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

az: <>

Well, apparently that's where the disagreement comes in. I'd say that if you're going to believe in something that isn't real... what's the value? At some point you have to interact with the real world and the people in it, and if you don't have a common frame of reference, you're not going to be successful in those interactions. The consequences of failure are not pretty.

And the people who would agree most with the above statement: fundies. The only difference is they've somehow managed to convince themselves that all that nonsense is real, and they're fighting to defend that erroneous point of view.

The fundy thinks the consequences of that failure to interact is an eternity of hell. The intolerant atheist believes the consequences of that failure are war, famine, disease, etc. And one side of that argument has been proven demonstrably correct. The other has absolutely nothing to support their point of view.

PC: <<

I *believe* in the existence of God. I make no 'claim', in the sense that I will happily say what I believe, for your consideration, but I do not ask you to believe it. That's your part. winkeye



What do you do? God is a sentient being, just as you are.



'Best' explained by God? For some people, yes, for others, no.>>


Err... you didn't actually answer any of the questions.

Hi BtM!



And it is the certainty of both that they have access to exclusive truth that is the problem, *not* their actual beliefs. The religious fundamentalist and the intolerant atheist - and any other blinkered dogmatists we've not specifically named - are the enemies of mankind, individually and collectively, and should be treated as such. Conversely, the more moderate atheists and believers - the vast majority - offer no harm to anyone, and they too should be treated accordingly.



Err, the questions themselves are not that easy to answer. So, in response to the difficult-to-answer question "What does God do?" I asked an equally difficult-to-answer question: what do *you* do?

The other question - Is there anything that is best explained by the existence of god? - is rendered problematic by "best". Since there are a near-infinite number of hypotheses to account for almost anything, choosing the 'best' one in any situation or context is difficult if not impossible.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Surely the very fact that there are laws of physics show the existence of a designer and/or creator. Whether it's still around or not no-one can tell.

>>"Surely the very fact that there are laws of physics show the existence of a designer and/or creator."

Possibly to the simplistic anthropomorphiser, but not to everyone.

Sometimes the simplistic way is the best. Would you like to expand on your critique?

Now...(I know I've mentioned this before) I have a friend who is a professor of theoretical particle physics. Obviously a clever guy - albeit lacking sense in many areas of life. He's also a staunch atheist. A while back, he said to me 'I guess that in physics there's something that you *could* call god if you really wanted...but that god's nothing to do with you or me and is definitely not the same kind of god that all the religions talk about.'

So, yes, if you want to stretch an definition simply to win an argument...

A bit like demonstrating that dogs the same as cats by re-defining dog as something that can go either 'woof' or 'miaow'.

Would you like to expand on your 'Surely'?
That one word does cover quite a lot of ground.

The laws of nature are a precondition of our existence, and therefore say absolutely nothing about any god. Without them, stars wouldn't exist, neither would the earth, neither would we.

I don't think they're evidence of anything.

My major atheist revelation came age 13 or so. We were being given RE lessons by our headmaster, a CofE canon. He was discussing creation. He said that we now know that the universe was created in the Big Bang...but we had to ask 'Who was responsible for the Big Bang?' But we didn't have to ask 'How did God get there?', because He is simply the thing that has always been there.

Perturbed at this circular definition, I stuck up my hand and asked 'So why can't we say that it's the universe that's always been around?' He swiftly moved on to the next topic.

By the word "surely", I mean that with no doubt in my mind I believe that it is impossible to have a rule without having a rule-maker. Even the use of the term "laws of nature" implies a law created by something or someone that you call nature. Without your "nature" or in my case "architect" or in someone elses case "god" the universe would be entirely random.

>>"I mean that with no doubt in my mind I believe that it is impossible to have a rule without having a rule-maker."

It does seem to be getting close to saying "*I* can't imagine how something could exist without being created by some sentient being [possibly a little like me]", or "I can't imagine any other way that a particular trick could be done, so it must be magic."
Personally, I'm happy not to have the history of the universe constrained by my imagination, or lack thereof.

>>"Even the use of the term "laws of nature" implies a law created by something or someone that you call nature."

No it doesn't - it implies a regularity that *is* in nature - it makes no comment on where the regularity came from, or when.

>>"Without your "nature" or in my case "architect" or in someone elses case "god" the universe would be entirely random."

I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean. "Without things having some kind of order, there wouldn't be any kind of order". True, I guess, but not exactly illuminating.

>>it is impossible to have a rule without having a rule-maker

Why? This is a conceptual leap you must make. There's a difference between 'laws' as in nature and as in legislation. The first are what we've discovered about how the universe is. The second are simply arbitrary agreements between a bunch of people. The same with architects - an architect can make the roof sloped of flat. The universe has to be the way it is...because it just is.

How do we come to this conclusion? Zero evidence of any cases where the laws of nature have suddenly changed or are inconsistent. The architect hasn't ever revised the plans.

voodoobluesman, I think you're getting things back to front here. If we start out assuming that the universe exists, then it is a necessary precondition that for complex things (like ourselves) to exist, then there must be some regularity in what we see around us.

<>
Yeah, but you can have a blind watchmaker. The phrase 'laws of nature' originated in a time when it *was* assumed that god had created everything and to understand nature was to better understand god (and a better translation would have been 'rules', implying something a bit more ad hoc than what we mean today).

Evolution proves beyond all reasonable doubt (hi, P-C) that bottom up processes can lead to intensely complex things within the universe, so why do you assume that whatever started the universe had a 'top-down' approach, rather than the 'bottom-up' approach which characterises what we observe all around us?

Simulpost!

And think of it another way...wasps, termites, beavers, thrushes, stickelbacks...they all build houses without following an architect's plans.

I'm perfectly happy to accept my lack of intelligence or even the fact that my beliefs are not the same as others. I just believe that it is an impossibility to have a rule (whether it is a simple rule like light travelling in a straight line or the more complex) without a rule-maker, blind or not.

The old terms like God or Nature can just be the best way to describe something at the time with the understanding that they had. That's why architect (or designer)works better for me. Whether this is your own personal God or not, I have no idea.

Don't forget that we only understand 5% of what makes up the universe, so we're probably all wrong.

I'm still waiting for a convincing alternative explanation. I think I may have to invade you all to force my opinions on you! (hehehe)

>>I'm perfectly happy to accept my lack of intelligence

Oh, come of it! 'I'm not intelligent' is a cop out. You could understand if you tried hard enough! Jaysus...it's not as if *I'm* particularly clever!

>>or even the fact that my beliefs are not the same as others.

Here's where you have to start...the difference between belief and knowledge. I can give you numerous examples of thinks which look, at first sight, as though they have been manufactured according to a plan but which study has shown don't require plans at all...a snowflake...a termite's nest...any organism you care to name...Linux software.

To counter this, it's not enough to say 'I don't believe it - there was *so* an architect!' You have to show me the architect.

>>Don't forget that we only understand 5% of what makes up the universe, so we're probably all wrong.

But in the 5% we *have* sampled we have yet to find any inconsistency in the physics. Think of it this way...if you're making soup, you only have to try a spoonful to know whether it needs more salt. You don't have to eat the lot! Sure, the 95% Dark Matter is still a bit of a puzzle...but we're by no means at the stage of being able to say that it fundamentally can't be explained.

Hi VBM!

I'm afraid the godless heathens (hi guys! ) are probably right.



You may believe that, but I can see not a single reason to justify your belief. If the universe acts consistently in a particular way, fair enough. We might observe this, and formulate a rule or law to which the universe appears to be conforming. But the law/rule is man-made. The universe just *is*.

Of course there *may be* a rule-maker, but there is no evidence or reasoning of which I am aware that can show that there *must be* a rule-maker. At this stage in the discussion, I think it's on you to produce such evidence, or to acknowledge that the existence of a rule-maker is not definite, even though the rule(s) apparently exist(s).

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Also, on the issue of words, just as 'law' may tempt someone into imagining a literal, living, sentient lawmaker, equating 'God' and 'Nature' even partially does risk resulting in some kind of faint image of sentient-guy-with-white-beard tinkering away behind the scenes even in a naturalistic universe.
Nature (as in *just* nature), and nature (as in God's creation) are two pretty different concepts, even if those concepts may be mapped to the same physical universe.