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

In this thread http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F135418?thread=1203800 earlier today I observed that God does not exist and was taken to task for asserting an unprovable universal negative or something like that. My position is neatly summarised by Epicurus: Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? Epicurus addresses two related problems simultaneously: the question of what attributes are necessary to entitle a being to be called a god, or "God", and secondly whether such a being exists. The first is a question of definition. If we define God as someone capable of destroying cities, or saving lives, then probably a handful of Gods exist. But this would be contrary to the spirit of the question. Epicurus demands that a God worthy of the name is omnipotent and good, and concludes, rightly that the existence of evil is inconsistent with the existence of such a being. Theologians defending the existence of God end up seeking to justify earthquakes and so forth as ultimately good. This theological good is incomprehensible to us and clearly unrelated to human good. It is meaningless. Thus they have by rhetorical device abandoned the premise that God is good, leaving open the possibility of an omnipotent but amoral being. (I do not consider such a being possible either, but that is yet another thread.)

Epicurus' sayings are only problemattic, IMO, if we assume that God created the universe as a human plaything, and nothing and no-one else matters. If God - if there is one - is a God of the whole universe, not just humans, then Epicurus' reasoning doesn't work any more, does it?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

PC, how so?

Epicurus argument is about the impossibility of a good god, not about the impossibility of an indifferent god. This is the opposite of what you have just said, so it is difficult to see where you are coming from.

Well when you say we it does not include me. I let others do that. Now according to some round here God has told us in the Bible and Koran what He is like. However these two God seems to have a split personality.

In one book he tells us not to drink alcohol in the other he encourages us to drink wine. In one book he comes to earth as a human and in the other says he would never do such a thing.

However the fact that I dont always call someone when I say I will although I could does not mean that I dont exist. It just menas that I say one thing and do another. Would you trust a known indiscriminate killer who swathes down all the first born of Egypt because Pharo wont let the jews go to give you moral guidance.

This God if he is real is a very dodgy customer, he claims to have knocked together the unverse in seven days when we know that's not true. Ive heard of a few cowboy builders making outrageuos claims but that takes the biscuit.

In fact the conflicting descriptions is another trick or dodgy builders multiple addresses and phone numbers so you cant pin 'em down.

AS Chuck D would say, "Dont believe the hype"

one love

Going slightly off-topic: can I assume then Blicky that you've had run ins with cowboy builders?

Anyway, the best response I ever heard to "the universe wasn't made in seven days" was "how long is a day in Heaven?"

Anyone accusing you of asserting the unproveable universal negative is guilty of the fallacy of shifting the burden of proof. The existence of god is an extraordinary claim which violates every known tenet of the physical world. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. It is not your task to prove the negative, it is their task to prove the affirmative. Until such time as they come up with evidence or arguments which have any merit whatsoever, the non-existence of god can be treated as axiomatic.

Also, is the cake layered?

So aptly put, Blathers!

The existence of a god requires faith which does not require proof. The more we are able to explain and prove, surely the harder it should become for the religeous to 'explain' god.

The reality is that they resort to the 'arguments' that god is beyond explanation and does not need to be explained which dodges the issue.

I know little of the Koran but my experience of the Old and New testaments is that they seem to describe essentially two different gods.

turvy

Blathers, I don't quite agree. I don't demand that theists prove their position. Just give their reasons and be willing to discuss them. I don't think the idea of burden of proof is at all useful in discussions like these - you just end up with people complaining that others have misplaced the burden.

But I like the idea of a "burden of reason". Supporters of both sides of any issue should be able to give their reasons.

<>

True, so we do, and that's because God (by definition) is too big for our explanations, but that doesn't mean that God's revelation cannot be explained, *within the context of that revelation*.

Bold: <>

For me that depends entirely on the context of the discussion. Often times I'm interested in why people believe the things they believe. But in the context of a debate on the existence of god, anyone who tries to argue the affirmative had better show up with some proof, or they're wasting their time.

Della: << but that doesn't mean that God's revelation cannot be explained, *within the context of that revelation*.>>

Just so long as you think circular reasoning is valid, anyway. I could declare you a Froot Loop and then go on to explain all your actions from that perspective, but it doesn't make you any Frootier.

On one side, there *is* the point that absence of eidence is not evidence of absence.

On the other side, there is the fact that various wonders of nature that people *used* to think were good evidence for the existence of deities can now be shown to have more down-to-earth explanations.

Responses to two posts.

Della said "True, so we do, and that's because God (by definition) is too big for our explanations, but that doesn't mean that God's revelation cannot be explained, *within the context of that revelation*."

God(s) though, are a human construct. It is not god that is beyond explanation but gods work, so the faithful would have us believe. It is only the human race that requires some sort of explanation for everything and in the absence of an explanation has created god(s) to fill the gap. Gods revelation can *only* be explained within the context of that revelation, because that is the only place that god exists.

Potholer said "On one side, there *is* the point that absence of eidence is not evidence of absence." and I agree. I would add though that religion offers a wealth of "evidence" which at its root requires the acceptance, on faith, of a deity.



I do not suggest that god, religion and faith do not have a rational basis but that basis is not the existence of god but the need for certainty and explanation and a search for meaning.

I am quite happy with the Darwinian model and the concept of the selfish gene. I am also happy with the weak anthropic principle of the Universe. The Universe and its contents do not need a god to make it wonderful. It is already staggeringly beautiful and richly complex (is that oxymoronic?) from the micro to macro scale and for me wants for nothing more.

turvy... I'll get me hat, shall I?

<>

Inevitably, though, believers are going to have to disagree with you on this, turvy... We believe that God is objectively real, and not just a human construct, that in fact, it's odd to claim that humans made God, when it seems to us that God made humans!

(By means of evolution, I hasten to add.)

Nevertheless, the point where I get cross, is where some people say, without any qualification - 'God doesn't exist'. That's at the least, debatable! Although I know truth isn't decided by majority vote, I'd like to point out that the majority of the world's population believe in the existence of God or gods...

Atheists see themselves as the few, the proud, the brave and the bright. Well, they're partly right...

So would you have qualms about saying, without any qualification, 'Santa Claus doesn't exist'? Can you see why for some of us there is not really any difference there? Its intellectually sloppy maybe, but we can't qualify *everything*.

I do have qualms in the sense that if I discuss ideas of God with that assumption embedded into my speech then I'm effectively blocking believers from the conversation, which is exactly what an arguement hungry little bugger like me doesn't want to do . Plus its kind of rude in the sense of talking about people rather than to them.

Would you believe it I think my time on this site has actually mellowed me out?

Perhaps since both God and this cake exist beyond the edge of the universe they are one and the same. And perhaps there are also fruitloops. And this is how we get the Holy Trinity. The Cake, The Loop, The Holy Spirit.

>>"Nevertheless, the point where I get cross, is where some people say, without any qualification - 'God doesn't exist'. That's at the least, debatable! Although I know truth isn't decided by majority vote, I'd like to point out that the majority of the world's population believe in the existence of God or gods."

Unless you get cross with people saying God does exist (unless they qualify it with '...(to me)'), why do you get cross when someone says God doesn't exist?
Do you implicitly acknowledge that religious claims for existence are inherently personal?


The majority of the population who believe in deities also seem unable to come to a majority agreement about which deity is the real one, and/or how to reconcile the seemingly different and incompatible deities into one unified description. If there is an actual deity or collection of deities, they somehow have ended up being interpreted quite differently by varied religions.
That *would* seem to cast some doubt on the claims of divine communication to ensure the accuracy of religious texts, or on the accuracy of (perfectly honestly claimed) personal communication with one or more Gods.

Similarly, if two people can pray to the *same* God for guidance on a moral issue and come to different conclusions, it does seem logical that either they are both getting through their God and being told different things, that at least one of them isn't getting the connection they *honestly believe* they are getting, or that at least one of them is pretending to have had a connection.

Ah, but Santa Claus and God are not the same class of entity... Santa Claus is a fat guy in a red suit, essentially invented by the Coca Cola company. Prior to that, he was a different sort of being altogether - one who, in Holland, was accompanied by a sidekick who distributed lumps of coal to naughty children.

Saint Nicholas of Myra may or may not have had something to do with the European entity.

God is wholly other. No one (not even children, as I remember from my own experience when I was one) seriously believes in Santa Claus. It's a game for families to have fun with. God is another matter entirely.

'God' or whatever diety ye care to belive in was a creation of a mind your mind, our mind, which were not satisfied with teh world about each that we saw, and is a wholely irrational belief and belief system and irrational concept, which for some reason some people see fit to continue to this day of seemingly otherwise enlightentment... continue if you must but let us not beset this smithen heoracasty on to ohters.

*Topic drift alert*

Sorry, Della, but your statement about Santa Claus is wrong on a number of points. He wasn't invented by the Coca Cola Company, they basically adapted an already existing - and popular - image for their advertising campaign (see for instance http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A6084218).

Before he was transformed into Santa Claus, he was indeed known as Sint Nikolaas or Sinterklaas in the Netherlands (and in Belgium, parts of Germany and IIRC even in some regions of Scandinavia). Yes, he *was* the bishop of Myra, and he was tall, stately, dressed in a red bishop's frock and riding a grey horse. He did have a sidekick, Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) - a figure of some controversy in recent, politically correct times - who didn't just dish out punishment to naughty children (not lumps of coal, AFAIK, but a beating with a birch ), but also presents and candy to those who had been good.

As for personal experience, I have *never* believed in God, but I did believe in Sinterklaas when I was a kid (most Dutch children younger than, say, six to nine years still do). And the feast of Sinterklaas is much more than 'a game for families to have fun with'. Explaining that in detail would take this thread even further off-topic, but to indicate how seriously Sinterklaas is still taken over here: For those of you who are sick of the Chrismas hype, come to Holland. There's hardly a store that would dare to push Chrismas paraphernalia before the 5th of December, which is Saint Nicholas' Eve. They are, of course, pushing Sinterklaas stuff with a vengeance, but that's not the same, isn't it?

* end of topic drift*

On the topic of God, I basically agree with Epicurus, though I'd like to add one thing. If the current theories on the origin of the universe are correct, then *something* must have caused the Big Bang. According to the laws of thermodynamics, something cannot be created out of nothing, so the point of infinite mass and infinite density from which the universe sprang, must have been created by something. You could call this 'first impulse' God, but I don't think it actually is a sentient entity (it's more likely a force of nature), let alone that it has the power to influence the daily lives of the people on this planet.