I am willing to accept something (in another dimension, time, other reality, w/e). But it does not care about us nor does it actually affect anything in our world or any of that BS. Meaning praying or having faith is just utterly useless. Maybe if they have a connection to this plane/dimension/whatever, they can affect it in some ways by accidents or something, but again, they don't give a crap about us even if they exist. So ultimately religion is bad and useless and we should just focus on science to prove that said supernatural being exist.

senseinobaka, you are clearly a Jehovah's Witness, a religion I am very familiar with (I've study a great many religions in depth). If you're not, then you should look into it, you believe exactly as they do.

Your prophecy in Isaiah I am very well aware of, and is completely nonsensical and proves nothing, and provides no comfort. The fact of the matter is even if he is GOING to make animals suddenly live peacefully for no apparent reason other than because it sounds peachy keen in paradise, even contradictory to his original design for nature and would throw his ecosystem completely out of whack, it doesn't change the fact of what he made.

Clearly he doesn't feel the same way I do, because he created it, and said "it is good". Now you believe that Jehovah is incapable of wickedness, any wickedness that exists is brought on by man, and by Satan. All of the wars, disease, famine, pain suffering, ect is not because of him, he did not create that. Rather Man created that by sinning six thousand years ago in the garden of eden. This world of pain, fear, disease, starvation, a constant struggle for survival is not of his design, but rather something he hates.

So what is of his design? If you want to know, all you have to do is look at the earth seven thousand years ago, a thousand years before he made man. What was it like? It was a world of fear, pain, disease, starvation, a constant struggle for survival for every living thing. After he made all of his beautiful creations he wiped out most of them by means of rapid climate change, having them hunt each other to extinction, diseases, famines, and sometimes by creating creatures that just weren't capable of surviving (a serious lack of wisdom). He was capable of creating life however he wanted, and created it so that it was a gruesome, painful, terrifying ordeal, where every day was a struggle just to live. He did something completely contradictory to his supposed nature, he created things that are supposedly unthinkably awful to him. He created what Witnesses attribute solely to man and Satan.

He is a bloodthirsty god. If you are a witness you believe in Armageddon, in which after the great tribulation when god puts it into the heart of man to have it's governments attempt to destroy all of organized religion, Jehovah will step in to defend his true servants (Specifically Jehovah's witnesses, and no other religion, because they worship false gods). Now this god of infinite love and wisdom's brilliant loving solution to creating a peaceful world, is what? To kill 99.9% of the earth's population (witness's are about 6-7 million, in an earth of 6-7 billion). That is the end of the conflict. Kill everyone that disagrees with him, or doesn't know him (I know you claim that the door to door work you do gives everyone a chance to know him, but honestly how is passing out magazines and offering studies to people giving them a real chance to know him, compared to say him saying "Hey everybody, I'm Jehovah. Who wants to know me?") in a massacre of men women and children. Then there is a ressurection of righteous and unrighteous that were lucky enough to die before god killed them. Perfectly loving, just, and sensical!

The fact of the matter is, as Mark Twain put it, the bible is the most damning biography ever written. The God of Love is a bloodthirsty god that killed millions, and supposedly in the future plans on killing billions more. He gave birth to pain, fear, disease, famine, war (as jane goodall showed, primates wage war just as humans do. we're just better at it), and afterwards looked at the carnage and said "it is good". I'm sorry but the god you believe in is a fairy tale. His world and book contradict his very nature.

I don't believe in destroying god, but seeing as how this is an open debate I don't feel to bad about showing the illogical reasoning behind it.

Kasz216 said: totalwar23 said: Kasz216 said: totalwar23 said: ^Oh yeah, what's your definition of God-because if God can defy the natural laws-then he's supernatural, hence the term super. The guy who created our universe. If we believe in this logically likely computer god... He could defy our "natural" laws because he created them. Via his computer. That would be "supernatural" to us. But in reality he is just operating outside of our reality... while also able to affect our reality. Which is far as I know is how just about every religion see's there god. Oh, the computer argument. Well, that's fine. But that just opens more questions. Why is there only person? Why is it not an entire race outside our reality, our universe? Why couldn't it be a project simulation run by thousands of their scientists? What makes them Godly? As far as i know, a lot of religions see the gods as wise and powerful creatures that will aid them with their troubles if they pray enough. If this is indeed a computer simulation, then all of the religions are really for naught. Okay, now I haven't the time to scroll through this entire thread so I don't know what's been said nor do I actually care that much. That being said, this is moot. They created everything. If thousands of sceintists created this world, i'd say they were all "gods" with the head god being the head of the project. Kinda like a Monotheism. If this is a computer simulation, the religions may be for naught... or the researchers... or even some bored 17 year old who uses this world as Sim God and could answer peoples prayers, or cause them torment. Much how one of us might intentionally cause a tornado to our Sim City town. This unvierse might be someones cell phone game for all we know. Or a RTS game where everyone created their own religion and now they're trying to see who wins. Who knows. That's really unimportant. Heck we could be a cellphone game, of a virtual person who is part of a universe that's a hand held game, that's a cellphone game or a reality thats an MMORPG. Who knows.  Even if another fake virtual person created this universe.  I'd think he would in fact be god.

OK, for starters "monotheism" means ONE god, not lots of gods with one in charge. Come on.

Next, I don't think your example makes sense. Etiher you look at it from our perspective -- in which case you have said they are supernatural -- or you look at it from their perspective -- in which case they are ordinary people, not gods.

The point is that I would say that the definition of a "god" includes not being held to the same natural laws that we mortals are subject to, which is by definition supernatural. How does your definition differ?

Final-Fan said: Kasz216 said: totalwar23 said: Kasz216 said: totalwar23 said: ^Oh yeah, what's your definition of God-because if God can defy the natural laws-then he's supernatural, hence the term super. The guy who created our universe. If we believe in this logically likely computer god... He could defy our "natural" laws because he created them. Via his computer. That would be "supernatural" to us. But in reality he is just operating outside of our reality... while also able to affect our reality. Which is far as I know is how just about every religion see's there god. Oh, the computer argument. Well, that's fine. But that just opens more questions. Why is there only person? Why is it not an entire race outside our reality, our universe? Why couldn't it be a project simulation run by thousands of their scientists? What makes them Godly? As far as i know, a lot of religions see the gods as wise and powerful creatures that will aid them with their troubles if they pray enough. If this is indeed a computer simulation, then all of the religions are really for naught. Okay, now I haven't the time to scroll through this entire thread so I don't know what's been said nor do I actually care that much. That being said, this is moot. They created everything. If thousands of sceintists created this world, i'd say they were all "gods" with the head god being the head of the project. Kinda like a Monotheism. If this is a computer simulation, the religions may be for naught... or the researchers... or even some bored 17 year old who uses this world as Sim God and could answer peoples prayers, or cause them torment. Much how one of us might intentionally cause a tornado to our Sim City town. This unvierse might be someones cell phone game for all we know. Or a RTS game where everyone created their own religion and now they're trying to see who wins. Who knows. That's really unimportant. Heck we could be a cellphone game, of a virtual person who is part of a universe that's a hand held game, that's a cellphone game or a reality thats an MMORPG. Who knows. Even if another fake virtual person created this universe. I'd think he would in fact be god. OK, for starters "monotheism" means ONE god, not lots of gods with one in charge. Come on. Next, I don't think your example makes sense. Etiher you look at it from our perspective -- in which case you have said they are supernatural -- or you look at it from their perspective -- in which case they are ordinary people, not gods. The point is that I would say that the definition of a "god" includes not being held to the same natural laws that we mortals are subject to, which is by definition supernatural. How does your definition differ?

Yeah i meant Polytheism. I blame Civ 4. Polytheism used to be usefull because for some reason it gave you Elphant units... but the whole early religion thing never seems worth it. I don't even think it's a researchable civ in 4. Making Monotheism the first one sometimes causing me to slip up.

Sounds wierd but that's how my brain is wired. For example my friend's birthday is 10 days away from mine. So instead of it being February 12th, i tend to think it's February 10th in my mind if i don't think about it for a second first.

Really I just don't get your point that if our world was a comuter program that created that person wouldn't be supernatural.

They would be supernatural to us... but not to them.

If got exists... i'd guess he wouldn't be supernatural to himself... and would know how he does what he does. I don't see how this is any different.

In other words God is supernatural to us. But I wouldn't say he was inherently supernatural. Supernatural is basically just a word we use for "something we don't have a firm grip on."

Were someone to prove that god created everything and be able to show how he did it. Through say... a Math problem or some expierement. God really wouldn't be supernatural anymore.

Though how one would prove this is the real trick, since it would likely take a level of complexity that we don't have because we can't see out of the program so to speak.  Or out of the dimension.  Which is the problem we have of time vs "real time"

Final-Fan said: What you fail to grasp, Grey Acumen, is that for your God there can be no probablities, only absolute knowledge. If God looked at something and said, "hmm, there's a 64% chance of this happening and 36% chance that it won't and I don't know which way it will go beforehand" then he is not all-knowing. Therefore he knows everything in advance including having known everybody's sins before creating the Universe in such a way that those sins would happen. Therefore all sin is his fault, QED.

Why can't there be probabilities? If I know every possible event that can take place and all variances, then i know all. I can put plans in motion ahead of time when I see that certain events have the possibility of taking place. If I see the universe heading down paths that can lead to X happening, Y happening, or Z happening, then since i'm all powerful, I can have things set up ahead of time with safety catches to put the universe back on a reasonable track.

Haven't you ever written a program with error catching? java or C++ try catch and throw. I'm all knowing, so I can write it into the code to have safety catches for every possible contingency while still allowing the program to throw whatever random numbers it wants.

Also, what the heck is the point of "therefor all sin is his fault, QED"? Are you saying that God can't exist because bad things happen on earth? Helloooo, this is earth, we have to die before we have a shot at heaven. 

^ So you are saying that if you know the chances of all possible outcomes, but not which will be the actual outcome, you know everything?

That is obviously wrong.

 

That's like saying "I go up to a roulette table.  I know if I bet my money on X I know the chances of each of the possible outcomes (the odds) and what will happen to my money with each one of those outcomes (the payoffs)  Therefore I know exactly what the ball will land on.

 Not to mention in your example above, god couldn't SEE that x y or z was happening, as he would have known a billion years prior to those events which would occur, if he was all knowing.  Your example in programming is COMPLETELY invalid.  The error checking catches for events you DON'T expect, or MIGHT happen but you aren't sure.  If you knew everything that would happen, there would be no need for exception handling, because there would be no exceptions to what you know would occur.

There are methods of programming that do not utilize exception handling. That is not the one true method. As a professional developer, you're hitting my area of expertise. I'm not saying these other methods are easy, in fact, it's incredibly easy to use exceptions, and I'd argue that it's almost pseudo programming, but that's another debate. ;)

If God worked with probabilities, then God would not be infallible, and it would undermine the idea that God is the one true being.

@crash: Exception handling has become more commonplace with programmers lately, and it does get used for program flow. I'm not going to say I haven't thrown exceptions to bail out of deeply nested algorithms because it was easier than creating events for each subclass, but I'd be lying.

Andir said: @crash: Exception handling has become more commonplace with programmers lately, and it does get used for program flow. I'm not going to say I haven't thrown exceptions to bail out of deeply nested algorithms because it was easier than creating events for each subclass, but I'd be lying.

No, I am aware (professional programmer myself, that's why I enjoy c++, can't really cheat that way too easily ;) ) but in the context he was refering to thats the purpose of exception handling.

 Let me give you an example.  Say you have a program that opens a file.  You may add an Exception handler (try/catch block) to make sure the file exists and fails gracefully if it doesn't.  You as the programmer DON'T KNOW if the file exists or not, hence the exception handling in case it doesn't.

If you KNEW the file would always exist, then you wouldn't need the try catch block.  If you knew the file will never exist, then there is no point in running the program.  If you know when the file will be there and when it doesn't then you would know when to run the program and when not to, making the exception handling pointless.

Kasz216 said: Final-Fan said: Kasz216 said: If thousands of sceintists created this world, i'd say they were all "gods" with the head god being the head of the project. Kinda like [Poly]theism. If this is a computer simulation, the religions may be for naught... or the researchers... or even some bored 17 year old who uses this world as Sim God and could answer peoples prayers, or cause them torment. Much how one of us might intentionally cause a tornado to our Sim City town. This unvierse might be someones cell phone game for all we know. Or a RTS game where everyone created their own religion and now they're trying to see who wins. Who knows. That's really unimportant. Heck we could be a cellphone game, of a virtual person who is part of a universe that's a hand held game, that's a cellphone game or a reality thats an MMORPG. Who knows. Even if another fake virtual person created this universe. I'd think he would in fact be god. I don't think your example makes sense. Etiher you look at it from our perspective -- in which case you have said they are supernatural -- or you look at it from their perspective -- in which case they are ordinary people, not gods. The point is that I would say that the definition of a "god" includes not being held to the same natural laws that we mortals are subject to, which is by definition supernatural. How does your definition differ? Really I just don't get your point that if our world was a comuter program that created that person wouldn't be supernatural. They would be supernatural to us... but not to them. If got exists... i'd guess he wouldn't be supernatural to himself... and would know how he does what he does. I don't see how this is any different. In other words God is supernatural to us. But I wouldn't say he was inherently supernatural. Supernatural is basically just a word we use for "something we don't have a firm grip on." Were someone to prove that god created everything and be able to show how he did it. Through say... a Math problem or some expierement. God really wouldn't be supernatural anymore. Though how one would prove this is the real trick, since it would likely take a level of complexity that we don't have because we can't see out of the program so to speak. Or out of the dimension. Which is the problem we have of time vs "real time"

That's exactly what I said.

What I meant was that in terms of OUR UNIVERSE they would be supernatural. And if they're supernatural to our universe but natural in some other universe ... well, they're still supernatural in the universe they're gods of. They're not gods in any universe where they don't have supernatural powers. WE AGREE ON THIS according to your own example. So I think that the argument that they can be gods and yet not supernatural is just sophistry.

supernatural
1: of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially : of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil
2 a: departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature b: attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit)

So the word actually is a PERFECT match for my contentions, namely that it (1) refers specifically to godlike properties; (2) refers to beings or forces operating beyond the constraints of natural law.

Even if we could prove the existence of a God or Gods, if they can still create or destroy matter, simultaneously know the exact location and trajectory of a particle, etc. etc. they can still obviously be supernatural.