Subject:
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Re: Holy crap! (was Re: The partisian trap in California)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 28 Oct 2003 13:25:21 GMT
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Viewed:
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852 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
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Exactly! God is logically impossible. Now hear is my final criticism of
someone who uses only logic and reason to address the question of God-- it
is unfair and disingenuous. The question is: what if there IS a God that
is infinite beyond logic and reason? Is a person who seeks God through
science by definition eliminating the possibility that such a God could
exist? Must everything pass the scrutiny of Science in order for it to be
recognized?
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Gee, how did I know that all of this was coming?
It’s not that God is logically impossible -- it’s that YOUR CONCEPTION of God
is logically impossible. Can you see the difference? Your conception of God,
however much you try to evade your fundamentalist construction of it, is riddled
with contradictions.
In case you didn’t notice -- it IS possible to engage in logical or
reason-based arguments about an abstract idea the existence of which cannot be
proven. We do it all the time, esp. with your crazy “god” idea.
Your main problem is lack of evidence. You have secondary problems involving
internal logic and reasoning.
The Science as a faith thing is just another cop-out argument that seems to
appeal to the religious right. Consider though -- if you did not also believe in
science you could not benefit from electricity, a car, most of the things in
your home, the computer with which you post to lugnet, etc. Heck, even a can, or
a can-opener, for that matter -- it doesn’t have to be complicated. We could
even be talking about ancient methods of food storage. Men, not god, created
these things by applying logic and reason to observed phenomena and arriving at
continually reproducible results. So when you press that button, the computer
tends to turn on and start chugging away so that you end up here -- posting your
usual drivel. Prepare and salt the meat in a particular way and it remains
useful far after the time other meat has already spoiled. Bottom line -- you
don’t have to have faith for reproducible phenomena -- it’s almost always the
case that what was observed before will happen again.
Science can be defined as “knowledge, especially that gained through
experience.”
In other words, science (as we normally think of it) deals with experiential
phenomena -- the things perceived through the senses, evidence, something
tangible.
You ask: “Must everything pass the scrutiny of Science in order for it to be
recognized?”
To be recognized as what? That it exists?
Let’s be really clear about what you are asking: you want others to recognize
the existence of a being whose attributes cannot be discerned by appeal to
physical evidence. I didn’t state “logic and reason” because those two very
closely related ideas still allow one to start from a completely erroneous
hypothesis. It would be my contention that you have begun from such a false
hypothesis and predicated many of your actions and thoughts around subsequent
ideas related to your false initial assertion. Again, I have not stated that
your subsequent ideas logically or reasonably followed from your false
hypothesis because even you admit that your hypothesis is illogical and
unreasonable. In a way, what you have is a string of loosely related assertions,
none of which necessarily follow one from the other because your overall theory
is filled with internal contradictions.
What compounds the problem is your rejection of physical evidence. If your
string of ideas could at least each be taken as observable facts based on
physical evidence, we might otherwise have had to find a way to work them into
our existing theory of reality. As it stands, your string of ideas has no more
weight than the initial baseless hypothesis upon you have predicated your
personal philosophy.
And the problem with your “god hypothesis” is that it tends to start falling
apart the minute we move beyond the original assertion. On top of that, there
are other competing theories with greater reliance on observable evidence --
even as tentative a theory as “The Big Bang” is predicated on some physical
evidence. I think you routinely admit that there is no physical evidence of your
“god hypothesis.” Also, the “god hypothesis” wants always and only to prove
itself -- other theories are useful only until such a point as they are
disproven or superceded by a stronger, more comprehensive theory. The “god
hypothesis” wants its own magical sphere of unquestioned authority. That’s
straight from the Book of Job.
http://news.lugnet.com/off-topic/debate/?n=22646
God even makes an appearance, speaking from the whirlwind: ?Who is this that
darkens counsel by words without knowledge?? (Job 38.2). Then God attacks Job
for daring to question the nature of evil and of God: ?Gird up your loins like a
man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me. Where were you when I
laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who
determined its measurements - surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon
it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning
stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?? (Job 38.3-7)
In other words: “Don’t question my reality, Boy!” It’s almost farcical. What is
the great and mystical “reason” for the “Problem of Evil?” Why -- Gods
complicity! I give you The Book of Job:
1:6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before
the LORD, and Satan came also among them.
1:7 And the LORD said unto Satan,
Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and
fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
1:8 And the LORD said
unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in
the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth
evil?
1:9 Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for
nought?
1:10 Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and
about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands,
and his substance is increased in the land.
1:11 But put forth thine hand now,
and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
1:12 And the
LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon
himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the
LORD.
Gee, it looks like your reward for good works is god’s blessing and eternal
bliss in heaven; well, unless god decides to have some fun with you first!
There’s nothing quite like the pleasure of stomping on the anthill to see the
frenzied ants scurrying around. There’s your relationship to god, John -- the
Problem of Evil. The left hand of darkness. God’s hand.
“Doth Job fear God for nought?”
What is the purpose behind the “god hypothesis”? The furtherance of knowledge of
the truth about the nature of reality? No, the whole “god hypothesis” seems to
be predicated in “feeling good,” or “worthy,” or possibly even “loved” in
relation to some mystical being without a physical reality and whose existence
is as you say: “logically impossible.”
Um, what’s the benefit here? IS there any upside to obeisance to a probably
imaginary being that isn’t entirely based on self-delusion?
Again, you asked: “Must everything pass the scrutiny of Science in order for
it to be recognized?”
For a thing to be recognized it must have a physical reality.
Recognize can be defined as “To know to be something that has been perceived
before; To know or identify from past experience or knowledge, etc.”
Notice the repetitious appeal to evidence discernible by the senses. Why should
we recognize anything else? What’s the benefit here? What’s the upside?
-- Hop-Frog
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