of course, there are no turtles all the way down in the bible, that's content thievery from another religion
Light speed is only a “limit” in THIS universe, not the one that contains ours or the ones ours contains.
Turtles and bibles are trivial details.
Thats what theists say about God, beyond limits.Light speed is only a “limit” in THIS universe, not the one that contains ours or the ones ours contains.
Thats what theists say about God, beyond limits.Light speed is only a “limit” in THIS universe, not the one that contains ours or the ones ours contains.
No shit, Dick Tracy. That’s why I posed it.
Now you get a glimpse of the ridiculous and irrelevant nature of theism.
Wel I don't know. But then, as you're indicating, you can demonstrate the factor for that descision, "Light speed is only a “limit” in THIS universe, not the one that contains ours or the ones ours contains." I am opened to it BTW.
Ok.No worries, I'm not fully convinced of the "Light speed is only a “limit” in THIS universe, not the one that contains ours or the ones ours contains."concept.
Except that as shown, while those limits may not be contextual to their interactions within the universe, even creator gods have limits contextual to themselves, and to their ability to side-channel modify that universe.Thats what theists say about God, beyond limits.Light speed is only a “limit” in THIS universe, not the one that contains ours or the ones ours contains.
No shit, Dick Tracy. That’s why I posed it.
Now you get a glimpse of the ridiculous and irrelevant nature of theism.
Ok.No worries, I'm not fully convinced of the "Light speed is only a “limit” in THIS universe, not the one that contains ours or the ones ours contains."concept.
So what?
Jerking off to imaginary gods, admitting or forbidding light speed limits in hierarchical universes … sounds like lotsa fun, if you can afford it. I take it you’re from a well off family…
I think the ways that gods are not limited, particularly with respect to their conduct and ethical capabilities, is problematic to any claim of theism.
Theism is irrelevant even to gods. It is irrelevant to "there are zero or more gods".
I keep saying how someone might possibly even chase down one of these "god" things. It's not my fault that people seem too lazy to actually do that.
Well, its not like you can tell us where this god is going to show up. If you did that, we could bring our instruments and set up tests under controlled conditions. As of now, for every single observation we have ever made, we have zero tests to confirm the existence of a god or its ability to intervene in human affairs. Its not our fault that your god never shows up when there are scientists making observations.Never ever detected, or perhaps at least, not catching God doing it in the act. Is the claimer of "no gods possible" 100% very sure his cameras cover all bases?If I claimed that there is an invisible creature living in my attic, that this creature has the ability to break the laws of nature and interfere in our lives, and that this creature never, ever does anything that could be detected by humans, would a reasonable person believe this claim? The answer is obviously "NO". How is an alleged god any different from the alleged creature in my story?No.
Bilby is claiming that any god that interacts with humanity in any way would only be able to do so using one of the four known forces that are the only things that can possibly interact with humans.
I'm wandering if the tester readily had monitoring equipment in place, somehow, forecasting exactly where a God interaction claim, a miracle claim or similar claim, would spontaneously happen, just at the right place and right time? Assuming God is not going to come to the lab on your request.
And that therefore god's interactions with us would have been detected, easily.
When you look for something, knowing exactly what you are looking for and how to see it, and you never find it, then (if you are sane) you conclude that it's not there.
I was wondering what one would actually be looking for. What type of disturbances in the field, so to speak, would be noticeable and expected? Sounds like you have a "text-book" expectation for any creator of a universe to be noticed.
I'm pondering on the thought that by merely looking at the universe, which is systematically running as clockwork (considering the universe is created.). Does God neccessarily need to be pulling levers and strings; shovelling coal into the furnace engine, so to speak, so that you should expect to notice some creator indication? God would have included automation in my view, in concept.
As I previously posted:
"I'm wandering if the tester readily had monitoring equipment in place, somehow, forecasting exactly where a God interaction claim, a miracle claim or similar claim, would spontaneously happen, just at the right place and right time? Assuming God is not going to come to the lab on your request."
There are no eye witness accounts of the Jesus miracles. There are not thousands of manuscripts. There are Paul's letters, and the four Gospels. And the letters and the Gospels are not eyewitness accounts. Why did you repeat this falsehood knowing fully well that it is a falsehood?How is this god any different from a god that does not exist? How could you possibly differentiate between the two?I'm pondering on the thought that by merely looking at the universe, which is systematically running as clockwork (if considering the universe is created.). Does God neccessarily need to be pulling levers and strings; shovelling coal into the furnace engine, so to speak, so that you should expect to notice some creator indication?
I don't think I agree to the notion that all claims are the same. To state the obvious, in your sole claim of 'the invisible creature in the attic' versus 'the many eye witness reports of claims, written in thousands of manuscripts,' there's a big difference.
How are these four facts evidence for the god-did-it claim? What is a god? How many times are you going to ignore these questions, dishonest creationist?What is a god? What are its characteristics? What is the mechanism by which a god creates universes?
No idea. Theism isn't the claim theists know how God exists, where God comes from or how God creates a universe. Its an explanation for the four facts I've noted above. Those facts have to be true for theism to be true. They're not proof theism is true but it is evidence.
Theism is the claim "I believe in god(s)". Agnosticism of the god, the state of not-knowing about the god, is the reason to not believe it. If all you want to do is assert your "four facts", that's nothing but emoting about how perplexed you feel if existence wasn't intended.
There can be a number of possibilities to explain why existence turned out like it did. Maybe, just maybe, there's a god of some sort in there somewhere. But if there is, there's only one way to justify that its existence has any degree of likelihood -- and that's to know some better details about the hypothesized god (other than your emotional state of feeling perplexed if there isn't one). You keep saying you don't know any details of the god... but that's the reason to NOT believe. If you were using logic to reason this through instead of emotions, you'd realize this not-knowing is the basis for disbelief in the god.
There are other competing theories such as multiverse and inflationary theory. Folks in here complain about God in the gaps arguments yet you continue to ask questions about things neither I, you or anyone else knows about so you can pounce and say God of the gaps. We agree (I assume) that the universe exists. No one really knows how it came about. There is no natural forces did it facts or god did it facts that settle the issue. We can only argue from facts we do agree on and those are post universe.
We can say one thing. The four facts I've submitted in favor of theism have to be true for theism to be true. If any are not true, theism is false. In contrast none have to be true for the belief God doesn't exist to be true. No one would be around to observe it but no universe would prove God doesn't exist and the slogan there is no evidence of God's existence would actually be true.
I know if this discussion were to go on for 50 pages at the end of it most (all) of the atheists in here will fold their arms and say see still no evidence, facts, data or any logical rational reason to believe its even remotely feasible our existence was intentionally caused. That rhetoric only convinces your own group of committed believers that no evidence exists and no Creator is necessary.
F1 The universe exists
F2 Life exists
F3 Intelligent life exists.
F4. 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.
No one would say I believe the universe was unintentionally caused by mindless lifeless forces therefore it doesn't surprise me in the least bit that we observe a universe that '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.
Drew's new claim: Video games exist - therefore god-did-it.Not to mention the other four conditions which are dependent on F4. . All which have to be true for theism to be true none of which are necessary for atheism to be true.
F5. Scientists, engineers, IT people (intelligent humans) have caused a virtual universe to exist.
You'll disagree this has any significance of course that's expected. This forum hopefully isn't an echo chamber on to itself. I hope some impartial folks peek in and see what the noise is about and weigh the respective arguments. I argue that scientists, engineers and IT people that caused, designed and created a universe are the gods of that universe. The virtual universe was created using the theist method of causing a universe (albeit a virtual one) to exist. Planning, design and intent caused that universe to exist.
For the hundredth time I don't know how a transcendent being came into existence or how such a being would cause our universe to exist. You have no facts about how any forces came into existence at all. In the future we may have technology to not only create design and intentionally cause a virtual universe to exist but cause, design virtual beings to exist. No doubt if those beings find themselves in a nearly identical situation to ourselves they will argue about the cause of their existence. Some will argue it was caused intentionally pointing to the same facts I've referred to. The theists in that universe are correct.
I don't think I agree to the notion that all claims are the same. To state the obvious, in your sole claim of 'the invisible creature in the attic' versus 'the many eye witness reports of claims, written in thousands of manuscripts,' there's a big difference.
If you mean the 4 (not thousands of) gospels, there are no eyewitness reports in them. And eyewitness reports of ghosts are the same as any reports of undead Jesus appearances or miracles.
Hey, you know? I have come across 3 atheists that have said they've seen and heard ghosts, being quite sure they've not imagined it.. Of course they still think there's an explanation somewhere, within the parameters of human comprehension, and the realm of the four forces apparently, but we've not found it yet, but there is hope.