Man of Honour
- Joined
- 27 Sep 2004
- Posts
- 25,821
- Location
- Glasgow
Please excuse me cutting out parts for reasons of space. I'm saying that (a) god might not be able to be observed - just because we as a species tend to rely on observation (of various sorts) to form an understanding of our world does not implicitly mean that a god must fit within the category of things that we can observe and therefore understand. Or to look at it from a slightly different perspective - if there's a god that created the Earth and everything within our universe then with that unimaginable power would appearing or disappearing at will, interceding with any and every experiment ever not be a trifling affair?
Fundamentally you don't "know" god in the sense that you can prove one exists, you have "believe" in a god (i.e. you have faith that one exists). Therefore the idea of being able to prove a god exists is not one that really enters into it, while it would be nice to have some form of definitive proof for those of us who appreciate it the issue is almost irrelevant to a believer - they believe or they don't.
At best with that you can provide an argument why the Abrahmic religions aren't true or at least are so full of holes as to be exceedingly unlikely to be true as told. However likelihood is not necessarily the same as proof, statistically you're more likely to get hit by lightning (orders of magnitude greater on that one from memory) yet people can and do with the lottery.
If, and it's a big if, there is a god as I said above that created the universe then why should it be any more than a minute demonstration of their powers to project themselves into the consciousness of their believers yet not be observable with any scientific apparatus or even to appear yet render themselves undetectable by our measuring devices? We're talking about something with unimaginable power which doesn't have to fit within a logical framework.
Suppose for a second that I declared I had a test for god - if I blaspheme and god does not strike me down then god does not exist? If I a) am promptly hit by the metaphorical bolt of lightning and drop dead then does that prove god exists or should I not have been standing in a thunderstorm when I did it? b) I don't drop dead but stub my toe the next instant - was that simply a warning? c) nothing whatsoever happens and I continue on as before - have I proved that god does not exist or have I proved nothing whatsoever, a god may not have chosen to dignify my challenge with a response? There are other possible outcomes but for the sake of brevity (bit late now you might say) those are the three I've highlighted.
For whatever it matters I'm apathetic agnostic - I neither know nor care about the existence of a god except for the occasional debates that I can enjoy. I don't find the Abrahmic concept of God convincing nor for that matter any other concept of god that I've yet heard but I can't (or perhaps won't) discount it as a possibility - if we're talking about something that doesn't need a logical framework then what sense does it make to apply logic to it. A god may exist and interfere with every observation that has ever been made, purely because he likes to mess with our heads - if that were true then does it matter for science provided the results will be consistent and we will be able to create a predictively accurate model from it?
) but still a judgement to come - but everyone has free will to accept this or reject. But to start arguing that God has changed his mind or that He just punishes people because it's fun or whatever is just a bit ignorant of the facts, sorry.
