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

Thanks, I was just doing my thing!

Hey, someone want to buy me a nice shiny PC with all that cash?

- Jordan

I get this all the time with the "look at the beauty of a tree and tell me God cannot exist" type of argument. Aesthetics is a foible/facet of human nature. There is nothing intrinsically beautiful in anything at all. Philosophers are all but agreed that symmetry is pretty cool though. Subjectively, and in this sense we can mostly agree on a subjective experience, things are regarded as beautiful, miraculous or lots of other stuff. We agree that this is the case and decide that we are witnessing things that are so truly beyond our comprehension that they must be miracles. "Wow, a leaf, oh look over there, a sunset! I couldn't do THAT! WOW!"

Much as a Cosworth 500 would have seemed a miracle if it had started stage 3 of the Great Britain Rally in A.D. 345. Stuff looks complicated to us-then it don't. If it still does-and if parts of it always will-that's the way it is. I'm still really quite impressed that I can type this and someone from 'Somewhere Else'( Pooh Bear emphasis) can read it.

If you want to believe that something could come down and tell us off because we don't fear it or revere it enough that's fine by me- there are lots of you, I'd be daft to pick a fight with the largest organised group of terribly nice people in the whole of the closest bit of spinning rock.

We are all stars. Every atom in our bodies was once part of some cosmic gas cluster whooshing through a spacy bit of space. So what? Cool physics but nonetheless not miraculous or Godly. Wholly improbable but not even remotely likely to MEAN that there is some God doing the orchestating. Because we are blase or in terminal tailspin depending on your level of cynicism, as a race we have no need to fall back on 'whoo just look at the wonder of it all'. If we cease to be tomorrow in the great scheme of things (which is not admitted) it will not matter one jot.

Religion is more often than is openly admitted an armour that it's wearer uses to reflect to the world their own personal niceness. 'I go to church therefore I am good, and if I am good nothing bad will happen to me and mine and everyone will look levelly at me and not cast aspersions for I am as they, a nice person. We together can pretty much do whatever we like safe in the knowledge of our niceness'. It is less warm on my side of the playground but I know where I stand and any crisis of faith would need a miracle, and I'd quite like to see one of those; a nice old-time water/wine deal.

If someone could manage to look at me pityingly through the medium of print and offer to pray for me that usually gets things to the 'agree to disagree' stage.

Diversity, Hi
The Mach 3 Turbo doesn't actually flatten any large structures which is what I find disappointing. If I had a correctly spelled one, like yours, I may well be pleased with a close shave, although not the kind to be had by standing in a collapsing building. It was late, I was on the outside of much Chilean liquid.

I didn't say look at the beauty of a tree, I said it was a miracle that it exists. It's equally a miracle that ugly stuff exists.
nor did I say that anything would come down and give us a set of rules and regulations and 'tell us off.' Did I? because I don't believe in that sort of a god
I don't have to say 'Wow' look at that leaf or sunset, but for sure I couldn't do it.
Yes we live our lives and we die, but I'd rather be admiring a sunset than dwelling on the eternal whatever of it all.
and that's got nothing to do with going to church, which I don't do either.
That's the trouble with the world today we're all too cynical for our own good.
whatever means I don't care. so what you going to care about if the leaf and the sunset have become too dull to admire.

Hi Raindog. Here you will find the best argument I know for the existence of God, the kalam argument, summarised quite neatly: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/billramey/kalam.htm

Skim through that and then we can discuss, or search for 'kalam' in the 'Search Conversational Forums' engine on this site. You'll be directed mostly to earlier discussions in this thread between myself and others.

Have fun, Toxx.

Hi Jordan. Spotted you again on qq. On that link I just sent to Raindog, just above half way down under the heading 'Premise Two' appears: "Remember that nothing can be added to an infinite set. Any set to which can be added another member is not infinite, simply because another member could always be added."

I don't think it affects the kalam argument but perhaps you could point out to Bill Ramey or Craig (I think the latter must be the source of the idea) the error of his ways. Or have I misunderstood your qq post?

Oops, it's not all that wrong on further reading, Jordan. He's just been careless in distinguishing between an actual and a potential infinite. Don't recall you making that distinction. I think Eric would have been talking about an actual infinite which would beg the question in the context of the kalam and maybe Hilbert's argument too.

answers in order of who is online rather than postage.

Hi Toxx, I will read it, but not tonight-if you're on tomorrow I will come by and say Hi when it's read and fully digested.

Hasslefree- you started your earlier post with what appeared by it's context and phrasing to be a fact. The tone of your post led me to assume that you were one of our "all things bright and beautiful compadres". Clearly now I understand that you are of the "I don't believe in organised religion but..." types. Although it really is quite annoying to be typecast by people that know nothing about you. I am what? cynical? you know this how? because I have views that disagree with your own? they are to watch the sunset, not ponder the eternal truth bit and then hand down concrete facts based on the aforesaid not pondered stuff? Can I just ponder the stuff, form opinions, post to a thread that seems to be asking for just such a post (unless I misunderstand the title, which seems unlikely)and not ponder the miracle of life on earth and elsewhere-even in a 'I don't believe in organised religion but..' kind of way?

Can we please get to the 'praying for me bit'? This other stuff is worryingly circular. The term 'whatever' has taken on a particular colour in the last, what? 2-3 years? but to you it says 'cynicism'. What chance have we got to converse about these subjects with concrete 'facts' and heavy loading of words, replete with serious volte face arguments, taking the place of reasoned debate? Ponder the beauty of a tree and then tell me God cannot exist-but briefly and in words I don't find unsettling, and don't assume what I say is what I will be held to have said next time.

I'm extremely intrigued! Thanks, toxx, for that link!

I'm going to meditate on the 'actual' and 'potential' infinites. However, I recall no such distinction being made in the context of infinity - in fact, George Cantor (as I recall) made the statement that one could always add to infinity; thus, aleph-null + aleph-null = aleph-null.

The most likely scenario is that I'm misreading it, of course, but I have to look into the matter. Hopefully, I'll have the issue resolved pretty soon.

- Jordan

Toxx, there are an awful lot of ifs in the kalam argument. Doesn't it also show that God can't be infinite and therefore God must have been created at some time but then we get into infinite series again!

What the Old Testament shows us is that God is not all-good, not all-seeing, not all-knowing and not all-powerful!


Alji the Magus (don't forget to record your sun sign @ A712595 ) Pastor of the Church of Spiritual Humanism.

Alji. God is not infinite! Certainly not in size, which He doesn't have. God is perfect which isn't the same thing at all. God isn't everlasting either - He is eternal which is rather different. God created physics and everything in its domain - so He is outside physical considerations.

The bible contradicts itself. I just refer to the current philosophical concept of the God of Theism. My basis of thinking is sheer intellectual considerations, not ancient tomes. This conveniently defends me against all the criticisms of belief that I used to make. But then, I got fed up of knocking down a straw man and tried to see what strong arguments there were. I found the kalam.

The fact that there are 'ifs' means that you are free to think for yourself and discuss it with others. I find that much better than someone saying; 'Just have faith'. Could still believe in the tooth fairy if that were all there was to it!

Here's the key quote about Cantor (George or Gregor?) from that link: "But Cantor himself denied the existential possibility of the actual infinite. In correspondence with the Pope, he even suggested that the existential impossibility of the actual infinite could be used in a mathematical-metaphysical proof for the existence of God."

Perhaps you will be able to elucidate this quote too, Jordan: "Another way of stating the difference between an actually infinite set and a potentially infinite set is that the latter has identical ordinal and cardinal numbers, but the former has a cardinal number known as the aleph zero or aleph null and an ordinal number which designates the entire series of natural numbers."

Alji. I've just notice that the quote I just sent to Jordan continues: "A common objection at this point is that if an actual infinite cannot exist, and God is infinite, then God cannot exist. This objection is based on a confusion of the terms "infinite" and "actual infinite." An actual infinite is a technical concept found in set theory that refers to sets and collections, not to single beings."

Raindog
I reason that you are a bit cynical by your approach.
but not because it's different from mine.
Me, I battle my own cynicisms.

You've also made a peculiar assumption, from reading any posts here, that we'll get around to the praying for you stuff. It hasn't happened so far in nearly 5000 posts.
You've repeated the prayer stuff twice , so I make the assumption that this bit has not yet changed.
It's not what get's done here.

I think you asked for something miraculous as evidence of a God in your first post and therefore the topic seems on line.
Also if we are answering the main question, you haven't given me any evidence that a god of some kind does not exist.
I am merely following others by reasoning that creation is evidence of a cause- whatever that cause may turn out to be.

Jordan. I note that I first cited that link in my post #4178. Guess I found a better context for it this time!

I am not at all cynical regarding the subject-cynical is a (typically) loaded term that literally means to think that the worst outcome will occur, or to not respect accepted standards. I do not believe that there not being a God is a 'worst case',quite the otherwise mon brave, it is a truly liberating thing-bye
bye pretend man, hello personal responsibility. As for the accepted standards bit, well maybe. I just do not think that wasting time believing in something so silly as a God is something I am prepared to do. My argument is the complete opposite of how you see it to be; 'miracles' happen every single second, they do not point anywhere, certainly not to an ultimate being, our Lord and Creator. I cannot prove that God does not exist, nor can I prove that we were not created last Thursday by a poodle from Exeter, are you now going to believe in the poodle? honour the pooch? perhaps build huge bone shaped temples and torture millions to death if they too don't believe?
I don't literally mean pray for me. I mean get to the bit where we do just this-get to the 'you can't prove they don't exist' bit, with the believing side assuming some sort of moral superiority because they have the common decency not to drag the Big Guy in to prove himself, and part agreeing to disagree.
I don't want proof at all. Proof, or the lack of it still ties you in to the argument. My point was that even if I eventually turn out to be wrong I get a free miracle, which is nice. Like the poodle, lets call him Geoff, nobody will remember him in three seconds, and certainly nobody will think ' perhaps he's right-could be a poodle kind of deal' but we insist on wasting time, effort and resources differentiating ourselves from others based on the other fairy tales. If you read some of the (over)5000 posts this bit has happened many, many times.

Literally five minutes after I walked out of the building I realised what the statement meant - it was a formulation of precisely what I had been saying! The wording was confusing me. I said that adding a number to infinity still yielded infinity, and thus one can't add to infinity - as in, one cannot get a number bigger than infinity, and thus cannot add to it (without resorting to a higher-order infinity, of course). It was a subtlety of wording that I missed.

- Jordan

"God does not exist, nor can I prove that we were not created last Thursday by a poodle from Exeter, are you now going to believe in the poodle? honour the pooch? perhaps build huge bone shaped temples and torture millions to death if they too don't believe? "

No, since I haven't built any temples to the thing I do believe in, nor would I want anyone to be brought to a horrendous death in the name of the poodle !
You want to go with the poodle thing, because it's based on your individual experience and reasoning, who am I to tell you you're wrong even though it has absolutely no part of my reality?
Funny that you should think that a belief built on individual reasoning equals the religious fanatics nightmare vision.
I think I asked you before what you do believe in, just as a matter of interest between two contributors.

My belief does not negate responsibilty, in fact in these 5000 plus posts I'm the main antagonist against the idea that decrees a fate with no free will, as just that. A reason for lack of personal responsibilty. I'd go as far as to say we're all responsible for everything.
Mankind has spent thousands of years let alone 5000 posts trying to figure out 'who threw the ball' it's part of our nature to do so and possibly the reason you're posting here.

we all wonder who/what made us
the problem is we spend too long wondering about this
and not enough time trying to solve some of the worelds probelams
we need to realise that belife is not important
it is how we treet others and i can see no logic in
preaching peace and love and then ruthlessly killing
people because thay dont beleve in the same things as you
what does it matter who/what made us or which "holly" book we use
we should consentrate on the main message in the text and that as far
as i can see is that we are all equill and that life is sacored and
that we need to love and respect each other

-Anthea