lets list disproofs, or proofs, of a god.

[TheAppleCore]

I have a couple questions for him: childhood cancer, tsunamis, tornadoes, scholiosis, cystic fibrosis, degenerative diseases, terminal diseases, plagues, famine, negative inherent human characteristics, and war, just to name a few.

What makes you think that these are imperfections? Surely your human perspective would not allow you to see the divine perfection in these things, if they were in fact perfect.

 

[TheAppleCore]

Boil it down....like someone (can't remember) once said....
It's better to believe in God and find out he doesn't exist, than to not believe in God and find out he does exist. Just my two cents...

Well, you know, I heard the Flying Spaghetti Monster condemns you to an afterlife of ETERNAL rotten marinara sauce on whole wheat pasta, if you don't have faith. Certainly is better to find out the Spaghetti Monster doesn't exist, than to find out he does, right? Between hell and rotten spaghetti, you've really gotten yourself into a pickle, haven't you?

I'm not trying to poke fun at your beliefs, by the way. I'm just trying to illustrate a point.

 

[A Blind Guy]

If it was perfect, any creature with a semblance of intelligence would be able to tell. Don't try and pull that "above and beyond" bullshit as a scapegoat for literally everything. It's annoying and overworked.

Pretty sure that we know how DNA is supposed to work. And cancer is a deformity in the DNA. So that DNA is no longer perfect because now that person's body is killing itself.

And there's no heaven so why is she dying, now, God?
Dick.

 

[TheAppleCore]

If it was perfect, any creature with a semblance of intelligence would be able to tell. Don't try and pull that "above and beyond" bullshit as a scapegoat for literally everything. It's annoying and overworked.

But, I'm not trying to use it as a scapegoat -- I genuinely think it's a reasonable argument. Think about it. YOUR image of "perfection" (what is good and therefore what is best), is simply an evolutionary adaptation, like all of human biology and psychology. There's nothing that necessarily requires an evolutionary adaptation to actually allow us insight into the fundamental nature of reality.

A lot of highly successful C.E.O.s have some degree of sociopathy, or a distorted value system, which enables them to be successful businesspeople. Everything we believe is probably, to some degree, a distortion of reality designed by evolution in order to make us a successful species.

 

[IamMe90]

But, I'm not trying to use it as a scapegoat -- I genuinely think it's a reasonable argument. Think about it. YOUR image of "perfection" (what is good and therefore what is best), is simply an evolutionary adaptation, like all of human biology and psychology. There's nothing that necessarily requires an evolutionary adaptation to actually allow us insight into the fundamental nature of reality.

A lot of highly successful C.E.O.s have some degree of sociopathy, or a distorted value system, which enables them to be successful businesspeople. Everything we believe is probably, to some degree, a distortion of reality designed by evolution in order to make us a successful species.

I think it is a very futile attempt to attribute perfection to God, for several reasons. If any God (in this "capital G" manner, omniscient, omnipotent, etc... what people seem to mean by "perfect") were extant, I think it would be one along the lines of Spinoza's monistic God. But I digress.

The problem with this, to me, is that "perfect" as a term is necessarily human and is a value judgment. Things in reality aren't "perfect" in themselves, they're only perfect when filtered through a psychological perspective - the walls, my floor, the planet, and the entire universe aren't "perfect" in and of themselves and never could be because it is a necessarily perspectival term. I do not believe an all powerful being would even have a conception of "perfection," as there would be no need, it would simply "be."

If you want to attribute omniscience and omnipotence, as well as some sort of "completeness" to the concept of God that makes it "perfect," I also think you got caught up in some inherent contradictions, which is that God is bound not to create anything, including the universe, because the act of doing anything - any change in state - would be an indicator of dissatisfaction with the current state, which would imply a lack of completeness - unless perfection was defined by a series of state changes, in which case we run into more problems, which states (such as creating the universe) would be cycled through, in what order, and why? It seems to me like the "perfect" complete being would have to already have been the way it was, for all time, always.

But that just highlights my original objection... that discussing God in terms of perfection is silly, because perfection is really a human term, a psychological fallacy almost, because perfection in the way we conceive it abstractly is always just an extension of things we see in reality to an impossible degree.

I think it is also fair to say that it is ridiculous to apply things like a "will" to God. God is not human, if he exists, he is not finite even (unless you want to give that up, in which case I am totally OK though skeptical about the concept of an extant God), why would he have any sort of will, desire, motives, or anything? "God created imperfect beings because he wanted them to have free will," etc... stop applying a human psychology to a concept that is inherently inhuman.

 

[A Blind Guy]

But, I'm not trying to use it as a scapegoat -- I genuinely think it's a reasonable argument. Think about it. YOUR image of "perfection" (what is good and therefore what is best), is simply an evolutionary adaptation, like all of human biology and psychology. There's nothing that necessarily requires an evolutionary adaptation to actually allow us insight into the fundamental nature of reality.

A lot of highly successful C.E.O.s have some degree of sociopathy, or a distorted value system, which enables them to be successful businesspeople. Everything we believe is probably, to some degree, a distortion of reality designed by evolution in order to make us a successful species.

Well that's because we don't even know what reality is in the first place, and it's impossible for us to tell because we are part of the system. So yeah, you're right. No evolutionary adaption will grant us understanding of what reality actually is.

The rest of what you said is true. But not really relevant to the argument.

But what about the idea that God, as defined in all the world's Books, is an invention of humanity? The ideas of heaven and hell are creations, as is the afterlife. The idea of life beyond death was a tool to keep people motivated to continue living through the harshest of times, the human populations in the worst of straits, are almost always a fundamentally religious community, because that is literally all that they have. Well, what did we humans have before we invented any sort of civilization? Not shit. So, we conjured upon ourselves religion, to give us faith and keep us moving forward.

Religion is an evolutionary adaption.
Atheism is a luxury of the new millennium. I am able to disbelieve in God because my life is good. I do not need anything after this. Infinite existence is boring.

 

[A Blind Guy]

I think it is a very futile attempt to attribute perfection to God, for several reasons. If any God (in this "capital G" manner, omniscient, omnipotent, etc... what people seem to mean by "perfect") were extant, I think it would be one along the lines of Spinoza's monistic God. But I digress.

The problem with this, to me, is that "perfect" as a term is necessarily human and is a value judgment. Things in reality aren't "perfect" in themselves, they're only perfect when filtered through a psychological perspective - the walls, my floor, the planet, and the entire universe aren't "perfect" in and of themselves and never could be because it is a necessarily perspectival term. I do not believe an all powerful being would even have a conception of "perfection," as there would be no need, it would simply "be."

If you want to attribute omniscience and omnipotence, as well as some sort of "completeness" to the concept of God that makes it "perfect," I also think you got caught up in some inherent contradictions, which is that God is bound not to create anything, including the universe, because the act of doing anything - any change in state - would be an indicator of dissatisfaction with the current state, which would imply a lack of completeness - unless perfection was defined by a series of state changes, in which case we run into more problems, which states (such as creating the universe) would be cycled through, in what order, and why? It seems to me like the "perfect" complete being would have to already have been the way it was, for all time, always.

But that just highlights my original objection... that discussing God in terms of perfection is silly, because perfection is really a human term, a psychological fallacy almost, because perfection in the way we conceive it abstractly is always just an extension of things we see in reality to an impossible degree.

I think it is also fair to say that it is ridiculous to apply things like a "will" to God. God is not human, if he exists, he is not finite even (unless you want to give that up, in which case I am totally OK though skeptical about the concept of an extant God), why would he have any sort of will, desire, motives, or anything? "God created imperfect beings because he wanted them to have free will," etc... stop applying a human psychology to a concept that is inherently inhuman.

Owned, lol.

 

[Pindar]

Adding to what everyone else just said, one would not be able to "draw a circle of which all points of the circle were equidistant..." if one didn't have the language, or the concept of measurement that comes from standardization to imagine such a construction...Prehistoric (pre-recorded historic) approximations of a circle came from seeing the Sun and Moon. The fact that the concept of a perfect circle had many concepts, from being "a regular polygon with a huge number of very short sides (Archimedes of Syracuse)", to that which was the consequence of the wheel, of rollers, and etc...There was a study by Shenger-Krestovnika where the dog was trained to detect a circle from an ellipse, an ellipse from a circle, but when the ellipse was constructed in a way that it almost appeared to be a circle, he ceased to make the difference between circles and ellipses in general, and started getting excited and was no longer calm during experiments. http://psychology.jrank.org/pages/1605/4-Experimental-neurosis-personality.html

The question wasn't answered to explain creation out of nothing...If God created man, imperfect or not, he created him from nothing, that contradicts the Standard Theory of Genetics and Evolution that was given, unless God can be defined with another term. If God created the universe, he created the universe from nothing, (something from nothing), which contradicts Big Bang Theory..unless God himself can be defined as the energy, then we're in Spinoza's God = nature.

 

[Renz Envy]

I think the existence of pre-destined flow of energy and timeless matter is proof of God.

I don't believe any science or philosophy can deny that God exists as the very force that drives our Universe. The force that leads you to read my messages.


However the belief in a personal God, or a God with a human persona is merely a tendency for people to feel comfortable emulating the beliefs of their parents/predecessors. It's only human nature to derive a feeling of comfort in packs.

 

[TheAppleCore]

the walls, my floor, the planet, and the entire universe aren't "perfect" in and of themselves and never could be because it is a necessarily perspectival term.

Actually, you're absolutely right. At least, as long as "perfection" is defined by moral judgments ("best", "flawless", etc.).

However...

If you want to attribute omniscience and omnipotence, as well as some sort of "completeness" to the concept of God that makes it "perfect," I also think you got caught up in some inherent contradictions, which is that God is bound not to create anything, including the universe, because the act of doing anything - any change in state - would be an indicator of dissatisfaction with the current state, which would imply a lack of completeness...

God doesn't have to be a creator. God can simply be the nature of everything. If everything is unified at some level; that is, if everything is fundamentally of the same nature, or comes from a single source, then I could see this as a form of perfection in God.

But what about the idea that God, as defined in all the world's Books, is an invention of humanity? The ideas of heaven and hell are creations, as is the afterlife. The idea of life beyond death was a tool to keep people motivated to continue living through the harshest of times, the human populations in the worst of straits, are almost always a fundamentally religious community, because that is literally all that they have. Well, what did we humans have before we invented any sort of civilization? Not shit. So, we conjured upon ourselves religion, to give us faith and keep us moving forward.

Religion is an evolutionary adaption.
Atheism is a luxury of the new millennium. I am able to disbelieve in God because my life is good. I do not need anything after this. Infinite existence is boring.

Definitely something I've thought about before.

 

[A Blind Guy]

Actually, you're absolutely right. At least, as long as "perfection" is defined by moral judgments ("best", "flawless", etc.).

However...



God doesn't have to be a creator. God can simply be the nature of everything. If everything is unified at some level; that is, if everything is fundamentally of the same nature, or comes from a single source, then I could see this as a form of perfection in God.



Definitely something I've thought about before.

If God is the nature of everything... as in, the reason why things do things, then why would it be perfection if everything was made of the same stuff? Could one not say that everything is made of matter but the driving forces are God? There would be that separation, and therefore, imperfection, as he would not be all encompassing.

EDIT: energy is matter, yeah. But gravity, strong and weak nuclear forces, and electromagnetism are forces and therefore... not energy, right?

 

[IamMe90]

I think what you're saying applecore is just essentially a form of pantheism and I'm not sure I really understand what the difference between "God" and "unifying forces" is - that is it just seems like you're tautologizing God with the unifying forces in nature, and in that sense I don't see why the term God is necessary. I think it's actually a bit harmful of a conflation because God has very specific implications for most cultures and those aren't really contained in the way you're trying to define it - so what's wrong with just leaving nature as nature?

 

[TheAppleCore]

^ I'm just stubbornly trying to justify the "perfect God", that's all.

 

[TheAppleCore]

EDIT: energy is matter, yeah. But gravity, strong and weak nuclear forces, and electromagnetism are forces and therefore... not energy, right?

Well, I'm not sure about that, as I'm no physicist. But I think that a "force" could just be another way of measuring what's called "potential energy". Don't take my word for it, though.

Anyway, if you're looking to science for proof that everything is one, look no further than the big bang -- everything originated in a single, infinitely tiny point, in a single moment at the beginning of time.

 

[IamMe90]

Well, I'm not sure about that, as I'm no physicist. But I think that a "force" could just be another way of measuring what's called "potential energy". Don't take my word for it, though.

Anyway, if you're looking to science for proof that everything is one, look no further than the big bang -- everything originated in a single, infinitely tiny point, in a single moment at the beginning of time.

As I recall there's quite a divide in the scientific community right now about whether the singularity is the correct explanation for our universe - an expansion, certainly, but m-theory and other quantum theories aren't so clear on the singularity part. But I'm not a physicist, so I can't really comment with certainty on any of that.

 

[A Blind Guy]

Well, I'm not sure about that, as I'm no physicist. But I think that a "force" could just be another way of measuring what's called "potential energy". Don't take my word for it, though.

Anyway, if you're looking to science for proof that everything is one, look no further than the big bang -- everything originated in a single, infinitely tiny point, in a single moment at the beginning of time.

Right, all the mass and energy... but its not all encompassing if forces are different. But I'm not sure if they are. It might just be a measure of that potential energy. But then magnetism is weird for that model. Idk man.

 

[L2R]

i'm a part of something bigger every time i drive a car or wear pants.

Why would a perfect being take any action.

this is actually a good question. i think imperfection brings a sense of value and perspective which is impossible with perfection.

 

[Pindar]

I think the only thing that can be encompassing is the law of least action: as de Maupertuis stated : "when a change occurs in nature, the quantity of action necessary for the change is the least possible." This is considered the one principle in which all of physics and chemistry is united, and even further, as he suggested:

"The laws of movement and of rest deduced from this principle being precisely the same as those observed in nature, we can admire the application of it to all phenomena. The movement of animals, the vegetative growth of plants ... are only its consequences; and the spectacle of the universe becomes so much the grander, so much more beautiful, the worthier of its Author, when one knows that a small number of laws, most wisely established, suffice for all movements"

Its consequences, Euler-Lagrange Equations,the mathematical formulation of the law of least action, can also be formulated for magnetism:
http://quantummechanics.ucsd.edu/ph130a/130_notes/node453.html

As for the Evolution of Life:
http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/464/2099/3055.full.pdf+html
"In order to reconcile the two principles to one law, the recent formulation of the second law of thermodynamics as an equation of motion (Sharma & Annila 2007) is used. Evolution, when stated in terms of statistical physics, is a probable motion. The natural process directs along the steepest descents of an energy landscape by equalizing differences in energy via various transport and transformation processes, e.g. diffusion, heat flows, electric currents and chemical reactions (Kondepudi & Prigogine 1998). These flows of energy, as they channel down along various paths, propel evolution. In a large and complicated system, the flows are viewed to explore diverse evolutionary paths, e.g. by random variation, and those that lead to a faster entropy increase, equivalent to a more rapid decrease in the free energy, become, in terms of physics, naturally selected (Sharma & Annila 2007). The abstract formalism has been applied to rationalize diverse evolutionary courses as energy transfer processes (Gro¨nholm & Annila 2007; Jaakkola et al. 2008a,b; Karnani & Annila in press). Forces, i.e. potential energy gradients and differences, drive the system towards more probable states via flows of energy that diminish the differences."

Lest we forget we don't know why this law holds in nature, we don't know the origin of the Forces which are the consequence of the law of least action. Newton attributed it to God:

"Tis inconceivable that inanimate brute matter should (without the mediation of something else which is not material) operate upon & affect other matter without mutual contact....Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."

God is the consequence of human language being incapable of explaining reality. IMO

 

[hiphophippy]

Adding to what everyone else just said, one would not be able to "draw a circle of which all points of the circle were equidistant..." if one didn't have the language, or the concept of measurement that comes from standardization to imagine such a construction...Prehistoric (pre-recorded historic) approximations of a circle came from seeing the Sun and Moon. The fact that the concept of a perfect circle had many concepts, from being "a regular polygon with a huge number of very short sides (Archimedes of Syracuse)", to that which was the consequence of the wheel, of rollers, and etc...There was a study by Shenger-Krestovnika where the dog was trained to detect a circle from an ellipse, an ellipse from a circle, but when the ellipse was constructed in a way that it almost appeared to be a circle, he ceased to make the difference between circles and ellipses in general, and started getting excited and was no longer calm during experiments. http://psychology.jrank.org/pages/1605/4-Experimental-neurosis-personality.html

The question wasn't answered to explain creation out of nothing...If God created man, imperfect or not, he created him from nothing, that contradicts the Standard Theory of Genetics and Evolution that was given, unless God can be defined with another term. If God created the universe, he created the universe from nothing, (something from nothing), which contradicts Big Bang Theory..unless God himself can be defined as the energy, then we're in Spinoza's God = nature.

You continually argue from a human subset. when you can surpass the imperfections of man with mathematics which exist regardless of consciousness. Values would exist numbers would not. the golden ratio would exist it just wouldn't be called the golden ratio Pythagoras would still exist it would just not be called Pythagoras. Your continually trying to add new, unnecessary, information to try and justify a fallacious view based on the imperfections of the human psyche. mathematically, a perfect circle exists regardless of human existence. A closed curve in which all points on the curve are equidistant from the geometric center of the circle.


Yes, it does contradict the creation from nothing. Humans evolved from primates. The difference between my and your arguments being is that my argument is supported by factual evidence instead of philosophical conceptions. Your argument is not only invalid but an Ad ignorantiam (logical fallacy; or possibly just an Argument from Personal Incredulity). Congratulations on pointing out we have contradicting view points.

The other problem with your argument is the assumption that energy hasn't always existed. but lets go on that track. You say my view is fallacious because science cannot explain where the energy that is the universe came from, alright fine, but then you say that god it's self created that energy. Which is still fine, but when asked where god came from, well excuse me form assuming but I'm pretty sure you would justify his existence as always having been and always being in which case you have stated the exact same thing as me but only just added another layer.

God is the consequence of human language being incapable of explaining reality. IMO

God is the consequence of ignorant people being un-able to accept that things can be complicated without having to be engineered.
gravity makes things fall to earth therefore god
this mandrake root looks like a person therefore god
DNA is so complex looking therefor god
I don't understand therefore god

 

[L2R]

nb. it is impossible to determine HOW anything came to be or WHY if you can't define WHAT that thing is.