Disproving a Personal God with Science

[wynn]

If you like.

How would you distinguish your belief in food from solipsism, since although you can share your food you can't share the experience of eating?

My point is that this -

The burden is solely on each individual to convince themselves whether something is true or false. That is, it's up to you to find out, it isn't someone else's job.

is too narrow and it denies that our understanding of things depends on others, at least to some degree, our understanding happens in a social context.

Our ideas of true and false, relevant and irrelevant etc. have been inherited from other people in some way or other.
We do not exist as autonomous, unique individuals with original ideas, living in a vacuum, unaffected by anyone or anything.

You propose an individualistic, Protestant-like approach where each individual is seen as their own authority in matters of God.
But such an approach denies that we learn "about God" (whether it is indeed about God, is another matter) and most other things from other people. It has us rely on a false assessment of our abilities and competences.

 

[arfa brane]

You propose an individualistic, Protestant-like approach where each individual is seen as their own authority in matters of God.

No. I didn't say that at all.
Of course you get ideas from other people, of course your understanding of a lot of things happens in a social context. Nonetheless, you understand things yourself, someone else doesn't do this for you.

It has us rely on a false assessment of our abilities and competences.

So you're saying you need other people to tell you what to think, and how to think? You would be relying on a false assessment of your abilities if you tried it yourself?

 

[Crunchy Cat]

empowering the pursuit of desire within the confines of what one deserves (IOW playing out the results of karma vs freewill of the individual)

Ok, so let me make sure I understand this. Your god controls all human knowledge and rememberance/forgetfulness so that humans will have improved chances of achieving the desires that they deserve (not to be confused with the desires that they do not deserve). Is that correct?

 

[Crunchy Cat]

If God is the Supreme Being, then everything emanates from Him anyway.

That's a claim that was not made nor is it a supported conclusion.

I take it you are of the view that God's omniscience and human free will are mutually exclusive?

I am not sure how to answer that. Are we assuming that the 'God' in question is only omniscient? Free will is its the ability for a sapient life form to make choices free from (x), where (x) is one or more constraints that are pre-declared by one or more people evaluating free will in a given scenario or set of scenarios. So, what are your constraints?

 

[lightgigantic]

Ok, so let me make sure I understand this. Your god controls all human knowledge and rememberance/forgetfulness so that humans will have improved chances of achieving the desires that they deserve (not to be confused with the desires that they do not deserve). Is that correct?

Not quite

The inherent quality of all consciousness is desire.

In the case of the living entity, they are also in the position of being devoid of all independent potency (IOW they are constitutionally in a state of dependence for all activities).

So, aside from orchestrating the phenomenal world that the living entity acts within, god empowers the pursuit of desire (according to what one deserves) through the agencies of remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness.


So for instance one may desire to be wealthy, but it may not be one's karma.


Its got nothing to do with improving chances. Its about delivering results.

 

[Crunchy Cat]

That looks almost like a tautology.
If I'm looking at a sunset, the reality is when the idea of looking at a sunset matches the reality of looking at a sunset?

Close but not quite. Truth is when someone's idea (possibly yours) that you are looking at a sunset matches the reality of you actually looking at a sunset.

If I have a specific experience, how do I tell that it's actual reality?

There's a couple of ways. One is post mortem. If you are in a shopping mall and you suddenly have an increadible earth-shattering godly experience, but nobody else and no security cameras share the experience then the content of the experience isn't actual reality.

Another way is to analyze the experience while it's happening. Mind generated experiences tend to have subtle flaws. For example, if you see a bright glowing super sized rose in front of you, look at the walls and objects in the environment. Is the light being reflected correctly or at all? Is a shadow produced when objects are placed before the rose?

What is actual reality?

The best answer I can give you is what we currently know about it. It is a presence of information that is consistent, persistent, and non-contradictory.

Can I really "actually" see anything, or hear anything? Can you?

Of course, your pediatrician tested you for these items as you grew up.

Can you prove that what you see or hear is actual reality? How would you prove it?

You can only prove things in mathematics where all variables are known and accounted for. You can however, show evidence that what you see or hear matches actual reality. Pictures, video recordings, and audio recordings are great tools to use if you are having difficulty in this area.

Do you need to prove to anyone except yourself that you can see and hear?

Sometimes.

Have you ever told anyone else about something you saw, and did they believe you, or couldn't you really "actually" tell? Did it matter to you if they believed your story?

I work with someone whom has exhibited a trend of forgetting certain details of what we talk about. I took note of the type of details that were frequently forgotten so one time when I saw discussion about the detail coming up, I hit the play button on a concealed audio recorder. Later, as expected, the person in question forgot the details and didn't believe me when I stated what he had said. So I whipped out the audio recorder and he said something like "holy shit, I really did say that!".

 

[Crunchy Cat]

Not quite

The inherent quality of all consciousness is desire.

In the case of the living entity, they are also in the position of being devoid of all independent potency (IOW they are constitutionally in a state of dependence for all activities).

So, aside from orchestrating the phenomenal world that the living entity acts within, god empowers the pursuit of desire (according to what one deserves) through the agencies of remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness.


So for instance one may desire to be wealthy, but it may not be one's karma.


Its got nothing to do with improving chances. Its about delivering results.

Does this mean that your god always ensures people achieve the desires that they deserve?

 

[lightgigantic]

Does this mean that your god always ensures people achieve the desires that they deserve?

yes

 

[Crunchy Cat]

yes

Does this also mean that your god ensures people don't achieve the desires that they don't deserve?

 

[lightgigantic]

Does this also mean that your god ensures people don't achieve the desires that they don't deserve?

yes

 

[Crunchy Cat]

It would seem then that your god doesn't have control over everyone's rememberence/forgetfulness:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Wearing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDNDRDJy-vo&feature=watch_response_rev

 

[Mind Over Matter]

But those flaws and contradictions exist only as a matter of your opinion. Not necessarily as a matter of objective fact.

It is a matter of historical, objective fact that Jesus Christ founded the Catholic Church in A.D. 33 in Jerusalem. It is also a matter of historical, objective fact that all the Protestant denominations were founded by mere men in or after the 16th century. It is also objective, historical fact that the 'books' that eventually became the New Testament were written by members of the Catholic Church during the first Christian century. When she was about 350 years old, the Church selected, collected, canonized, and named the New Testament, canonized the 46 writings of the Septuagint she inherited from Jesus and the Apostles, and named her entire collection of sacred Scripture Tá Biblia, the Bible.

If you want to know which Church God Himself established, study early Christian history written by real, objective, accredited, university-trained, peer-reviewed historians. And read that group of witnesses to the early Church called the Church Fathers.


Maybe.. we weren't created 'primarily' to figure out which religion is the true one. We're not expected to be infallible but impeccable - as far as that is humanly possible - by obeying our conscience and loving others to the best of our ability. :shrug:

 

[arfa brane]

Of course, your pediatrician tested you for these items as you grew up.

And what, told my mother who told me?
The question was how do I know, how can I be sure I can see and hear, not how can my mother or a doctor.

It is a presence of information that is consistent, persistent, and non-contradictory.

A presence? What kind of a presence?
What accepts that which is consistent, and persistent? Or contradictory?

 

[wynn]

If you want to know which Church God Himself established, study early Christian history written by real, objective, accredited, university-trained, peer-reviewed historians. And read that group of witnesses to the early Church called the Church Fathers.

SAYS YOU.

And other theists say otherwise.

Do you understand that??

Are you aware of that?

 

[wynn]

No. I didn't say that at all.
Of course you get ideas from other people, of course your understanding of a lot of things happens in a social context. Nonetheless, you understand things yourself, someone else doesn't do this for you.

Yet it is other people who judge whether you understood it correctly or not.

Similar happens in any field of expertise.

So you're saying you need other people to tell you what to think, and how to think? You would be relying on a false assessment of your abilities if you tried it yourself?

The corollarium of the theistic demand that one surrender to the ecclesiastical authorities is precisely that:
Relying on other people to tell you what to think, and how to think; believing that you would be relying on a false assessment of your abilities if you tried it yourself.


This is not my personal opinion. But I am exploring this theistic demand.

 

[wynn]

It would seem then that your god doesn't have control over everyone's rememberence/forgetfulness:

"To have control over rememberance and forgetfulness" means both to bring about that people remember, and that they forget.

 

[wynn]

Actually I don't believe "in" theism.
I believe that I don't need a theory as such. It's like when you put headphones on to listen to music, you don't need to know about how speakers or your ears work to understand why you can hear it.

Theism goes further than the question of God's existence. The nature of God is perceivable, no discussion is required. It answers the same question, and questions beyond that, like "what is it?", or "why can I perceive it" are kind of meaningless.

Oh well. Perhaps you've been inspired by God, and you don't even know it.
The rest of trudge along, having to make do with human reason and circumstance.

 

[wynn]

The question was how do I know, how can I be sure I can see and hear, not how can my mother or a doctor.

Well, yes ...

The question that has been bugging humans for millenia.

 

[wynn]

If God is the Supreme Being, then everything emanates from Him anyway.

That's a claim that was not made nor is it a supported conclusion.

It is part of the definition of God; or at least a logical implication to the usual definition of God (omnimax, The Supreme, etc.).

I take it you are of the view that God's omniscience and human free will are mutually exclusive?

I am not sure how to answer that. Are we assuming that the 'God' in question is only omniscient? Free will is its the ability for a sapient life form to make choices free from (x), where (x) is one or more constraints that are pre-declared by one or more people evaluating free will in a given scenario or set of scenarios. So, what are your constraints?

To recap:

Make a claim for your particular god and how it interacts/interacted with reality. I'll then show it to be nonsense.

Is your claim that 'God' injects new memories in people, new objective knowledge in people, and forcibly causes people to forget things?

Its the claim that god controls action through the agencies of knowledge, remembrance and forgetfulness.

So its more a case of "all" rather than "new".

Which makes the whole issue of talking about choosing a religion so much trickier.
If God is the one from Whom come remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness, then a person has little choice about anything, including religion.

I agree, it's a "supremely" stupid idea.

You did. You said it's tricky to make a choice when choice is not an option. That is stupid.

Put them together and all exercises of human memory and all human knowledge content are direct eminations of this particular 'God'. If you take the approach that you can make a decision then you have effectively generated new knowledge of making a particular decision all on your own. That would violate the rule of all knowledge emenating from this particular 'God'. As that could not be, it means that choice isn't an option.

(I should have added to my question -
I take it you are of the view that God's omniscience and omnipotence and human free will are mutually exclusive?)


You seemed to have come to the conclusion that if God controls what individual beings remember, know and forget, then they have no choice.

Is this your conclusion?

 

[lightgigantic]

It would seem then that your god doesn't have control over everyone's rememberence/forgetfulness:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Wearing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDNDRDJy-vo&feature=watch_response_rev

read the link but I'm still not clear what makes you say that