I agree with MfM that that was indeed very nicely phrased. It sort of goes like this:
we have persuasive evidence that traces the origin of the universe back to the Big Bang about 13.8 billion years ago.
the Big Bang created space and time, both of which are prerequisites for causality, so in terms of scientific understanding there seems no sense in which we can ask what “created” or “caused” the Big Bang
yet our basic drive for explanation insists that there has to be some epistemological sense – some broader understanding – in which we can frame such an event – of which there may be (for example) infinite instances in an unlimited multiverse.
we can choose to call such an understanding “God”
The operative question is, now what?
We’ve just given a word to “that which is undefined”. And that’s about as far from religious orthodoxy as you can get. It requires no burning bushes, heaven or hell, or any other mythological constructs.
Right. I agree. This is cut and post, though. The OP did not show an ounce of originality in compiling his thoughts in the opening statement. A contemplative person would just test even one of the many steps that OP takes in the beginning to sense the validity of his entire position.
In this forum we are not allowed to state the remaining possibility.
That’s one thing I could never reconcile about Christianity in the era where God decided he was bored now and had nothing further to say to his playthings. Mankind is always coming up with rules and regulations and red tape to place on a being that is subject to no such constraints. If you believe there is a God that is as powerful as the Christian God is stereotypically depicted it is the absolute height of arrogance and blasphemy to think that rules made up by men have any binding power over such a being. The Nicene Creed? A bunch of dudes upset by how some other dudes were defining God. Was God there to set the record straight? No, although Emperor Constantine was rocking enough bling to make people think he was a heavenly messenger. And how about that King James Bible? A look at the Wiki article (which I am sure has been extensively edited by Satan) shows that translating the bible into English was a clusterfuck to say the least and that the translation was definitely politically motivated.
Why does God want this? The entirety of the Bible, Old and New Testatments alike take place in this little tiny area in the Middle East hundreds of years before there’s even a concept of England. But 1604 rolls around and now all of a sudden God needs a perfect version because He’s a fan of Manchester United or Coronation Street or The Beatles or something? The earlier bibles weren’t good enough? God doesn’t contract this crucial work out to the ancestors of his Chosen People? God needed six different translation committees? Next thing we know God is going to be asking me if He can borrow my starship.
I’m sorry I haven’t replied sooner! I’ve been busy all day, with visiting the doctor and working a full time job. I spent a lot of time creating the OP before posting, and once posted, I had to unfortunately leave. This is not a “drive by” post, and I plan on having full interaction within this thread!
I have been reading over the waves of replies this has received in only the last few hours, and I am currently working on a rebuttal. I am about half way through it, but it’s already 3:23 A.M. where I am, and I’m beat! I can’t focus to finish my lengthy reply at the moment, but I promise that I will be back to post and answer some questions.
I just wanted to come back for a sec and post this so you guys know I haven’t gone M.I.A. Thank you all for your replies, I’m thrilled to see so much interest in this!
I have to go back to the doc tomorrow, but I am off work. I will post my reply sometime tomorrow, but please be patient with me. I have a VERY active life and don’t get as much free time as I’d like to post. There will be times when I will be on here and reply to almost everyone, but now is not one of those times.
Sorry for no comments regarding this thread, but I am typing my response separately within my WordPad.
Crayfish eat their own young - it’s actually one of the reasons they are successful - they produce far more offspring than strictly required just to replenish the population - the young crayfish then go out and feed across a wide area, fatten themselves up and subsequently, many of them are consumed by their own parents. It’s a very effective way of gathering resources - effectively, individuals have many, mobile mouths. It’s part of their biology.
So I can easily imagine an alien species on another planet, evolving to sentience with something like that intrinsically wired into their biology (just as we have monkey stuff baked into ours). They’ll have a very different set of moral laws to us, and if we ever meet them, we’ll have a hard time accepting each others’ version of what we previously thought was ‘absolute morality’.
And anyway… things can be universal without being absolute. People generally don’t like being poked in the eye, but that’s not because there is an absolute underlying law stating they must not like it. They dislike it because it hurts.
When it comes to so-called “moral laws”, I have to ask - just for us?
Because rape and child molestation and murder happen all the time in the animal kingdom. I don’t see any Biblical condemnation of ducks or dolphins or any of the other cross-species necrophiliac rapist-murderer species out there.
Sea otters will rape baby seals. To death. Is that by divine design, or are they just evil?
If you truly believed that there was no such thing as absolute morality then there would be no ‘right’ or ‘wrong,’ just things that you or your society happen not to like.
[/quote]
correct
They are. There have been plenty of societies where rape (of women from the other tribe/nation) was totaly acceptable. Child molestation is common and accepted in Afghanistan.
Man is the measure? No, your society is the measure against which you check.
They lost the war.
Their image as the’ bad guys’, as the opponent in that war, led to a lot of their morals also being viewed as ‘bad’.
Remember that at the time, before the war, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were very much admired by many. Quite a few of their morals, now condemned, were more widespread than just their own countries.
So, your examples of a universal absolute (anti-)moral fail, I’m afraid.
[QUOTE= Thudlow Boink]
This argument doesn’t work against a God who is eternal and hence hasn’t “arisen” at all.
[/quote]
Both interesting points, but note that nothing in cosmology requires the universe to be either eternal or infinite. Currently we have an age of 13.7 billion years and a radius of 46.5 billion light-years, beyond which nothing is known; these data do not necessarily imply an eternal, infinite creator god.
A non-infinite, non-eternal creator god would suffice - and this entity could have been created by a more complex entity, and so on ad infinitum. Logic doesn’t imply an end to this progression.
Suppose there is a proof that God exists. Then the existence of God is a scientific fact. Good, yes?
No, quite the opposite. When it comes to science, there is no faith. There’s no faith in the laws of motion or the equations of electromagnetics or conservation of energy. They are simply facts of the universe.
Faith is an essential component of Christianity. And a proof of God would preclude that.
I have not yet read other replies to your post, but I expect that other posters have spent great effort to find those flaws. Thank them for doing the Lord’s work and thank God for strengthening your faith.
OP, could you please describe to the best of your ability the “god” you think you have proven to exist, and why you think your “proof” applies to your version of the Christian deity and no other…like, say, the deity the Jews worship?
I disagree with this whole notion of “life on Earth is too complex” … I honestly don’t think it is … certainly too complex for humans to understand … but that’s hardly an objective standard of what is too complex to be real. There’s a tendency for humans to view the passage of time in terms of a human lifetime, which is extremely short compared to evolutionary time frames, which again is extremely short in terms of geologic time frames. Life on land is but 15% the history of life on Earth. I’d even go as far as to say that if 4.7 billion years of evolution doesn’t seem too complex, then we’re not seeing things correctly …
I believe there are some absolute moral laws, and that therefore there is actual good and evil, not merely this or that historically-existent socially-developed idea about what good and evil are.
I do not, however, believe that any human being, or any plural collection thereof, can ever know without uncertainty what those absolute laws are. And that’s important. I’m going to indict the behavior of going around acting as if you do know as a certainty what is moral and what is immoral, and treating others accordingly, as the central moral crime from which most social problems spring. Paradoxically, I’m going to say that if there’s anything you can take hold of and cling to as a certainty, that’s it — that there ain’t none and that you don’t get to behave as if there were and that you are in a position to judge other people and their behaviors without remaining aware that you might be wrong.