the absurd god

If you were brought up with a religion or similar dogma then are you aware it is the deadliest thing in the world to actually believe it? To question your dogma may dredge up emotions so horrific they would reduce the Devil to a blubbering wreck (if he exists), but to question one's beliefs is an exciting and noble quest. Do you have the courage? Do you have the spine? I question my own views all the time. Everybody has their own interpretation of life and of god(s). My own way of reading the Universe and making sense of it leads me to conclude there are no gods and no devils. If I ever stumble across rational evidence to the contrary then I will gladly embrace that evidence and change my mind. How about you?

I've heard people argue that everyone's interpretation of the Universe is correct. But this cannot be so, for it is easy to imagine that your interpretation may contradict my interpretation. We both have different experiences that have helped shape our beliefs, or rejection of beliefs. Our belief sets will inevitably differ and we cannot both be correct. We are all studying the same Universe but from different aspects. We perceive the same Universe, but our conclusions about how it works and about the existence of god(s) and other supernatural entities surely diverge at some point.

There is no evidence for supernatural beings such as gods. Naturally I will not believe in them until such evidence does arise. When evidence arrives to prove the existence of unicorns I will believe in unicorns. Ditto pixies, tooth fairies and gods. I am totally open minded about the supernatural. Prove it and I will gladly believe in it. If you cannot prove that pixies, unicorns, tooth fairies and gods exist, then you might resort to asking me to have faith that they exist. I see no reason to have faith in something existing for which there is no evidence.

Faith is a recipe for self-deception because faith shuns evidence. Those with faith will tell you they believe in a supernatural entity - a god, say - even though their purported supernatural being cannot be observed or its existence demonstrated in any objective way. People with faith adhere to extraordinary yet unsubstantiated statements about the existence of gods etc. People with a faith believe that their god exists even though they cannot physically perceive it. They might argue that they are emotionally affected, but that is proof only that religious rites and beliefs cause deep emotions. (Brain scans show that praying stirs up fantastic emotions. Trouble is, this is true regardless of which god is prayed to, and it is akin to the effects of meditation on non-religious people). The onus is on those with faith to objectively prove their incredible claims about the supernatural. But of course they cannot.

People with a faith will say they can "detect" their god(s) indirectly through feelings and intuition. Many insist there is some "purpose" or "meaning" to our baffling existence. But these emotional arguments do not evidence make. If a god can be shown to exist then where is the evidence? Show me the experiments. Show me the video.

The hazard of believing something that cannot be measured directly, indeed cannot be measured at all, is that one believes in something that is literally not based on reality. People that do this, do it in ways that are wildly inconsistently with one other. There is a bewildering myriad of superstitions and religions. These wildly varying belief systems are a sure sign that this line of perception, of perceiving through faith - as opposed to reason - is deeply flawed.

Some people see a god through things that happen in the Universe. They interpret a god though things that happen to them or through things that are going on around them. But things that happen do so in accord to the laws of nature, of physics. Anyone who can prove otherwise will harness instant fame and riches. How odd then that nobody claims their free money! Nobody can perform an experiment that violates the laws of physics. Nobody has produced a video that proves that the laws of nature have been violated. So it would require some incredible evidence to convince that the laws were ever violated. And not a shred of objective evidence exists.

There are some who conjecture that a god invented the Universe and physics and then left the Universe to go it alone. Again there is zero evidence for this, so there is no rational reason to believe it. There is no way to distinguish a Universe that has been pre-programmed and kick-started by a god who then left the Universe to get on with it unaided; a Universe where there is an interfering god - where a god physically makes everything happen; and a Universe where there is no god at all. The latter conjecture is by far the simplest. A god (in the guise of a super-intelligence) is a superfluous, over-the-top explanation for something relatively simple (the laws of physics and the starting conditions of the Universe). Occam's razor decrees that, in the absence of evidence, theories invoking needlessly complexity should be rejected in favour of simple, straightforward explanations. Occam's razor slits the throat of god.

But does it even make any sense to ask if a god is interactively interfering with the Universe? (By interfering, I mean forcing things to "happen", performing putative "miracles", listening to and answering prayers etc.) Einstein showed that space and time are interlinked to form the fabric of the universe. If a god created the Universe then he must have invented not only all matter, all energy and all events, but space and time too. If a god created time then that god must transcend time, that is the god must be outside of time, if you can imagine what that means. I can't, its too freaky :)

If a god transcends time, then he must have known, indeed, created(!) all the actions before they "happened". To this god there is no distinction between past and future, in the same way that for us we can see the left side of the computer screen as easily as the right side of the screen - we see the whole screen. Where as we can simultaneously see the whole screen, a god would simultaneously see the whole Universe - our past and our future as he made it. The Universe is roughly 14 billion years old, so everything you are thinking and doing now would have been created by this god over half a billion generations before your birth. If such a god exists then logically we cannot have free will, because our thoughts and actions were already created aeons ago.

Someone gave me an analogy that attempts to justify freewill under such a god. It goes like this, "Suppose a mother knows her child likes green more than red and asks the child if he want a green or red balloon. She knows he will choose the green one, but she lets him decide anyway."

The analogy is cunning but it is, of course, a fallacy. The mother did not create the future whereas - and this is where the balloon analogy disintegrates into dust - a god that created the Universe did create the future! Therefore the god, not the child, made the choice. There is no way out, the putative god that made the Universe must have created every action past and future simultaneously (recall that this god transcends time). There is no room for choice to be made by any being other than the god himself. If you believe in a god that created the Universe, then the only conclusion that does not lead to a horrible paradox is that everything was decided during the conception of the Universe by the god and nothing was or will be decided by man. And the inescapable conclusion following on from that is that everything I am typing is this god's words, and everything that you are thinking reading this are thoughts created by the very same god.

I'll say it again, there is zero evidence the Universe works in that absurd way. All it takes to get rid of the horrible paradox is to assume that the Universe was not created by a god in the first place. And if evidence should arrive to the contrary then great!

... IF! <<< a big if :)

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From:	MadPole	Subject:	God Jesus Christ how many times....	2002-06-13 15:12:13
From:	Maddie	Subject:	druggie....	2002-06-13 15:30:02
From:	MadPole	Subject:	Answer...	2002-06-14 17:06:33
From:	MadPole	Subject:	Spam	2002-06-14 17:15:46
From:	jon	Subject:	I suppose I will indulge	2002-07-02 05:52:58
From:	Black and Silver	Subject:	What is God was one of us?	2002-08-11 08:39:54
From:	Carl Rofe	Subject:	This Disgussion!!!!!!	2002-09-24 23:58:27
From:	Carl Rofe	Subject:	Reasons...way of thinking...etc!	2002-10-19 05:11:22
From:	RationalThinker	Subject:	Grah...	2003-01-09 09:00:41
From:	Satish	Subject:	I dont have to take it	2003-01-20 10:29:51
From:	Michael	Subject:	GOD	2003-02-22 12:39:22
From:	Shelly	Subject:	God	2003-03-01 07:44:16
From:	Shelly	Subject:	God	2003-03-01 07:50:17
From:	sharolyn	Subject:	i love God	2003-03-03 18:07:05
From:	jorge	Subject:	faith? [part1]	2003-03-09 22:12:01
From:	jorge	Subject:	faith? [part 2]	2003-03-09 22:14:56
From:	jorge	Subject:	faith? [part 3]	2003-03-09 22:15:57
From:	Layla Telcontar	Subject:	Pantheism	2003-03-11 05:39:31
From:	Pat	Subject:	More food for thought. (Part 1)	2003-08-12 12:44:50
From:	Pat	Subject:	More food for thought. (Part 2)	2003-08-12 12:46:53
From:	Pat	Subject:	More food for thought. (Part 3)	2003-08-12 12:48:46
From:	cosmicstargoat	Subject:	amusing	2003-08-16 23:20:49
From:	Jeff	Subject:	a thought	2003-08-21 03:25:24
From:	MIP	Subject:	MADPOLE	2003-08-22 14:21:02
From:	cosmicstargoat	Subject:	Religion IS dangerous	2003-08-31 10:14:23
From:	bebop	Subject:	hmmm part 1	2003-09-19 10:45:21
From:	Bebop	Subject:	hmmm part 2	2003-09-19 10:46:10
From:	sinner_rob	Subject:	religions origin	2003-10-04 23:36:29
From:	Carrie	Subject:	What about... ?	2003-10-18 10:59:54
From:	DNA	Subject:	Ockhams razor	2003-12-30 01:38:48
From:	DNA	Subject:	Sir Isaac Newton	2003-12-30 02:01:50
From:	Amy Petersen	Subject:	Why are you so focused on throwing God?	2004-01-23 18:26:45
From:	Vincent Gucci	Subject:	Do we have the choice	2004-05-15 17:44:46
From:	camille	Subject:	faith & choice	2004-05-29 19:28:06
From:	malio	Subject:	there is proof	2004-06-28 09:07:39
From:	kinky boots	Subject:	LOGIC	2004-07-02 21:54:32
From:	nick crofts	Subject:	The Cosmos - A Cleaners Perspective	2004-08-16 12:02:52
From:	Nick Crofts	Subject:	The Cosmos - A Cleaners Perspective pt2	2004-08-16 12:06:44
From:	ronald sampson	Subject:	YOU FORGET SOMETHING!!	2004-08-22 17:49:58
From:	Eadon	Subject:	Freewill and all powerful deities	2004-08-28 21:20:46
From:	TD	Subject:	God	2004-11-18 20:47:42
From:	D. Hobson	Subject:	Food for Logic	2005-01-26 21:00:03
From:	RampantPenguin	Subject:	God onTime	2005-02-19 11:20:40
From:	TD	Subject:	RE: god and time	2005-02-25 12:55:38
From:	jorge	Subject:	religion	2005-03-01 05:48:28
From:	MG	Subject:	God is imaginary	2005-04-16 08:50:12
From:	pete	Subject:	Free will and god	2005-05-05 17:27:11
From:	David	Subject:	Blind Man and what he sees	2005-06-14 04:52:28
From:	grace	Subject:	God	2005-08-09 05:26:07
From:	Michael Allen	Subject:	Some ideas	2005-09-16 16:53:51
From:	Tommy Grayson	Subject:	A different view.	2005-10-02 06:51:45
From:	Tommy Grayson	Subject:	A different view.	2005-10-02 06:52:26
From:	Tommy Grayson	Subject:	A different view.	2005-10-02 06:52:59
From:	Tommy Grayson	Subject:	A different view.	2005-10-02 06:53:29
From:	Tommy Grayson	Subject:	A different view.	2005-10-02 06:53:55
From:	Pimp	Subject:	God	2005-11-19 07:57:53
From:	Larry	Subject:	Free will	2005-12-02 20:05:24
From:	Simon	Subject:	Flaws in your argument	2005-12-31 16:33:56
From:	IAM Consciousness	Subject:	I bless you because I exist and can	2006-01-27 11:22:06
From:	IAM Consciousness	Subject:	I bless you because I exist and can	2006-01-27 11:23:17
From:	a truth's seeker	Subject:	just a french point of view :)	2006-02-05 23:08:47
From:	a truth's seeker	Subject:	just a french point of view :) (2)	2006-02-05 23:09:27
From:	a truth's seeker	Subject:	and some logics for final :)	2006-02-05 23:14:30
From:	God's Girl	Subject:	What is the point?	2006-07-06 22:02:45
From:	Heather	Subject:	Perceiving...	2006-07-06 22:12:47
From:	Jon T	Subject:	Time, Sperm, and Freewill	2006-10-18 22:27:15
From:	Jon T	Subject:	Time, Sperm, and Free Will cont'd	2006-10-18 22:30:29
From:	Speculator	Subject:	God	2007-01-12 00:49:44
From:	klaas vaak	Subject:	God	2007-01-12 01:42:15
From:	p	Subject:	god	2007-01-12 01:45:53
From:	p	Subject:	god	2007-01-12 01:47:54
From:	p	Subject:	god	2007-01-12 01:50:57
From:	p	Subject:	god	2007-01-12 02:05:37
From:	p	Subject:	god	2007-01-12 02:06:38
From:	Joop	Subject:	consider this	2007-04-21 10:10:56
From:	George Williams	Subject:	God exists? You've got to be kidding!	2007-11-14 23:22:41
From:	Howard Hicks	Subject:	GOD AND WHAT IS IT?	2007-11-25 18:10:51
From:	Dan Samson	Subject:	God and faith	2008-03-23 06:24:41
From:	Dan Samson	Subject:	God and faith	2008-03-23 06:46:22
From:	Dan Samson	Subject:	God and faith	2008-03-23 06:49:53

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