What is god?

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After studying the first few and last 3 pages of this, I suppose that the middle simply shows what happens when serious questions, and questioners, are overwhelmed by a great mass of off-topic material. The OP guy had a good question, but was misinterpreted from the get-go. I regret being unable to participate during this thread’s midlife.

This has become an interesting thread (perhaps thanks to my non-participation), alive and flourishing despite its originator having been banned. This means that I can reply to his posts, some of which were interesting, without being contradicted. I love the CAF!
 
Alindawyl said:
But… the normal way of defining something is by listing key attributes.

A car is a mechanical device. It has wheels. It transports people. It has some sort of engine which allows it to move… Sounds like a list of attributes to me.

A human is a primate. It is a carbon-based lifeform. It has DNA to contain genetic instructions… Also sounds like a list of attributes.

So here are your key attributes for God: the only eternal, omniscient, omnipotent being. The first cause; the source of all creation. Objective truth and objective morality personified.
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I think that C.D., may he R.I.P., already knew these definitions and was looking for something else that might help to bring the God-concept into the purview of scientific understanding, so that he could demolish it, presuming he was qualified to do so.

I’ve not read far enough in this thread to know if he did, but consider the omniscience property you’ve attributed to God. Does it allow God to have a creative thought— that is, to imagine something which He had never before imagined?

It seems to me that omniscience is a static property, and therefore inherently a property which is more akin to the characteristics of computers than of minds.

What say you?
 
Charles_Darwin said:
Ok, good. I will start by saying that there is nothing wrong with the answer “i don’t know”, it is in fact the intellectually honest answer.

Now can you understand why one might withhold belief when we don’t actually know what it is we are talking about?
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“I don’t know,” is simply an honest answer. By my experience, the words “intellectual” and “honest” or their forms may only be properly combined in a sentence which also includes a “not.”

Although it is unfair to ask a question of someone who cannot reply, I must. Perhaps a spok will come on line to help, or other posters know how to construct a suitable reply. If not, well, we all know that life isn’t fair.

I’ll bet that you probably believe in a few things with dubious conceptual pedigree. Do you believe in the Big Bang? Cool— then list the properties of the precursor to the Big Bang, the tiny little “singularity” that arbitrarily blew up.

When you’ve comleted that primer-level exercise, how about telling us how the first cell came into existence, and describing the properties and forces required?

I ask these questions only to verify your intellectual credentials. It would not do to have someone who was totally ignorant about the fundamentals of his own beliefs to be allowed to freely nitpick the fundamentals of other thought systems, would it?
 
Charles_Darwin said:
No I’m not asking for physical attributes, i am asking what the entity is? If the entity is not physical what is it, what is it made up of, how does it think, store knowledge, interact with the cosmos. What on earth IS IT?

How can you expect someone to believe in something, when you can’t even tell then what that something is?
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When we know what a thing is, there is no need to believe in it. Belief is our style of holding an understanding of something abstract, something which cannot be detected with either our senses or our instruments, but the existence of which can only be inferred from current observations.

The existence of God is an inference, as is the existence of the conscious human mind and the ability to think. The first two laws of thermodynamics are inferential, and the third is derived from the first two.

If you accept any of these, you are following a different belief system from those of Catholics. You’ll probably claim that yours is based upon evidence, as it is. Likewise, the beliefs of Catholics are also based upon evidence.

While you may think your ideas to be better, until you find a way to use them to explain the evidence of post-death conscious survival, they are only different.
 
greylorn,

You may be arguing against the ghost of Charles Darwin. The post you cited says BANNED under his name.
 
itinerant1 said:
greylorn,

You may be arguing against the ghost of Charles Darwin. The post you cited says BANNED under his name.
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I am indeed, and if you took the trouble to read my post #181, you’d have known that I’ve deliberately chosen to argue with a ghost. I’ve not had such an opportunity since the days when I attended trance channelings.

This is even better. The spooks at channelings actually talked back, sort of. I figure that arguing with people who cannot come back is even better than hollering at the talking heads on Hannity. This way others can chime in.
 
greylorn said:
I am indeed, and if you took the trouble to read my post #181, you’d have known that I’ve deliberately chosen to argue with a ghost. I’ve not had such an opportunity since the days when I attended trance channelings.

This is even better. The spooks at channelings actually talked back, sort of. I figure that arguing with people who cannot come back is even better than hollering at the talking heads on Hannity. This way others can chime in.
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What?? Read stuff first! Who on CAF does that? 😉

I say go for it! Show no mercy; give no quarter. 😃

On another note, I just heard about the dyslexic agnostic who stayed up all night wondering whether was a dog.
 
Alindawyl said:
But… the normal way of defining something is by listing key attributes.

A car is a mechanical device. It has wheels. It transports people. It has some sort of engine which allows it to move… Sounds like a list of attributes to me.

A human is a primate. It is a carbon-based lifeform. It has DNA to contain genetic instructions… Also sounds like a list of attributes.

So here are your key attributes for God: the only eternal, omniscient, omnipotent being. The first cause; the source of all creation. Objective truth and objective morality personified.
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We know the car has wheels and transports people because we use them every day.
We know humans are primates because we can identify their physical characteristics, including DNA.

How do we know, in any comparable sense, the attributes for God are as you said? How do we (or can we )*know *He is omnipotent, omniscient, the first cause, and especially “objective truth and morality personified” ? Don’t you mean we choose to believe He has those attributes because we trust that the Church knows what she’s talking about?

If there is any evidence outside of philosophy and theology that points to the Creator being omniscient and omnipotent, as well as the first cause of all, I would love to find it. Otherwise, it just seems that we’re back to a matter of belief, and not really addressing the OPs question (who may still be checking in, even if he is banned).
 
reggieM said:
greylorn,

You might enjoy watching this interview with Michael Behe (if you haven’t seen it already). The interviewer, an atheist, admits that after considering Behe’s arguments, for the first time in his life he began to have the inkling that God may actually exist.

exposureroom.com/members/TheAllenFactor.aspx/assets/9c5bcc2da77b419aaf2ba06d7877ccd3/
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Reggie,
It was very thoughtful of you to pass this link along. I appreciated the content and really enjoyed watching Behe being himself, without pressure from fools. I believe that even someone who’s not read Behe’s books would appreciate this. (Hint! Hint! casual readers.)

It was a pleasure to watch an intelligent exchange between thoughtful men with opposing views, and the introduction to John McWhorter proved a delightful surprise.

Thank you!
 
Charles, don’t you know that God made us in his image? Why it hasn’t been said already I do not know, but to answer part of your original question… God looks like a person, it says so in the bible, he made us in his image. Also the bible describes him walking in the garden of Eden, an old man I believe it says he looks like. To further answer your question “what is it made of?” … that’s an easy one as well, god is made of ether, a scientist like yourself should know this. But what did you really expect to hear from these people? I think you already knew you would get answers that were nonsensical. Personally I find it hilarious that people believe and follow the teachings of the church, and it’s quite entertaining to read their point of view especially when you keep in mind that they actually believe the stuff (I know it’s hard to believe that they actually believe)

Greebus
 
Greebus said:
Charles, don’t you know that God made us in his image? Why it hasn’t been said already I do not know, but to answer part of your original question… God looks like a person, it says so in the bible, he made us in his image. Also the bible describes him walking in the garden of Eden, an old man I believe it says he looks like. To further answer your question “what is it made of?” … that’s an easy one as well, god is made of ether, a scientist like yourself should know this. But what did you really expect to hear from these people? I think you already knew you would get answers that were nonsensical. Personally I find it hilarious that people believe and follow the teachings of the church, and it’s quite entertaining to read their point of view especially when you keep in mind that they actually believe the stuff (I know it’s hard to believe that they actually believe)

Greebus
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Personally I find it hilarious when self-righteous atheists like to tell Christians (or any other religious types) what their own book means - there’s a progression to the understanding of God, and the main progression here is in Exodus - although even there, I don’t think they’re quite there (or here) yet…

Personally I find the dogmas of atheists (and of orthodox modern science, for that matter) are far more entertaining than beliefs of religion - as you’ve just demonstrated! :aok: this old chestnut must be getting pretty rancid by now, however…:ehh:
 
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