A.I. proves God exists...

[TheVat]

A supernatural entity. Let's start there.

One nice feature of this starting point is it gets right to the central difficulty of what anyone actually means by "supernatural." Tug a few basic levers of logic and common sense and the word reveals its incoherence. Indeed, one could take a nice philosophical jaunt just tugging on those threads and not even have to get to gods or spirits at all.

 

[Sarkus]

Can anybody provide any evidence that any supernatural entity exists at all? No matter the flavour?

Couple of points: there is plenty of anecdotal evidence; and God is not a "supernatural entity" in the way you might say that a ghost is. Rather, God - at the core - is a metaphysical proposition to explain why there is anything at all.

If you tell me you believe in unicorns, does it make sense for me to require you to specify white unicorns or black unicorns before I can bring my skeptic's guns to-bear? My first question will be "Do you have an argument that any unicorns of any colour exist?"

This example really only speaks to the physical implications of that which is being claimed to exist (implications that can be observed), whereas god is a more fundamental notion. It is metaphysical in nature before we can even begin to investigate the implications we might be able to observe.

 

[TheVat]

Couple of points: there is plenty of anecdotal evidence; and God is not a "supernatural entity" in the way you might say that a ghost is. Rather, God - at the core - is a metaphysical proposition to explain why there is anything at all.

I see what you're getting at. The problem with "metaphysical" is it's another linguistic onion we are handed. We keep peeling off layers hoping we'll get something substantial. But for some thinkers, like the logical positivists, there is no metaphysics, i.e. nothing "beyond the physical," so any metaphysical proposition wouldn't really amount to anything at all. "Meta" and "super,"' when grafted onto the natural world (the physical world which is empirically accessible), both do some pretty heavy lifting without visible means of support. Metaphysical might not be much more than supernatural polished up a bit and made respectable to academics. I myself have some trouble really distinguishing between God as a metaphysical proposition and God as a supernatural one. Both seem to grab at the notion of "something outside the physical universe," a notion whose causal problems and overall coherence are legendary, as even contemporaries of Descartes were starting to grumble about.

 

[PsychoticEpisode]

Er. Two very different manifestations of atemporal there - essentially opposites. One means eternal, the other means instant.

All I said was if you ask AI it will say it’s atemporal. Why did AI come to that conclusion, if It’s just processing data?

FYI…. checked number of dictionaries and none mention instant as a synonym.

 

[DaveC426913]

All I said was if you ask AI it will say it’s atemporal. Why did AI come to that conclusion, if It’s just processing data?

FYI…. checked number of dictionaries and none mention instant as a synonym.

Then feel free to offer a meaning of atemporal that applies.

 

[PsychoticEpisode]

For a god I would say atemporal means existing outside of time with no past, present or future and probably never experiencing a sequence of events, everything at once.

I wouldn’t have any idea how a divine entity would get to that point however, taking that definition at face value. Right now an intelligent machine seems more like a god than anything else. Do I believe it? Do burning bushes talk?

 

[James R]

exchemist:

This part of the conversation started when you asserted that "explaining the natural world is not the purpose of religion, which is basically to provide guidance to help people live their lives".

I would make the point that your own idea of what the "purpose of religion" is might very well differ from what other theists believe is the purpose of religion. Religion most likely serves many purposes for different believers. You are one data point in the gamet of religious believers. I would be wary of assuming that every other believer holds the same views on religion that you do. In fact, I'm sure you're aware that there is a very wide variety of religious belief and much divergence of opinion on what are the "legitimate" purposes of religion.

While it is may not be true for you here and now, it has certainly been the case for many believers in the past - and is apparently true of other believers today - that one purpose of their religion has been to fill in gaps in knowledge of the natural world - or at least to provide believers with a sense of comfort and reassurance that somebody is in control of the whole system and has a plan.

James, at the risk of repeating myself I think three points are relevant here.

Firstly, I've pointed out on many occasions on this forum that taking parts of the Old Testament as allegorical is a practice going right back to Origen in ~250AD. There is nothing new or recent about this. The practice predates science by well over a thousand years.

If I may be so bold as to borrow something you wrote a few posts before this one and flip it around a little: If you prefer to argue against religion as it is today, in favour of what it was a couple of thousand years ago, feel free. It might be an easier argument, in some ways.

Anyway, the relevant insight here seems to me to be that diverse believers, both in the past and today, have diverse views about which parts of the Old Testament are allegorical and which are to be taken literally.

I fully understand and appreciate that you take many parts of the bible to be allegory, and I'm very glad that you do that. But since these debates have been going on for 2000 years among believers, there is still much divergence of opinion as to which parts of the bible are to be considered literally true and which are not. Yours is one point of view, and you're entitled to it. But the problem, as I see it, is that it seems to be based on preference of yours rather than on solid evidence from the bible itself. Alternatively - and this is probably closer to the mark - you're rely on extra-biblical sources of information to judge which parts of the bible could possibly be literally true and which could not possibly be literally true. You then excuse those parts of the bible that are impossible or highly implausible or immoral on the basis that anybody would be an idiot to take those parts literally. And yet, lots of people have taken and do take them literally. At least, that's what they tell us.

Secondly I have also repeatedly reminded people of what allegory is, viz. a literary device, conveying a message by means of storytelling.

I know what allegory is.

So reading parts of the OT as allegorical does not involve downgrading its meaning, as you seem to imply.

So if the bible says that pi is allegorically equal to 3, then it's not wrong. It's conveying a message that there's a ratio of the diameter of a circle to its radius that is a number approximately equal to three, or that is metaphorically equal to 3, if you squint at it the right way? Because the intention in the communication behind saying pi=3 is good, even if it's not strictly mathematically accurate?

Do you think the story from the Old Testament about the guy giving his daughter to a gang of men who wanted to rape her is literally true or allegorical? The implication in the story is that there was nothing immoral about his action. (I can find the chapter and verse if you want more detail.) If it's allegorical, what good moral lesson do you think the writer was trying to convey, there?

It in no way implies that scripture read allegorically is no longer "God's truth".

When the bible makes errors of fact, are the errors God's truth, or are the errors always allegorical? Does that make the actual truth of the matter unimportant? Does it excuse the fact that the bible text got it wrong? It seems like calling it allegory could be a kind of excuse.

For example, was there a mass exodus of Jewish slaves out of Egypt and into Israel in the time of Moses? The bible certainly says there was. But the extra-biblical historical record strongly suggests that it didn't happen. So, what's "God's Truth" in this case? Is it okay if the foundational bible story of the Exodus isn't factually true? Is that all okay because it's allegorical?

Why isn't the bible ever updated when we know it contains numerous factual errors? Why do the errors continue to be taught as if they were fact, even to (especially to) children, without explicitly telling those who are being taught that it's "allegory"?

Thirdly - and admittedly this is a somewhat more arcane point - I have also explained that the older branches of Christianity are not sola scriptura. The bishops of the church have authority to teach doctrine (cf. magisterium: magister = teacher), the idea being that by their ordination they are the spiritual descendants of the Apostles who were given this authority by Christ and guided by the Holy Spirit. So the fact that the text of scripture has not changed (well actually it does flex a tiny bit, depending on the translation) does not preclude evolution in interpretations of the text and the derivation of doctrines from it. Again, this is not new.

Sure. The Catholic Church persecuted Galileo in the 1600s and changed its mind in 1991 (or whenever it was, exactly). Turns out that the geocentric solar system of the bible is "allegorical", according to the Catholic Church - but only after it was doctrinally literally true for the first 2000 years or so of Christianity.

And here in 2026, there are plenty of devout Christians (a growing number in the United States, possibly) who believe the Earth is flat, complete with a solid hemispherical "firmament" that divides the "waters above" from the "waters below", and who don't believe that space is real - or if they do believe that, still believe that the Sun orbits the Earth, along with everything else in the universe. Their priests and bishops and reverends aren't telling them that the "firmament" is allegorical. Why not?

 

[James R]

Eh. Humans are loving of wildlife and conserved biomes, yet it requires culling to keep them that way.

The biomes did just fine for the 2.5 billion years or so without any human beings to shepherd them.

I'd certainly say the deer are not in a position to pass judgement on the motives of humans.

Do you mean the deer are morally inferior to humans and so not allowed to judge motives, or that the deer lack the capacity to judge motives?

Do you think that human beings are morally inferior to God? Do humans lack the capacity to judge God's motives?

"But an all-powerful God could just not have them over-breed in the first place" you say? That speaks to God's motives though.

No. It speaks to God's capabilities.

If he is capable and chooses not to use his powers to do good, that speaks to his motives.

Ostensibly, he gave humans free will - which means he is deliberately choosing a hands-off approach, perhaps he is choosing a hands off approach to Earth wildlife. We don't know, but we are not in a position to claim we do.

He could have created a paradise on Earth for all, could he not?

Are you saying we can't know whether that would have been a good thing or a bad thing (for us and other life on Earth)?

More to -the-point, I think "loving versus not-loving" is a false dichotomy, and pointless to argue.

Only for gods, or for regular humans, too? If only for gods, why are they excepted?

Do those who believe in God literally and explicitly believe that an all-loving God can do no harm?

To be clear: if the God is supposed to be both all-powerful (or even just immensely powerful) and all-loving, then it seems to me that he/she/it would do no harm. It could do harm (because immensely powerful), but it would choose not to (because all-loving).

If, on the other hand, God is not all-powerful, then it is conceivable that the God could have the best of intentions and yet still fail to prevent some harms.

And, of course, if the God is not all-loving then that leaves it open to the God to do harm if he/she/it wants to - at least in some circumstances.

That's pretty constraining on a god.

Yes. All-loving is pretty constraining on a god. But this is how many people describe the Christian god (to name one). Surely you've heard?

The point is: who cares what their answer to that might be - why try to solve a mystery through the eyes of a believer? I would prefer to look at the hypothetical more objectively.

More objectively, God probably isn't real. So, no all-powerful and no all-loving. And that's pretty much what we observe in the world - no obvious actions by all-powerful beings and no obvious evidence that any all-loving thing exists.

I mean, if you really want to torpedo an all-powerful God, it's much simpler than that: the old hack "Can an all-powerful God create a rock so massive even he cannot lift it?"

That torpedos the notion of a god so powerful that it can defy logic. But I doubt that many sensible believers who have thought the matter through will insist that God can defy logic.

The question I actually asked you was:
"Allowing suffering is certainly inconsistent with the notion of a loving omnipotent god. Isn't it?"

You have yet to convince me that there is consistency. Keep trying if you like.

It's the same conundrum - assigning absolutes and then proving those absolutes are illogical. But it's vacuous as far as actual analysis.

It sounds to me like you're arguing that the traditional tri-"Omni" god can't exist - that the idea is "vacuous".

I'm inclined to agree with you, if that's the case.

 

[James R]

To do something deliberately, one needs to deliberate between possibilities. The one you pick, after such deliberation, is the one you do deliberately.

You're saying that God makes no choices. It just is. Sounds to me like the god suffers under a rather stringent set of constraints.

God, if omniscient, already knows everything: past, present, future. There are no such "choices" in the sense of deliberating. Everything God does is an eternal act of will. He doesn't go "I haven't decided" to "I have decided" the way we humans might. He has intent, which is eternal and immutable, and he wills this intent into being. This was argued by Augustine of Hippo, one of the foundational architects of classical theism.

God might be immutable, but our world (his Creation) is not. At a point in time, our universe started. If the universe is an expression of God's immutable will, then God's immutable will obviously allows for a lot of suffering and pain and unloving behaviour.

I guess those who claim that God is all-loving must just be mistaken, then.

One can be confident of pretty much anything. Some people are confident that the earth is flat, for example.

Oh. Did you not understand what I meant there? I can break it down for you into simpler pieces, if you need me to do that for you. Let me know.

No.
We've covered this in another thread, though. Is there any point in repeating it?

Did I "cover" this with you? If so, I agree that there's probably no point in repeating it with you.

 

[James R]

Just to add, I know absolutely nothing about deism, where it came from, it's development.

It's essentially the idea that there's a supernatural god that set the universal clockwork into motion, so to speak, but who does not act in the world after that initial act of creation. Certainly, the deistic god has no concern for human affairs - or, if it does, it does nothing to intervene in the course of events.

One can argue that the deistic god - if it exists - has a "plan", but everything needed for the plan to play out as planned is automatic, essentially. The god put all the mechanisms in the place at the start.

The deistic god is at best a distant observer - kind of like a programmer whose only act is to write a simulation program and then watch it run, without interfering with the program's execution at any point in time.

In this view, evidence for the deistic god can only be found by identifying the god's "signature" in his creation. In other words, the main argument for deism is the argument from design. Look at the trees! Look at the birds! Seems like it's all way too nice to have come about by chance. Therefore, GodDidIt. Therefore, we've "proved" there is a god.

The deistic god doesn't have anything to say about morality and such - unless it is possible to derive morals somehow by examining the creation. The god doesn't communicate directly to humans or anything like that, so there's no way of knowing what the god might want, for instance.

 

[James R]

The Kalam Cosmological Argument, in a basic form:
P1 - Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
P2 - The universe began to exist.
C - Therefore, the universe has a cause.
By regression one can then conclude that therefore the ultimate cause must be something that had no cause.

Or, by regression, one can conclude that there is no ultimate cause.
Or one can conclude that there is something that did not begin to exist.

It's not a good argument for any god.

 

[Sarkus]

I see what you're getting at. The problem with "metaphysical" is it's another linguistic onion we are handed. We keep peeling off layers hoping we'll get something substantial. But for some thinkers, like the logical positivists, there is no metaphysics, i.e. nothing "beyond the physical," so any metaphysical proposition wouldn't really amount to anything at all. "Meta" and "super,"' when grafted onto the natural world (the physical world which is empirically accessible), both do some pretty heavy lifting without visible means of support. Metaphysical might not be much more than supernatural polished up a bit and made respectable to academics. I myself have some trouble really distinguishing between God as a metaphysical proposition and God as a supernatural one. Both seem to grab at the notion of "something outside the physical universe," a notion whose causal problems and overall coherence are legendary, as even contemporaries of Descartes were starting to grumble about.

The problem with you saying that logical positivists claim there is no metaphysics is that that in itself is a metaphysical claim. It's more that they don't think metaphysical claims are meaningful because they have no means of verification in the natural world. There is a difference between metaphysical and supernatural, though, that even logical positivists would accept, even if ultimately both are untestable. Metaphysics are claims that puport to describe reality, whereas the supernatural is a claim that describes an entity, or force, that exists outside of the natural world.
So it's wrong to say that the metaphysical is "something outside of the physical universe" when it is a description about the very nature of that physical universe, albeit one that can not be tested: e.g. everything that exists has a sufficient reason. This is a claim about existence, not about something outside of existence.

When it comes to God, at least the classical theist, it is very much in that metaphysical space, albeit with some consequences that fall within the "supernatural" (i.e. His interactions with the natural world, such as miracles). To the logical positivist, they're both beyond empirical investigation, though.

My point was that there is a category difference between "supernatural" and "metaphysical", and that one should not lump discussion of God into the mere supernatural, even if ultimately you reject both buckets as meaningless.

 

[Sarkus]

You're saying that God makes no choices. It just is. Sounds to me like the god suffers under a rather stringent set of constraints.

There are no "constraints" as you might understand the term. There are things God would simply not do because they are not in His nature. If you want to think of this as being a "constraint" then okay. Similarly, the idea of "choice" is to look at two options not yet taken, to weigh up the differences, and to pick one. God knows everything, so there is no such "choice". There is His eternal will that X be the case, and so X is the case.
How is this a "stringent set of constraints"?

God might be immutable, but our world (his Creation) is not. At a point in time, our universe started. If the universe is an expression of God's immutable will, then God's immutable will obviously allows for a lot of suffering and pain and unloving behaviour.

Permits / allows for, yes. Because God gives us free will, God gives us the ability to "choose" etc.
As to why he permits it, the "greater good" is probably the main reason the classical theists would give. There are others, such as certain virtues arising through adversity (courage, compassion, sacrifice, etc). But the classical theist ultimately has faith that God has sufficient reason to permit suffering.

I guess those who claim that God is all-loving must just be mistaken, then.

No. A parent might be "all-loving" for their child, but that doesn't mean they protect them from every possible harm, wrap them in cotton wool for the rest of their lives, etc. "All-loving" can take a number of forms, including allowing a child to make their own way in the world, seeing a greater good arising as a result.

Oh. Did you not understand what I meant there? I can break it down for you into simpler pieces, if you need me to do that for you. Let me know.

I did understand. Did you not understand the response? I can break it down for you into simpler pieces, if you need me to do that. Let me know.

Did I "cover" this with you? If so, I agree that there's probably no point in repeating it with you.

Yet here you are.

 

[Pinball1970]

t's essentially the idea that there's a supernatural god that set the universal clockwork into motion, so to speak, but who does not act in the world after that initial act of creation. Certainly, the deistic god has no concern for human affairs - or, if it does, it does nothing to intervene in the course of events.

Ok, that is the part I know. God did it but stepped back and watched it pan out.
The general justification for that belief comes from the Universe? Something must have created it?

Should our knowledge of physics not kill that god off the same way it killed Yhwh of (literal) Genesis?

 

[Sarkus]

Or, by regression, one can conclude that there is no ultimate cause.
Or one can conclude that there is something that did not begin to exist.

It's not a good argument for any god.

Sure, one needs other assumptions to reach "therefore god", but the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA) is a starting point for that, as was requested. The usual KCA argues that infinite regress is impossible, thus there must have been a cause that did not begin. So, if one's concept of god is simply "the original cause", then the KCA is not a "bad" argument. YMMV, though.

 

[Pinball1970]

James R Sarkus I can feel it brewing so to speak. This thread is very interesting to me, please keep it to 35C or below. I'm not god but I can see the future.

 

[Pinball1970]

Sure, one needs other assumptions to reach "therefore god", but the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA) is a starting point for that, as was requested. The usual KCA argues that infinite regress is impossible, thus there must have been a cause that did not begin. So, if one's concept of god is simply "the original cause", then the KCA is not a "bad" argument. YMMV, though

Just on that point. A temporally eternal universe is discussed on various physics forums as a matter of course.
Can we say physics trumps philosophy? Today? Does W L. Craig still use this?

 

[Sarkus]

Should our knowledge of physics not kill that god off the same way it killed Yhwh of (literal) Genesis?

No. The deistic flavour of god sets our physics in motion, sets up the limitations of science, etc, while sitting outside of it, never interfering. So physics/science can say nothing at all about the deistic god. It can investigate claims made about god, though, such as "the universe was created 6,000 years ago". But if the deistic god doesn't interfere, it sets up no empirically distinguishable observation, and there would be literally nothing to see but that which we would expect from the natural world.

This then is an interesting comparison to there being no god, since in both cases the internal universe would show no sign/evidence of god. The difference is in the metaphysics.

This is at least with regard the "minimalist" version of deism - the "creates then leaves" type.
There are other forms, though, but I'd have to look up some details. Some include the afterlife, some include establishing moral order and so on.

 

[Sarkus]

Just on that point. A temporally eternal universe is discussed on various physics forums as a matter of course.
Can we say physics trumps philosophy? Today? Does W L. Craig still use this?

I think there is reasonable science that would argue against a universe that is eternal into the past. Being infinite/eternal into the future is probably an easier matter, e.g. we just expand apart for, well, ever. It doesn't mean anything could live that far into the future, but the universe itself could possibly exist (not withstanding the "big freeze" and reality ultimately ripping itself apart etc).
But being eternal into the past is not something science is too comfortable with, I don't think. The main issue is entropy, if I understood it correctly.

As to your second line: physics trumps philosophy when it comes to practical matters, I'd say. But philosophy helps in interpreting and reasoning (e.g. logic) the observations, and addressing questions/matters that aren't in and of themselves empirical.

And, yes, Craig still uses and defends the KCA.

 

[exchemist]

exchemist:

This part of the conversation started when you asserted that "explaining the natural world is not the purpose of religion, which is basically to provide guidance to help people live their lives".

I would make the point that your own idea of what the "purpose of religion" is might very well differ from what other theists believe is the purpose of religion. Religion most likely serves many purposes for different believers. You are one data point in the gamet of religious believers. I would be wary of assuming that every other believer holds the same views on religion that you do. In fact, I'm sure you're aware that there is a very wide variety of religious belief and much divergence of opinion on what are the "legitimate" purposes of religion.

While it is may not be true for you here and now, it has certainly been the case for many believers in the past - and is apparently true of other believers today - that one purpose of their religion has been to fill in gaps in knowledge of the natural world - or at least to provide believers with a sense of comfort and reassurance that somebody is in control of the whole system and has a plan.


If I may be so bold as to borrow something you wrote a few posts before this one and flip it around a little: If you prefer to argue against religion as it is today, in favour of what it was a couple of thousand years ago, feel free. It might be an easier argument, in some ways.

Anyway, the relevant insight here seems to me to be that diverse believers, both in the past and today, have diverse views about which parts of the Old Testament are allegorical and which are to be taken literally.

I fully understand and appreciate that you take many parts of the bible to be allegory, and I'm very glad that you do that. But since these debates have been going on for 2000 years among believers, there is still much divergence of opinion as to which parts of the bible are to be considered literally true and which are not. Yours is one point of view, and you're entitled to it. But the problem, as I see it, is that it seems to be based on preference of yours rather than on solid evidence from the bible itself. Alternatively - and this is probably closer to the mark - you're rely on extra-biblical sources of information to judge which parts of the bible could possibly be literally true and which could not possibly be literally true. You then excuse those parts of the bible that are impossible or highly implausible or immoral on the basis that anybody would be an idiot to take those parts literally. And yet, lots of people have taken and do take them literally. At least, that's what they tell us.


I know what allegory is.

So if the bible says that pi is allegorically equal to 3, then it's not wrong. It's conveying a message that there's a ratio of the diameter of a circle to its radius that is a number approximately equal to three, or that is metaphorically equal to 3, if you squint at it the right way? Because the intention in the communication behind saying pi=3 is good, even if it's not strictly mathematically accurate?

Do you think the story from the Old Testament about the guy giving his daughter to a gang of men who wanted to rape her is literally true or allegorical? The implication in the story is that there was nothing immoral about his action. (I can find the chapter and verse if you want more detail.) If it's allegorical, what good moral lesson do you think the writer was trying to convey, there?


When the bible makes errors of fact, are the errors God's truth, or are the errors always allegorical? Does that make the actual truth of the matter unimportant? Does it excuse the fact that the bible text got it wrong? It seems like calling it allegory could be a kind of excuse.

For example, was there a mass exodus of Jewish slaves out of Egypt and into Israel in the time of Moses? The bible certainly says there was. But the extra-biblical historical record strongly suggests that it didn't happen. So, what's "God's Truth" in this case? Is it okay if the foundational bible story of the Exodus isn't factually true? Is that all okay because it's allegorical?

Why isn't the bible ever updated when we know it contains numerous factual errors? Why do the errors continue to be taught as if they were fact, even to (especially to) children, without explicitly telling those who are being taught that it's "allegory"?


Sure. The Catholic Church persecuted Galileo in the 1600s and changed its mind in 1991 (or whenever it was, exactly). Turns out that the geocentric solar system of the bible is "allegorical", according to the Catholic Church - but only after it was doctrinally literally true for the first 2000 years or so of Christianity.

And here in 2026, there are plenty of devout Christians (a growing number in the United States, possibly) who believe the Earth is flat, complete with a solid hemispherical "firmament" that divides the "waters above" from the "waters below", and who don't believe that space is real - or if they do believe that, still believe that the Sun orbits the Earth, along with everything else in the universe. Their priests and bishops and reverends aren't telling them that the "firmament" is allegorical. Why not?

Yes, insisting on a wrong idea of what religion is for certainly makes it easier to use science to attack it. But it is attacking an Aunt Sally. This is exactly the Dawkins Blunder.