And God said, Let there be light: and there was light

Why? This is hardly self-evident, so I await your demonstration.

 

Of course it is.
An omnipotent being would have no needs.
A being with all its needs perpetually met would have no emotions.
Without emotions, personality disintegrates.



Yet, the jealous, insecure, tantrum throwing God Of The Desert resembles exactly what you'd expect a desert nomad to come up with.
No theological tapdancing needed.

 

The last three I can see. I will still need a demonstration of how the first two fit in.

I can't see God not having emotion, experience and memory. I guess I will need a demonstration on that as well.

 

Why?
Don't you need a humanoid brain for those?
I thought God was immaterial?

 

you are either intentionally or blindly missing the whole point. Neither Bock, nor I, nor anyone else is claiming that this particular reality proves the existence of God or anything else about him - nor more than it would prove the existence of Santa.

The point that you are working so hard to ignore is that the LACK of the sort of exhaustive revelation you demand does not DISPROVE him.

Which is what you were implying by asking "why doesn't he just prove himself" (in so many words)

 

Why?

 

Always? How do you know this? Are you sure you are not just projecting your own experience and making it a universal principle simply because you haven't experienced anything else?

You'll have to demonstrate both of those points. I do not see either of them as being self-evident.

 

Then it's still a pointless point.

It's incumbent for the makers of the God hypothesis to PROVE their claim.

Until such a time, I'm under no obligation to oblige it.

Excuse making for why this hasn't happened is a bunch of slight of hand with no real point.

 

Well, you need something to store and organize information with.

If not a brain, something.

Otherwise the label "mind", is essentially meaningless.

Without which, any sort of personhood is meaningless.

Give me the mechanism for how your God stores and processes information, then you'll have something.

But first, you'd have to define your God, and I haven't seen much of that either.

 

As I said before - no more irrational and unjust than any other disease. A condition is a condition, it has no "justice" or lack thereof.

If you read my points in the context of what Async is saying then you get a fuller vision.

the "disease" thing is an analogy - a way of wrapping your head around it. Frankly, it's damned weak compared to the way he's explaining it. But the overall point of the two parallel.

The more I read his replies the more I see the weakness of my own analogy. Because ultimately, "disease" suggests a negative connotation when, in fact, it is God's greatest work to create a race in which no individual is REQUIRED to follow him, but rather that each of us is free to seek our own selfish interests if we choose. if there is any actual "disease" aspect to this condition, it's that our flawed nature is much more temped by self-serving than giving up self-interest.

But to return to the simple answer, and repeat what I've said before - a condition is a condition - I know more find it unjust that humans are prone to self interest than i find it unjust that humans can't fly. Things are what they are, crying "life ain't fair" gets you nowhere.

 

So, absent an emotional need to hold on to an admittedly obsolete book of myths, that was meant for desert nomads, why even suppose this God?

 

That's pretty much an admission that you don't and can't know that "you need a humanoid brain for those." "A or B" in no way proves "A."

 

It would have to be something so much like a brain, it makes no difference.

It would have to store information, process it, review it, and do so in a massively complex way to counts as a mind.

We have those things, they're called computers.

A complex enough computer would be a brain in every way that matters.

And you can't make a very effective computer out of say, smoke.

And a computer-less operating system hasn't been on anyone's drawing board.

This what theists are claiming, that a computer-less operating system can not only exist, but does, and it has desires.

Well, sorry, put up, or shut up.

Get in the lab, and make one.

"You can't prove it didn't", gets you nowhere.

You're back to Russel's teapot with that shit.

 

You may not be talking only about yourself, but you are certainly talking only about humans.

What I am asking is for some kind of demonstration that it has to be that way, that some totally unknown life-form could not work on a different principle. I'm still not seeing it.

Why should what happens to me be determinant for what must happen to someone who not only is not me, but is not even remotely the same kind of being as I am? There again, you'll have to demonstrate that what happens for human beings is the only possible way it can happen. I'm still not seeing it.

 

Why?

Why can something not be, just because you can't imagine it? Isn't that much like Medieval theologians stating dogmatically that the Earth can't possibly move, simply because they can't imagine how it could?

 

No, you're still asking for "prove me wrong".

The shoe's on your foot to back your theist claims.

The humanoid brain, so far, is the only thing we've ever seen that displays all the traits of what we call intelligence.

All other claims of ghosts, UFOs, etc, etc, up to and including God's miracles, have been excluded as human beings applying patterns and agency where there are none.
Or, naked bullshit.
All generated by human brains.

 

Because something that doesn't store and process information is something that doesn't store and process information.

Y'know, like a fucking rock, or a sandwich.

Think those are having thoughts?

 

Spot the error in your reasoning.

You are claiming that the concept of God is self-contradictory on the basis of what "can't be," yet you are unable to demonstrate why that "can't be" beyond "Well, we've never seen anything other than our own case."

Not very impressive logic.

 

But why would it have to be "something so much like a brain as to make no difference" in order to store and process information?

 

There is none.
There's no reason to suppose things we haven't seen or tested for, until we can see or test for them.
Until then, what you're doing, is plugging the holes in our knowledge with made up stories, and being satisfied with them, and that's not a genuine search for knowledge, it's writing life into a narrative that makes you happy.

You're welcome to that, but don't dress it up as intellectualism, cuz it isn't.

Fairy belief is fairy belief even if you strut in a lab coat.
Or, a tie.
C.S. Lewis never grasped this.
This why he was a sad little man.

 

Read up on computer science, and get back to me.

 

No, of course there isn't. But that is not the point. You and Dan have been claiming that the concept of God is self-contradictory, on the basis of what cannot exist. Yet you are unable to come up with any compelling demonstration of why it can't exist.

I am not trying in any way to prove that God exists. I am simply asking you and Dan to give some logical basis for your claims that he couldn't exist because he couldn't possibly be what he claims to be.

 

I will take that as an admission of defeat.

For a science-fiction fan, I find you particularly incapable of "thinking outside the box" and admitting that something could be possible even if you can't imagine it.

 

It is demanded by his nature - I've explained this before.

God (assuming we take him as described, otherwise the whole discussion is meaningless) is a God who is characterized by grace. Grace being defined as undeserved favor.

If there is no failing to forgive, then there is nothing for Grace to be operative upon.

In like manner, God is characterized by perfection and justice - and that requires the scales be balanced, rather than just "overlooking" imperfection.

If you assume a God that is either not just, or not gracious - then your observation has merit.

 

Logical contradictions cannot exist.

Do a you think a married bachelor can exist?

A circle square?

Do you think that if I only scoured the entire universe with a multi-dimensional camera, I'd quite possibly stumble on to one?

Only due to.

 

When I ever see you living up to the standard you project on to others, you toxic little man, you'll have a right to speak on the matter without an eyeroll.

I can't think of a single moment when you weren't actively unpleasant.

 

All right then, demonstrate how God is a logical contradiction. You haven't done so, or even come close. You appear to have nothing but insults and mockery, but to be remarkably lacking on rigorous logic.