Because he doesn’t exist. Science can’t “explain” something that isn’t even possible, much less real.
God as normally described is logically inconsistent in a number of ways, no matter how hard the believers try to handwave it away and insist that’s it’s all a “mystery”.
Actual I’d call “God” even more implausible than they are. I’d believe in Santa over God, the claims made about him are neither as grandiose or as incoherent. Between the internal contradictions, its contradiction of reality and all the “omnis” believers insist on attaching to it, the concept called “God” is the bottom of the barrel in terms of plausibility; one of the very least plausible things that humanity has ever thought up. Virtually anything conceivable is more likely to be true than “God”.
For one thing, there is no single “whole idea of the Jewish God.” Some rabbis say God is all-powerful, and some do not. Some say God is perfectly good, and some do not. About all they agree on is that there aren’t a whole bunch of Gods, and that Jesus isn’t an aspect of one. And there are a lot of proclaimed Jews who question even that last one.
If the Bible is the ultimate Jewish source of truth, then why does the Jewish Publication Society Bible highlight, with blank lines, where the human authors of the Bible changed? And why do Orthodox Jews spend much more time and effort on the Talmud, which is even more transparently of human authorship than the Bible?
One things about those gaps. The gaps in our knowledge are getting so much bigger. According to science the universe had a start before which we can’t see. What? This is a confirmation of one of the claims of multiple religions. Of course I don’t think religion can really be confirmed, or disconfirmed, by science. But if you are going to try to apply science to the question of gaps, it seems to me that the more we know of the fundamental nature of the universe(s), the more we know that what we know is tiny.
Then there’s the mutiverse theory. Maybe it’s wrong. But if right, the gaps in our knowledge are even greater yet.
Over and over in these threads, the atheists attack the fundamentalists, even though hardly anyone on the Straight Dope is as fundamentalist. If you want to say that fundamentalists are poor theologians, I agree.
Mankind’s relationship with God can’t be understand except in the historical context of humans striving (and generally coming short) in gaining an understanding of the divine. And if you don’t believe that, the near-constant invocation of the Bible makes even less sense.
I think you are incorrect about the size of the gaps. It’s tricky, because we know so very, very much more than we knew 500 years ago. We even know more about what we don’t know.
I would prefer to use the model of the Periodic Table of the Elements. Up until 150 to 200 years ago, there were gaps in the table. There were elements that should be there, but which no one had isolated yet. Today, all those gaps are filled, except for the very upper reaches of atomic weight, where synthetic elements are still being created. In nuclear chemistry, at this basic level, the gaps are all filled.
In other sciences, there are still gaps…but we are constantly finding data in their midst, breaking one gap into two, so to speak.
Now, you could go with a “phone book” model, instead. As the human population increases, the number of people who are not listed in any phone book has also increased. There are many more people alive, today, whom I have no way to talk to then there were ten years ago. This particular measurement of a “gap” has increased. But, at the same time, the number of people I can talk to has increased, and has increased much more. I can now talk to a much greater percentage of the world’s population than I could ten years ago.
You have in no way refuted Latro’s statement. No one would say that we get our idea of God from the Talmud. The Talmud just gives several ways of interpreting where we do get our idea of God, the Torah and later works. If we don’t get our idea of God from the Bible, where do we get it from?
That reminds me of the old creationist argument about “missing links.” If you find a fossil that fills in a gap, you now have two gaps on either side of the fossil. Similarly, as we close gaps in our knowledge we generate new ones - but that doesn’t mean we know less, which is what you seem to be implying.
Have you read the op? You are violating the terms set forth and confirming the entire debate with this one post. You have no evidence for the existence of god outside of that which was told to you by others. According to your thinking god could still exist even though we have no evidence…
So, a being that you have no reason to believe in (other than what people have told you) who has no evidence showing the need for his existence could still be out there waiting to be discovered? lets try this another way.
Pooheadpantspee is unexplainable and unknown in a scientific way. That doesn’t mean that “he” is logically inconsistent. I can’t imagine “the Great Cosmic Glue” having flaws, but I do believe that the incarnation in the form of man had human qualities and would make mistakes.
Does that sentence make even a little sense? God does not exist because people made him up. People obviously made him up in an attempt to explain the universe as it was understood at the time. There is no reason at all to think we will somehow find this god guy chilling out in the LHC at some energy level we simply haven’t tried yet because he is a construct. Your argument that god could exist carries less weight than the argument for unicorns, trolls, Santa, smurfs, dragons, and fairies combined. All of those things have at least a smidge of basis in the world we live in. The only possible logical stance on this issue is non existence, every other argument you can make is essentially saying that Santa is real because people said he is.
How could you possibly read that sentence as if it meant I’m talking about a unified idea of God?
Whenever someone is questioned on a particular belief item the answer is “The Bible says so.” Sometimes quotes are offered.
The Bible is the ultimate source for ‘knowledge’ about God.
No one mentioned fundamentalists. You are using a strawman in which you accuse me of using a strawman.
I don’t think you’ve read my posts (multiple) at all. Maybe a line or two. You certainly haven’t understood what I have actually said. I’ve not said that my belief in God is based only on what people have told me. I have reason to believe in God mainly from my personal experience. I have not described that experience here. Your words indicate that you are just reacting to your idea of me. I have not claimed to have evidence beyond that experience. And that evidence is for me only; I have not tried to convince anyone with this evidence.
I haven’t discussed your concoction of Pooheadpantspee in this debate. If you had written “X is unexplainable and unknown in a scientific way,” I would have found it to make perfect sense. Just as there were things that were unknown and unexplainable two hundred years ago, doesn’t mean that they have remained forever unknown and inexplainable. Do you really thing we know all there is to know about the cosmos? Some of it remains a scientific mystery. Just because something is a “mystery” does not mean that it doesn’t exist or hasn’t been detected in some cases.
I have read your OP again closely and I have not violated it in any way. You stated a false premise that religious people have no evidence of God except what we have been told by others. Yes, I believe that God could and does exist – even though you have seen no evidence. A few years ago there was no evidence for dark matter. But scientists seem fairly certain now that it does exist. Our lack of knowledge of evidence did not prove that dark matter does not exist. That would be illogical.
It then holds that there may be evidence available some day for things that we don’t know about now. That is logical thinking.
More illogical reasoning. I believe in parts of the Bible. I’m not terribly fond of many, many parts of the Old Testament, but I make no assumptions about what Jews do or should believe. There are some parts of the New Testament that I don’t understand, but as a whole, I believe in the teachings of Jesus. The Bible is not the only way to “know” God. Jesus is not the only way to know God either. I don’t believe that the New Testament is without error.
You have said that unicorns, trolls, Santa, smurfs, dragons, and fairies really have a basis in the world we live in. So if someone makes a billion bucks off of selling God dolls next year, you would believe that God really has “a basis in the world we live in”? You are being illogical.
Yes, you’ve already made it clear that you like to pick and choose from the bible the stuff you like and ignore and handwave away stuff you don’t like.
That’s very logical of you.
¿que?
So you believe in the same god he did?
You also believe, like him, in the validity of the Torah?
That would be logical, you know.
Or shall we just throw that little inconveniency in the bin with the rest of the bits you don’t like?
Sure *you * are free to make shit up too, people do it all the time. Just don’t call it logical.
And, what I was saying, ultimately your personal free-style does go back to and is based on the Jewish god Jaweh. Not Dionysos, not Odin, not Isis etc.
Who this god is is described in the bible/Torah. Toss out the bible and why should you still have Jaweh?
Sometimes my belief in God helps me to make sense – or at least to make peace with – my life. I still struggle a lot with the universe. That’s a really good question, Voyager. I believe that my life and the universe are One. Maybe I should apply more of my coping skills in my attitude about at least other people and places on Earth.
There was one main subjective experience that I had that was not like any other kind of reality that I’ve ever had. It could be totally subjective, but I cannot help but believe that I’m just one of many who have experienced something similar. Most of the “Sunday School” childhood thoughts about God were changed even though I did not see or speak with God.
My mother had been a Southern Baptist and my dad had been a Methodist. I have a pin that shows something like four years without missing a Sunday School class in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Later, when I worked for the United Methodist Publishing House, I went to the Episcopal Church and felt comfortable there for a long time. So some of my early thinking had to come from that. But the experience just almost wiped the slate clean. I confided in a friend who was a counselor and very well educated about Eastern religions. And I began to read more about Eastern religions. Buddhism’s teachings about certain things fit in with my experience. That’s why I became more open to other world religions. I became a member of Unity Church for a while. Now, in my sixties, I have returned to the Cumberland Presbyterian Church to be with some old friends. But my beliefs about the teachings of Jesus have remained. I think Jesus and Buddha would have understood each other.
I have been influenced by some stories from the Old Testament. My favorite story is the one about Esther and how she saved her people by confessing that she too was a Jew. I don’t know that that really happened, but stories of courage inspire me. My mother and father read to be a lot of Bible stories from Hurlburt’s Stories of the Bible. I think that is how it is spelled. They were well-written and more meaningful to me that the original stories. And for a long time, I believed them to be true. I love the Psalms – especially when I found out what a rascal King David was. And Ecclesiastes (which I still can’t spell) has beautiful poetry. The teachings of Jesus about love and taking care of others sound right to me. I don’t care for some of St. Paul’s writings, but he meant well. And I remember that Romans (a better St. Paul) was helpful to me in my early adulthood – sort of for some of the same reasons that Thoreau was. (Walden was holy ground to me.)
Finally, my stepson and his friends (Catholic) were overheard talking about the possibility that math is the only absolute. I know that math is used to prove things and that seemed to be part of it too. But I never took courses in higher math. (In college, I had attended Mass at a nearby cathedral. And the first time I married, I went to Bahaii meetings for a while. Just bits and pieces that have somewhat fit together.
I’ve also had some other experiences that have touched me deeply – especially when I was in the hospital last January - March. It was as if I could see the Buddha in the woman who helped to bathe me. (Of course I had good drugs in the hospital.) I was far more open to seeing the divine in others. All of these things renewed and refreshed my faith. I’m leaving out a lot of the details because these were so personal.
I did have another experience – not as startling as the first, but it made me feel very safe and grounded with an eye to what might happen after death when everyone realizes that we are One. That was more dreamlike because in it, I was a Muslim man beginning his journey after death.
Some of these things I haven’t thought about in a long time. Thank you for asking.
huck, you are most welcome here. Generally we are a tough crowd, so don’t take it personally if we sound like someone has loosed the hounds.
I’ve not settled for “God as normally described.” But remember that science as well as religion holds many mysteries.
I agree with you and I’ve heard scientists say the same about what we know compared to what we don’t know. Photographs from the Hubble telescope convinced me of that a few years ago.
Well, true too in a way. The more we learn, the smaller the gaps become. But I don’t think we’ll close all of those gaps for a long, long time. “Religionists” often refers to religious zealots, but sometimes just to religious people. I’m not sure if you are using “pathetic” to describe the first, last or both definitions. Are you willing to give an example of their resorting to imaginary gaps?
<snip>
We will not find a god in those areas we have still to explore.
I don’t think that anyone has made those extreme claims in this thread. I don’t mind being corrected if I am mistaken. Straw-man…er…Straw-god. Your last sentence is lacking a little in support. You have jumped to a conclusion. Very illogical.
The post right before the one you quoted referred to “multiple earths”, and the idea that your god “resides outside of space/time” has been brought up on this board multiple times.
the evidence of god is all around you. Time is on our side of realizing this. Think of the commandments, revealed to us through moses as addressing every conceivable willful mistake we could ever make in our life. To sin is to miss the mark, to shoot an arrow where it should never have been aimed. That being said, the ramifications of missing the mark is that things go array, go away from their intended destination which must always be toward God. Picture God as the sun and we need the sun to grow, to live, to be healthy in our soul , peaceful, safe, etc. Anything we do to move away from God results eventually in the lack of all those thing, disorder, restlessness, anxiety, , what we get instead of joy is betrayal, shame, guilt, suffering, dissappointments, you name it. In our journey through life touched by either ways we choose to go along our journey we may never have heard of christ or god and yet we have an inner knowing that tells us which way we choose, and those around us choose, moves toward peace.
Going back befoer the Jewish God, there were many Gods, some one came up with the idea that there had to be a head, or most potent God, greater than any other; the Pharohs could declare them selves God.The Psalmists writes ,“I said you are gods”, Jesus backs this idea up in John 10. The word God had, and still has many meanings, some nations still have several gods. The idea of one god came even before the Torah( I believe it was an Egyptian, but it didn’t last long) then the Jewish people decided there was just one God, and they were his Chosen people.
Mankind felt it needed a protector ,(In my belief) but used the word God to explain all they didn’t understand, and gave them a sense of peace. If things went wrong they blamed God or themselves, thinking it happened for something they did wrong.( some still do that today, to explain tornados, hurricanes, earth quakes etc.) It is impossible to know anything about a God or God, it is a matter of belief either in one’s mind, or the belief of an other human being. The discriptions of God are contradictory.
life is the evidence. Life existed before the commandments were given, one God, one source of life itself. It does not demean it by any invention of seperate Gods as mankind tried to connect the dots of their own inner knowing. They were recognizing the one god when they attached the name to many seperate creations of life by God.
I’m sure you recognize that this doesn’t strike us atheists as evidence of God. I’m very interested in life around us, its diversity, and its origins, but life’s mere existence says nothing about how or why it came about.
In addition, us atheists (obviously) do not accept that any commandments were delivered to humans by God.