It’s not a “comic book view” to expect God to do something that should be well in His power. As it happens, humans can’t regenerate limbs so it is never attributed to God as a miracle. Nothing that can’t happen is ever a witnessed miracle. Miracles are simply natural happenings that are erroneously attributed to God.
The true message of Christ is all well and good, but if you’re assuming God has no supernatural powers, why elevate Christ’s message above that of any primitive middle-eastern peacenik?
Miracles are those things that cannot be explained. The miracle of the universe is the big one. Why are we here etc, questions that cannot be answered today by science and probably although happy to be corrected may never be.
Science deals with how, religion deals with why.
You assume too much my good sir, I elevate the bible because I believe in it’s message and it has been an important influence on mine and I assume your culture but I do not dismiss the other great books that have helped shape the culture and peoples of this planet.
Are you really saying that the contradictions between the four gospels enhance their credibility? So, if they had all agreed with each other in all respects instead, that would have meant they were false? :dubious:
In any case, if it was done “so people wouldn’t question the validity” it didn’t work very well, did it? You might expect an actual real omnipotent god to be a little more effective than that, mightn’t you.
There is no “religion”-there are “religions”. Let me know if they ever come to a consensus on any of the big “Whys”, o.k.? That is one of the reasons I titled the thread thus. Evidence for one deity may not be evidence for another, so I wish to know why any evidence points to a specific deity.
The only thing that really makes sense of all the various mysteries and contradictions in our various understandings and world views is that our particular universe and time line is just a tiny sliver of an infinite metaverse which is basically some sort of infinite mathematical wave function in which anything that can be conceived of exists somewhere in some form.
Some godlike construct must have either arisen naturally or been created in many portions of the metaverse. If one hasn’t yet been involved in our universe, we will likely create it. Look at the great strides we’ve already made in transforming our environment to serve our needs, and extrapolate that far into the future.
I haven’t looked into the matter in depth, but I have difficulty conceiving of a universe (both near and far) without a non-temporal first cause. So yes, God exists. Specifically, 1) I reject solipsism and 2) I affirm causality, so 3) God exists, at least as defined by Thomas Aquinas.
Random coincidence? Prolly not, but until you actually tell us your specific problems, so we can know if they are extremely common or very rare, it not really possible for us to tell if something interesting happened here or if you were simply cold read. Ya know, actually present your evidence.
CMC fnord!
I was cold read once. This guy just immediately seemed to know exactly where my back was bothering me. He even found places that hurt that I didn’t know were bothering me.
Now it could be that some spinal deity whispered in his ear or it could be that since he has board certifications in Pain Medicine and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (that’s the FAAPMR after his MD) and he’s seen so many fucked-up spines that he really can just look at you and be pretty certain what’s wrong with your back. Personally I’m going with “Dr. K is a spinal deity . . . and steroid injections into my facet joints are his preferred mode of worship”.
I wouldn’t bring any physicist I know to a debate. None of them are comfortable with the verbal tricks needed to be a successful debater. They are accustomed to presenting the facts, and not with trying to convince others through discourse.
No matter what the topic is, I would choose a philosophy professor or a lawyer to be my surrogate in a debate. Someone who makes their living through words.
I used to frequently take care of a Pomeranian. When I’d be playing a video game and get killed and yell blasphemous profanities at the screen, the dog would jump into my lap and paw at my mouth.
This could be taken by some as evidence that god was using the dog to tell me to stop blaspheming, since a benevolent omnipotent universe-creating deity obviously would care a great deal about the shape of sound waves that flap out of our breathing holes.
I believe you’re missing the point of the quote. He’s suggesting that there are more atheists in the philosophy department than in the physics department. In other words, more and more physicists believe in a sentient consciousness. I call these credible, expert witnesses.
“If we need an atheist for a debate, I go to the philosophy department. The physics department isn’t much use.” – Robert Griffiths, physicist and winner of the Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics.
I thought that the debate part was significant, not the relative abundance of atheism in a department. Silly me.
But that could still just indicate that the philosophers have actually thought about the question, while physicists have not bothered to do so. People who think about the existence of God may be more likely to develop doubts than people who remain unexamined social church-goers regardless of their job title.
God: theism or atheism?
Accept or lean toward: atheism 678 / 931 (72.8%)
Accept or lean toward: theism 136 / 931 (14.6%)
Other 117 / 931 (12.5%)
Another factor is that the author of the quote is probably suggesting that God is not something a physicist could test, therefore the question is not relevant to physicists. Philosophers can and do argue about everything…
Not unless they can provide evidence, and actually exist. Believers have a long history of lying and claiming that scientists who are atheists are religious; unless these physicists he claims are theists come forth and say so I’m skeptical that they actually exist. And I’ve always heard that physicists are heavily atheist (biologists even more so).
You’re welcome to your opinion, but insisting it’s the only thing that makes sense is not convincing and really not true. In fact I’m not sure your explanation even makes sense.
I’m not sure he is, but it’s not relevant regardless. Assume physicists are likely to believe in a god. Does that mean the best evidence cutting edge physics supports the existence of a god? Does it mean our current, always-evolving view of the evidence points one way or the other? Does it mean physicists are drawn from particular backgrounds and might be predisposed to that belief? Does it mean physicists keep their scientific and religious views separate? This is just an appeal to authority and not a serious argument anyway, but the conclusion you are drawing is not the only one that can be drawn.
I suspect that your inference is exactly 100% wrong. I have never seen any evidence that physicists are particularly inclined toward religious belief. And a claim, (or inference), that “more and more physicists believe in a sentient consciousness” should really be backed up by an actual survey. I doubt that it is true.
I suspect that the statement simply meant that philosophy types are more likely to argue a point while, in general, physicists tend to be so absorbed in their math and experiments that they rarely bother to give any thought to the matter of the divine. (I do know of a couple of physicists who have engaged in philosophical and even theological ruminations, but they are notable for their rarity, not for being typical.)