Some find faith in God a challenge to believe. If you, or anyone else, wishes to believe that universes poop themselves into being automatically, every trillion, trillion years, I have a teapot to sell you.
Silver teapot, I hope. And it would have to be from silver made in the collaspe of two neutron stars.
Someone call Dawkins, his teapot has been sold to Patrick.
Not necessarily. Certainly we could literally envision it ourselves now. Leaving that aside, it might be the result of some creative process outside our understanding. It seems likely to be, really. Who knows if what we think of as âintelligenceâ is even applicable? To think we somehow have our finger on the pulse of it seems⌠hubristic? Searching for the right word here.
a new production:
Obviously this is a matter of opinion and conjecture. Apart from knowledge of the universe, do you see yourself as having the ability to envision a universe? One of the scale, scope, intricacy from the smallest-small to the largest-large, beauty, wonder, mystery, the invisible forces, functions and features? Maybe you can. I cannot.
Hitchens completely misses the point about a âjust Godâ and Jeffersonâs concerns. His understanding that a just God existed in no way alleviated the American citizens of culpability over slavery, rather it was the opposite. That man is created in the image of God, with the understanding of right vs. wrong, but possessing free will, meant that man was and is capable of terrible atrocities. So, the existence of a just God did not suggest to Jefferson that God was going to fix the situation, but that man would be judged for not fixing the situation, when it was so clearly wrong. It was always manâs situation to fix.
Ok, maybe it would just be a cheap knock-off, true.
Hahaha⌠Iâm sure it would be very niceâŚ
You didnât answer my question either, though it wasnât in the form of a question. Why not?
But to answer yours: âHe existsâ requires a multiplication of entities (well, one highly complicated entity) while âhe was made upâ does not, since we know that people do exist and do make things up. In fact, I would suspect that you think Zeus and Marduk were made up. Is that correct? Hypotheses that require extra entities are more complex than hypotheses that donât.
I guess it would do for us. It might be a bit rough around the edges.
I disagree with you. A made up god, by very nature, requires a degree of complexity beyond one that exists, because creative effort is required to manufacture this god. I would agree that a real god, one who was responsible for the creation of the universe, would be more complex than a manufactured god. But that was not the issue being discussed. It was in choosing between god existing vs. god having been made up, which one is more complex.
Your question, is quoted above. As was noted earlier in the thread, I was merely asking why A was more complex than B. I was not envisioning one god vs. another.
That said⌠why is âZeus or Marduk existsâ more complicated than âZeus or Marduk was made up?â
A: Zeus is, vs. Zeus is a human concept put forth as an explanation for mysterious physical forces of unknown origin, such as lightning. Zeus (or Marduk) is is less complicated, in my opinion.
Donât take this the wrong way, but I donât want to live there!
The pink oceans probably were a tad much.
Letâs also add, that the God revealed in the Bible, is one that is incapable of being humanly âmade up.â You donât âmake upâ a single supreme transcendent God to Whom you are minutely accountable.
You can, however, make up inferior versions of such, then reject them with a laugh, of course.
Wouldnât pink oceans result from too much salinity planet-wide to sustain life? : )
Meet you at Yellowstone, and watch you take a dip in all those wildly colored pools. Just donât bother to book a return flight! : )
(Sorry for an acidic sense of humor!)âŚ
God of the Bible was the first single supreme transcendent God. I thought Hinduism has many a thousand years prior and so did Egypt and Assyria. Supreme transcendent Gods are part of most ancient cultures.
âTranscedentâ means from beyond and outside of space and time. All the other ones from ancient cultures are âemanationsâ from within nature.
Iâd be happy to be informed of any exceptions to this ârule.â The ancient Chinese conception of the Almighty may be one.
Of course, he said, just dripping with irony.