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What's wrong with this definition of God: maker of heaven and earth and everything?

Some are grownup enough that they can wait for the real answer.


Paul

:) :) :)
 
yrreg said:
Everything comes from a beginning, can you accept that as already a common piece of knowledge with mankind who does think and also ask around from more knowledgeable people?
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Describe the beginning of your god. We will all agree that if you cannot describe and explain its beginning, it does not exist.
 
That's been done. If you work backwards you get to an incredibly small, incredibly hot state in which it doesn't matter, and we cannot work out (maybe never can), what it was like before.

If you want to think that god created that, that's your prerogative. The rest of us will admit we just don't know and carry on trying to find out.
 
... and thus the thread dies not with a bang but with a whimper. "Here, read some links, I have nothing - but here are some links."

/End of Thread
 
yrreg said:
Everything comes from a beginning
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So explain the beginning of your God.

My answer to your "homework assignment" is that every human being on the planet shares a common ape-like ancestor. Humans arrived at their present form through a process of evolution by natural selection. A good book to explain this is The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins. The homework assignment which I am setting you is to read this book. I suggest that if anyone else wants to set yrreg homework, given that he has set homework for us, they also assign him this same book to read.

What the universe looked like and where it came from at the point where time began is not fully understood, but no magic or gods are required to explain it.

Just because you need a magical "goddidit" answer to all the difficult questions, does not mean that the rest of us will be satisfied with this non-answer. Your solution to where everything came from simply adds another unnecessary entity, with no answer to where that entity came from.

There is no evidence that any god was involved at any stage of the process of the formation of the universe, nor in the advent of life on this planet. Natural processes are sufficient to explain both of these.

What you are doing here is the classic argument from incredulity; you cannot imagine or understand how the universe came to be, nor how life began, nor how humans evolved, and so you want to cover that incredulity by positing a magical (supernatural) explanation. You have no evidence of this supernatural entity, but you assert it in order to cover up your own lack of understanding.

The scientific, or sceptic, position is to wait for evidence and accept that some things may not be fully understood at our current level of knowledge. Unlike you, who stops at the magic explanation, we (or rather scientists who are a whole lot cleverer than I am) continue to examine the evidence in order to gain understanding and answer these questions. Just because the answers are not fully known now does not mean people stop trying to find out. The "goddidit" crowd stops there, they do not strive for the real answers.
 
Everything does not have to have a beginning, it just seems like that to the limited human mind. Acting like God doesn't need a beginning but everything else does is just an assertion.
 
yrreg, we don't need to ask ourselves where everything comes from, because weeks ago we agreed (for the sake of THIS discussion only) that everything comes from God. There's no need to defend that position. It has been agreed upon as a starting point.

The current question is whether God continuously maintains creation. You asserted that God does continuously maintain the universe. Again, how do you know God did not create a universe with laws that allowed it to run without God's constant, continuous attention?

By the way, could we please leave out the homework assignments? It's not my job to work on making your case, just like it wouldn't be your job to do homework to make a case for an assertion I might make.
 
Rougarou said:
yrreg, we don't need to ask ourselves where everything comes from, because weeks ago we agreed (for the sake of THIS discussion only) that everything comes from God. There's no need to defend that position. It has been agreed upon as a starting point.

The current question is whether God continuously maintains creation. You asserted that God does continuously maintain the universe. Again, how do you know God did not create a universe with laws that allowed it to run without God's constant, continuous attention?

By the way, could we please leave out the homework assignments? It's not my job to work on making your case, just like it wouldn't be your job to do homework to make a case for an assertion I might make.
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Well, that's very inconsiderate of you! If you agree, how can you be chided for not doing your homework????
 
Originally Posted by HghrSymmetry V
You're simply telling us what your subject does. That type of definition has been proposed for millennia.
Why won't you tell us what it is?
Hi yrreg,
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HghrSymmetry said:
Hi yrreg,

I'm still waiting.
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Hi yrreg,

You may have missed my last two posts, so I'll ask again. What is it?
You believe in this entity right? So you must have some idea of its composition.
Please tell us what it is.
 
Yo! Gerry!! Why don't you answer some questions people have here? I've said it many times before and will continue to do so; Move the discussion forward with some direct responses to the questions instead of the usual self-indulgent, grammatical word salads.
 
yrreg said:
Do this exercise, start with you and me, where do we come from?

From our parents.

And our parents, from where do they come?

From their parents.

And where do the first parents come from?


That is the demonstration, asking ourselves and finally coming to the fact that everything comes from the unique uncreated creator of the created universe.
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No.

The first "parent" existed approximately 3.7 billion years ago, and was most likely a very simple, self-replicating molecule that probably formed by chance chemical reactions. Self-replication within a growing population of molecules would not have been perfect, thereby introducing variety in subsequent generations, from which natural selection blindly selected the next generation of molecules. And thus it continued for 3.7 billion years, and with no magic whatsoever, this process populated the Earth with the diversity of life we see today, including you and me.

How humbling.
 
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I did what Yrreg assigned to us to do. Honest!

But the dog ate my homework.
 
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How to transit from concepts in the mind to objective reality.

Rougarou said:
yrreg, we don't need to ask ourselves where everything comes from, because weeks ago we agreed (for the sake of THIS discussion only) that everything comes from God. There's no need to defend that position. It has been agreed upon as a starting point.

The current question is whether God continuously maintains creation. You asserted that God does continuously maintain the universe. Again, how do you know God did not create a universe with laws that allowed it to run without God's constant, continuous attention?

By the way, could we please leave out the homework assignments? It's not my job to work on making your case, just like it wouldn't be your job to do homework to make a case for an assertion I might make.
Click to expand...



In this post from me and from this point onward, Rougarou, I will invite you to work with me on how we cam and will transit from concepts in the mind to objective reality.

I am glad that you remind me you and I have concurred on the concept of God as the unique uncreated creator and operator of the created universe, that is a fact; or do you want to back out? Remember you have the absolute option to back out at any time you care to back out from anything you have or we have concurred on.

You say:
The current question is whether God continuously maintains creation. You asserted that God does continuously maintain the universe. Again, how do you know God did not create a universe with laws that allowed it to run without God's constant, continuous attention?
​

Thank you for your thinking up a question in a two pronged formulation if I may see it to be so, namely:
How do I know that God continuously maintains the universe, or He endowed it with laws "that allowed it to run without God's [His] constant, continuous attention"?​


What is your choice, that God maintains continuously the operation of the universe, or that He endows it with laws which enable it to operate by itself without God's continuous attention?

From my part I choose both of the two alternatives, let me explain.

From my experience, let me put it this way: if I were God in a small way with a small universe which I created of a sun and a moon and the earth, all very small, I will continuously keep aware of my universe to admire how it operates and at the same time keep pushing it regularly at intervals to keep it operating, like for example I keep pushing a rotating disc at regular intervals to make it rotate continuously, or I can arrange a simple amount of water to fall from above on the same part of its rim to keep it rotating on and on, and just make sure that I refill the container of water from which container a volume of water would drop on the wheel's rim at regular intervals.

Applying that experience of mine to God as the creator and operator of the universe, I can say that God is continuously maintaining its operation.

What about you, what do you say, what is your point?


Are you aware that we are now or you want me to concentrate on the issue whether God operates the universe directly continuously or endows it with laws which enable the universe to operate continuously.

In any event, the universe is operating continuously and God is the agent ultimately to be accredited both for its continuous existence and its continuous operation.


Anyway, you know that God exists, only you want me to explain to you how I know that God is continuously directly immediately operating the universe or endowing it with laws etc.

And I explain it from my own experience as someone who loves to assemble things and keep them running, like for example a rotating wheel.

So, from concepts in the mind we come to know the objective event in the world outside our mind that God operates the universe to keep it continuously in existence and in continuous operation.

Sorry if you cannot get what I am trying to communicate to you.

But let me read from you what is your most important point.

To be honest with you, I am rather getting a bit lost with you.

BUT I am very happy that you concur with me God exists as the unique uncreated creator and operator of the created universe.



See you next week end, in the meantime let us both continue thinking how God operates the universe, from our each one's experiences and also the accumulated experiences of mankind from when mankind first came to the state of conscious thinking capability and activity to the present.

Yrreg
 
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