Tribute Thread For the Recently Raptured Faith

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There has to be an agency for life as we know it, whether it be intelligent or not. The laws of physics and the universe as we perceive exist. Why?

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This is just a silly apologetic. For any answer you can go on asking why. And that includes a God. It might be different if you have a good reason why a God would exist, but you don’t. So the whole thing goes nowhere. It’s just a waste of time.

A process can however be designed with a very high probability that it will produce an outcome that is not narrowly defined. Who says that we have to have 10 fingers and toes. Maybe the process was designed to ultimately produce creatures such as us who are able to love sacrificially, regardless of the particularities of their physical makeup. Would you rather that you or other life forms didn't exist? The Christian understanding is that the world without the suffering is to come, and for that to happen it seems that this world is necessary as it is for that new world to be born. My best guess is because it requires creatures who have hearts that positively respond to the Golden Rule of sacrificial; love.

Time is the way we experience change in this life and it is all we know. I understand God to be outside of time as we experience it, and that He is infinite.I realize that this is belief without evidence, but to my mind it makes a lot more sense than believing in an infinite regression of processes to produce us. There is a good chance you will disagree.

That wouldn't be a random mindless process. Is your god so lacking in imagination that he can only produce such an absurdly false choice? That's plainly ludicrous. It's purely an an excuse for an obvious contradiction that disproves the idea of a loving god. Why is it necessary to create a world so full of suffering in orde to produce that? And in any case why do it anyway?

How are you defining "agency"? Unless you have some definition of which I am unaware I see no need for one "for life as we know it" or for the structure, content or operation of the universe.We have no idea how this universe acquired its structure, its stuff or the rules for its operation. So, again, you can hide your god in our ignorance if you so choose.All I get for life, the universe and everything is 42.Not very helpful I'm afraid.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Hi Phat,You believe you saw a case of demon possession.Assuming for the moment that demon possession exists, there are some things I wonder about.
What is in it for the demon? How is it benefitted?Presumably God wants to rid people of their demon. Why does He wait until someone else says the right words, sometimes only after they have fasted for a while?With the Gaderene story, why so many demons in one man? One demon is more than enough for one man, so it seems a waste of demonic resources. And when they were cast into the pigs, what was the point of them causing the pigs to perish? The demons would have to find a new home somewhere anyway?Any thoughts anyone?

Why Did Jesus Kill The Pigs?

Hi AZ Paul
42 is as good enough answer as any other.Straggler asked why is there something rather than nothing.Perhaps the answer is there is no such thing as nothing.
Or there is something because something wants to exist.
Or 42.
I have given up on trying to reconcile God with reality. I choose to believe in God at times because it comforts me. (42) why not! I have nothing but a fragile faith and arbitrary absurdity to wash it down with.

That still doesn't answer the question. Time isn't really relevant. If you can ask why the chemicals exist, it's just as valid to ask why God exists. But you are the one who's introducing an infinite regression. I'm perfectly willing to stop at chemicals that "just exist". You are the one who wants to put God before the chemicals. I'm just pointing out that that introduces the infinite regression. Where did the God come from? And wherever He came from, where did the "wherever" come from? Etc.If we're going to stop somewhere, we might as well stop at something that actually exists - i.e. chemicals.

At the risk of sounding metaphorical, imagine if you were an inventor and created an intelligent robot. The Bot was programmed according to human specs, and once it became "alive" and active it began asking questions. One question it asked was ehy it existed. It then later asked why you existed, IF you existed, and what made you the Creator. The robots entire frame of reference was with itself...it simply could not imagine that you had created it. Why does everything have to be framed as existing or not existing according to your notebook of evidenced elements? Why must humans define Gods personality and parameters?

*shrug* Is there a point to all of that? If something doesn't exist, why would I care about it? You tell me. You spend more time defining God than I do.

In the robot analogy, the only things that the robot *knows* exist are things programmed into its database, much as scientific evidence becomes real to you via evidence. The robot has no concept of belief, for belief is illogical. Lacking any need for God the way that I do, you patiently wait for programmable evidence. I have a need to know Him. You seem unconcerned with God emotionally except to criticize the characters' behavior in the book. You have no frame of reference regarding a Being that you pray to or talk with. There is no need for any emotional acceptance or connection. Critics would, in fact, accuse believers of making this character up to fill their emotional need. I am simply pointing out that from my frame of reference, God as a character became real to me but I consciously did not make him up...I became aware of His presence.

So, in the analogy, where do theists fit in? According to their own theology, they're made by the same manufacturer as the robots. When they see things that aren't there, is that a bug? Nobody does. Believers just believe they do.

Theists represent a robot that has had a subjective experience (or more than one.) The robot has no hard data evidence, but it does have an internal memory of having heard a voice, seen an unexplained event, or had a problem resolved through no interaction with anyone else. So a question: How would a programmer program the concept of belief into the robot? How, in other words, would the robot connect the dots of multiple subjective experiences and form a hypothesis of a given belief?In addition, some robots may be programmed with skepticism based on researching the data of many skeptics. The robot basically retains what it is fed. The human, in contrast, retains what they want to retain or what feels best.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

So answer the question. When a computer/brain has a memory that doesn't coincide with reality, is that a bug? It shouldn't, should it? If your computer "connected the dots" and took you to Porn R Us instead of EvC, would that be a good thing? You'd be telling it, "No! I want to go to EvC!" and it would be saying, "But I really, really, really believe you want to go to Porn R Us." Skepticism is the basis of all programming. Programmers take nothing for granted. They have to assume that everthing WILL go wrong and be prepared for that. Nobody wants a computer that goes off on its own subjective tangents.