>From: "Zero Powers" <zero_powers@hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org
>To: extropians@extropy.org
>Subject: God & stuff (was: Re: just me)
>Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2000 23:04:28 PDT
>
>
>I can't imagine that any of the world religions have a lock on any sort of
>real "supernatural" ontology. But I always get kick out of atheists who
>smugly claim that there is no god. I don't claim that there is a god. The
>fact of the matter is that the data are inconclusive. But there are some
>things we do know: the universe is here; it got here somehow; and we don't
>know how.
But of all the possibilities that could have brought it to be, that of an
intelligent and all powerful being is the most absurd.
To attribute the first causes to a God only makes things much more
complicated when you ask the obvious question - where did God come from?
It's certainly a lot more difficult to explain the origin of intelligence
from nothing then it is to explain a singularity (a physical singularity)
from nothing.
>
>I realize that is not reason enough to claim that it must have been built
>by
>Jehovah (Allah, Jesus, fill in the blank). But some time back, before the
>big bang, before the first of perhaps almost infinitely many big bangs,
>there was a *first* cause.
Keep applying the same logic, and you have to admit there must have been a
*zeroth* cause as well, as well as a *negative first* to explain that one..
ad infinitum. This tells me something is inadequate about our conception of
time.
>
>Energy is conserved, meaning it is neither created nor destroyed. Can that
>mean that energy and/or matter have *always* existed? Is that any easier
>to
>believe than the story that God has always existed? Not for me.
Why not? I find it much easier (though still difficult) to believe that a
hydrogen atom has always existed then to believe that an intelligent entity
has. If you find it more or equally plausable that intelligence could exist
with no origin, then why trace it all the way back to God? Why not just
postulate that humans, as intelligent beings, have existed for all eternity.
You seem to be hinting at the argument that God could exist by taking the
first cause, and calling it God. This is a legitimate linguistic and
philosophical tool, but if you take this route, I wouldn't expect God to
have any of the properties generally ascribed to him, such as having
intelligence, or being any kind of "being" at all.
A side note: the concept of an all-powerful being is internally
inconsistent, because there is one thing he could not do: create a being
more powerful then himself. If he could do that, then he's not "all
powerful", because if it's possible for a being more powerful then him to
exist, there must be at least one power he does not have. And if he cannot
do that, then he's not all powerful in the first place.
>Don't get
>me wrong, I no longer believe in the God I was taught about in Sunday
>school. But in light of the number and fundamentality of the unanswerable
>questions, I can't see how one could claim with any sort of certainty that
>God does not exist.
If you are driving your car and look down at the gas gage and see that it
says your tank is full, can you believe with any certainty that your tank is
actually full? Of course - even though you could think of a number of
possible reasons why this may not be the case - such as that the gage may be
stuck.
But I cannot think of any possible explanations or evidence for the
existence of any God. I can claim the God does not exist with much more
certainty then I can claim that my gas gage works.
>
>
>-Zero
>
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---------------------------------------------------
Zeb Haradon (zebharadon@hotmail.com)
My personal webpage:
http://www.inconnect.com/~zharadon/ubunix
A movie I'm directing:
http://www.elevatormovie.com
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