From: Dana Hedberg (dah@signalinteractive.com)
Date: Fri Jan 21 2000 - 18:43:07 MST
Clint O'Dell wrote:
>
> Dana Hedberg wrote:
> >> I wrote: Evidence of existence lies on a person making
> the claim. One cannot rationally believe everything their
> imagination or friend's imagination conceives of.<<
>
> >>Agreed. But why are you so certain there is no Supreme
> Being responsible for our creation?<<
>
> Simply by definition of a supreme not bound by physical laws
> it is impossible.
>
You mean the physical laws that we have continually revised over
thousands of years, indeed the same laws that have undergone half a
dozen complete paradigmatic shifts? I wish I could share your certainty.
I have no proof of a Christian god, and I would agree with all here that
there is strong evidence that suggests the traditional story of God
(Jaweh, etc.) is incorrect. However, this in no way precludes that we
are the direct creation of creature(s) so far beyond our ken that they
approach (are, or are beyond) our limited, "known" understanding of what
it means to be Divinity. In much the same way it is always in the back
of my mind that we could be running on a simulation (but I don't know
for sure), I keep the answer to the question is there a Creator as:
Don't know, don't think so, but really, just don't know.
I try not to be middle of the road in most things, but when we are
discussing things that are easily beyond my limited capacity to
understand, then I have to. Anything else, one way or the other, and I
think you are trying to sell me something.
> >>There are problems with all religions in that they try to
> make something that is by definition unknowable, knowable.<<
>
> One can't make something unknowable knowable, because by
> first primes unknowable means cannot know. If you were
> referring to god in the above as the unknowable, then how
> does one conceive of the idea? And it is assumed unknowable
> because it is make-believe.
One can't conceive of the idea, but one can conceive of a limited
portion of it. Which is what early religious thinkers/writers/speakers
seemed to do. Even things that are arbitrarily large (massive, powerful,
etc.) we can not wholly contain, but we have ways of bounding it,
describing it, etc. And for the most part we only do so in pieces, and
it's no wonder some of them don't work, contradict others, etc. Now, the
big difference here is that I believe eventually we will be able to
wholly and fully contain those things we can only partially describe
now, but that would not be the case with something like the concept of
God. Which is what I tried to indicate in my earlier post.
My only point of contention in all of this is my confusion that arises
at your adamant stance. So you have no evidence for the existence of a
God-like being that is your Creator. Does that automatically mean you
have to believe the opposite? Isn't it a more rational choice to say
that you don't know for sure, because, hey if something like that did
exist, don't you think it could keep you in the dark about its existence
for as long as it wished?
-d.
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