Re: Funny...

bobcrowley@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Apr 26, 10:54 pm, Mike <prabb...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
bobcrow...@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

Why would "nothing" suddenly take on form leading to intelligence
which can explore the form it has taken on, and even deduct that the
existence it enjoys arose from "nothing", all the while remaining in
total "nothing".
Why would a god have taken on form leading to intelligence which can
create other things?

The Christian God describes itself as "I am who I am", as first
described to Moses at the burning bush episode.

Now this has either one of two connotations. The first is that some
ancients, pondering the imponderable, devised the term themselves.

The second is that the episode was a real event.

I'll stick with the second.

And your reason for doing so is?

In other words, God just is. Naturally this is not going to appeal to
you, since you'd prefer some other cause. What you want is a cause
without intelligence, without purpose, without intention and quite
impersonal.

No, what I want is some evidence for entity X before claiming X exists. I don't have any preconceived notions about what should or shouldn't exist like you seem to have. If there's evidence for an intelligence, I'll accept it.

I suppose in one way we're both seeking the truth. The difficulty is
that God makes Himself known to those who seek Him, but it is done
spiritually. Atheists as a rule seek a purely intellectual
explanation.

No, the difference is one of us accepts evidence and the other accepts wishful thinking, feelings, desires, etc. I'll leave it up to you to figure out which is which. (clue: I don't accept wishful thinking, feelings and desires as proof that something exists.)



I find it a lot easier to believe that there is a cause behind
"nothing" becoming an organised reality and obeying certain
unbreakable laws.
And I would find it a lot easier to believe that time doesn't change
when you move faster (more intuitive.) How-ever, there's no evidence for
that and there IS evidence against it so I can't force myself to believe
something that there just isn't any evidence for.

Same for your god. I can't believe in something that there's no evidence
for simply because "it would be easier."

Granted - in the end, God calls us, not the other way around. Part of
the requirement however is that the person is searching for him. Most
atheists are looking for every proof and argument they can find that
He doesn't exist.

No, they aren't. They are simply asking for evidence that he DOES exist, the same way we'd ask for evidence of anything else.

I also find the idea of a stage prop reasonably easy

to accept, especially since we live in the film age. When we want to
create a drama in visual form, one of the necessary requirements is a
backdrop. The old Westerns used to construct an entire frontage for
a whole street, but go behind the facade and all one saw was a wall
held up by timber posts. It served a specific purpose, but had no
real substance.
I think this universe, for all its grandeur, is like that - a sum zero
energy universe, which totals "nothing".
If we end up debating what caused the cause, then we end up with an
infinite number of causes which ends nowhere. That's not a
particularly logical result.
So you want to stop that chain at some point and say "nothing caused
that cause; it just was." Well, that's the same thing I want to do but I
want to stop it at a "cause" that we actually have evidence for.

We agree on that point. As I said before I believe in a spiritual
cause of immense intelligence. You're looking for some sort of
impersonal, purely natural cause without personality.

No, I'm simply looking for what there's evidence of. Please quit lying about me.


I'm afraid I believe that there is an infinite intelligence, which
describes itself as "I am", and which if it occupied a desk, would
like Harry Truman have a sign saying "The buck stops here".
Proof? No. A reasonable hypothesis? Yes.
No, it's not. Reasonable means "agreeable to reason or sound judgment;
logical." There's nothing logical about your hypothesis. You just want
it to be true but have no support for it at all.

Well, the universe is there. It would appear to consist of "sum zero
energy", which translates as "nothing". The human race is there, and
it is the only species which has an interest in higher things -

The only one that we KNOW of.

courage, morality, beauty, art, justice - at least that we know about,
on a planet which seems designed for life, and has beauty and grandeur
built in.

Hurricanes are beautiful? Volcanoes are designed for life?

We are also incredibly small compared to the universe, so
either we are a mere puff of wind which can be destroyed by the first
cataclysmic event which comes along, or the universe has been put
there for our story to be played out.

I.e. you can't stand the idea that maybe the universe does NOT revolve around you so you'll come up with the fantasies that it does.

.