God the term. Can you please elaborate?

Great Debates
1

I’m breaking out this reply from the other thread as there is too much association with Creationism and attacking it.

SingleDad: Whether you are a believer or not, if you’re interested in understanding a phenomenon in a rational manner, the God answer doesn’t help any.

trouts1: as I see it, God the term, as about equal to current theory of events behind the big bang.
Bored2001: Can you please elaborate? I still don’t see why it is a valid answer.

In the other thread I said God had no attributes. Obviously he has one skill that he’s pretty good at and that’s creation of
universes.

I’ve setup the basis of the term God in the other thread so won’t do that again here. Within that definition belief in a creator God does not preclude perusing scientific explanations in any way. God comes into play where science fails. For example prior to the Big Bang I would have said that God created the universe in some fuzzy way I don’t understand so its non specific. Then science comes up with the Big Bang. Cool and seems reasonable. God gets shifted behind the Big Bang. The designer of Big Crunch Singularities. For me that’s where he sits at the moment.

If I believed in Hawkings closed concept of the universe (1) then I would still question, “what agency created the universe and what created that agency”?(2) Just say I believed the closed concept. God would shift from a designer of Big Crunch Singularities to a creator of closed universes. If string theory then unifies things to explain with 13 dimensions and vibrating strings the Closed universes then God will again shift to be the creator of dimensions and strings.

I’m not an astrophysicist and can only understand things as well as the currently available layman’s explanations. From
what I understand of the closed universe theory its not so hot. I reject it as it seems so implausible. Note - I don’t reject
it because God is there so I need no other explanations. (? I don’t see how some of you arrived at the conclusion that a belief in God would preclude investigation. ?) I reject string theorys as so far I can’t really make sense out of them. They might have possibilities though and if I accept them then God will get shifted as I explained above. God will be viable for a while as unified theories that bring about their own existence are fairly repulsive.

So there is a very mild pantheism here.

Bucky So then, you consider yourself to be a religious man:
Eistein: I believe in mystery and, frankly, I sometimes face this mystery with great fear. In other words, I think that there are many things in the universe that we cannot perceive or penetrate and that also we experience some of the most beautiful things in life in only a very primitive form. Only in relation to these mysteries do I consider myself to be a religious man…
Bucky: You don’t believe in God, then?
Einstein: Ah, this is what I mean about religion and science going hand-in-hand! Each has a place, but each must be relegated to its sphere. Let’s assume that we are dealing with a theoretical physicist or scientist who is very well-acquainted with the different laws of the universe, such as how the planets orbit the sun and how the satellites in turn orbit around their respective planets. Now, this man who has studied and understands these different laws–how could he possibly believe in one God who would be capable of disturbing the paths of these great orbiting masses?
No, the natural laws of science have not only been worked out theoretically but have been proven also in practice. I cannot then believe in this concept of an anthropomorphic God who has the powers of interfering with these natural laws. As I said before, the most beautiful and most profound religious emotion that we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. And this mystically is the power of all true science. If there is any such concept as a God, it is a subtle spirit, not an image of a man that so many have fixed in their minds. In essence, my religion consists of a humble
admiration for this illimitable superior spirit that reveals itself in the slight details that we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds.(3)

  1. Hawkings: A Brief History of Time,143-146
  2. Hawkings: Black Holes and Baby Universes, 85
  3. P. Bucky: The Private Albert Einstein 80-87
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Why is there something rather than nothing?

Science cannot answer that question; it is concerned with the analysis and rational understanding of something.

The Atheist says, “It just is.” The Deist says, “God made it.”

My question is, are those two responses in any way measurably different?

Against stupidity the very gods / Themselves contend in vain.

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SingleDad - in my mind, no. I am both a theist and a firm believer in the Big Bang and evolution. I have no difficulty believing in both; there is no contradiction.

Of course, I don’t believe that the bible is literally true.

~Harborina

“Don’t Do It.”

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SingleDad: I’m with Kyla but for the theism as I understand the word. The word seems to connote some things I probably don’t share. God is pretty much dead and has left only the footprint of creation. I think by the definition of an atheist, “as on who denies the existence of God”, that the definition would allow me to an atheist.

My best take on what God did was to set in motion a series of Big Crunches and Big Bangs. I can’t support this view. I
believe in it though. I believe there are lots of Singularity events and we are currently in a Big Bang phase of a major
Singularity. And that there are other minor Singularities around and we see Black Hole phases around the universe.

As you said above: The atheist says, “It just is.” The Deist says, “God made it.” I think you might want to put me on the side of the deist and as I understand the term I’d probably agree. The atheist side of “it just is” leaves me a little short so I assign the Singularity initiating mechanism the term God.

Believing in the mystical might be a bit tough for you. Look what it did to this guy.

http://users.rcn.com/trouts1/sd/al.jpg

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The Deist? :smiley:

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Sorry, Lib, I meant “theist”.

As an Atheist, I say, “It just is.” To elaborate, I have no idea where it came from, and I can’t say anything intelligent about it.

I submit that when the theist says, “God made it.” They are not saying anything rational at all. You’re welcome to believe that, I certainly can’t contradict you, but so far you haven’t said anything that I can test or make a rational deduction from. So the statement, from a rational perspective, is equivalent to an admission of ignorance (since I certainly can’t draw any legitimate rational conclusions from ignorance).

Against stupidity the very gods / Themselves contend in vain.

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Einstein said, “I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings.”

Hardly a mystical belief.

For more information, see: The Atheism Web.

Against stupidity the very gods / Themselves contend in vain.

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What did he mean by “profound faith”?
Do you want to take a crack at what Al meant by “infinitely superior spirit”?

Do you want to explain some of his “personal creed”, “which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation”?

For more information see more of what Al said.

SingleDad said: “Hardly a mystical belief.”
Are you saying Einstein was lying to Bucky?

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Nope, that’s what we call faith. It doesn’t have to be rational.

I am afraid that by defending religion, y’all will think I’m a Creationist, unwilling to believe scientific theory for no reason other than I don’t feel like it, etc. I want to clarify: irrational belief (and I mean that in a good way) in a higher being oes not equal fringe biblical literalism.

~Kyla

“Don’t Do It.”

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Kyla: I’ve never deprecated religion in and of itself. We are in agreement that faith is outside of rationality. They are separate areas of inquiry.

And I don’t think you’re a creationist. :slight_smile:

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hrm, I totally missed this post.

What I meant with my comment is how can God possibly be as valid as the big bang theory in a scientific debate? I simply do not see this.

We have mathmatical proof of the Big bang. We may not how it happened, why it happened or how the matter got there, but we KNOW it happened. The big counter argument to this is that God must of created the matter in the first place–basically how else did It get there? But that is not the scientific answer since absolutly no one on this planet can prove that God exists or doesn’t exist. The scientific answer to this entire debate is “I don’t know, but here is what I do know.” I do not see how God could possibly be valid for any scientific explaination.

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Again, it’s called faith. I believe in the Big Bang theory because people I trust, like my astrophysics professor, explained it to me in terms that I could understand (I’m not an idiot, but neither am I a physicist) and it made sense to me. I am assured that there is scientific proof for it, and I hope to eventually understand the math and physics required to comprehend such a remarkable event.

I believe in my religion because I have faith. I should mention here that I’m Jewish, not Christian, and it has been pointed out to me that Judaism is more a religion of behavior than of belief. I tend to agree with that; it is completely possible to be a good Jew and an atheist, because there’s more to being a Jew than believing in god (i.e., culture and history - if you read the Hebrew Bible, it’s clearly more the history of a tribal group than a religious group, which is a big contrast with the New Testament). I’d be interested to see what someone from a more “faith-based” religion has to say.

~Kyla

“Don’t Do It.”