The Greater Miracle

GDR writes:

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You believe that all of creation came about strictly through a materialistic process. You agree that you can't prove it so you have to take it on faith that you are correct.

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Incorrect. The burden of proof is on you since you're the one claiming that something more than materialistic processes are required. We have seen materialistic processes and can demonstrate them for you. If you're going to claim that we also need chocolate sprinkles, you need to show not only the existence of the sprinkles but also demonstrate that they are necessary.Is there anything that happens on its own or is god required for everything?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

I know nothing of Bodhidharma. The Egyptian examples were all considered to be gods and not earthly beings. Resurrection mythologies were something else altogether.The same holds true for the rest and in fact Dumuzi-Tammuz was later translated by the Greeks into the word "Adonis.As for the resurrection of all at the end of time I'm not far from that. I believe that at the end of time there will be a renewal of all creation in which we will have resurrected bodies. Other than Paul the early Christian writers were hardly the rich and powerful. They also tell a story that is very different than what a first century Jew would have written. No shining light around a resurrected Jesus etc. Many first century Jews believed that there would be a resurrection at the end of time for all of them. They didn't believe that one individual would be resurrected in the middle of time. They would have considered that a Messiah, (who was the "Anointed One" but wholly man) might have come back as vision or something similar, but not in a resurrected body.
AS far as Nicea was concerned, they didn't write the stories they just put them together and wrote a creed to summarize them.The other resurrection stories were myths of unseen gods. I'll go with the Christian story.

GBR writes:

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So when you say that God had to exist BEFORE creation and something had to exist BEFORE the creator you are making an argument based on time as we perceive it, which is likely a false understanding of what time really is.

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If god can do it, why can't the universe?Is there anything that happens on its own or is god required for everything?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Street lights are set up with a light detector. When it gets dark the street lights come on. Did these light come on on their own or were humans required for it to happen/I believe that God created and as a result without God nothing would happen. However once things were in place I frankly don't know how much God intervenes within His creation. I believe in the free will of all his conscious creatures so I would imagine that whether or not I skip lunch is a decision made on my own.

GDR responds to me:

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Is there anything that happens on its own or is god required for everything?

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Street lights are set up with a light detector. When it gets dark the street lights come on. Did these light come on on their own or were humans required for it to happen

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That's not really an answer to the question. You seem to be saying that no, god is required for everything, but then you immediately contradict that by saying that you believe in free will. Let's try again, shall we?Is there anything that happens on its own or is god required for everything?This is a very simple question. Let's establish where you are first before we get into explanations, please. I need you to make the clear statement:"Yes, there are things that happen on their own."OR"No, god is required for everything."

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

In other words, you see in the universe some quality that requires an "intentional agent," but you do not see in the "intentional agent" itself an even greater amount of this same quality. As I said before, this is the type of thinking that suggests to me a failure of rationality and logic. Well yes, of course, miraculous thinking is just another example of the camel's nose. Once you've accepted the possibility, how do you know what's a miracle and what's not. In order to remain fair and unbiased you can't just ascribe miracles to anything you can't explain, plus it would make the miraculous an ever shrinking realm as science expands our knowledge. A balanced approach would hold that anything that happens could be miraculous, from the mundane to the truly, uh, miraculous. With no way to distinguish the miraculous from the non-miraculous, you've got two choices. Either everything's miraculous, or nothing.--Percy

I was trying to point out that it isn't that simple. If God hadn't created nothing would happen.Once creation is functioning then I would agree that things happen on their own. How much? I don't know.

I understand your point and I don't deny it. Religion involves acknowledging that there is an intelligence greater than our own and that we are limited by our five senses and our four dimensional universe. Certainly my faith is a faith, and even though in your terms my faith isn't rational or logical I don't think that the idea that all that we observe coming from a completely material and natural causes is rational or logical either. We just have to choose with irrational and illogical choice to beleive in. I pretty much agree. If there is an "intentional agent causally responsible for this state of affairs" then it can be said that every breath I take is a miracle. As I said, I don't pretend to know how much God intervenes in this world.Let's draw a parallel with a car. Mankind designed and built a car. You get in and start the engine, put it in gear and drive away. Once you've done that the engine is turning over, and the wheels are turning without intervention. All it needs is a few directions from you.I would say then that most of the time we see what we call natural causes for miracles but sometimes God does things that surprise us.

Then how do you pick and choose? If water can bond on its own, evaporate on its own, condense on its own and fall to the ground on its own. And do it all over again on its own, why couldn't the information in DNA increase on its own, which requires thousands of times less local decrease of entropy then a single rain drop?

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Genesis 2
17 But of the ponderosa pine, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou shinniest thereof thou shalt sorely learn of thy nakedness.
18 And we all live happily ever after.

In most ways I don't pick and choose. I don't have to. None of us are going to be able to explain everything. I am content that the changes in DNA that have driven evolution could either be a initiated process that was designed to progress naturally, or that it was a process that also involved intervention along the way. (I'm inclined to believe that the rapid rate of evolution during the cambrian period indicates that there was intervention but feel free to disagree. )By the way, you are right on the money when you point out that water evaporating and condensing in order to keep life going is a pretty miraculous part of the creation.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

GDR responds to me:

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If God hadn't created nothing would happen.

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But it is irrelevant where things come from. When you need a quarter for the vending machine, the machine doesn't care if the quarter was made at the Denver mint using the Denver dies or the Philadelphia mint using the Philadelphia dies. The vending machine only cares that it's a quarter.The question is simply if there is anything that happens on its own or if god is required for everything.

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Once creation is functioning then I would agree that things happen on their own. How much? I don't know.

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Don't you think finding out is an interesting question? And we're back to a previous comment: People used to think god was required for an awful lot of things which we later discovered happened all on their own.You're the one claiming that god is required. Therefore, it is your burden to show not only that god exists but also that god's action is required. We already see amazing things that happen all on their own and thus, we know that it is possible for things to happen on their own.Why do you insist upon the chocolate sprinkles?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

GDR writes:

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If there is an "intentional agent causally responsible for this state of affairs" then it can be said that every breath I take is a miracle.

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That makes the word "miracle" completely useless as it doesn't distinguish anything. If everything is a "miracle," then nothing is. And that takes us right back to the question you seemed to have answered before:Is there anything that happens on its own or is god required for everything?You seemed to say that no, there are things that happen on their own, but you don't seem to mean it. You seem to be incapable of allowing the mundane to be miraculous.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

I've answered by attempting to frame the question in a way that makes sense. On its own its like asking about angels on the head of a pin. I have yet to see a physical event that hasn't had a natural explanation. When mundane things happen all I, or you, can do is observe what happened and if we like we can look for a natural, or scientific cause for what happened. It is unknowable to us whether there was a supernatural cause that might have precipitated what seems to have occured naturally. The only definitive thing I can say is that I don't know but frankly I see the whole point as irrelevent.

So then Jesus wasn't a god? Got it. Hate to break it to you, but the vast majority of modern Christianity is based on Paul's teachings... The Modern Canon is also based on what books a council of Christianity's early religious leaders voted on (through bribery of the Roman Empire) being allowed into the Canon. There was even a huge disagreement as to whether the version of Revelation with 616 as the Mark of the Beast was the accurate one, or the one with 666.Christianity's history has been fraught with power and corruption. It has also historically been a chimera religion, in it's adoption of Pagan beliefs, such as the astrological significance of Easter and the Winter-Solstice (Dec 25th on the Julian Calender).So, given the obvious power Paulism provides in creating a fatal loop of self guilt, and the need for church sponsored salvation, it is no wonder early Christianity was manipulated into the political powerhouse it has been since. Frankly, Jesus' teachings were hardly unique to him, in that they mimicked Pharisee teachings that pre-dated his birth by half a century. It really doesn't matter what the Jews believed though, as many Asian, and Middle Eastern Religions had resurrected gods long before Christianity. As I mentioned before, they didn't just put existing stories together, they picked between which VERSIONS of the stories would go in... Such as, all in favor of 666 being the mark of the beast, say "AYE", and so it was picked in favor of the version with 616. Of course you will. You have the cultural pre-disposition to do so. Of course it seems more likely to you that Christ was the REAL resurrected god, among the pantheon of competing resurrected gods. Care to impart any actual reason that you reject Mithra's resurrection as being possible in favor of Christ's?

GDR responds to me:

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Is there anything that happens on its own or is god required for everything

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I've answered by attempting to frame the question in a way that makes sense.

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No, you avoided it. You gave a bunch of secondary commentary without actually answering the question. It is an extremely simple question and I have asked you nicely to answer it directly. I cannot read your mind and the only way to understand what you really mean is to have you say it directly rather than obliquely."Yes, there are things that happen on their own."OR"No, god is required for everything."You seemed to say the former but then you immediately contradicted it by making a statement that seemed to indicate the latter. Again, I cannot read your mind. Because you did not answer the question directly, I have to guess what it is that you mean and as you can see, I'm not doing a good job.

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On its own its like asking about angels on the head of a pin.

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Incorrect. When a handful of coins lands on the ground, do they land on the ground all on their own or does god come down and personally, deliberately, and consciously place them there? This is a very concrete example of something that either happens on its own or requires god.Which is it?I understand why you're being evasive. You stated it in your post where you tried to play both sides: You don't know just how much playing around your god does. By allowing some things to happen on their own, you leave open the possibility that something you are sure requires god actually doesn't.But the very process of science is to investigate the actions of things that happen on their own. It isn't that science denies god: Science simply excludes god just as it excludes you. You exist (and please let us not wander off into Cartesian Doubt...for the sake of argument, I hope we can assume you exist), but science excludes your actions when it is investigating things. You, being a consciousness, are capricious and arbitrary. You are unpredictable and cannot be controlled for in an experiment. Thus, science seeks to exclude your actions in order to find out what happens despite you, not because of you.And thus, it is very important to establish whether or not there is anything that happens on its own. If there isn't, then we have no basis for anticipating any outcome for any action. The only reason why we're still firmly attached to the planet is because god is personally, deliberately, and consciously keeping us attached rather than it happening on its own due to gravity. As soon as god stops paying attention, we all go flying.But again, I cannot read your mind. I need you to state it directly and simply:"Yes, there are things that happen on their own."OR"No, god is required for everything."

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It is unknowable to us whether there was a supernatural cause that might have precipitated what seems to have occured naturally.

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Then surely you have no qualms about leaping out of an airplane at 30,000 feet without any sort of parachute or similar device. After all, it is "unknowable" if you will plummet to the ground, right?On the flip side, surely you have considered the possibility that these words you are reading were not written by me but by god, right? God has personally, deliberately, and consciously decided to communicate with you on a message board.So we're back to the question:Is there anything that happens on its own or is god required for everything?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.