What does God do?

gmilam said:
You're asking atheists to define god?
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From this thread and other places like this I get an impression atheist know more about the contents of the bible and what god should be doing / responsible for

Michael 345 said:
I haven't kept score so can someone fill me in how many
"things that god does now" have believers catalogued so far?
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No answer from my post about 5 post back but I can give it a bit longer

Perhaps it is a big list they are compiling

:)
 
Michael 345 said:
From this thread and other places like this I get an impression atheist know more about the contents of the bible and what god should be doing / responsible for
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That has been my personal experience. But it is conceivable that someone is not coming from a Biblical perspective. Hence my question of "Where are you getting your information from?"

I will confess that I do have a concept of "god". But mine can usually be expressed by the word "universe" - which I find has a lot less baggage than the word "god" does. And my concept doesn't request any sort of worship. Nor does it include any need for or promise of salvation.
 
James R said:
This is a question for the believers on sciforums.
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I'm not a believer, nor have I read all 14 pages of this thread, but I'll take a shot at the question in the O.P.

What does God do?

I mean, what does God do right here and now, today? I don't want to hear about how God created the universe and that sort of thing, or how God performed miracles in the distant past, or any of that. I just want to know what God does on a day-to-day basis in the modern world, if anything?
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1. God (arguably) provides an ongoing answer for why reality exists at all. In other words, God might be the ultimate and fundamental existent that needs no additional ground or justification for its existence and serves to explain the reality of everything else.

2. God (arguably) is what accounts for the order that we observe in reality, the 'laws of physics' along with mathematical and logical relationships.

3. God (arguably) provides the connection between cause and effect. (I'm thinking of occasionalism here.) The Muslims in particular have long argued that what connects cause and effect is the Will of God, so that there is only one real (divine) cause. What we think of as physical causes are just 'occasions' for God to create new states of affairs in (usually, but not necessarily) predictable ways. (Maybe God got lazy on the quantum microscale, thinking 'Oh, they'll never notice anything this small', and fudged it with pixel-like probabilities.)

4. And some might appeal to God in regards to the cosmological fine-tuning arguments.

I personally wouldn't make those claims myself since I consider 1. through 4. to be unanswered metaphysical questions and don't think that we should be pretending that we've answered them by naming whatever the unknown answers might be, 'God'.

But it would give God plenty to do, right now, moment to moment.
 
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scifes said:
Maybe some people can live their life with nothing but that to live for, but it's just not enough.
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In what way is obeying an alien overlord "more"?

you don't even know who my god is to tell me if his promise is empty or not.
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Whatever god you have made up, how do you actually know that his promises aren't as empty as mine?

Because nothing we can decide on ourselves would matter enough.
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Again, why should something that "matters" to an alien overlord mean more to us than what actually matters to us?

his mere existence, by dictionary definition, is fulfilling enough.
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You have a strange idea of "enough". Helping your fellow man, realizing your own dreams, etc. are not "enough" for you but the mere existence of a god is?

That's the mind boggling thing about this whole thread. That you guys are asking about the conditions under which water would be wet.
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We value water for what it can do for us, not for its mere existence.
 
Yazata said:
I'm not a believer, nor have I read all 14 pages of this thread, but I'll take a shot at the question in the O.P.
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You missed

Yazata said:
But it would give God plenty to do, right now, moment to moment.
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Everyone knows there is a looooot of work god could be doing

So please put specific names to something (anything) which needs god to be tinkering with now

Yazata said:
I personally wouldn't make those claims myself since I consider 1. through 4. to be unanswered metaphysical questions and don't think that we should be pretending that we've answered them by naming whatever the unknown answers might be, 'God'.
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Not exactly unanswered - however the religious answers given are Cowpat

Physics rules and my POV is for religious people it's unsettling nobody is in charge hence in comes anthropomorphism (love thattword) and up pops Sky Daddy

Thought bubble - when autonomous cars and public transport become the norm - which group atheist or theist will be the quickest to uptake

Atheist with a greater reliance on science or theist who want (need) the car / bus / train driver

Stephen Fry had a great line "In a few years aircraft will be so automated there will only be 2 in the cockpit. A pilot and a dog. The pilot's job will be to feed the dog. The dog's job will be to bite the pilot if he trys to touch any of the controls"

Thought bubble - When is the dog to bite god if he tries to touch physics controls?

:)
 
sideshowbob said:
Before a mass shooting, He welds the trigger.
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Occasionalism does seem to suggest a sort of amoral fatalism. Everything that happens would presumably be God's will, even the less attractive things.

But that aside, it would keep God busy, which would answer JamesR's question.
 
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Yazata said:
Everything that happens would presumably be God's will, even the less attractive things.
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If "God's will" coincided with our (collective) will on a more reliable basis, that might be construed as evidence of the existence of God.
 
Well from dictionary.com I found out what God does under a reference defining an act of God to be a direct, sudden, and irresistible action of natural forces such as could not reasonably have been foreseen or prevented, as a flood, hurricane, earthquake, or other natural catastrophe.

Alex
 
sideshowbob said:
Before a mass shooting, He welds the trigger.
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But that's what we think he should do - and I agree. But he is not doing that

The question is still - WHAT IS HE ACTUALLY DOING RIGHT NOW

Michael 345 said:
So please put specific names to something (anything) which needs god to be tinkering with now
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Perhaps my phrase could have been better put, less ambiguous

What is going on now which if pointed to - I'm thinking a flock of flying horses - you can point to and with a fair degree of confidence say "That's god doing that"

Xelasnave.1947 said:
Well from dictionary.com I found out what God does under a reference defining an act of God to be a direct, sudden, and irresistible action of natural forces such as could not reasonably have been foreseen or prevented, as a flood, hurricane, earthquake, or other natural catastrophe.

Alex
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That's right. I was forgetting the old insurance con game. They gamble nothing bad will happen to you, you gamble it will

The gamble on the insurance side works on the frequency which bad things happen and cost and them having more customers than bad events

If a capricious god makes bad things happen to most of the insurance customers, well that's unforseen, an act of God and we don't have to pay

Billy Connolly has a great film on that

I don't think act of god clauses are allowed anymore in insurance cover

So there is a perfect example - which used to be in legal documents - unpredictable catastrophic events

1/ unpredictable catastrophic events ✓

Any nice ones out there?

Thanks Alex for starting the list

:)
 
So far it seems God has some association with floods at least, and thunder but nothing else.


But unrealistically (which means realistically for the theist) we can say God does what ever we want him to do as there are no limits in the world of make believe... and we can make up any thing we like and then involve God.

Thats the way it has been done for thousands of years.

That is the wonderful thing about the bible really as you can search and find stuff that has already been made up and you can think even less ...and because its made up you can skip the bits you dont like which hopefully will be the stoning of neighbours and sinners generally and slave management and pick out the happy bits.

And the most wonderful thing with all this made up stuff by calling it ones faith you can claim it as your reality and avoid honestly addressing all reasonable questions from those folk who question your sanity or credibility a offer only a nonsence,( mystical but not), reply which both proclaims to know what God expects on the one hand and that the mind of God is unknowable on the other, with zero recognition that there may be any slight inconsistency whatsoever.

So our made up God can do anything and everything and his only limits are those imposed by the individual building upon the made up foundations of the delusion they call their faith.

It is delusion and of course if you suffer from delusion you dont know that you do because its delusion and because you suffer delusion you wont believe anyone who tells you that you suffer delusion.

So how do we satisfy we dont suffer delusion?

Easy employ evidence and if you have no evidence in support of your belief you can safely proceed to assume you are experiencing delusion...is God a delusion? Maybe maybe not ...what evidence do you have of God...the OP could be a help...what does God do...today...and what is the evidence.

Often it seems athiest only want to attack theists for being stupid but athiests I believe are generally trying to help theists heal their delusional mental condition so they can live normal lives set in a tangible reality.
Alex
 
Michael 345 said:
That's right. I was forgetting the old insurance con game.
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Yes a con game indeed.
Read the insurance cases one will do as a student of law. The efforts to avoid payment you would not believe.
If you fill out your insurance form with the help of the agent of the insurance company and he gives you bad advice such you put something in or perhaps not put something in...he could say oh dont worry about putting that in...and you dont and when a claim is made you say ..but your guy told me to do that...they say mmm yes maybe but he said that as your agent not ours...sorry rejected next please.

And insurance and religion enjoy many parrallels besides shiftyness...give me something and I will be there for you later...yeh sure.
Alex
 
scifes said:
From the other side, those things are simply not enough. Maybe some people can live their life with nothing but that to live for, but it's just not enough. If you think it works for you then great.
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But that argument is literally wishful thinking, in the sense that it doesn't lend credence to the objective existence of god.

Wanting there to be a higher purpose to our existence doesn't necessitate god into existence.

(Deja vu. We've come full circle to Jan's argument.)
 
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