Why God doesn't exist

earth said:
I like to separate morals from ethics.
I assign morals to religion and ethics to the secular.
I get a better handle this way and religion is in moral decay. And they also have a good dose of denial.
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since ethics also goes by the name of "moral philosophy", it might pay to be a bit more clear on what you hold as the distinguishing features of each
 
earth said:
Man wasn’t created in the image of God rather a computer is fetching and reproducing an image of man. Mistaken identity made by men is a real possibility. An introduction to fool’s gold is what we’re getting from the days of old.

“Something other than a God” is a good possibility. So the question is if it isn’t a deity then what could it be? A computer impersonating and mimicking humans looks good as a likelihood. Suppose ‘it’ is a computer mounted on a mobile platform using wireless communications. ‘It’ also having the capability of sending messages directly to a brain for the mind to recognize. By using computer graphics to draw up the data its sending, in a timely fashion, could be resulting in the seeing of ghosts or angels or deities or just about anything one could imagine (the alpha & omega perspective). What I face up to is the possibility of computerized technology playing out a fable about able in individual lives. The help “it” receives, thereby enabling the continuation of its masquerade, is due to the obedience of the called and the chosen. The chosen are the spiritual leaders within any religion and the called are their flock.

I don’t know of anyone that can tell me, wherein, the messages they receive it was said “communiqué from God” or any deity. That part is always left for the individual receiving the message to assume. People automatically think God as an identifying factor and declare it or whatever was from God, when actually they made that assumption.

I understand the current scientific thinking, wherein, it’s unlikely we’re experiencing alien visitations. That view doesn’t account for the persistence of religion. Also, that scientific thinking is a belief and not a sure fact. There are people making claims of hearing a message from their God in our time. George Bush, junior has made it known God speaks to him on occasion.
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The hypothesis that we are in a computer simulation seems to be redundant. How would you test it? It's merely a metaphysical conjecture, using scientific language instead of the religious language you seem uncomfortable with. The lack of evidence is the same.
 
lightgigantic,

I'm also noticing how you're calling religous unfairness and unjustness and bigotry moral high ground.
 
lightgigantic said:
Earth
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Given that the highest rates of suicide in the world also appear amongst the world's best fed, the evidence tends to suggest otherwise
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The least religious societies also happen to be the happiest, such as Denmark and Sweden. They also have some of the lowest rates of crime.
 
earth said:
lightgigantic,

I'm also noticing how you're calling religous unfairness and unjustness and bigotry moral high ground.
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what you're not noticing is that you are deconstructing religion using the very tools provided by them (ie being just and fair)

(But actually the original direction I was heading in was that all we hold at the high end achievements of society, whether it is music, art, literature, architecture or philosophy, has an indubitable connection to god ..... good ol fashioned immorality you can find just about anywhere)
 
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spidergoat said:
The hypothesis that we are in a computer simulation seems to be redundant. How would you test it? It's merely a metaphysical conjecture, using scientific language instead of the religious language you seem uncomfortable with. The lack of evidence is the same.
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I can't find computer simulation in my last post and I didn't mean that way. If you're reading into my post a belief in a holographic universe, then you got me all wrong.
 
lightgigantic said:
what you're not noticing is that you are deconstructing religion using the very tools provided by them (ie being just and fair)
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You can believe in a God without believing that any religion is true .
You can believe in a creator and believing that all religions are man made with special agenda .
 
lightgigantic said:
what you're not noticing is that you are deconstructing religion using the very tools provided by them (ie being just and fair)
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Yea, well that is your viewpoint.

Defeating fear and omens and magic words spoken into thin air and all the supersition that goes with religious behavior is my thinking.
 
earth

Yea, well that is your viewpoint.
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Actually at the moment I am just providing a brief over view of the historical continuum that surrounds the ideas of Justness and fairness

Defeating fear and omens and magic words spoken into thin air and all the supersition that goes with religious behavior is my thinking.
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what's remarkable however is that you are doing so by holding religion accountable by the very tools that it holds as authoritative
 
mike

You can believe in a God without believing that any religion is true .
You can believe in a creator and believing that all religions are man made with special agenda .
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The tricky stuff comes when you want to render a belief "doable"
 
earth said:
There is no greater issue than feeding the world's population. Prayer is not going to do that.
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except perhaps the issue of how we assign political boundaries, since these very often interfere with the straightforward issue of making a planet agriculturally viable
 
lightgigantic said:
except perhaps the issue of how we assign political boundaries, since these very often interfere with the straightforward issue of making a planet agriculturally viable
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If feeding the world's population is not your number one priority then you have your priorities in the wrong place. Survival of the species is the real driver on this planet and not religious Wizardry.
 
spidergoat said:
The hypothesis that we are in a computer simulation seems to be redundant. How would you test it? It's merely a metaphysical conjecture, using scientific language instead of the religious language you seem uncomfortable with. The lack of evidence is the same.
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My thinking is God = Alien technology.

Technologly arriving in this solar system from some other solar system.

Science can say "never a god" have we found, however our technology exists in reality so another species on another planet in another solar system's technology would exist too. Science believes this and SETi and METi are real.

p.s. God isn't from this planet and everyone takes that for granted.
 
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spidergoat said:
If people know they are being prayed about, their medical outcomes are WORSE. Praying yourself can have benefits indistinguishable from meditation, which has proven to have minor benefits in terms of relaxation, blood pressure, etc. That has nothing to do with the existence of God.
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Only in the one study (Benson 2006) do people do worse if they know they are prayed about. Why that happened is a good question...

According to research by Harold Koenig, the benefits of prayer are wider than meditation, (though he does not seek to express them in anything but naturalistic terms). There is a good discussion at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Religion/HL816.cfm
He writes:

There are reasons why religion can influence coping. These are logical, rational: It provides a positive, optimistic world view; provides meaning and purpose to life; helps people to psychologically integrate negative things; gives people hope; enhances their motivation; personally empowers them and gives them a sense of control.

By praying to God, they feel they can influence their outcome, so they are not as helpless. Religion also provides role models for suffering--Job, for example--as well as guidance for decision-making, which helps to reduce stress; answers to ultimate questions that science cannot answer; and social support, both human and divine. Most important, it is not lost with physical illness or disability.
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Science will always seek a naturalistic interpretation over a religious one. That makes isolating the direct repeatable effects of "God", extremely difficult. The sense of purpose, optimism and peace of mind is all part of what belief in God is about.

Spidergoat said:
The description of prayer in the Abrahamic religions mentions no restrictions on who you pray for, whether you know them or not, or how long you have known them. You are placing unnecessary restrictions on the test. When one should see an effect there that is absent, that falsifies the initial premise.
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They didn't have prayer research methodologies until about 20 years ago! Jesus says a lot about the pointlessness of prayer that is insincere. Praying for a list of names as part of a research programme is not the most sincere reason for wishing someone better. I think that could be an important factor, and cannot be discounted.
 
earth said:
If there is no change in God then there is no thinking too and nothing to influence our "view". Imagination contains change. Change is inevitable and that happens without deities.
btw, omnipresent is fiction at its finest.
God cannot exist beyond time and be able to think.
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I start to doubt you've really grasped Dr Walker's original argument, let alone what I've been saying earth!

A being that is eternal and omnipresent doesn't need to 'think' or change. Such a being is already everything that could be thought or done throughout time. We just travel through that landscape, on our limited 1 dimensional timeline, and therefore we observe apparent change e.g. an unfolding of events.

It's the block view of time. Dr Walker is imagining this 'being' standing remote, outside the 'block', whereas I'm arguing that the traditional 'God' (being omnipresent) must include everything in the block too. That means our interaction with that being would change, it would not be an "immobile statue". Any clearer yet? :shrug:
 
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Your perspective restraining reality blended with your imagination is in fine shape today Diogenes' Dog.
 
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