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

'we also know that Jesus wasn't just dreamt up. He did live'

You may know that, but, as I made clear above, I very definitely don't know it.

As far as the claims go, just as a personal opinion, I would expect that i the claims were true, there would be a hell of a lot more evidence. I realize that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but an absence of evidence is certainly suggestive, particularly when it comes to earth shattering claims.


(and when the limited evidence is apparently contradictory we really should be scratching our heads quite vigorously before we decide to turn turn our backs on our parents, give all our possessions away and not trim the corners of our beards.)

Maybe you don't _know_ it, but it's not unreasonable to accept that he lived.

<< I would expect that i the claims were true, there would be a hell of a lot more evidence. I realize that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but an absence of evidence is certainly suggestive.>>

Why do you expect there to be more evidence than there is?

Maybe there isn't as much evidence as you'd like there to be, but there isn't a total absence of evidence. You, however, talk as if there were a total absence.

It seems, for whatever reason, as if God wants us to take a bit of a step of faith towards him. It does seem to me that the evidence for or against God is not irrefutable in either direction, if you do/don't choose to believe. Of course God could just prove his existence to us all beyond any doubt, but he seems to stop short of doing so. I'm not saying I like the fact that he does, but it just seems that way. Otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion.

I would have expected some single contemporary or near contemporary author to actually notice Him or even a single event associated with Him (His resurrection, for example). Face it: the only evidence is the Gospels and the Epistles which are vague, contradictory, of questionable authorship, date, and overall authenticity. Nobody except a small bunch of followers (none of whom seem to have written anything down) even noticed Him.

Of course, in the immortal words of Tim Rice:

"If you'd come today you would have reached a whole nation:
Israel in 4 B.C. had no mass communication."



I only want to know.

>>Of course God could just prove his existence to us all beyond any doubt, but he seems to stop short of doing so<

Yet those non-believers whom He allegedly created are destined for eternal torment, merely for exercising their God-given faculties of reason and logic.

Odd behavior for an omnibenevolent being, wouldn't you say?

Seriously, a question for you Christians:

I look at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and I see another group of Christians.

What do you see? Are they Christian?

If not, why not?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F19585?thread=534826&show=20&skip=235#pi236

"But what there is not is anything approaching a convincing case that God almost certainly doesn't exist."

One problem is that the term 'god' is used to refer to lots of different things. To some it is the triple-O (omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent), to others it is much more powerful being than ourselves (but not unlimited) and to yet others it is unefinable. There's plenty more as well.
Some of the could conceivable exist. Some of them could not. Depends which one you adhere to and which one the arguments are about as to wether the arguments are persuasive or even relevant to you.

BTW, since we have some involved believers here, perhaps someone could provide a definition I haven't been able to really find. What is a 'personal god'? I always thought it to be, from my upbringing, a god with which you could have personal communication rather than having to go through some intermediary such as a church, priest or saint. But I've come across a few uses of the phrase which don;t seem to match that.

Mikey2,

"I have 'demonstrated' on the "I'm going to raise a mass theological debate" thread that the New Testament documents are as reliable as historical documents can possibly get."

Really? What happened in 6BC? ("my experience and research informs me that a supernatural, cataclysmic event of universal significance occured around 6 B.C. and over the following 30 years or so.")

If it was the birth of Christ how is it that these reliable historical documents can't get the date - of arguably the most important event in the whole of Christian history - correct to within five years?



As for the eternal fire, let's look at that for a moment. Aside from considerable confusion over exactly how you might avoid that fate, if it exists:

"1. By faith alone -- "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast." --Ephesians 2:8-9
2. By faith and water baptism -- "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." --Mark, 16:16
3. By faith and good works -- "And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." --John 5:29
4. By predestination, (my personal favourite) -- "What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
--Romans 9:14-24"

Thanks for that, Taliesin (on the God Delusion thread).

It seems clear that what goes to the eternal fire is not your physical body, since that stays on Earth (or we wouldn't need cemetaries - and murder would be much harder to prove) but some non-material soul. The description of eternal fire, gnashing of teeth etc seems much less relevant to a spiritual existance than to a corporeal one, does it not? Could it not be that this is just a mess of inconsistent fairy stories intended to frighten (and control) the uneducated and you've simply got yourself emotionally attached to it? I suggest what you are afraid of is not eternal fire (because even if you are a Christian there is no clear way of avoiding it and there are so many inconsistencies in this supposed threat that it is hard to see what kind of threat it really is) but merely losing that "acceptance and love" that your faith gave you when, as you say yourself, you needed it.


F

<<"But what there is not is anything approaching a convincing case that God almost certainly doesn't exist.">>

Been having another butcher's at Dawkins' book. As people have pointed out here, there's a sort of sophistry going on with him. He lays out three options: chance, intelligent design and natural selection.

He then says the choice is between ID and NS, in such a way as to make it look as though chance plays no part in NS. But it plainly does, since NS depends on the possibilities thrown up by chance mutations.

I suppose what he means is that once you've got those mutations, the question of which ones survive to reproduce and which ones die out is down to which are 'fittest', and not chance.

But the fact remains that NS depends heavily on chance to produce the right mutations.

natural selection would work whether or not chance generated the mutations. I could personally engineer lots of mutated animals and let them out into the wild, and it would be natural selection which selected the fittest. Random mutation and natural selection are two different things. To use one to discredit the other (or someones perception of the other) is not valid. Chance does not play any part in NS. But it is the mechanism whereby the population upon which natural selection works is produced.

Intelligent Design
Chance
Natural Selection

Let's play 'hunt the slipper'.

In the game of 'hunt the slipper' one person (player 1) hides the slipper and then gives clues to player 2 as to where it is - the clues are simply to say 'warmer' when player 2 nears the slipper and 'colder' when they move away.

The Intelligent Design version is a bit boring because after hiding the slipper player 1 then immediately (or after six days ) tells player 2 where it is.

The Chance version takes a bit longer because after hiding the slipper player 1 sits back to watch player 2 search for it unaided.

In the Natural Selection version the game is played as described above and player 2, although making a few random moves, is gradually led to the slipper.

Applying this (childish) analogy to nature:
In the ID version God is player 1 and life is designed to fit the world and vice versa (i.e. given the slipper right away).
In the Chance version there is a likelihood that simple life may arise - the player may randomly move towards the slipper in his hunt - but complex life is unlikely because this would be harder than finding a slipper hidden in a continent sized rain forest.
In the NS version life will need some random event to get started but once able to self replicate imperfect replicas will respond to the effects of being 'warmer' (better suited to their environment) by replicating more easily and 'colder' by not replicating as well. Over time there will be more 'warmer' individuals than 'colder' and the organism will have evolved. Evolution is generally towards complexity because this tends to improve the survival of the organism - moves it towards the slipper. Some organisms have however 'devolved', most notably parasites, from a more complex form to a simpler one.

Note that in real life the slipper is a moving target and can never be 'found', only approached as the environment constantly changes. An intelligent Designer might do this for fun - just as someone might dismantle a model railway layout and rebuild it differently to keep it interesting. Chance wouldn't have a chance of keeping up with a changing environment but Natural Selection, while losing a few species that are unable to adapt, generally carries on relentlessly hunting the slipper.

So; chance does play a part in Natural Selection but only in the lives of individuals and how well they happen to suit their environment. This works in two ways, they might be well adapted to the environment or the environment might have changed to suit them (or the reverse) which will affect how well they manage to replicate (breed). Note also that the environment includes factors such as interaction with predators, prey and members of their own species.

F

<>

Yes, that's right.

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Exactly. So NS depends on chance to produce the mutations it needs. If chance doesn't come up with any useful mutations, then NS is screwed.

To get from the first simple life form to a human being via NS, you're going to need one lucky mutation after another, in an incredible string of good luck. It must be at least as unlikely as, say, someone winning the lottery three times in one lifetime. At least, I reckon . Maybe there's a better comparison someone can suggest.

anhaga

You say that the NT documents are vague, questionable authorship, not authentic etc. Is it just because they contain material that challenges your worldview? The documents stand up to close scrutiny. As historical documents they are without equal in reliability. That's why the contents should be taken seriously.

As for whether mormons are christians...a lot depends on what you understand by the term 'christian'. I'm sure there are genuine and counterfeit christians inside and outside official church denominations. What really counts is what goes on inside a person...not the label he or she wears.

mikey2

The rather dishonest thing some people seem to try to do is pretend that evolution doesn't depend on chance at all.

No, you're quite right. The chances of getting to EXACTLY the kind of life we see now are VASTLY less likely than winning the lottery even three weeks in a row. However the power of NS is such that, once started, life inevitably progresses to take advantage of any ecological niche. It just happens to have come out like it has on Earth.

NS did not set out with us in mind - it just worked out this way. This is a common misunderstanding of the process.

F

'Is it just because they contain material that challenges your worldview?'

No. I say it because I have training and experience with historical documents. They are not without equal in reliability and they do not stand up in every particular to close scrutiny.

'What really counts is what goes on inside a person...not the label he or she wears.'

Does that mean that in theory there could be Muslims or Bhudists or even atheists who are in fact Christian?

<>

Wow, that's an interesting thought!

Theoretically at least it does make sense.
It's like saying, if you get a machine to generate any number randomly between 1 and a million, the chances of it generating, say, the number 7 are 1 in a million. But the chances of it generating a number are 100% (unless it breaks down or summat, of course).

However, the problem still remains that, although there may be a number of mutations at any stage that could take a species forward a step, there would still be a small chance that one of those mutations would occur.

Even given Fathom's good point about there being more than just one possible eventual outcome, I'm sure that the majority of mutations are at best unhelpful and at worst harmful.