Philosophy Discussion Forums

Mans wrote: ↑June 11th, 2020, 7:51 pm

Greta wrote: ↑June 11th, 2020, 6:53 pm The real gods are right in front of our noses all the time - the Sun, the Earth etc but we instead invent quasi-human entities that we can relate to, that treat as as important - which the real gods like the Earth, the biosphere, the Sun, and human society do not.

In the end, it's so difficult to find people who can relate to and understand us, who won't judge or cheat that, when under duress, many will access their better self, which resides within each of our psyches.

Sometimes our nose can be a troublesome thing between us and reality.

Oh, I think one would need a rather enormous honker for it stand between a person and reality.

I think the Earth makes a fine god. It ticks all of the boxes in a relative sense, ie. compared to us, it is eternal.

Steve, I'm interested you respond my posts or I reply to your comments this club is for such the discussions. but I just asked you not to damage my feeling with the scratching word like "God is worn one"! You could say, " but the verse is relative to 1400 years ago, so how I can believe in such the old word"?

Then I answered, the words of God is not included time and place and they are always new and according to the advancing time of development of man knowledge and my witness is the same verse that I translated and quoted. I wanted to show the verse is relating the same that scientists have discovered now with developed telescopes and radio telescopes!

I wanted to show you the words of God never become old over time and they always are in accordance with the level of knowledge and finds of man.

Instead you focus on "1400 years ago" please pay attention to what God is saying about the the greatness of the space that even the range of the powerful telescope sights doesn't reach its end. This is a scientific point of God not an old thing.

The words of God is always new for all humans in the history and never get old. God even has pointed to some scientific matters that human has not discovered them ( the purpose of God is not that to discover things for man but he want to address some of the mystery of creation to prove the reality of his existence and truth).

As you know, the title of this topic is, " Why doesn't god prove himself?"

Well, who want to answer this question? Surely it is not questioned of atheists and a theist like me should comment this question. Of course those who don't believe in God can send their own comments that certainly are in the opposite side, but the discussion should be logical and in a respectful manner.

I'm trying to reveal this fact that the world has a designer and creator and you want to show this notion, it hasn't! Well we both can write our comments and bring some example without any emotional or violent expression.

I'm interested in such the manner of discussion and argue.

Greta wrote in one of her posts in respond to one of my comments, shame on you!! without we start any discussion! this made me astonished! I asked myself, what I wrote in the comment that made her so disturbed except an ordinary post that I talked about God in shape of some questions?!

Is this manner of responding good? Is it a logical answer to the posts?

So why we should use such the emotional and improper words in a formal discussion??!

My word is this; we can discuss around the title of the topic and everyone brings his reason.

Mans wrote: ↑June 11th, 2020, 7:57 pm Because of a verse of God that I spoke about?!

Because you were offended and there's no need to be.

Mans wrote: ↑June 9th, 2020, 5:10 pm Belindi

Satan is not good. He is a bad creature. He hates light and is the enemy of light. He is dark and love darkness. He is the enemy of man.

He says, human is a humiliated beings and I am so higher and better than him. He wishes the worst for man even so much worse than death.

He is evil and unclean. We humans should use all our senses and consider him as a hard enemy. He spread out enmity and hatred between humans. He don't know what love is, and is the enemy of love, kindness and friendship. He is so much selfish, nervous and frowned with worst temper.

He wants to take revenge on man in the worst possible way, because he think this disreputable being caused he lost his authority and high rank. The fire of enmity and hostility is flaming from his heart and spirit.

He doesn't choose death for man because he knows death is not the highest revenge on man but he wants to take humans to hell along with himself.

Some humans who follow racism, dictatorship, fanaticism, ignorance, evil and illegal sexuality believe in him and follow him and join the darkness that Satan himself is in.

He has promised to take revenge on man and he will never stop even for a second.

So imputation light to this cursed enemy is wrong from the basis.

How did you come to know all this?

Belindi

I don't like to fall in the trap of self-importance again. In fact I afraid to put myself in the height as I scare of flight!

(when I was younger I didn't fear of flight at all and one of my dreams was that to board an airplane. Finally ' after I saved enough money with difficulty' my dream came true and I could travel with airplane two times that was very pleasant for me, but I don't know what happened for me in the next years that now I have fear of flight! So I prefer to travel around the earth with my old and noisy car but don't step into an airplane)!

However, I have a little knowledge about supernatural and paranormal things.

Sculptor1: "My view is that he (Darwin) was the agnostic type of atheist."

An "agnostic type of atheist"? What is that, someone who doubts that he does not believe in God?

In 1879 John Fordyce wrote to Darwin to ask if he believed in God, and if theism and evolution were compatible. Darwin replied that "a man may be an ardent Theist and an evolutionist", citing Charles Kingsley and Asa Gray as examples, and for himself, "In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.— I think that generally (& more and more so as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind."

Greta wrote:I look up at the Sun and see the nucleus of our solar system's atom (like a million others have done). Sure, some things change with scale but, whether you have elliptical orbits or probabilistic orbitals is ultimately just detail. The main fact is that both stars and atomic nuclei are essentially a central zone of concentrated matter that is enormously more massive than the smaller stuff around it that organises them into layers through either the SNF or gravity. We can observe the same dynamic in human society (and many other things), where politicians and executives of multinational organisations organise their people and resources into strata, based largely on seniority and geography.

Yes, hierarchical structures and dense cores surrounded by orbiting tributaries are found in lots of different contexts. But what's also evident here, in your observations of that, is the human tendency to abstract and generalize; particularly the philosophically minded human! We incessantly look for the connections between apparently diverse phenomena and try to step back, and back, and back, looking for ever more broadly applicable patterns. I think that, in part, is what has led us (humans) both to invent science and to go from concrete tangible to abstract intangible gods...

The real gods are right in front of our noses all the time - the Sun, the Earth etc but we instead invent quasi-human entities that we can relate to, that treat as as important - which the real gods like the Earth, the biosphere, the Sun, and human society do not.

...I think those "real gods" (Earth, Sun etc) are among the tangible ones. Also among the tangible gods are the gods with blatantly human or other animal characteristics, and foibles, such as those of the ancient Greeks and Romans or the Hindu gods. Then, some religions combined aspects of those "real gods", stepped back, and invented the much more abstract and general monotheistic God (capital G) concepts. The ultimate conclusion to this process of abstraction seems to me to be the notion of God as essentially identical to the Universe as a whole or to be, in some sense, an embodiment of the laws of Nature or of Order.

(I realize we've discussed all this kind of stuff many times before, but it's always interesting, isn't it?)

The contradiction is that we create anthropomorphisms as entities to be responsible and provide for our existence while that which actually created us remains an unchangeable fact. It all comes across as some kind of ignorant perversity! We honor and worship that which never was while treating the literal ground, in which all conception of these mythical gods are themselves deeply rooted, as landfill subordinate to whatever humans deem expedient at the time. The anthropomorphic is venerated but hardly ever its actual cause.

What is often common to these separations, the actual and figurative, is that both have limits beyond which there is usually no recourse.

Steve3007 wrote: ↑June 13th, 2020, 3:40 am

Greta wrote:I look up at the Sun and see the nucleus of our solar system's atom (like a million others have done). Sure, some things change with scale but, whether you have elliptical orbits or probabilistic orbitals is ultimately just detail. The main fact is that both stars and atomic nuclei are essentially a central zone of concentrated matter that is enormously more massive than the smaller stuff around it that organises them into layers through either the SNF or gravity. We can observe the same dynamic in human society (and many other things), where politicians and executives of multinational organisations organise their people and resources into strata, based largely on seniority and geography.

Yes, hierarchical structures and dense cores surrounded by orbiting tributaries are found in lots of different contexts. But what's also evident here, in your observations of that, is the human tendency to abstract and generalize; particularly the philosophically minded human! We incessantly look for the connections between apparently diverse phenomena and try to step back, and back, and back, looking for ever more broadly applicable patterns. I think that, in part, is what has led us (humans) both to invent science and to go from concrete tangible to abstract intangible gods...

The real gods are right in front of our noses all the time - the Sun, the Earth etc but we instead invent quasi-human entities that we can relate to, that treat as as important - which the real gods like the Earth, the biosphere, the Sun, and human society do not.

...I think those "real gods" (Earth, Sun etc) are among the tangible ones. Also among the tangible gods are the gods with blatantly human or other animal characteristics, and foibles, such as those of the ancient Greeks and Romans or the Hindu gods. Then, some religions combined aspects of those "real gods", stepped back, and invented the much more abstract and general monotheistic God (capital G) concepts. The ultimate conclusion to this process of abstraction seems to me to be the notion of God as essentially identical to the Universe as a whole or to be, in some sense, an embodiment of the laws of Nature or of Order.

(I realize we've discussed all this kind of stuff many times before, but it's always interesting, isn't it?)

I think the notion of "controlling nuclei" is a genuine one that appears through all aspects of existence rather than just some abstracted version of pareidolia. Consider the idea of a very small and lightweight entity that controls much larger, more massive entities around it. That is not how reality works.

The abstractions of God seem to me to probably be a matter of competition, a bit like the creation of fiat currency (where an administration can create more money out of nothing to appear richer than neighbouring administrations). In the old days there was some argy bargy regarding whose deity was best. Certainly Christians wanted nothing to do with Roman deities and long sought to supplant them with their own single deity, and eventually succeeded in overthrowing Rome itself.

It seems to me that if you can invest the qualities of your deity, you don't want your god to be less powerful than your neighbours', so I expect that at some stage God and Allah went through a period of rapid expansion of powers in what would have been an imaginary arms race.

Greta,

may I ask you who has created this most developed bio camera that didn't need to be renewed or up to dated during thousands years?

The camera that its sole bio lens (instead of multiple lens) is more transparent than every glassy lens that man has made up to now, and can change its focalization on the far and close objects less than a second?!!

The bio camera that its diaphragm becomes wide and narrow against change of momentary environment brightness every few millisecond automatically؟!!

The eye has evolved multiple times in multiple ways, along with other sensory organs. The mammalian eye is not the most efficient either, because we need to blink and keep the lens wet. Some reptiles, on the other hand, need not blink due to a protective membrane. Or consider the extraordinary vision of mantis shrimps and eagles, which far surpasses our own.

Greta

We are not going to compare the eye of human with the eyes other beings; I just brought it as an example of complexity and the high intelligence -based thing of creation.

The eye of human has been created based on the boundary of his requirements, while he is able to compensate his sight limitation (in compare with some other animals sight) with the visual devices that he can design and manufacture, but those additional devices are not necessary for man always except in some particular situations.

Animals have a different type of living with human. They also were not able to innovate an external device to give their sight a higher ability. These beings have to obtain their vital foods to remain alive. So their eyes have been created so, to distinguish their foods visually, whether in the far or close distances. They also have to distinguish the threatening things that treat their lives. So, as these wilds live in the nature absolutely without any external help they need a sharper and more detailing sight in compare with human with the high intellectual abilities.

However, we were talking about the bio camera, whether the eye of human or animals. My purpose was that to ask, hasn't such the most developed and complex biological device a creator?

Greta wrote:Consider the idea of a very small and lightweight entity that controls much larger, more massive entities around it. That is not how reality works.

Yes, generally.

The abstractions of God seem to me to probably be a matter of competition, a bit like the creation of fiat currency (where an administration can create more money out of nothing to appear richer than neighbouring administrations). In the old days there was some argy bargy regarding whose deity was best. Certainly Christians wanted nothing to do with Roman deities and long sought to supplant them with their own single deity, and eventually succeeded in overthrowing Rome itself.

It seems to me that if you can invest the qualities of your deity, you don't want your god to be less powerful than your neighbours', so I expect that at some stage God and Allah went through a period of rapid expansion of powers in what would have been an imaginary arms race.

Interesting point. I suppose it's also a bit like competitive inflation in which rival fiat currencies try to inflate away their national debts. Possibly a phenomenon that will be coming to a global economy near us in the near future.

God inflation/arms races. I like that. A bit more novel than the old design of the eye argument. Get him onto bacterial flagella and the recurrent laryngeal nerve.

Steve3007 wrote: ↑June 14th, 2020, 11:07 am

Greta wrote:Consider the idea of a very small and lightweight entity that controls much larger, more massive entities around it. That is not how reality works.

Yes, generally.

So there are these real patterns in nature that are more observed than shaped by the senses. It's what makes reality work - the imperfect homogeneity of fields resulting in relative areas of concentration becoming more so and, as they become more relatively dense, they exert ever greater influence on their environments. These areas of concentration interact, accidentally competing in a battle to persist. Once the dust has settled, "winners" emerge and they exert influence on any less massive entities around them to the point of systematisation. This dynamic appears at all scales, in just about every arena.

Another such objective dynamic, not entirely subject to perception or imagination, is branching. Branching is also found everywhere, from trees, to rivers, to mind maps, to social communities, to microbial communities, to the cosmic web, to the spread of coronavirus.

Steve3007 wrote: ↑June 14th, 2020, 11:07 am

The abstractions of God seem to me to probably be a matter of competition, a bit like the creation of fiat currency (where an administration can create more money out of nothing to appear richer than neighbouring administrations). In the old days there was some argy bargy regarding whose deity was best. Certainly Christians wanted nothing to do with Roman deities and long sought to supplant them with their own single deity, and eventually succeeded in overthrowing Rome itself.

It seems to me that if you can invest the qualities of your deity, you don't want your god to be less powerful than your neighbours', so I expect that at some stage God and Allah went through a period of rapid expansion of powers in what would have been an imaginary arms race.

Interesting point. I suppose it's also a bit like competitive inflation in which rival fiat currencies try to inflate away their national debts. Possibly a phenomenon that will be coming to a global economy near us in the near future.

God inflation/arms races. I like that. A bit more novel than the old design of the eye argument. Get him onto bacterial flagella and the recurrent laryngeal nerve.

On a trivial level, the powers attributed to God by religious literalists are skin to those of the father of a boy who says, 'Oh yeah? My Dad could easily beat up your Dad!'.

God here is painted as super-duper in the extreme - omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. Unbeatable by any two-bit deity concocted by believers of "false religions". To that end, they can't accept the obviousness of evolution, because creation is clearly not perfect, no matter the clever rationalisations of the ID crowd. No, God got everything right. Any faults are our own. Basically God is like a corporation claiming that all care will be taken but no responsibility can be accepted.

PS. I just noticed a typo in my earlier post - I meant "invent" rather than "invest". Perhaps Freudian, considering the analogy. It reminds me of when Mum wrote to her publisher and inadvertently addressed the envelope to "Anus & Robertson" :)

Mans wrote: ↑June 14th, 2020, 6:32 amHowever, we were talking about the bio camera, whether the eye of human or animals. My purpose was that to ask, hasn't such the most developed and complex biological device a creator?

The first known true eye was those of trilobites, whose earliest fossil records are from about half a billion years ago, and they went extinct to about a quarter of a billion years ago in the Permian extinction event.

For a long time they dominated the seas, using their better vision to advantage, just as dinosaurs used size and weaponry to advantage, just as humans use their capacity to perceive the flow of time from past to future to advantage. In time, other organisms evolved good eyesight and competition drove improvements. Active animals with strong prey-predator relationships either had good eyesight or they would fail to live long enough to pass their genes to new generations. So such animals all evolved sharp senses.