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

Enclosing a word in quotes is a well-understood stand-in for "the word 'word'".

It's a debating point! The formula is valid but the premises may not be.

I would like to hear you explain and justify your statement "it is impossible to predicate God".

If there is no god, who pushes up the new Kleenex?

I thought we pulled them up.

*sits in the corner,quietly colouring in his picture book*
Fascinating!

Can we take a vote on whether that really is a green crayon?

Of course it is green. God's favourite colour after all .

You can't say God is a thing or that He is The Word or a word because God is a concept. If we describe God in any way we limit Him (Her, It or whatever). How can you limit the infinite? In the Old Testament God says "I am that I am." The only way to prove the existance of the Devine is to follow the instructions of those who have followed the paths laid down by the great spiritual leaders of the past and then you can only prove it to yourself. I have a quote on my website from the Indian scriptures The Bhagavad Gita
"...many are the paths of men, but they all in the end come to Me."

Alji

Kind of like when people claim that God exists because we have a word for it. Duh!

God is a word

God is a concept.

God is a construct.

Whoops. I let my real self in there.

If god exists, he/she can look after himself/herself. What about us humans?

Us humans can still look after ourselves either way.

aljis is right. god cannot be predicated, because he is said to be unknowable. we cannot limit what is perfect by our imperfect language

God is said to be unknowable. God is also said to be unbelievable.

"We cannot limit what is perfect by our imperfect language." This perfection is a matter of faith, which we do not all share.

If God is perfect, then he/she can look after him/herself. The perfection may be badly expressed in words, but not diminished. Or are you saying we should not speak about God in case we diminish his/her perfection? In that case there is no perfection, omnipotence etc.

In my opinion, ' God is Santa Claus for grown-ups'. Or, to put it another way, belief in the supernatural, miracles, the big daddy in the sky who looks after us all, etc., is a sad reflection on the progress of the human race in the light of all that has been discovered and understoood, particularly over the last two or three centuries.

People generally believe in what they would LIKE to be true until they are forced to accept something else, myself included. It is usually a measure of maturity when a person begins to drop the wishful, unfounded or badly founded beliefs of childhood and youth. I see some signs of intellectual maturity in the growing numbers of people who are ignoring the established religions completely (in my part of the world, anyway) and the reduced number who are joining religious societies.

Unfortunately (as I see it) most societies in the world continue to indoctrinate their children with beliefs in one or more supernatural beings, life after death and so on. By the time they have begun to be able to think for themselves most of them are unable to escape from their years of programming, even when observation and logic make it obvious that, to say the least, there is something fishy going on.

The question posed is 'Why did God disappear in a puff of logic?' Answer: That is what happens when false ideas, however revered, attractive and long-standing, are exposed to the light of logic. It is not the god or gods that have disappeared (they ever existed), it is the IDEA that has disappeared. And good riddance!

The strengths of those who believe in the supernatural are (1) the long history of belief which precedes them, (2) The comfort of having a type of Santa Claus to look after them and (3) the impossibility of proving a negative proposition, in this case, 'God doesn't exist'. And so it carries on from generation to generation, honest people passing on to their children the lies that were passed down to them. Will it ever end? Sigh...



John Luke

It will probably never end.

Do we have something better to offer if there's no god in the deal.

(I think this is knon as the devil's advocate argument.)

It will probably never end.

Do we have something better to offer if there's no god in the deal.

(I think this is known as the devil's advocate argument.)

By the way, which god are we talking about here? We got lots to choose from...

I don't think God's existence should be disproven. It's extremely hard (if not impossible) to disprove the existence of a thing. I have never seen a unicorn, but that doesn't mean that they don't exist, right? They could be hiding under my bed. Back on track, I can't prove that they don't exist. I can bring in a box of air, and say, "Look! No unicorn. They don't exist." But I could also do that with apples or internal combustion engines.

But my original point, before I started to get off track, was that God's existence can't be disproven. It has to be proven, something it hasn't done yet. I will not believe in unicorns until their existence is proven and agreed upon. The same goes for gods, demons, sprites and faeries. The burden of proof falls on the believer.

~Wes

That's better - the argument turned round. The burden of proof should be on the believer. But believers rely on faith, which has very little to do with proof.

I don't believe I have a brain. I've never seen it, and have never even direcly had any experience with it. Other people say it exists, but I don't have any evidence for it.

What you have, Twinkle, is something inside your head that controls your actions, thoughts and glandular problems. For lack of better words we will call this a brain. You have not seen it directly, but you have seen its effects and possibly even the brains of other people. In addition, every scientist worldwide acknowledges the fact that all humans have brains. These scientists have also universally acknowledged that a brain is necessary for individual life.

Now, ask yourself a few questions. Are you physically like other people? Can you move, talk and post messages to the Guide? Does a CAT scan show colored spots in the middle of your head?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, then you probably have a brain.

Exactly. But we can't give God a CAT scan. Er, that is... There aren't really any reference points for religions; we don't have anything to compare the universe to.

But if they took my brain out, would I notice?