What is the attraction of theists to watch arguments? To continue with this silly analogy (watch<=>god? really? well, both are man-made I suppose) watches do need to be wound or powered constantly, and do need to be repaired occasionally.
One thing he cannot do is be everywhere, be all-knowing, and be all-powerful, and simultaneously have no effect upon the universe. There IS a reason to think he would leave fingerprints; he has no choice - if he does anything then there is by definition a trace that he did it, which at a minimum is the action or effect he caused. Unless you argue that he only does what would have happened naturally anyway - which again obviates the need for him.
(repeating my point) There is no difference between such a god and none at all. It’s a coward’s way to continue to believe in a god while making discussion of the point impossible, thus avoiding challenge to the deist’s last vestige of belief.
I disagree that belief in an omnipotent God is NECESSARILY a question of faith. Putting God beyond the reach of empiricism is a recent innovation. For most of the history of religion, people were convinced that there was plenty of observational evidence for their beliefs. And it’s easy to imagine an omnimax God providing obvious proof of his existence sufficient to convince even us jaded moderns.
You said “His nature is a matter of faith, not reason. It can’t be anything else.” Of course it could be! If the hypothetical omnimax God wanted to, he could make his existence and intentions obvious to everyone. It wouldn’t require any faith at all to believe in such a God.
This point I accept: the objective universe is observationally equivalent to a universe without a God.
Ah, so you know the motivation of every desist who ever lived. Awesome! Personally I am skeptical of mind reading of both individuals and the collective unconscious. Again, deism has more historical relevance than anything else, and it pre-dates large swathes of scientific understanding.
If you don’t accept flashy miracles, then what remains is a subtle God or no God at all. Those who can’t handle uncertainty opt for one or the other.
Not all theists are Deists. Watches reflect a technology familiar to 17th century thinkers. It’s not hard to imagine a watch that requires only occasional servicing. The proper analogy follows: god is to the watchmaker as the world is to the watch.
I perceive this as the core of your argument.
Firstly, any conscious entity is able to do all manner of actions that he chooses not to. Plausibly, God has a lot on His plate and many of His actions may be other than what humans care about. Separately, human observation isn’t that comprehensive or accurate. The role of randomness in human and natural history is extensive and widely acknowledged: such stochastic phenomenon are observationally equivalent to the occasional nudges of an outside force. Furthermore, a near-Omnipotent God would be expected to be able to hide His tracks. It’s a god in the manner of Zeus or Apollo that might be incapable of subtly.
That doesn’t sound right. I have little training in physics, but can’t particle-wave duality be traced to Heisenberg? And didn’t Bohr the elder agree? And didn’t 1975 come more than a few years after 1922?
The Christian God isn’t necessarily Omnimax: indeed, such a framework would be difficult to reconcile with the Book of Job. As Polycarp implied, God could be roughly all-loving (or more precisely “a whole lotta lovin’”) and quite knowledgeable, and therefore understand the bigots without sharing their venom for example. But this takes us straight into POE-land.
That said, Omnimax God is a popular view and I think the OP dismantles it pretty well. And as I said earlier, I hadn’t recognized that POE applies more intensively to Logic Pretzel God (who can do the impossible, see the invisible, row-row!..). So this has been a pretty good thread.
Neils Bohr: In 1922, Bohr was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics “for his services in the investigation of the structure of atoms and of the radiation emanating from them.”
Aage Bohr: Bohr, Mottelson and Rainwater were jointly awarded the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physics “for the discovery of the connection between collective motion and particle motion in atomic nuclei and the development of the theory of the structure of the atomic nucleus based on this connection”
Neither Nobel was awarded for “proving” the electron was either a wave or a particle. In fact Neils Bohr is explicitly noted for combining these two possibilities: “Bohr also conceived the principle of complementarity: that items could be separately analyzed as having several contradictory properties. For example, physicists currently conclude that light behaves either as a wave or a stream of particles depending on the experimental framework — two apparently mutually exclusive properties — on the basis of this principle. Bohr found philosophical applications for this daringly original principle.”
I was voicing an opinion on their subconscious motivation for such a pointless belief, not pretending to read their minds as to their overt motivation for that belief.
Kanicbird ran this one too, but the thought that God would be too busy to get around to some things he would otherwise have liked to do, denies his omnipotence.
So logically, God’s freedom of action is increasingly circumscribed as man’s powers of observation improve? He only allows himself to do what cannot be detected as his work by man’s current (and presumably future) technical abilities?
Indeed. But then again, why *should *God be perfect? He is a construct of human beings who I think are universally accepted as being imperfect.
Any God you can invent will always be inferior to a God that I invent if I want it to be. Because all I have to do is take what ever powers and attributes you bequeathed your God with and create my God with everything your God has +1.
So you are giving up omnipotence or even just extreme-potence, then.
No human religion has ever postulated such a completely disassociated deity. Every god we’ve actually worshipped seemed to care a great deal about us and our doings. Even the Deist one seems to prize human reason enough to have worked it into his design on purpose, as far as Deist writings seem to show.
So God doesn’t play dice, God is the dice?
But those dice are shrinking…like some kind of…gap.:dubious:
Able to, sure. Why would it want to, though, that’s the question.
No. Because human beings create Gods to their own individual standards. As human beliefs change, God changes too because new, improved Gods are created according to the refined standards of a more advanced society.
Once it was popular for people to create a God who condemned people for eating shellfish. As time went by, some people decided they’d like their personally created God to think eating shellfish is OK. God is whatever you want him to be. He is your creation. Knock yourself out!
Actually, that is not true. My concept of God is a Being that is only slightly more intelligent and powerful than the average human, who in turn, is well known to be much more intelligent and powerful than an ant.
Remember-- my concept of God is just as valid as your concept of God. And both my God and I think your concept of God is rather silly, and just way off base. As my God is perfect, there can be no doubting that your God is, without any doubt, simply a personal fantasy you have created for your own entertainment.
I am serious about this, BTW. Why should I give the alleged strengths of your God any more weight than I do goldfish building log cabins? Unless you have some omnimax power to know all, see all, do all. Do you claim such powers? If not, then my God is every bit as valid as yours. And my God says you’re full of it.
To the contrary, your refusal to check basic facts is “anti-intellectual and anti-scientific.” (See subsequent posts by others for an explanation as to why the Bohrs are irrelevant to what you’re talking about)
The “condescension” is deserved. You have a lesson to learn here.
For the record: It’s a mistake to think that these are “contradictory properties.” They are simply properties that traditionally were thought to be exclusive, but exclusivity is not the same as contradiction. They are often found together, but they are not the same.
