h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Toxx, Noggin:
Toxx is right: my statement was intuitionist. There was an elderly Augustinian monk (now deceased) who used to say: 'I just see Him. I can't explain it to anyone, but I just do.'
By 'seeing' he meant not with the eyes, but intuitively.
That's the drift, anyway.

Re Infinite regression of X

A pre existing Being, could be described as an active 'system' which brings us back into infinite regression once again since it poses the question of how that activity was put in motion. The answer that it has always been in motion is not sufficient, since that leads to a steady state concept, back to entropy and my original objection that an initial force be applied to overcome the inertia, and from there back to the infinite regression of 'X'.

Belief.

Back to this wonderful theme.

I find it interesting that the most frequent answer to the question: Why do you believe? is I don't Know I just do.

In the nicest possible way I'd like to object to this as a 'non-answer', by which it could be argued an individual avoids responsibility for their opinions, and beliefs, and also neatly sidesteps any logical challenges of their point of view. I also feel it ultimately links to the major drawback of Monotheistic religions, that there is only one truth which is not open to debate, which is one of the main reasons that religion has been the cause of more and bloodier wars than anything else.

I believe this because of the reading I have done and my experiences of people who have said this to me and other things including my discovery that asking myself the question has led me to develop a better understanding of myself and the world arround me, which seems better able to predict what I will encounter and provides me with increasingly better strategies to respond to what I encounter.

Toxx, the forces that work today etc, I specifically said was in support of evolution ( verbatim.)

The ultimate origin of the universe is, I think, unknowable. I feel there is a chance to explain the observable universe, but only if it is part of something larger. This may, or may not, be attributable to God(I know where my money is though). We just don't know now, and probably never will. I feel any logical argument to say that there is a God (or not, admittedly) is spurious because the premises are at root, an opinion. For me, the most anyone can say about the universe is that it has the capacity to support life and consciousness. This may be tremendously significant (if our universe is unique in existing) or not (if there are a multitude).

Re Time; time, as far as we know, is one of the 4 dimensions of space-time. Why can't time have a beginning? Our common-sense view of time is wrong, as shown by the theories of relativity, so isn't it possible to argue that time began with the big bang, along with space? Maybe the meta-universe (or whatever you'd call it) doesn't have anything comparable to what we describe as 'time'.



Incidentally, the laws of nature don't not apply to the big bang. The general theory of relativity doesn't apply, which is not the same, and is the whole point behind investigating superstrings AFAIK.

SD,

The problem with your (well argued) 'pre-existing Being' situation is that we're talking about the time before time began which is a meaningless concept.

This is where Toxx pleads that his deity is 'eternal' or 'outside of time'. The problem I have with this is that, if god does not exist within a framework of which time is a dimension then what does he use for time? If there is no time wherever god is then in his domain everything happens at once (!) and the decision to create the universe was not taken, as Toxxin suggests, as some kind of intellectual decision because there is no passage of time to separate the thoughts. As you rightly point out, a process - any process, requires something to change over time. Whether that is entropy as we understand it in out own universe or something else not having the same material requirements, it still demands that time passes somehow and returns us to the infinite regression of 'X'.


Asking 'why do you believe' often results in 'I just do'. Andrew S admits it is because that is what he was told as a child; and this is of course the most common reason. Asking 'why do you believe X instead of Y' demands a more reasoned answer and generates some fascinating responses. As is human nature however, almost all of these are thought up to justify the belief, not the source of the belief in the first place.

F

F

Hi F:
On your last point, I think it is correct-ish, but needs to be nuanced. While historically I can trace my beliefs back to being taught about them, they have developed since then in the usual way, questioning, reflecting, etc. I can't be sure, but I think we are all faced with these questions, although our responses may differ.

Hi Andrew,

OK. You were taught as a child about the god you now believe in. You have had time to reflect and question but your beliefs are unchanged. Fair enough.

Aside from what is written in Christian Scripture and all the things you have been told by your Catholic teachers, why do you not believe in, say, the Roman or Greek gods. Where is your evidence that those gods are false and yours is true?

F

Hi F.

Scripture is a part of it, of course, so I can't really lay it aside. But before that there is the problem of existence. For me the problem is best set out in the third of the so-called 'five ways' of Thomas Aquinas (which was not part of my Catholic education). I have an entry on the 'five ways' at A2495199. The other four 'ways' are also interesting, as is the so-called 'Kalam' argument.

One can rightfully ask, why could not the Greek or Roman gods account for existence? It seems to me that without omnipotence as an attribute it is difficult to see how the creator could have produced something out of nothing. And I can't see 'room' for more than one omnipotent being.

As for why I am a Christian, and specifically a Catholic, as opposed to another kind of Theist, this brings in how I interpret Scripture (God's covenant with his chosen people) and the history of the last 2,000 years. But it must be said that I know little about Islam, and probably not very much about anything.

This reads a bit like a 'confession', and I only dare to write it because your question seems to request it. I hope it is taken in the spirit in which it was written: just an attempt at an honest personal response. I have missed out a few things: for instance, I remember being struck at a very young age by the problem of personal identity. But one can't cover everything...

<>

Indeed, indeed. And a good place to start with the problem is to ask what it means to say that something exists.

Noggin

So for you Andrew, as with Toxxin, your god has to be God the Creator and not just God the god.

This brings us down to the question that separates my beliefs from yours: who or what created the Creator?

I find it easier to accept that a [simple] universe was created out of nothing than a perfect, omnipotent god was.

Thanks for your very honest answer. Have to go now.

F

Oh, and intuitionism cannot be used to prove empirical facts. Do you believe that God is an empirical fact, or some other kind of Fact? If so, what kind?

Noggin

Hi Noggin.
I agree with your points. I don't think I have proved anything, except perhaps (perhaps...) to myself. It is personal testimony, nothing more.

Fathom

This brings me full circle to one of my oft stated beliefs,

The human mind and perceptive system is not capable of actualy comprehending or knowing in any meaningful way anything which could potentially be described as a 'omnipotent/god/creator'.

All attempts to do so represent human need, and human thought including texts such as the Old and New Testaments, the Quran, the Vedas ect.. ect...

The infinite regression of 'X' to my mind represents the boundaries of what can be Believed, and supported by evidence, everything on the other side of the regression of 'X' Horizon, is not even valid enough to represent conjecture, it rests in the realm of hope, wishing, desiring, wanting ect..

It seems to me that when someone says they believe, when refering to something that cannot be supported in any empirical way or through logical reasoning, they have allowed themselves to imagine that they believe, when in fact they WISH.

I do not in fact think there is anything wrong with wishing, I wish the New Testament was a truthful account. I want to believe it all very much. BUT the more I learn about it's history the less I believe (supported by reading, research and logic) that the Man Jesus was in any way divine, or even claimed to be so, I think Apostolic Authority is the flimsiest argument for authenticity of a text I have encountered and that there are some unfortunate uses of statistics in the arguments used to support the provenance of the texts. E.G. the argument that the NT is 99.5 percent acurate, because a reading the same as current usage can be found in one or other of the old codex. A more telling Statistic is that there are alternate readings for more than 50% of verses in the Gospels.

One particular Verse in John is the only clear cut support in the NT for the concept of the trinity, and that is a verse that is completely absent from some old codex. I am aware that I have developed some atypical interpretations of the bible, but they are based on the evidence I have found, often on the Catholic site New Advent but elsewhere as well, including John Allegro's book on the dead sea scrolls.

Yet in the face of good evidence, some people continue to believe without evidence for their perspective, and despite evidence to the contrary, or I would argue they Wish for it to be true, because the weight of personal responsibility for individual action feels for them unbearable. Of course this is argued to be faith, but it seems more like wishing to me.

And it is wishing of this Kind which produces unthinking obedience to authority, cultivated by the Catholic Church, particularly in its clergy, and Personaly I think is one of the direct and original causes of Fascism.

I believe, because I have been told, are the strongest manacles in history, they disempower, disenfranchise and de-humanise people making them easier to control.

It often seems to be to me that the answer to a question of 'I Dont Know' is forbidden, and belief and faith are used to eliminate what for me is a far more useful idea, HOPE.

'I just see Him. I can't explain it to anyone, but I just do.'

Jez would say;

'I just see them (the gods). I can't explain it to anyone, but I just do.'

I don't doubt either of them but all seeing is done by the brain and the brain can do funny things. A friend's little girl has a form of dyslexia where black words on white paper tend to float off the page and can end up in the corner of the room near or on the ceiling.



Alji

"'Gods' may have been created by humans, I tend to think that its way more complicated than that, but even if we did that would not mean they were not then real."

the difficulty with that idea is when you begin to receive information from your gods which you could not have constructed yourself, because it ties in too closely with information received by someone else about the same thing who is in tune with the same gods.

I've given illustrations in the past about what I mean, when Noggin or toxx or whoever has asked, but just one tiny example from the past month:
I hate reading tarot. For all sorts of reasons I shan't bore you with. but I have a close friend who always asks me to do that when i see her. And, because we've known each other for so many years, I do it. And one of the reasons is that, usually, I see too many options in the reading which obscures a clear reading (I prefer another method, but that's neither here nor there). So the last time I did it, a few weeks ago, there was something, for once, in clear terms about the success of a legal action or some other disopute with authority. Except she tells me everything and she never mentioned anything of the kind, so I fudged the reading. And tried again, because she asked. And eventually I asked her "Is there something you're not telling me? Have you got some problem of this kind?" And that's when she coughs up that her only son has used documents she gave him in trust to obtain money fraudlently in her name, and her employer is now considering whether to sack her and tell the police. And when I looked at he cards again, there's one there which indicates the presence in the dispute of a child.
Damn. I hate tarot.

But to get back to philosophical discussion: Can we create something which has more power/information/abilities than ourselves? That can sometimes shake up our own lives? Technologically, I suppose so; but technology cannot operate of its own accord, but only if people use it. We're talking of independent personalities here, who act according to their own knowledge and whims in our lives.

"Thanks for the Greek account, E&C."

Try this one, Andrew:
http://www.ancientgreece.com/mythology/mythology.htm

I didn't try to check out the one given by E&C because all creation myths assume the pre-existence of something, and I'm not sure it matters what we call it. It's just that the 'something' in polytheistic creation myths is never omnipotent, like the Christian God.

SD.



The God of Theism is unchanging and non-physical. Is that the kind of you had in mind? I don't think so, and this objection seems to me to be a desparate clutching at straws. I have heard this kind of thinking used as an argument against an endless sequence of universes. The entropy point makes sense if you assume (can you?) that it is conserved between universes!

If you have a headache and say so, how do you reply if I ask why you believe that you have? You just do, or just feel it. You are the authority, although you might have no knowledge of anatomy and physiology.

toxx

Thanks HS - that's quite impressive! I'll take another look...

<>

So having God is like having a bad headache? Yes, that would explain a lot.


az

Plantinga suggests that the fact of God is a basic fact.



To say that something exists is to say that it is necessarily self-identical. That's too true to be good - I admit. Let's just skip 'existence' and just consider 'There is a God'.

toxx

Hi Fathom.



God can use whatever He likes for time, being omnipotent and omniscient. It has occurred to me that He might have a personal time dimension - without applying it to anything else until He creates the universe. I don't think He has any personal use for space, but even so He endowed the universe with that too!

toxx