The term ‘God’ is a placeholder for a group of properties. I think the only common denominator is ‘essence underlying Reality’. In which case, any further properties are speculation or claimed “revelations”. To use ‘God’ to signify just this common denominator, is useless. Humans are concerned with teleology, Is there anything that we need to do, or ought to do? and Why? Most religions profess a whole bundle of description and prescription, whereas all that is self-evident is some ineffable existential instinct. The real point of the OP is, is there a way that would cause one to embody that instinct into something more tangible?
I’m bored at work, and going around in rhetorical circles keeps looking better and better.
A good deal of this thread has been aiming to distinguish the above cases. There are no reasons to posit the idea that there are fairies, or that G.W. Bush is an alien in disguise. However, the mystery of existence, for lack of a better term, leads people to posit the existence of a god or gods.
Quite simple, really. Now, you can use your logic to debunk any specific religion, if you don’t buy the prophecies and manifestations on which it is based. However, the sheer wackiness of existence leads the existence of a higher power to be just as arbitrary an answer as the lack thereof. Theorizing a god can serve a purpose in one’s view of the world, but the residence of Random Q. McWeirdthing on Saturn can’t.
There is also no reason to posit the existence of God. The statement that existence is a 'mystery" (insofar as it presupposes an undiscovered purpose) is an assumption without support. We don’t need to posit “God” as the answer to a question until it can be proven that there is a question. Nothing has ever been discovered in the universe which would necessitate a god, and as long as we can explain things without magic, it’s irrational to prefer magic explanations to natural ones.
I think both a personal conviction, as well as the assention of all others, that I AM GOD might have a great deal of utility to me. If it’s good to be the king, it must be
really good to be God. Maybe I should just tell people I am and see how far it gets me. I might even come to believe it myself. You never know how handy being God might be.
I would believe in Ra the Sun God, if any decent Earth telescope could see His Chariot pulling the Sun.
Why would that be difficult for a God?
And it satisfies the excellent conditions of tim314:
‘In order to make an agnostic believe in God, you’d probably at least have to provide a detailed message transmitted simultaneously to multiple people in different parts of the world, in such a way that it could only have come from a being of immense power or knowledge.’
You and the magic.
Tell me where I’m wrong here:
- You define magic as that which is impossible.
- You insist that God is magic.
- You therefore say that gods are impossible.
I don’t see where you get this certainty that to be a god/creator of a universe is impossible. The whole “we’ve never observed it elsewhere” definition of magic would only be valuable if you could visit the Universe Factory or Universe Springs State Park, where universes are made through natural means ten times a day. “Oh, that’s how/why it was done,” you’d say.
But we don’t know how a universe is born. Terms like “magic,” whose only definition seems to be the opposite of “natural”, have no meaning when you don’t know what the “natural” way is.
I’m saying that “magic” is a lazy and irrational answer to scientific questions. It’s not even really an answer at all. It’s just the proposition of a power or ability which can just do whatever it is and thereby avoid seeking a genuine explanation. “God” is no better an answer to questions we don’t have an answer to than “magic.” It’s really the same answer. A “magic man” did it is a ridiculous hypothesis which does not deserve to be taken any more seriously than fairies. It certainly is not rational to prefer magical explanations where natural explanations would do just as well and not be saddled with the downside of being impossible.
I’ve used the analogy before of detectives investigating a murder. Do you think that those detectives should consider only natural possibilities and human suspects or would you say that they must give equal credence to the possibility of werewolves or evil genies. If they find tire tracks in the snow leading away from the murder scene, should they assume the tracks were left by a car, or should they remain open to the possibility that they were miraculously put there by the Anasazi god, Kokopelli? Would you say that car tires and Kokpelli are equally reasonable possibilities?
Why should scientific inquiry into the nature or origins of the universe give any more credence to “supernatural” explanations than detectives investigating a murder?
But it wouldn’t actually have any utility for you. You do know what utility means? Usefulness? Believing that you are God, or hearing God’s voice, etc., is only useful to you if it others believe it as well, and in today’s society you are more likely going to get a psych eval than have it be useful. OTOH there is little debate that having a god concept has utility for many individuals.
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To what reasonable possibilities are you referring? The detective, I presume, has about 6 billion mere mortal potential suspects. The questions on the origins and potential purposes of the universe have no “reasonable” potential explanations of which I am aware. Again, that the universe sprang into existence all by itself for no reason sounds pretty “magic” to me.
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I don’t know when this debate became about science. This is about logical thought. Science is logical thought plus observation. What we are talking about is impossible to approach from an observational viewpoint. It is outside the realms of science as we know it. Maybe someday it won’t be, but as of now, it is. Scientists should give no credence to theories about the supernatural. Defining a scientist to be rational is one thing; defining the rational person to be a scientist is, in my opinion, going too far.
Why is it “magical” for the universe to spring into existence on its own? Ever heard of quantum fluxuations?
Even if if you don’t like the natural hypotheses (and there’s no good reason to dismiss them), postulating “God” only makes your problem more complex, not less. If a magic man made the universe, then what made the magic man?
Well, the last one might explain a few things …
Entirely my point. If people believe I’m God, it might not only useful to me, but others as well, so long as I was reasonably benevolent, and people would do whatever I say. Likelyhood is irrelevant. What’s also irrlelevant is if I am actually God or not.
I don’t “dislike” what you call the natural hypotheses. I just dispute that they can be called “natural.”
Quantum fluxuations, as I understand them, are presently theoretical. No one knows exactly what they are, how they happen, or if they exist. In fact, the only difference I see between them and magic is that you are more willing to accept their possible existence.
To that matter, the only difference between “god” and “nature,” as far as I can tell, is that god is a sentient being, whereas what you call natural explanations just happen on their own.
Remember, no one here is arguing that the existence of a god is more logical or rational hypothesis than any other explanation. Just not ridiculously less so.
Loopy,
Then you seem to be making a point that has little to do with what I was saying. But let’s go with it. Exactly. It is irelevant.
Belief systems, be they scientific, secular, religious, or other, are, in actuality, less about determining the true nature of reality than they are about utility.
Scientific models are of use if they make accurate predictions about future observations and occurances. Newtonian physics was and is useful even if it not the best model of reality because it gives acccurate predictions about the movements of objects in most of time-space that we can observe.
But there are other kinds of utility and other kinds of belief systems that are best suited to provide for them. My point was small: if a belief is useful to an individual it is hard to get someone to drop it because utility is the bottom line; a belief of no utility to an individual is, OTOH, a hard sell. Atheists and agnostics tend to fall into the latter camp in regards to God belief, believers in the former.
Thumbscrews. 
Well, you make a good point, if I read you correctly, that should God exist how would we truly know God’s will or purpose? I think that anything tangible, any sign that a creator exists will be something subtle. Even if there is a distinct message to us, because I expect a God-like being to be so far beyond our comprehension, even if it can communicate with us it would likely not be something readily seen. Just because a creator may be omnipotent does not assure us that it is all powerful and able to do anything. Or it may apply such power in ways that are not quite obvious to us yet.
Most here are suggesting that outright miracles or incredibly unlikely occurrences might at least get their attention and consider such an entity. But I think it would more likely be something very subtle, woven into the fabric of the universe. We may not yet be smart enough to see it. Even though I think now there is a very small probability of the possible existence of God, I cannot deny the possibility that there is something to the massively large anecdotal beliefs that still persists.
Perhaps the need for such beliefs and tales are remnants of thousands of years of superstition in a world that is not yet adequately educated enough to ignore superstition. In a few generations perhaps many such beliefs will disappear. Or perhaps there is a genetic survival trait associated with such beliefs. But there may be something intrinsic behind these beliefs, but the evidence may be something we are not yet wise enough, or technologically capable enough yet to see. Perhaps spiritual needs will drive us to look for such evidence in our ‘newly found’ utilization of the scientific method. Just as a good parent must be patient and realizes that the child must ultimately make crucial discoveries about the world for themselves, we may only be seeing fleeting glimpses of a God’s hand. It’s very unscientific IMO to completely close the door on the possibility that such evidence is out there. The probabilities are small, and can likely be discounted short of a thread of proof that we have not yet seen. If we never see it, then such probabilities will grow ever smaller and eventually be forgotten.
But if we think ourselves so damned smart that we already know everything, like some overly self-assured adolescent that doesn’t know half as much as they think they do, we may miss the greatest discovery of all time. Perhaps growing to a higher level of moral and scientific sophistication it is a test that we must pass in order to gain such knowledge. It may also not matter to a God whether or not we find such proof.
Thus, returning to the OP’s question, I’m not sure of what I (we) may need to look for to become convinced of God’s existence. Mostly because I would assume that we still cannot properly define what God is in the first place, should It exist. While I understand that you cannot disprove a negative, if you don’t know what you’re looking for in the first place, the argument is moot.
Why? And who decides?
Actually, that’s exactly what it means.
Emphasis on the “may” in Snag’s post, I think. Omnipotence is really only a postulate that seems to be taken as gospel (ha) in discussions of this nature. However, the only necessary condition on the creator is that it be sufficiently powerful to have created the universe. I agree that to us, this is likely to be indistinguishable from omnipotence, but it’s not one and the same thing. Consider that it can take a handclap or a dropped pebble to start a landslide, and the thought arises that our potential creator could actually be a relative weakling that just happened to set something enormous in train.
If ‘God’ is simply the creator of Earth, then God may be an alien bound by a higher power.
But ‘God’ traditionally means progenitor of All there is, including the universe. If you’re defining universe as just everything within our particular spacetime horizon, then you’re technically correct, but that is a recent redefinition of universe. By ‘universe’, I mean ‘all there is’ i.e. all the way down, beyond universes, multiverses, and whatever other categorizations that are speculated. In that all-inclusive sense, God has to be omnipotent since any constraint is created and controlled by It. So, ‘sufficiently’ powerful is nonsensical. It implies that God is bound by some constraint that can’t be undone by It. Your weaker “sufficiently” God is not The God then.
No, but if a belief involves something which is prima facie impossible (i.e. something which does not conform to the physical laws of the universe) AND if it involves a belief in something for which there cannot be shown any necessity, then it is illogical to prefer such a hypothesis to anything less problematic and superfluous. Ockham’s Razor comes into play here. As long as the universe can be explained without magic, it is an unnecessary multiplication of entia to hypothesize it.
I’m saying it’s a conclusion which is not arrived at by logic, which is logically unnecessary to explain the universe and which violates Ockham’s Razor. It is not a conclusion from reason or a result of a logical chain, it’s just an arbitrary hypothesis which is believed for emotional reasons rather than logically necessary reasons.
I would argue that human beings are social, culture-bearing animals who have evolved to survive not as individuals but as communities. Certain kinds of behavior (murder, theft, rape, etc.) destabalize the community and threaten its survival as a whole. Moral codes within human communities promote the health of the community and the survival of that population as a whole. Behavior that unnecessarily threatens the survival of the community is therefore “wrong,” and all such behavior is forbidden and severely sanctioned by the community. That’s it. It’s evolution. Culture (which includes moral codes) is an evolutionary adaptation which protects the stability of individual human communities and increases the chances that offspring will survive long enough to reproduce.
Many people believe justice has real existence indpendent of human opinion – that certain outcomes are inherently more just than others, and not merely because we say so. I guess you’re in the group that doesn’t believe that.
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No I don’t. I don’t see how justice can have any meaning at all outside of human thought.
If human thought is governed by physical laws (and it is…“thinking” is just a lot of complex, chemical reactions) then the products of thought are products of physical laws. Physical laws made humans evolve and makes them think. Our consciousness is completely dependant on chemistry.
You say that an idea has 'infomational content," but I would argue that an idea consists only of information and nothing else. It’s a bit of acquired knowledge or belief which can be communicated to others. At no time does an idea have any existence independent of human thought. Writing on a page has no meaning until it is interpreted by a thinker. The idea does not exist in the writing any more than musical notation is music. The writing is only a medium to transfer information.
And I’m saying that “immateriality” is the same as non-existence. It is not possible to have non-material interaction with matter.
Christians believe that Jesus was a material being who did just that. If we’re going to hypothesize magical powers, why put a limit on them?
Not if he’s Jesus.
See, that’s what I’m saying, if we’re going to abandon physical laws, then we don’t need to bind ourselves to such technicalities as the speed of light.
But the paper isn’t really a plane. That may sound like an obtuse objection but it isn’t. You are not interacting with a two dimensional paradigm, nor can you. You are a three dimensional being interacting with a thtree dimensional object. As long as you are truly “outside” of a plane, you can never interact with it.
The ability to do magic is built into the definition of “God.” A God that can’t do magic isn’t God. The question is whether there is any compelling reason to believe that the universe requires this magical being to exist or whether there is any evidence that he has ever magically interacted with the universe since its beginning. So far, the answer to both of those questions is no.
And entities “outside” of the universe cannot interact with it.