What does God do?

Discussion in 'Religion' started by James R, Nov 11, 2017.

  1. Capracus Valued Senior Member

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    You did.
    Apparently you assume that a nondeterministic existence grants free will.
    If determinism rules behavior in our perceivable reality, and theoretically in the imperceivable, then it would more sense to stick with what we know.
     
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  3. Vociferous Valued Senior Member

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    Where? You seem to be reading things that aren't there.
    Apparently you're unfamiliar with the fact that determinism and disbelief in free will very often go hand in hand.
    So belief without evidence?
     
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  5. Xelasnave.1947 Valued Senior Member

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    Belief needs no evidence and grows from solicitation of reference to observation of all things that support the belief àlthough observation is now moroscipic but presented as impartial and a true representation of selected facts.

    Alex
     
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  7. Capracus Valued Senior Member

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    So when you write things like:
    And then follow it with:
    Interpreting your statements as associating free will and determinism or lack thereof is the reader's imagination?
    Belief based on reasonable extrapolation.
     
  8. Vociferous Valued Senior Member

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    "Associating free will and determinism"? That's what compatibilism does to effectively make free will deterministic by redefinition.
    Incompatibilism doesn't associate the two.
    So yes, since I put forward an incompatibilist free will, associating that with determinism is the reader's imagination.
    Subjectively reasonable extrapolation, but not evidence.
     
  9. Capracus Valued Senior Member

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    The association was made when you contrasted the two, and that wasn’t imagined, it was presented in the composition of your posts. So rather than continually shuffling onion peelings, why don’t you just explain how you imagine free will to work in the case of gods and men.
    Go ahead and extrapolate so we can compare subjectivity.
     
  10. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    Most theists don't take extraneous sojourns into philosophy. This doesn't necessarily render them guilty of dumbing down God. If however someone plays down God's existence or nature one has to look at whether it is intentional or is arising from a lack of knowledge on the subject. Of course atheists have a specific intention to implement but there are plenty of examples within theism eg.
    “Lord make me pure but not yet.”

    There is a ton of questions why you would think omni status destroys or undermines God's personal existence .... but straight off the cuff, a God that does everything except interfere with your free will is already micro managing everything. If our freewill was also something he was micromanaging, then yes, prayer (or even mere obedience or rebellion) would be meaningless.



    Its not clear why or how ad hoc planning is a problem for an omnimax personality ... or for that matter, why there would be a need for such a personality to function beyond ad hoc planning. As far as this universe is concerned, it is primarily a stage for the living entity to express their independence from God. Everything else is a prop.

    Actually I think a lot of these problems you are posing arise from extrapolating our own existence as means to gauge Gods. Qualitatively we can talk of similarity but quantitatively it is not even remotely feasible. We are unlimitedly limited and God is unlimitedly unlimited. Contingency plans are the length and breadth of our existence. Try to carry that same thinking in understanding God and you are simply bringing an erroneous foundation for further ideas.

    It's not that God has an agenda to not give Himself away, it is that He is reciprocating with our desire to be independant. Technically this is impossible so it requires an element of illusion and a special type of creation. Put those two together, and this is what you get. God not revealing himself is Him reciprocating with our agenda. If God decides to interact with someone in a "miraculous" fashion, he is not so rude or clumsy so as to do it in a fashion that rains on the parade of the atheistically inclined.

    You would have to be clear on what you are lodging in the name of a miracle. Perhaps you think a theist attributing any little development in this world to a miracle as absurd, but it arises from an understanding that God does everything.

    There is also nothing in the world to suggest it is unnecessary. The moment you start introducing an understanding to make God unnecessary to this world on the strength of scientific observation is the same moment you start introducing an element of complication. Such is the battleground of dialectics that utilize suggestions.

    It's just begging the question. To say that the field of scientific observation would have less problems if there was no God simply arises from suggestion that God is unnecessary. Others who work with the exact same information to support the exact opposite suggestion have different ideas on what renders things unnecessarily complicated.

    As it stands, however, scientific observation functions independently of atheism or theism. You might as well be talking about whether God's existence or nonexistence makes baseball more or less complicated.

    If you expect to bridge that gap of where God precisely meets the material energy at the point of direction as an instance of being practical, then yes, distinctions will be meaningless. You might as well be talking about the end of empiricism, when scientists know everything. "God of the gaps" or "science of the gaps" are both equal in that they allude to something we can't establish.


    Sure, that's fine.
    As to how successful you will be, that will be determined by the parameters of "your world" and your power to secure it.
    Will a Jehovah's witness knocking on your door ruin your day?
    Or an article in a prominent scientific journal ridiculing the notion of science supporting atheism?

    Actually my point was that it would not be impossible for the tribespeople. The only method they can come to understand the sovereignty they are currently existing under is on the terms set down by the Indian government. They do not have the capacity to engineer their own "bottom/up" method.

    I guess some people, disenfranchised with post industrial civilization and driven by romantic notions, may envy their life and cynicism may even prompt them to say there is nothing in our civilization worth knowing. But most people would be unaccustomed to their hardships and see entering into such a lifestyle as willfull ignorance.

    So how much time and energy do you devote to exploring the idea that God exists?

    The problem is that you are looking with a methodology that can only offer gaps or suggestions, regardless whether one attributes those gaps to science or God. You will no more discover God than discover the end of knowledge.

    Of course knowledge is only valuable if it doesn't lead to error ... so if you are bringing postulation over that threshold, you are bringing one of the other pramanas

    texts identify six pramanas as correct means of accurate knowledge and to truths: perception,inference, comparison and analogy, postulation, derivation from circumstances, non-perception, negative/cognitive proof and word, testimony of past or present reliable experts.
     
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  11. Xelasnave.1947 Valued Senior Member

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    Firstly I am enjoying reading the posts herein as they are well considered and the ideas expressed interesting.
    What I ask is how it is that you or anyone can make a statement such as the one above that I quoted as surely no one can know what you suggest.
    Are all these not merely replaced with speculation as the application of any one I suggest would bring us no closer to knowing the mind of God.
    And although on a day I am feeling relaxed I could be gentle and accept the premise of there being a God I dont think I could ever accept that humans could know anything about God such that theists can be so specific in what God expects from humans or indeed that he is interested in humans at all.

    Alex
     
  12. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    iirc, this whole chaos vs order as a parrallel to atheism vs theism was brought up because you expressed a problem with "order" being nuanced with theistic undertones.

    It is not the first nor the last time american culture has biased a scientific understanding. ID covers a broader field in terms of topic and history than creationism.

    As far as I am aware, even in those traditions it is established that God only revealed Himself to suitably qualified persons. Its not like His audience was for anyone and everyone.


    What would this hard evidence look like?

    Would such a belief require a different epistemological state than those who would not believe in them?

    As far as this site goes, it seems that such people offer news reports and online vids, so there doesn't appear to be an epistemological divide (its not like they have powers or a state of being to know things others do not).

    I should have added "the facts as they stand". Removing all suggestions from the picture, it remains incomplete.
     
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  13. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    There is no knowledge on the subject, other than that available to the atheistic.
    That's not true, in general.
     
  14. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    Your first statement negates your second one
     
  15. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Nonsense.
    You are making assumptions far beyond your knowledge.
     
  16. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    "There is no knowledge on the subject, other than that available to the atheistic"
     
  17. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    I think you are misunderstanding what iceaura is saying.
     
  18. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Yes. And your argument is - - - - - ?
     
  19. scifes In withdrawal. Valued Senior Member

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    You keep insisting on taking two cases and insisting god got to be one or the second; god either created the world then sat back and let it do its thing. Or he actively interferes on regular or non regular basis to modify it.

    Others have explained it very very well yet you seem to still can't see it from that perspective.

    I think, at the core of it, is your application of spatial restrictions to god. And/or the (un?)intentional disabling of his Omni capabilities.


    You seem to think of god as a scientist who writes code for a simulation, then runs it and observes how it behaves. And you're asking if while it's running, does he go in and modify some parameters while they're running, or does he just let it run its course and not interrupt it?

    I think of god more of our state when we're in a state of lucid dreaming. You're self conscious, and you can will anything into existence. You ARE the world. You can create characters that behave a certain way, but you can alter it anytime you want. But even if you decide to not alter it their mere existence is due to your will, kind of already running in your subconscious.
     
  20. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    You ARE the world. SO DID GOD - You can create characters that behave a certain way,?
    SO DID GOD but you can alter ALTER it anytime you want HE WANTED? .
    But even if SO DID GOD you decide to NOT TO ALTER not alter it their mere existence is due to your will, kind of already running in your subconscious

    Really?
    • Is god active?
    • Sometimes active?
    • Never active
    • None of the above but
    • ?????
    Please list in plain English the ????? option

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  21. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    I don't think he's assuming anything about god. Either you can measure His effects or you can't. It's an argument from "where's the goddamn evidence?" .
     
  22. Vociferous Valued Senior Member

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    You seem to have gotten lost in the weeds. Your original claim was that someone said indeterminism granted free will. Since no one did and we agree that determinism cannot, I'm not sure what you're on about.
    Since incompatiblist free will is not compatible with materialist notions of how things work, and you seem to place determinism over all else, it seems like an exercise in futility with you.
     
  23. Capracus Valued Senior Member

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    In this earlier post you claim that incompatablist (nondeterministic) free will to be a viable alternative to determinism.
    Was this condition only meant to apply to God? Or to the rest of us as well?
     

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