Where did God come from?

[Michael_Callen (Herculean Skeptic)]

@John_Harshman

@michael_callen 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 appeal to Occam. The simplest explanation is the one that requires the fewest entities. People are known to exist and to be capable of making things up. Adding an existing God increases the number of entities, hence the complexity. The people are there whether or not you add God to the mix.

Isn’t that sort of convenient, then? Why ask the question if you rule the response out a priori?

What is more complex, that we landed on the moon or that we did not land on the moon?

[Dan_Eastwood]

It’s about as good as any other answer

[EvanFlick (Evan)]

I can see your flair

I was saying that as a general statement to everyone reading this thread

[John_Dalton]

@Guy_Coe

Wouldn’t pink oceans result from too much salinity planet-wide to sustain life? : )

Are you saying God couldn’t have made pink oceans?

[Guy_Coe]

No; just that He wouldn’t, if He had anything like creating you and me in mind. : )

[John_Dalton]

I meant you and me and pink oceans. I think that’s a Peter Paul and Mary song

[Ashwin_s]

@Patrick

Did becoming a Christian improve your life? Is life more meaningful now? How has your morals, values and ethics changed since becoming a Christian? Are you happier?

Yes to all the above. However, I might define some of these words differedntly from the way you do… For example “meaningful”; “improve” etc.

Did you save that question somewhere so that you can ask it to everyone who claims to be a christian? Do you have muslim, Hindu, and wiccan versions of the same question ?

[Ashwin_s]

@John_Dalton

True, “nothing at all” is too strong a term. But such knowledge would be limited to very general parameters we derive by conjecture.

Correct. We dont get many specifics such as who God is.

@John_Dalton

Maybe. Then again, maybe he has no power except that of universe creating. He might not need to know anything to do it. Or anything else really. All of it could be beyond our imagination, totally. It indeed seems to be in my view.

Ashwin_s:

I think the highlighted part is just another way of saying God doesnt exist. However, if one is convinced that there is a Creator, then he would have abilities beyond our imagination.

@John_Dalton

I think about it a lot and I would love nothing better than to understand it to the core. Reality has a way of smacking your hopes and dreams in the face though, and here the reality looks like that that information isn’t readily available to us. I’m not going to cry in my beer about that. I don’t think that attitude is defeatist. I think it’s realistic. And I’m all for anybody thinking about as much as they like. I’m even usually willing to listen.

Yes, we seem to approach this issue differently… Your interest in listening is definitely appreciated.
As to the information not being readily available… yes the details are not… that’s why a search is involved.

@John_Dalton

I guess a convincing demonstration of that isn’t possible, so it doesn’t do me any good. I’m not going to deny anyone’s personal revelations. But I hope they will equally recognize that they’re revelations to them and not to me.

I agree with the second part of what you said… The problem with the first part is the word “convincing demonstration”… Its highly subjective. For example, i see nature and the universe as a convincing demonstration of Gods existence and power… Whereas you don’t.

[Guy_Coe]

How about a yellow submarine in a pink ocean? Will that do instead? : )

[John_Dalton]

@Ashwin_s

I think the highlighted part is just another way of saying God doesnt exist. However, if one is convinced that there is a Creator, then he would have abilities beyond our imagination.

Maybe. It is saying that a creative force with the characteristics people commonly assign to God doesn’t exist. I guess that’s the same thing. I don’t think a “Creator” would necessarily have to have those characteristics though. I take the “beyond our imagination” part of this more literally. All aspects of it could be beyond our imagination. That would literally mean that we would be unable to imagine anything about it.

@Ashwin_s

I agree with the second part of what you said… The problem with the first part is the word “convincing demonstration”… Its highly subjective. For example, i see nature and the universe as a convincing demonstration of Gods existence and power… Whereas you don’t.

I was talking about personal revelation. I thought you meant something more personal than the existence of nature for example. One can give testimony about a personal revelation, but demonstrating it is another story. We all can see that nature exists, and our disagreement about what it represents is a different kettle of fish. All that being said, to me it represents that something is going on which is outside my understanding.

[dga471 (Daniel)]

@John_Harshman

Because a falsely imagined God requires only the existence of entities we know exist, i.e. people, while the pre-existent, sovereign God requires the existence of an additional entity, i.e. the pre-existent, sovereign God as well as the people. And it’s an entity we don’t actually see.

It depends on the meaning of “see”. We literally don’t see dark matter either, but we infer that it exists based on its effect on things we can see in nature. Similarly, one can posit a God based on phenomena we observe in this universe (whether it be inanimate nature, people, or other things), even if one can’t directly see God.

(Note that I am not suggesting God is literally a scientific hypothesis.)

[Patrick]

@Djordje

I certainly hope you’re not being serious because we have evidence that Occam wasn’t afraid to stand up to the pope when Pope John XXII attacked the Rule of Saint Francis, another thing that would have led to him being burned at the stake had he not escaped to Holy Roman Empire.

Add to that all of his writings on theology.

I am beginning to like Occam even more now.

[Patrick]

@Guy_Coe

How is a prexistent, sovereign God a more complicated “idea” (sic) than a falsely imagined one?
The first simply IS, the other simply ISN’T.
We must come to terms with God as a living “Person,” rather than just something abstract.
Even the topic’s heading, “Where does God Come From,” is a non-sequitur, being, as He is, the Creator of space and time, and fully existing independent of those dimensions.
The only even slightly responsive answer can be, “everywhere” --because God is both immanent and transcendent.

Both are invisible, not testable, not falsifiable, just one bit of information to describe: true or false, exist or doesn’t exist, real or imaginary. Can’t get simpler than that.

[John_Harshman]

@Michael_Callen

Isn’t that sort of convenient, then? Why ask the question if you rule the response out a priori ?

I don’t rule out the response a priori. I point out that the response in incorrect.

[John_Harshman]

@dga471

It depends on the meaning of “see”. We literally don’t see dark matter either, but we infer that it exists based on its effect on things we can see in nature. Similarly, one can posit a God based on phenomena we observe in this universe (whether it be inanimate nature, people, or other things), even if one can’t directly see God.

No, it doesn’t depend on the meaning of “see”. By “see” I refer to observation in the scientific sense. We know people exist based on copious evidence. One can posit a God, but there is no clear evidence. The phenomena we observe do not point to God for anyone who doesn’t already believe. On the other hand, there is good evidence of dark matter.

[dga471 (Daniel)]

@John_Harshman

By “see” I refer to observation in the scientific sense. We know people exist based on copious evidence. One can posit a God, but there is no clear evidence.

By definition, God is not a scientific object of study, so I agree that his existence is not clearly shown by any sort of scientific evidence. The evidence for God consists of a philosophical and historical case, which is less clear-cut (as philosophical arguments tend to be), but it is claimed evidence nonetheless.

@John_Harshman

The phenomena we observe do not point to God for anyone who doesn’t already believe.

I don’t think this statement says much. I could just as well say that only people who have already decided to not believe refuse to see the evidence for what it is. I agree that there is more disagreement on the question of God compared to science,* but some people have decided to believe in God based on certain evidence (whether philosophical, historical, or personal), just as people have decided to believe in dark matter based on certain other kinds of evidence (scientific).

*Note that about 93% of all humans worldwide believe in some sort of God, so there is not as much disagreement on this as one might think!

[John_Harshman]

@dga471

By definition, God is not a scientific object of study

I disagree.

@dga471

The evidence for God consists of a philosophical and historical case, which is less clear-cut (as philosophical arguments tend to be), but it is claimed evidence nonetheless.

Previously you had claimed that the evidence for God was what we see in the universe. Of course many things are claimed to be evidence. I just don’t think they really are evidence.

@dga471

I could just as well say that only people who have already decided to not believe refuse to see the evidence for what it is.

You could, but I don’t think you would be right. And are we back to the universe rather than history and philosophy?

@dga471

Note that about 93% of all humans worldwide believe in some sort of God, so there is not as much disagreement on this as one might think!

What point are you trying to make by that?

[Guy_Coe]

You have no explanation for the universe displaying an Anthropic Principle without a transcedent, Creator God. You have to ignore those observations to come to the opposite conclusion. There’s plenty to “see” as evidence for God.

[Patrick]

@Ashwin_s

Did you save that question somewhere so that you can ask it to everyone who claims to be a christian? Do you have muslim, Hindu, and wiccan versions of the same question ?

I ask the same question to every human being. Especially the one’s that say this or that has changed their life. I am interested in what people say as life transforming.

[John_Harshman]

@Guy_Coe

You have no explanation for the universe displaying an Anthropic Principle without a transcedent, Creator God.

Which anthropic principle did you have in mind, and how does a transcendent, creator God explain the universe? Are we not back to needing an explanation for God, which is where this all started? The cosmological argument just doesn’t work other than by assuming its truth at the beginning.