“Doesn’t it seem likely that the reason all of us can’t see God is because there is no God?
If God exists… why isn’t his existence obvious?
And is “free will” a good answer to this question?
A few weeks ago, in this very publication, I posed the question, “Why did God create atheists?” If God reveals himself to religious believers, in visions or revelations or other spiritual experiences… why doesn’t he do it with everyone? Why are those revelations so contradictory — not to mention so suspiciously consistent with whatever the people having them already believe or want to believe? And why doesn’t everyone have them? If God is real, I asked — if religious believers are perceiving a real entity with a real effect on the world — why isn’t it just obvious?
Why is God playing hide and seek?
When I wrote that piece, I addressed (and dismantled) two of the most common responses to this question: “God has revealed himself to you, you’ve just closed your heart to him,” and, “God doesn’t care if you’re an atheist — as long as you’re a good person, he doesn’t care if you believe in him.”
But I neglected to address one of the most common religious answers to this question:
Free will.”
Read more at AlterNet (Thanks Erich and @XxLadyClaireXx)
God leaves some people to be Godless Atheists for His (self)righteous Christians to score points (by converting them) so that when they die they can have enough points to win Heaven.
I believe that God reveals himself in nature and everything that is living. Everything has a place and a role in life and isn’t haphazard. Some people are more susceptible to his ways than others. Or it is a way for people to get what they want and so claim it is from the word of God.
Good post. I don’t understand why people who believe in God try do hard to fight diseases when they believe they will go to a wonderful place when they die.
The reason I have understood and others from the bible is that in the begginng life was perfect in the garden of Eden with sickness, death etc. and when adam and Eve rejected God, He abonded them and let them look after themselves, to show mankind what life would be without him watching over us. You questioned the obvouisness of God’s existance, one, this does not show faith and belief in God if this was case, just blind common sense and not thinking about him at all. Secondly, evidence in the world to myself and others is evidence of God’s existance, the design of the eye, the natural world and the course the universe and evolution has taken to have us as humans be natural marvels. Whilst I realise my comment is from a religous view, so it will probably be ignored or hated.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. God is infinitely corrupts. He’s just doing this to mess with us.
Either that or people just like to make stuff up, but that couldn’t be it……..
Hm … religious people told me that they theirselves have never seen God either so not sure what this bloke is babbling about .. We, atheists and religious people thought it was all about not seeing GOD but adapting to GOD on another level .. but hey .. who are we ….
Maybe he means ghosts … some ghost told him his name was GOD and .. oh well .. he bought that ..
Excuse that superfluous S. Blame the Gods for giving me stupid fingers.
I take it that Greta has seen God in all ‘His’ glory, in the masculine sense of course
Greta Christina is a hero of mine – I can’t recommend her blog enough: http://gretachristina.typepad.com/
None of us can see air.. yet we rely extremely on what the scientists tell us.. the air ‘only reveals itself’ to scientists yet everyone believes in it…
God reveals to only some people but millions believe in God.
In A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking asked a similar question, although he had already made his conclusion. His question was (I paraphrase) why do aliens only reveal themselves to freaks and weirdos…?
God is an abstract concept. Simply believing in an idea is pointless but telling religious believers that they’ve wasted their time doesn’t tend to go down so well.
The possibility that God exists is obvious to everybody.
“Cameron says:
The possibility that God exists is obvious to everybody.”
No. What is obvious to a lot of people is exactly why other people believe in something despite not only a lack of evidence but a huge amount of evidence to show that everything attributed to a higher power can actually be explained without one. A good example would be to quote another comment here: “evidence in the world to myself and others is evidence of God’s existance, the design of the eye, the natural world and the course the universe and evolution ” this is not evidence for God(s), we have an amazingly elegant idea of how these things happened without God(s), evolution. It’s as obvious to us as much as it is obvious that the sun does not require Ra to travel across the sky in his boat.
Mat: The design of the eye? So how about jellyfish eyes, which are just slight depressions covered in photosensitive cells? If a supreme being designed a mammalian eye, or hell, even a fish eye, why did it not give the same eye to the poor jellyfish? Does your supreme being not like jellyfish? Or could it be that jellyfish never evolved complex eyes, because the more primitive version didn’t cause them to die and thus didn’t spark a higher survival of specimens with more complex eyelike things?
Humans aren’t marvels any more than any other species. Look at the beauty of a cat, a slug, a fly, a bird. They’re all perfectly adapted to their environment. We are no different. The only reason to consider us supreme is anthropocentric arrogance. We do what they do, what we all do. We survive.
God is about faith not proof, I think this quote from Douglas Adams sums it up well “The argument goes something like this: “I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”"
Berber Anna: On the basis of the jellyfish, God made human beings in image of himself, and we then became overseers or protectors of the earth (a job we have not done very well). The design of the eye was just an example of a part of natural life that appears to of been designed.
Freud explains it. (Marx too): religion is like a drug that man needs to confront forces of nature that he can’t comprehend. (death, disease, bad fortune, etc)
People needs religion (aka god).
Mat, now you’re not even making sense. On the basis of the jellyfish? What?
I’m sure that if dolphins have a God (they might, they have language and culture after all), it looks like a dolphin and made dolphinkind in its own image. There is no reason to believe humans have been placed above other animals, other than a ‘my species is the best species ever’ kind of thinking.
The ‘design’ of the eye is a prime example of evolution. It even has its own Wikipedia page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye (with some very instructive further reading links).
Mat,
If the eye is designed, why is it backwards and upside down? Why do I have the optic nerve at the back, causing a blindspot?
There are scores of books quite clearly showing the evolution of the eye. I’d say you need to be brought into the 21st century, but thinking eyes were designed was shown to be wrong at the end of the 19th… You have a bit of catching up to do!
But, Mat, it only appears that way because you’re used to things that are complicated having been designed, like microwaves. There is plenty of evidence to show that it wasn’t designed, it evolved. Everything in nature is the same.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/12/AR2007071201620.html
Read this interesting article!!
None of us can see air.. yet we rely extremely on what the scientists tell us.. the air ‘only reveals itself’ to scientists
You don’t need a particularly advanced level of science knowledge to have the nature of air ‘revealed’ to you. Paying attention in high school would probably do it. Science is not arcane or secretive or the preserve of some privileged group. The experiments which provided that knowledge are reproducible, using very basic kit. Revelations of ‘god’ are not of the same nature.
Personally I am an atheist but I can understand how faith can help a lot of people in there darkest times, What I cant stand is people who make money from it.
It depends on the concept of god we are talking about here either way i think ‘God’ ‘reveals’ himself to people that true try to seek not just simply believe perhaps the reason why im not enlightened just yet.
But reveal I don’t think its something you see more of a feeling and enlightenment.
I had a flick through The Bible once and God came off as really petty and needy.
@Johhny O Something for your consideration relating to your criticism of the eye: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627594.000-evolution-gave-flawed-eye-better-vision.html
As for the many illustrations showing the evolution of the eye, do these actually show evidence for the intermediate stages or do they show a hypothetical illustration? These illustrations show how a scientist thinks things may have happened but does not show actual evidence or explanation of how the extra information came about to explain the structural changes required.
I read a book on Ancient Egyptian and drank a bottle of vodka then saw the god of the underworld Osiris. Religious coiniciousness. I’m sure glad I never picked up a Giddens bible. Yahweh and all the rest of them have never appeared, not even Satan.
Tracey: Mind if I quote some song lyrics to you? Your post reminds me of them, so I thought you might like them
“Faith, my dear friend, may be splendid indeed
A straw to hold onto, when the feeble soul bleeds
Religion served to the masses might be a dangerous seed
Forced down your throat, the last thing a free man needs”
~Ancient Rites, Götterdammerung (Twilight of the Gods)
@Mat
“Whilst I realise my comment is from a religous view, so it will probably be ignored or hated.”
I don’t think you’ll find a lot of atheists showering you with hatespeech – I suspect for a similar reason that they are significantly underrepresented in prison populations.
‘Ah, but the Babel Fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It proves you exist, so therefore you don’t. QED.’ God promptly vanished in a puff of logic.
“None of us can see air.. yet we rely extremely on what the scientists tell us.. the air ‘only reveals itself’ to scientists”
Ever blown up a balloon?
@Andrew Rennie
Illustrations are, of course, illustrations but they are based on hard science. The main reason why the eye is listed as evidence for design is because it is supposed to suggest that anything less than an eye would be useless. The “lesser” eyes of other animals indicate that this is not the case. These creatures survive and reproduce with whatever eyes they have and if they can’t they will die without offspring.
…..
“why is it backwards and upside down? Why do I have the optic nerve at the back, causing a blindspot?” is met with the “filtering response.”
….
It is still a far from perfect eye. A God should be able to do better than evolution and build in filters without causing blind spots.
Release the Kracken!
OK that sent me on two hours of reading that author’s stuff. Thanks for the intro to Greta Christina.
Whether you believe in God or not, you’re right.
If you don’t believe, then no matter where you look, you can’t see God.
If you do believe, then everywhere you look, you can’t help but see God.
Atheists, as a population, are as adamant about converting believers as religious zealots are adamant about converting nonbelievers.
As for myself, the value added to my life by the enrichment of faith and spiritual principles is immeasurable. It’s something you can’t really understand unless you’ve experienced it in your own life. It takes faith to understand faith.
Free will is definitely the final answer to the question posed in the article.
Tao Joannes: I have experienced it. I was born into an atheist family (4th generation on my dad’s side), but I tried a lot of religions as a child and young adult. The ‘enrichment’, the sense of security in knowing everything happens for a reason, is intoxicating. It’s what makes you try again and again despite the lack of concrete evidence. It’s what makes you see random events as the evidence you seek.
But honestly, there are too many holes in the theory of any religion I tried. No use to keep pretending when the truth is so much more beautiful — life is insignificant and random, and I get to live it anyway.
I don’t proselytise, but I do I inform people of my reasons for not believing in a deity. They can see for themselves what they want to do with that information.
Greta Christina is the bee’s knees.
Tao, did you read the whole article?
The god I believe in is the god you don’t believe in.
In other words, God (Spirit, the Force, Energy, Love, All, I Am) IS you, me, these words, what you see and don’t see, what is and what isn’t. And he probably doesn’t have a beard. Or he is all beard
. And he’s not a he – except when he is.
What’s the sound of one hand clapping? Exactly.
@Cobalt Appreciate the reply. Could you define what you mean by “hard science”? Also, would it be fair to say that each of the intermediate stages in these illustrations would each require a dramatic increase in the information on the DNA? In a paper (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15321723) published in the Journal of Molecular Biology (August 2004), Doug Axe scientifically demonstrated that the odds of mutation causing functional proteins in a protein string comprising of 150 amino acids are 1 in 10^74. Therefore, I ask again, where did the extra information required at each step of these illustrations come from?
Also, I wasn’t using the eye as evidence for the existence of God, I was merely wanting to point out to Johhny O that there are benefits to the structure of the eye.
Berber Anna – quite good reply to Tao – I also was 100% into lived religious experience but too many holes – especially natural evils (man made evils are usually attributed to the necessity of free will – somewhat valid possibility for some unless you agree with dostievsky in the Brothers of Kasamov that whatever final justice – “its just not worth it” – but then we dont know what the afterlife is (is an afterlife even conceivable with our current knowledge of neuroscience – most neuroscientists are physicalists ?).
Can anyone explain why God makes genetically hereditary deformaties such as harlequins ichtheosis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOPARxS2qak – for me these are just too much the antithesis of “intelligent creation” and more like the haphazard evolutionary mistakes that occur
I mean just to follow up on the arlequins ichtheosis case.
How can someone even state intelligent design ! Its shameful. Usually intelligent designists focus on some of the more aesthetically pleasing parts of the world such as the butterflies rather than harlequins disease and related deformaties that occur as a result of haphazard DNA hereditary process.
Also calling the survival of a Harlequins Ichtheosis baby a miracle in the video is also semantically twisted use of language.
This does diservice to the 99% of other babies which die a tortured death and success of modern medicine which whilst having no cure has improved survival chance radically recently (via antibiotics and various other new treatments) Perhaps gene therapy in the future can fix the genes at conception
Romaldi wrote:
“In other words, God (Spirit, the Force, Energy, Love, All, I Am) IS you, me, these words”
Does the mystification work ?
What are we talking about ?
What about Leibnitz or Aristotle on the law of identity – something Is X or not-X – how can it be both ?
You, me etc are not the same thing.
Even if you claim I am speaking from “my seperate ego” and “face of original sin” have not these constructs just been made up as excuses ? Just mind constructs as pseuo-explanation ? Epistemologically empty.
Say a few words and hocus pocus all the existential problems disappear (basis of some hypnosis methods)- its the maya illusion again – damn that maya is in the way again. Go away maya – banish now !!!. Amen.- I am now You, the moderator and Derren Brown all at once-magic !
@Realityman If bad design indicates the lack of a designer then does that mean the iPhone 4 with it’s flawed aerial design just popped into existence? Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t know the mind of God and why babies are born with diseases such as the one you mentioned, but your argument comes down to bad design means no designer, which if applied to everything that seems to be badly designed means we have a lot of things that popped into existence without a designer.
Andrew: No, bad design doesn’t indicate a lack of designer, but it makes the idea of an infallible and omnipotent designer a bit unlikely. Besides, nobody is arguing that anything ‘just popped into existence’; life came about through a long process of chemical reactions, and evolution is anything but instant.
The problem is once again an anthropocentric world view — humans design things, so everything that exists must’ve been designed by someone. Once you realise that humans occupy just a tiny little fraction of reality, the whole design idea seems silly. Or at least it does to me.
Berber – absolutelly agree
Andrew – you are correct, bad design does not mean no designer. To infer no designer from bad design would be a non sequitur fallacy – doesnt follow .
However for the babies with horrific genetic hereditary disease – the somewhat haphazard evolutionary explanation with all its detours and dead ends is better than “special God design of an omnibenevolent/potent/present creator deity as the ID theorists would have it.
Thats why I chose this example in particular of babies genetic deformaties.
traditional theistic explanations of sin as disease causation are obsurred
It is hereditoy going back to precurssors within deep past – in some cases hundreds of thoudands of years – just seems unlikely as God creating DNA in such arbitary way
Nothing I hae sais actually gos against theistic evolution
God could use evolution to create a somewhat sub optimal creation , brilliant in some areas and deeply flawed in others.
THis cannot be disproved but does go against some traditional theistic concepts
@Berber Anna So, in light of bad design what your question is then is not whether there is a designer but what are the character qualities of the designer? I don’t think that the ID argument is that humans design therefore someone designed the universe, as far as I understand it ID observes and comments that there appears to be design, what is the best explanation for that? Maybe you’d like to clarify this statement for me “Once you realise that humans occupy just a tiny little fraction of reality, the whole design idea seems silly.” I’m not seeing why you believe this?
@Realityman Why do you think the idea of sin as disease causation is absurd?
I’d like to know what your thoughts are on theistic evolution.
Andrew: Because the premise that something functioning must have been designed is inherently human. The only reason ID proponents have for their conclusion that ‘there appears to be design’ is that everything works together, that it functions perfectly in its environment. Now, granted, if humans want to make something that functions, they have to design it. But what they seemingly fail to see is that everything in nature that did NOT function, was basically eliminated by catastrophic failure. It didn’t just continue not functioning.
Imagine a puzzle that fits together perfectly. If the discarded pieces were reused or burned, you wouldn’t see that. You’d still consider it a perfect fit, a nicely designed whole, even though it’s not and never has been.
Humans have a blind spot for chaos.
@Berber Anna Ok, I see where you’re coming from now. Thanks for explaining that. I had actually never heard that point of view before but I will think and ponder upon that. If I have a response I’ll let you know.
On a side note, I am really enjoying and appreciating the debate/discussion and am also glad that it can be civil unlike so many debates where Christians and atheists resort to ad hominems rather than discussing the merits of each other’s argument.
@Berber Anna Just a quick further thought for my own clarification, when you are talking about the pieces fitting together in seeming design, are you talking about on a micro or macro level or both? i.e. do you mean that non-functioning strands of DNA would have been eliminated or non-functioning species would have been eliminated? Or perhaps both?
Andrew – first comments have been nicely dealt with by Berber – there can be appearance of intentional design – by the way I do think evolution by natural selection is a form of design !
The very idea of trial and error and discarding all the errors to select what functions is brilliant design and now incorporated in some computer software design programs to produce incredibly complex algorithms – using simple instructions the outcomes are far better than directly trying to design the outcome without the “trial and error” method.
This sort of design “the natural selection type” is misleading because it is not what ID theorists and traditional theism have in mind. In any case I think intelligent designs concept of God is idolatrous pseudo diety – I will explain,
The intelligent design concept of God is actually a deity more like one of the greek deities. I think ID (and more so the creationists of especially christianity – but others too) are participants in the greek idol cult of prometheus (and other similar craftman gods)
The basics – prometheus is a craftsman deity – crafting mankind “out of the clay” – basically an engeneer god. This is a human projection – it is the worship of a humans ideas of what they do – craftsmanship. It was one of many deities such as the god of war, love et
DO you really think the source of ultimate reality is some deity out there who occasionally tweeks His creation like fixing some nuts and bolds of a faulty radio ? Either God is involved in UTTERLY everything – mistakes & chaos included – or there is no god.
Andrew – On sin as disease explanation.
If I used the example of an alcoholic who has liver cirrosis – suffering very greatly – it is possible to say that the alcoholic was guilty of indulging in a destructive addiction and is responsible for the damage caused – This failure of responsibility can be called “Sin” – in hebrew “Sin” means “missing the mark” – failure of responsibility.
Now we can debate the degree of control the alcoholic had, I personally believe that we have free will and not “forced by our genes” – even though we may be inclined or tempted etc – so there is some “missing the mark” involved
Babies with hereditory disease – established to be by incorrect copying of DNA via natural reasons such as cosmic background radiation ? How did the baby “miss the mark” ?
obviously free will is the ultimate contradiction to the existence of god, god being omnipotent.
if god knows all that ever was is and will be, then surely he knows every decision we will ever make, and every forgiveness we will ever ask for?surely he knew eve would eat that apple? did he do the whole thing just as an example to give us an idea of morality and faith? to give us an understanding that free will comes with responsibility and consequences?but then for him to know the future consequences of our decisions means that that future is definite. therefore, the only way in which such a god can exist, is within the acceptance of multiple universes, one for each possible decision, spreading out from point one in a fractal like composition.
could god be understood as a divine equation?
I have a couple of questions/comments. Firstly, if we accept that natural selection gives the appearance of design for biological systems and that those things that do not function were eliminated by catastrophic failure, could you apply the same logic and explanation to the appearance of design of the universe? Secondly, I think your analogy using the computer software leaves you with a problem. The software needs an original designer to give it a starting point. What is the starting point for natural selection and how did that starting point get there?
Your commentary on ID is interesting. Without a more thorough grounding in Greek mythology I can’t really comment on the similarities but if I have time to look into and study it then I think it would be an interesting subject area.
I will comment further on what you said about God being a projection of the mind of man after I’ve had a chance to think about it. I’ve never really thought about that before and want to have time to reflect.
Regarding your explanation of your rejection of sin being the source of disease that seems reasonable and I am impressed as you clearly have a good grounding in Christianity. I’d like to offer some clarification though to why Christianity believes sin is the cause of disease. As much as sin is missing the mark, sin also refers to the idea of original sin, meaning that when sin entered the human race through Adam and Eve, it corrupted the original function of humanity and amongst other things human death and disease then became not only a possibility but an inevitability.
I do think your definition of sin as being failure of responsibility seems somewhat circular – you have defined failure of responsibility as sin, then sin as missing the mark, and then missing the mark as failure of responsibility, perhaps you could clarify, 800 characters is not the most conducive limit to having good debate! The Hebrew and Greek words for sin do indeed mean missing the mark, the question then should be, what mark has been missed? In Christian orthodoxy that is man missing the mark set by God in the Law, not matching up to God’s standards of righteousness and holiness. I appreciate this somewhat diverges from the point about sin as the explanation of disease but I just wanted to clarify that since theology is a ground where I am more comfortable!
Andrew: Both — when there was nothing to life but self-replicating molecules, the molecules that didn’t properly replicate would’ve been overrun by those that did, and in a few ‘generations’, you only have molecules that replicate functionally and properly (apart from a few bad copies). That’s the micro scale.
When more complex life had gradually evolved, the species whose dna coded for properties that impaired the being’s functionality in comparison to the other beings around it (thus making it harder for said being to survive and replicate) would eventually be eliminated. That’s the macro scale.
Of course, there are the errors that aren’t life-threatening, just a bit annoying (but in some cases beneficial). Those survived. That’s probably how I got Asperger’s and hypermobility.
Realityman: You do know that the traditional Christian explanation for a baby’s disease is ‘sins of the fathers’, right? Which, sadly, is actually true in some cases (where parents know of the genetic risk to their offspring, but still decide to have children), if not in the original sense.
Any revelation could be a scam. No proof is possible. Arguments are just words – they prove nothing. Theology is interesting nonsense.
Archaic Age: pantheistic animism. Universality of the sacred.
Premodernity: polytheism to monotheism – limitation of the sacred to top folk and places.
Modernity: Sacred and deity denied – atheism.
Postmodernity: Eco-pantheism. Returning to belief in totality of sacred. On the way since since Romantics. Chaotic beliefs in magic and polytheism of New Age clouds this picture.
Your beliefs are wrong – I am right. That’s pluralism.
Your beliefs are equally right to mine. That’s multiculturalism.
I’m a pluralist eco-pantheist. Call me bud. I want to be leaf.
Berber – thanks for that – yes parents who have known genetic disease are responsible for the offspring to some degree – hopefully the results of the genome project will be able to prevent this via either early detection or alteration. Certainly not the point of theological “sins of the fathers”. !!!!!
There is a more subtle point to sins of the fathers – if a generation is degenerate and immoral it is likely via cultural conditioning that the degenerate & immoral culture will be passed on to the next generation. A familty of drug addicts is likely to begget more drug addicts even if it is not genetic causality- clearly demonstrated in environments where I live where peers/parents are smokers so are the children (mild example)
Andrew
Firstly the idea of sin as “failure of responsibility” & “missing the mark” is more of a definition than circular reasoning. The exeption might be the original sin concept – which IS NOT the original concept of sin (ironically original sin isnt original but made up later by a particular branch of christian interpretation – eg St Augustine.
The Jews and some christians do not accept the original sin doctrine and it is “forced” into the text.
Of course for the proponents of the original sin doctrine it is a superb manipulation device to control people – make them guilty even before they havent done anything ! Guilt mind manipulation tool for subservience to the institutions of those particular churches – a form of hypnotic suggestion (mind virus or “inception” ? ).
Andrew – on the computer analogy for natural selection:
There are 2 stages to the computer analogy. The first is the computer is designed according to standard non darwinian methods by humans as you pointed out. The second is the computer then runs a darwinian algorithm on a NEW project from scratch such as “lets design a walking robot” – stick in some basic raw data into the darwinian algorithm – wait….and after some 50 generations of trial and error comes out an amazing “designed” walking robot.
All the failed “crippled” robot “designs” were obliterated – you see the final product which looks as if designed intentionally (unless you are shown the long line of rejected generations)
Can God had built in a darwinian natural selection algorithm into the universe ? Maybe ?
There is no way to disprove God doesnt use natural selection evolution as His method – but this cannot prove God either.
However it does disprove the intelligent design thesis because we do have the evolutionary left overs of failed and poorly designed systems. There are dozens of examples – and 800 word comments cannot do justice to them here – read Neil Shubins “your inner Fish” for starters. Genetically there are pseudogenes and “gene fossils” that were useful in prehistory but now mutated and disfunctional – why would God but disfunctional genes ? Eg whales apparently still have the genetic material for olfractory process for smell of scents in the air and making hind legs but heavily mutated – clearly whales no longer need to smell air borne particles or walk on hind legs.
- Not to mention the coccyx, appendix, sinus cavity, neck ribs, palmaris muscle, subclavius muscle, nipples, wisdom teeth, goosebumps, body hair, male uterus and my favourite – the Vas Deferens in women. Almost utterly useless in many cases and we need some of them removed in many cases (this list isn’t complete either). – Phillis
Eric: Funny, but a bit simplistic. I wouldn’t equate monotheism with modernity. For instance, Shintoism is still going fairly strong in Japan, and I wouldn’t exactly consider that country archaic anymore.
@Eric Clyne “Arguments are just words – they prove nothing” Does that include what you have just tried to prove?
Andrew, I think you got Realityman’s computer sidestep the wrong way. It’s an imitation of natural selection by human programmers — they (being human) needed to design something, and they looked to nature to find a process by which to improve on that design. That doesn’t mean the universe needs a designer — it means computer programmes do (because programmers generally don’t have the time to wait a few billion years for things to randomly start happening).
And yes, catastrophic failure works on a universal scale, as well. If a large gaseous mass doesn’t become a properly working star, it will dissipate or become something else. Stars that have run their course fall apart as well, and their mass and energy is reused in other forms. Randomness really tends to work rather well in nature.
Yes – the van Deferens in women, also known as the epoopheron does seem to be vestigial and cause cysts and tunours, ALso the Van Deferens in males loops around the ureter causing hernias and possible blockages – it could easily have been designed to prevent this – is this heavenly sadomassachistic design plans ? – just bad at knot making ?
Appendix – some say has immunological value
Hair – sexual selection – too bad monks. Keeps my head warm.
Gosebumps – brilliant example – Was God having some fun with goosebumps ? Vestigial remains from the ability to raise fur – used in dogs and other mammals.
Wiggling the ears – essential for party fun. Evolutionary speaking the muscles for wiggeling the ears is weak and absent in some and has not got the usefulness as it does for some animals
To Andrew Rennie: Of course I include myself.
To Berber Anna: Theistic Premodernity; Atheistic Modernity and Pantheistic Postmodernity coexist. Historical sequence reflects dominance of one but not to exclusion of others. Beware of calling the simplified simplistic. Noone has either time or ability to absorb existing complexity. And please note that labelling Premoderns as theistic, Moderns as atheistic and Postmoderns as Pantheistic is not far off the mark. Present conflicts between West and Islam are not between Mods and Premods. There are Mods and Premods on all sides. Israel uses Mod tech to defend Premod theistic land-grabbing.
Concerning your atheism. Until 1880′s or thereabouts, feethought included atheism and pantheism. Shelley was an atheistic pantheist.
above for feethought read freethought . I read in a book on eclectic mysticism that religious mysticism should be contrasted with ‘vague and meaningless pantheism.’ That’s for me I thought. Ever since I have been a vague and meaningless pantheist. For the Premods meaning is legacy, for mods it is a rational outcome of scientific endeavour or non-existent For Postmods it is invented. That’s what we humans do. We invent meaning. Except atheists intimidated by science and/or left-bank existentialists wearing berets and horizontally striped shirts. To deny the sacred – such a whizz-bang idea – seems a bit uppity.
Well you could propably have put this into google and found several answers.
“Why does God revel himself to some but not others?”
God has apparently reveled himself to Believers and Athesists alike. The theological argument comes from the book of Acts. In Acts Stephean is killed by angry mob and then Paul is converted on the road to Damascus. The argument is that the devil(and/or demons) tread a fine line trying no to remove freewill. When one or the other steps over this line the other does likewise, so the devil had Stephean killed so God took one of his main men(Saul) who was butching Christians by the twos/dozen/hundreds(i’m not actually sure how many he killed)?
Please excuse the spelling it’s late.
I sat in a church funeral the other day and wondered, ‘What the fuck am I gonna do when it comes my turn? I don’t want this religious shite’ At least this vicar actually knew my friend and her family and it wasn’t some stranger pretending he was best pals with them, but what a load of innapropriate crap gets spouted at these things. We have to try to sing these soprano hymns whilst choking back the tears, everyone sits and mutters meaningless blessings and we’re told Gillian’s safe at God’s side – while her partner and her 8 year old daughter try to sob as quietly as possible and her mother and her father wonder how, in their 70s, they are going to be able to face day to day living after the sudden death of their beautiful only-child. That family needed a huge hug and to be able to vent
and cry and to then pick themselves up and find something by which they can celebrate personally this woman’s life. What the Hell do these same psalms regurgitated mean to me in relation to this lost friend? Nothing. It’s like incidental music in a crap film – it signals ‘have a wee sob now, it’s OK here, we’re chatting about God’s greatness so feel free to sniffle’. God has nothing to do with life and death. God is a man-made concept that is out of date.
JayKay God might have little to do with it but for believers its a 0.1mg of diamorphine shot every time they pray and if really devoted maybe a 0.5mg booster with some seritonine, endorphine, dopamine and oxytocin if your really lucky and devoted. For the super devoted they might merit some vasopressin with booster oxytocin for the super queezy love bonding effect – some butterflies anbd extra meaning.
All the atheists have to make do with adrenaline, epinephrine excess and dopamine deficiency. Unless they learn to do the bhuddist mantras ommmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Eric: Sorry for the late reply, if you’re even still reading this post — I’ve been in bed with the flu for a week.
Postmodernism is awesome, especially in literature and architecture (Disney dwarf columns rock), but I had assumed that its default religion would be Discordianism. If meaning is invented, I´d go for full-on non-meaning or random/nonsensical meaning, rather than a vague hint of something meaningful.