Then your claim that my inference was "not even close" is utterly bogus. Thanks for clearing that up. Yes, this article of faith is hardly unheard of in atheists. No, it was a perfectly logical inference from what you said. Well it ain't like your position lends itself to serious consideration, let's face it. So the value in doing so hinges on the OP's claim that it can't be done? Really?? Yes. Which contravenes nothing I said, obviously. Non sequitur, unless one assumes God never makes the same revelation to more than one person - an assumption which must be considered utterly preposterous to those with any knowledge of history. Hardly. Seeing I haven't got one, the question is idiotic. You're welcome. Of course it is. No, it's a false dilemma which excludes the possibility that God could provide two different revelations to two people, neither of which contradicts the other, or contradicts any other such revelations. As if I had ever said otherwise. Happily, I lack your penchant for seeing what isn't there. If noting a precious few of His attributes counted as a description of the Almighty, the question wouldn't be asinine. Things being what they are... Get real, you were never up for that.
Not to speak for the OPer; imo our flawed nature is necessary for the existence of Free Will. If we were incapable of poor/wrong choicemaking, we would be robots, doing only as programmed. To be fair, we don't know how we'll 'turn out' because we havn't yet. All that has happened may be nothing but a blip relative to all that yet happens. Consider how likely it is that we would have explored the moon if it weren't for the competition that resulted from the cold war that resulted from the outcome of WW2 that resulted from the necessity in defeating the evil of the Nazis. We wouldn't likely have wasted the resources getting there if we hadn't seen space as a means to gain astrategic advantage over an adversary. That 'first small step' very well may lead to humans colonizing the vastness of space, conquering the mysteries of the universe that remain locked away far from our current reach, and openning access to an effectively limitless pool of resources and energy that we may use to build for ourselves something indistinguishable from the 'Heaven' depicted in the Bible. We may one day, after mastering all the potential advances that science, technology and spiritual understanding have to offer, quantify, access and greet God as relative equals in wisdom and power of influence. All because of the drive to overcome both the adversity of our environment, and the evils that some of us chose to inflict on others.
I'm certainly not interested in berating you or your religious beliefs. I'm just saying that your religious beliefs or those of others don't have anything to do with science. You would like to propose that your understanding of science (which is clearly weak) somehow justifies your religion. But, that doesn't make sense. Science can't address religion and religion can't address science. Besides that, once you have accepted the notion that there is an eternal and omipotent god who is willing to alter events on Earth there can be no possibility of determining what is natural and what is not natural. Your ID-like approach of attempting to make your god look likely is certainly not scientific and fully depends on the fact that humans don't have all the answers concerning how this universe works - not on the likelihood of a god. The very idea of attempting to attach odds to the existence of god hits me as coming from desperation.
The comment was really a hypothetical. However, it still begs the question--why would a god create something so imperfect? Just to give us free will begs the question--why would it do that? Just to watch us overcome our imperfections? Did this god get bored? Why is this god willing to allow such cruelty and evil to exist? This is not a challenge to the concept of a god, nor am I trying to talk anyone out of their beliefs. The point is that such beliefs are locked into a certain kind of indoctrination that struggles to rise above some ancient 'magic guy in the sky' explanation that is intolerant of being questioned. That kind of belief leads people to rearrange scientific knowledge to fit the belief system as it was told to us in the stories in the religious texts.
There's German American Churches like the Lutherans, the Catholic Church for Mexicans, or Irish, not they go to the same one, there's Korean Presbyterian, then how come our government switched around any Church for American Americans? Whats that one? Isn't that an honest question? And those were Native Americans before the Indians had to get re-evaluated by the shady element. How come no one uses Science to show off that these racial groups have long ties and histories of importance through evolution? Durrrr… DURRR. Science. Science!? So your government, and your religion, and nothing but the outside world can possibly, Historically, Distinguish, the 12 million population of the 1830 census during President Andrew Jackson.
There isn't any way that a human could determine what a god was/is thinking. But, why would a god create humans such that they have no free will? Surely that would be pointless.
Exactly--we can't know what this god is thinking, yet we continue to believe we can do just that. We even touch on the god's motivations. As for creating humans without free will--it would be as pointless as creating them with free will given that such a god would already know the outcome of everything. That is, unless we accept an imperfect, not quite all knowing god that is supposed to know each of us intimately. What is the motivation for all that?
Yes, that last question is really interesting. I certainly have no answer concerning what the possible motivateion could be. Religion is supposed to be answering "why" questions, but I don't really see much progress on that.
I don't think the motivation thing can be answered, and knowing that, I think we really need to think a lot more about blindly accepting a beliefs and making up excuses to patch all the leaks in that old belief system. Going back to the OP, trying to discredit science to support a dating system based on Genesis is like holding on to the theory that the sun revolves around the earth. If there is a god, and that god gave us a brain for learning and understanding, should we refuse to accept that our learning has given us a new answer to how long we've been around?
Maybe God did get bored. A pertinent question is: can God learn (or otherwise advance)? If so, would that make Him all knowing/powerful? To question outside this box of indoctrination you mention: how did God begin? Did God evolve? I pose a scenario: God was born with the universe. In the chaos of the pre-big-bang particle (all matter being condensed to a single point would be fairly chaotic, having different physical properties than what we experience, like within the event horizon of a black hole, only more pronounced) came to exist a consciousness that survived the destruction (or expansion) of its primordial environment. Alone. This being was not a deity, but merely a life-form far different than we understand as life. A being a pure energy perhaps, or even of multidimensional existence. Or something else that evolved to be so. Anyway it explored its existence, tested and manipulated its environment, and learned everything there was to know about everything. Eventually, it desired to not be alone. But given the paradoxical limitations on an all-powerful being creating an equal of itself that could then limit its power (perhaps such is simply not possible), it created us instead. I'm not posing this as anything but a 'perhaps', and I base it on nothing but 'what could've been.'
If you ever had kids, and they had problems, did you do nothing but watch? If you ever had kids, did you do it because you got bored?
Agreed! Our sense of "spirituality" exists to a greater or lesser extent among not just humans but other mammals too. The mental state of "being one with god" can and has been measured by scientists and that same mental state has been observed in other species. https://qz.com/1292368/columbia-and-yale-scientists-just-found-the-spiritual-part-of-our-brains/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/...o-brains-during-spiritual-experiences/361882/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/03/chimpanzee-spirituality/475731/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/what-the-crow-knows/580726/ Those animals have no religion, no savior, no texts, prayers, priests or holy orders but they have brains that are similar to our own and therefore capable of having similar experiences. Religion is a tool used to control the behavior of others and as such it has been abused because it empowers those who understand how to manipulate it for their own personal benefit. We can achieve the same BENEFITS of religion WITHOUT the mumbo-jumbo. Hopefully we can EVOLVE to that state without destroying ourselves first.
Great question that goes to the core of one of the fallacies of the anthropomorphic deity. The concept of sin is premised upon entrapment in the garden of Eden and therefore the antithesis of an "omniscient loving god". Instead it is just a guilt trip in order to control people to behave in a manner that suits the purposes of the religion itself. The motivation is exposed as self serving and thereby nullifies itself as being "godly". There have been wars fought where both sides claimed to be doing the "will" of the same god. In essence the motivations behind religion are less than pure and the sooner we recognize that as the problem the sooner we can evolve to a more just society because we are no longer deceiving ourselves.
That's more the way I see things. The concept of spirituality has always been present in humans. That suggests that maybe there is something or some kind of energy in the universe. For whatever reason, we seem to have a need to turn this spirituality into a being modeled after humans. What if rather than this god being born with this universe, it is the universe and includes all "things"? What if rather than having wants and needs, it simply exists as an energy? I think of the human brain and how this collection of particles, all with some kind of pos. or neg. charge (energy) combines in ways that form the brain and somehow allow it to have consciousness. Then I think of all those particles in the universe and how some kind of collective consciousness might be possible. Emerson's oversoul comes to mind, but only as a starting point. I know nothing, but try to learn things. Unquestioned acceptance of a belief system is not what I consider knowledge, but a limit to knowledge. Think, compare, imagine...
Wow! Great articles. Thanks. I just re-read some of Jaspers' work regarding the idea of free will and his interpretation of that as the freedom to understand "God" in our own individual way. One of the articles refers to a similar idea--that people of different beliefs activate the same part of their brain when they engage in spiritual thinking. Another of the articles reminded me of Ebon Alexander's book called "The Mindful Universe," in which he describes his near-death experience and interprets it as a revelation from God. I was into the book until he started preaching (this whole notion of "how to communicate or be one with a god is just too silly). Anyway, the article stated, "When the parietal lobes are damaged, patients have distorted beliefs about their own bodies and are sometimes confused about their spatial orientation to outside objects." The very first thing I thought of was Alexander's book. Did he have that out of body experience or were his parietal lobes damaged?
It's funny...I've always interpreted the Garden of Eden story as a metaphor for human intellect. And now, here we are with all these questions. Maybe the big guy was right that we shouldn't eat that fruit.
Yeah, brilliant, the Creator of the universe was born with the universe. Why didn't I think of that? Then morality is a myth, the only thing Hitler did wrong was lose, and your god is infinitely stupid, or every bit as diabolical as you imply the Judaeo-Christian God must be, or both. You're welcome.
If there were no morality I would invent one for myself. But I often wonder if there is a Supreme Being and if he knows everything that has, or will happen why go through the misery of it all? Don't get me wrong I love life but there are things about it I just don't get.
The term 'all-powerful' has no meaning by itself. It exists only as a function of its absence (NOT all-powerful). There must exist some-thing that is NOT all-powerful if God is to be all-powerful. What is NOT all-powerful? We assume Epicurus means humans are NOT all-powerful, while God is all-powerful. So if there exists a NOT all-powerful state, and assuming God is the creator of ALL, then God can't be all-powerful without also being NOT all-powerful. (The lack of context and specifics on Epicurus' meaning of 'all-powerful' is another matter entirely. But we'll have to let that slide for now.) This is a contradiction. If only God existed, some-thing else must exist for God to become aware, let alone self-aware. In other words, without some-thing to be aware of, God would have no awareness (or be conscious) of any-thing, let alone It-self. In fact, no-thing would be aware of God...which essentially would make God non-existent, let alone 'all-powerful'. That's why the idea is contradictory, unless you give God some-thing to be aware of. But if you give God some-thing to be aware of, there remains the question, where/how did that some-thing originate if not from God? The relationship between God and humans is not specified by Epicurus (nor is the term 'all-powerful' specifically defined). If God created humans, are the humans a fundamental part of God...or are humans fundamentally distinct/separate from God? (A) If humans are a fundamental part of God, but humans are not all-powerful, then God must also be not all- powerful. God cannot intrinsically be more or less than Its creation as long as God is a fundamental part of Its creation, because the creation is ultimately constructed of God. (But again, we need to be specific on what constitutes a state of being 'all-powerful'.) (B) If humans are fundamentally distinct from God, then how were they created by God in the first place? (1) Are we to assume God created humans and then somehow completely (at the fundamental level) separated Itself from humans, leaving them 'less powerful'? If so, then God can't be all-powerful over a creation that is completely & fundamentally separate from God. Why? Simply because God would be cut off from the 'workings' of humans at most, if not all, levels (eg, God could not 'feel' human emotions or hear human thoughts, and would be unable to predict human behavior, etc.). (2) Or are we to assume that God and another substance started out fundamentally separate, but God was able to 'shape' this substance into humans? If so, then God can't be all-powerful if God didn't create this substance. And, again, God would also be in the condition stated in No. 1 above. If evil did not exist, then neither would good. So God would neither be all-good nor all-evil. Either both evil and good exist, or neither can exist. If Epicurus' premise was that evil might arise in the minds/thoughts of humans, but that God is powerful enough to prevent evil actions, then he should've stated it. This is why I pointed out in my original post that certain assertions (or assumptions I should say) must first be made before tackling his ideas. Epicurus uses terms that are too vague and open to interpretation, which perhaps is why people keep bickering over it. Neither the nature of 'God', nor the nature or origin of 'evil', nor what constitutes being 'all-powerful' is precisely defined by Epicurus. Why use the word 'his'? I know this may be nitpicking, but it may be better to avoid anthropomorphic terms that we may gain a broader & more comprehensive view of reality. There are additional anthropomorphic implications embedded in Epicurus' ideas that would need to be addressed as well (eg, relating to 'all good', 'unwilling', 'evil', etc.). This was answered above. But I want to reiterate the importance that for God to even exist, God must be aware of some-thing. But if you give God some-thing to be aware of, there remains the question, where/how did that some-thing originate? * If we assume that it (the substance) originated from God, then it cannot be anything but a part of God. This would render God being fundamentally equal to Its creation. * If we assume it (the substance) did not originate from God (even if God only 'shaped' the substance), then this cancels God's status of being 'all-powerful' and 'all-knowing' in relationship to that creation. To answer that we'd have to understand the nature of what we call 'God' and Reality. Also, we need to agree about what constitutes 'good'. Keep in mind that what may be considered good/evil to one person may be considered evil/good to another...and what may appear as an evil/good experience to one person may actually trigger a series of events that end up good/evil. Terms like 'all-good', 'all-powerful', and 'all-knowing' are poor starting points when approaching this subject. It would be more productive to begin at a deeper, more fundamental level of Reality in order to see the big picture. I'd define 'evil' as a thought/action with the intent to cause unnecessary suffering/harm to others against their will. With that said, there are many examples of suffering not caused by evil per se. In more spiritual terms, 'evil' could be viewed as any thought/action that seeks to unnecessarily divide ourselves from others. There is a mountain of evidence (not proof) for reincarnation: * Children and adults have memories of past-lives. A percentage have been confirmed through historical documents, pictures, visits to sites, and visits with past-life, but still living, relatives. * Past-life regression (using hypnosis) reveals each person (skeptical or not) has past-lives. These have been used to resolve phobias/fears, chronic illnesses, mental & emotional issues, etc., and also to understand the nature of one's current life (eg, why the subject was born disabled; why the subject is so distrustful of relationships, etc.). * Past-life regression reveals the nature of reality between life-times. (Among other things, it has revealed how powerful we are as co-creators of Reality). * Near-Death Experiences (NDE) reveal experiences that confirm reincarnation. (eg, Some NDE'ers have reported meeting deceased loved ones who were 'waiting' in special rooms to be 'reborn'. Other NDE'ers have reported being told by a spiritual entity that we reincarnate. * Deja vu experiences (the kind where a subject visits a site or building that he has never been to, but feels a strong sense of familiarity with it, and even knows what's around the next corner, or correctly knows what used to exist there historically). * Many have a strong, inexplicable attraction to certain periods of time, countries, cities, architecture, clothing, rituals, religions, historic events, cuisines, art, music, technologies, scenery, climates, aromas, etc. These suggest a form of experiential memory of past-lives that are carried over. * Being born with special gifts/talents as well as interests/passions that are carried over from past-lives (as revealed in past-life regressions). * Past-life flashbacks. Some of the more sensitive/psychic people have reported experiencing a past-life 'flashback', where the subject is transported to a moment in a past-life, and one they are intimately familiar & comfortable with. To them it's like actually being there in 3D, with all 5 senses active. These experiences are spontaneous and brief, and no one knows what triggers it. * Remote Viewers (once used by the CIA) have confirmed the reality of reincarnation. * Dalai Lama. Tibetan Buddhists carry out esoteric rituals that reveal who and where the next Dalai Lama will be reborn. After locating him, they then confirm it's him through various tests. Others from different parts of the world have also been confirmed by the monks to have been a high Tibetan lama or teacher in the past. Tibetan Buddhism is really a spiritual/metaphysical science & philosophy, and not really a religion (at least for its most devout monks). It is not faith-based, and the rituals/ceremonies/chants/prayers are designed specifically in a very logical, almost mechanical manner to produce a particular result or outcome. They have a very deep & esoteric understanding of the physical, mental, and spiritual worlds down to a science, and apply this knowledge like a tool to manipulate energy. * Virtually all ancient religious texts make reference to reincarnation (ie, 'recycling' or rebirth of the soul), and was once a belief among virtually all people of the known world. The Bible still retains a few references to it, but much of it was removed almost 1500 years ago in a decree by the Fifth Ecumenical Council that read: "If anyone asserts the fabulous pre-existence of souls, and shall assert the monstrous restoration which follows from it: let him be anathema." From then on, any promotion of a belief in reincarnation was considered heretical by the Council, though the Gnostics and other Christian sects maintained their belief in reincarnation for some time afterwards. Now, ask yourself...if reincarnation is indeed a reality, what kind of evidence should we expect to find? Do we not have this evidence? Second: Suffering is not really a 'problem'. Rather, it's a symptom of becoming too caught up in and attached to the material world, with all its dramas and attractions. This issue is exacerbated if we're born with near 100% amnesia (which is typical) of our true nature, potential, past-life memories, and origins. Reincarnation is a wonderful 'teaching tool' in helping to release our material attachments, and to learn to not take life so seriously...and thus, move beyond suffering & the victim mentality. Partake of the many pleasures and treasures of the material world...but at the time of physical death, be willing to detach from it. Otherwise, one may be compelled (but not forced) to return to 'work out' those attachments, for one cannot attain the 'higher levels' (dimensions) with all that baggage. Well, I try to be as simple and logical as possible...detailing every point through a line of simple, but logical steps. It's unnecessary to be philosophically pedantic and superfluous with words, as Reality is really quite simple and logical if we can step back and see the big picture. Epicurus' ideas posted here is the first time I've seen them...but I felt the need to comment on it because of its glaring vagueness, absence of context, contradictory nature, and unqualified statements and terminology. It's a sloppy attempt at addressing the question and nature of God. Or, was this just a hypothetical exercise in logic by Epicurus? In any case, he would've done better to avoid the God question.
You wouldn't live long enough to get that done unless you managed to live in isolation from everyone else; and then, what would be the point? The answer lies in the appreciation of the first end product of "it all", namely the resurrected Christ.
Well, it is a shame, that a scientific examination of origins, especially the science behind young earth creationism, is censored, attacked, ridiculed, and flooded with off topic deflections. Does this seem like open inquiry to you? Banning a Creator as a possibility of origins, and demanding only atheistic naturalism can be 'science!', just fits into the false narrative. Are you comfortable in your indoctrination? But i will respect the decisions of the censors, to relegate any Creator based theory of origins as 'religious!', and 'unscientific!', and not equal to the Enlightened, Settled Science of atheistic naturalism. It is just religious bigotry, masquerading as 'science!'.. it is anti-science at its core. Are you comfortable in your indoctrination?
Lacking any ability to respond to my comments - you go onto "Thought Stopping" mode - avoid information that conflicts with your belief - and respond with gibberish. You completely avoided responding to my post about the age of ice cores and coral reefs - because this reality does not jive with your beliefs.
