Intelligent Design

compound assumption; but if true, requires there to have ALWAYS been "something".

and if 'there's always been something' then there can't have been a 'begining of everything before which nothing existed'.

so if "nothing" cannot exist, there cannot have been a "beginning".

(and not too likely for there to be an ending either)

so to say "in the beginning" is like saying "once upon a time".

at least IF "nothing can come from nothing"

(which i'm not pronouncing judgement on a possibility, only clearifying cases.

personally, its still open ended and 'nothing' has been 'proven' at all

but i do like the non-need for there to have been a begining, even the presumed need for there to have not been)

=^^=
.../\...

 

Relaxx

exactly.
Those that speak of 'something from nothing' fail to realise that there is no nothing.
Existance/reality is.. there is No opposite side to the coin of reality.
However. This only holds true to existance/reality.
Within existance /reality many systems hold true.

Those systems produce the critters with sharp teeth that amaze myself and themnax.
The reasoning beings that observe them.. and the way cool machinery like bugatti veyrons and hypersonic orbitals that we make.
Such is life..
We are an interesting species...[quote contact]

occam
A clarification cause 'most' 18 year olds have not read it yet.
Not their fault, i knew nothing of space as a thing in itself
before i was 22.
Any who question 'space as nothing.'.
might seek [logic 101, physics 102]
As relax pointed out. How can em /gravity
propagate in 'nothing'. Also einsteinian theory.. space is warped by mass...???
If it is nothing. how can it be warped.?

And this is the fun.. No human knows what space is.
Your theory is just as valid as the greatest scientist alive today..
No-one whows what gravity or time is either..... go for it.

 

principles of philosophy can prove that there is no "intervening" God. What we do no for sure, regardless of how unorganized the universe is, life is organized. Life is literally the organization of the unorganized. What caused that? Had to ask so that we can get right back to where we started. No one can prove how exactly, but science has yet to create life from scratch (from the unorganized inorganic material we find in the universe). Science tried putting the elements of a cell in a test tube, swooshed it for a long time, added some electrical current, and nothing, no DNA, no living cells, nothing. Cell differentiation of complex organisms are equally amazing and science keeps learning how little they thought they knew as they find more answers.

But if there was a God, then who organized God, we are left with the dilemma of who created God with no easy answers? No matter how you look at it, life is itself a miracle of some event, even if it just happened naturally.

 

If there is a God, then nobody created God and God has just always been. Why couldn't the universe have just always been, then, if not everything needs a creator? Maybe the universe is God. In which case no principal of philosophy can prove that it isn't intervening.

 

bnaur

While i agree on intervention. I dont agree on
'pricniples of philosophy
can prove there is no intervening god.'
Principles or philosophy can do no such thing.
Science cant even say what gravity is.. so how can philosophy say
god [if such exists] intervenes..
It cant . Philosophies are as abundant and as spurious as religion.
And not much wiser.

occam

 

Well I can only speak to my PHI-101 course, but we proved there is no all powerful all good intervening God through the course of many questions such as:

suffering in nature for no good reason (squirell suffers a horrible long and painful death, why would an all powerful omnipotent all good doing God allow such?) Why no intervention>

unnecessary human suffering (why let it be?) Why no intervention?

In so many things, why NO observable intervention.

If you have an example of a true God intervention, please post it.

But I totally agree with sexylilu.... if God came first, who created God? What was the purpose of God if only God existed? If God did not exists first, who created the Universe? isn't it more likely that 'God' is simply an advanced race of beings who evolved on planets that are 10 billion years older than ours and seeded life throughout the Universe? We are capable of seeding life on our nearby celestial bodies, why wouldn't an even more advanced species do that also? It is likely that advanced life would be a non-intervening advanced race that just wants to propagate life where it can in the Universe. Or perhaps evolution is all there is. What do you think?

Perhaps our Universe is best understood as a 'dimension'. Perhaps we live in the Universe of an atom to a much larger reality, or perhaps an entire Universe exists inside the atoms of your cells in your thumb. If there is no beginning or end, endless time in an endless Universe, wouldn't some kind of dimensional phenomenon be at the heart of it all.

All I know, is am am very happy to exists with you at this time, in this space, in this reality. May we be smart enough to solve the problems of the world without war being the answer. May humanity be intelligent enough to choose leaders who solve problems without the cost of the miracle of life. Without the organization of the disorganized there would be no life, and no purpose to anything existing at all.

 

First you would have to determine what "good" is. If there is a God, is it up to humans to determine what is absolutely good or is it up to God to determine that? Does good even exist?

To say there is no observable intervention would require knowing what God is in order to know that God is not intervening.

I didn't mean to say that anyone created God. I was saying that, by necessity, God wouldn't have been created. But then, if you're saying something exists which needs no origin, then the Universe could just as well be that something.

LIkewise.

 

Lets define Good and Evil.

Good is all things that help and assist the subject.

Evil is all things that harm or hurt the subject.

If God does not care about either good or evil, then God would have no need to intervene and explains why there is no intervention in anyones or anythings behalf (for the good of it).

If God, as Christians believe, is good and omnipotent, then why does God not intervene in a suffering squirrels life. No good reason and I propose (from PHI-101) is evidence that there is no intervening God. I used to argue the other side but had to concede my attempts were dogmatic and not squarely attributable to God.

No one claims God is evil, however, whether good or evil we still see no intervention. I am not saying there is no supreme being, only that if there is one, it chooses to not intervene. The supreme beings would likely be more advanced life from another planet in the cause of seeding life on other planets with little intent to intervene and no ability to intervene in the truly omnipotent way - God style.

Just as we do genetic engineering today, advanced life would be far better at engineering life through intelligent design on other worlds where life tweaking could be used in planetary teraforming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fCBzBHvurE&feature=related

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raëlism

 

well i don't see it as being single subject centric, or single species or single world. something close enough for government work to being a god, must, per force, by any meaningful deffinician i can think of at the moment, care, and care pretty much equally about all life on all worlds in all its infinite or again close enough to it, forms and variations.

such a god would have to care about the squerelle, but equally about the pine martin, ferret, ferrel domestic cat, or whatever else it might happen to be, that might starve if it didn't eat it.

i thing the real answer to the delima of this thread is that omnipotence plus onmiscience, does not, inhierently equal infallability. nor of course, does whatever is big friendly and invisible, have to resemble what anyone tries to pretend they know about it. even if, in their weaker moments, that anyone might once upon a time, have been me.

sentient design perhapse, but with all too many to ignore, of the charicteristics of having been designed by a committee. a committee anything but infallable.

but still plenty enough room for something big friendly and invissible, and lots of little friendly and invisibles too.

as for the presumed need for anything big invissible and unfriendly, that wishes us any particular harm, well i don't see how its very likely we'd be here if there was. and since we are. or seem to be.

=^^=
.../\...

 

I agree with what themnax said. If you were a God, it wouldn't suffice to define "good" and "evil" by individual subject alone. There is a grander scheme of things.

If you believe that God never intervenes on anyone's behalf for the good, then you might draw the conclusion that God does not care about good and evil (as you have defined them.) Or maybe God has another purpose in not intervening.

Maybe God always does what is best for all parties involved, and we are just too short-sighted to see it. Maybe God just can't do any wrong, and all that is truly good is that God exists. In any case, I don't think there is a principal of philosophy that proves that God never intervenes on behalf of anyone's good.

I agree that the Christian conception of God does seem to have its logical fallacies, but Christianity doesn't hold exclusive rights to the concept of God.

The fundamental question raised here is "Why does pain exist?" Is pain a wholly good thing, wholly bad thing, neither, or both? Could God have created a universe in which pain does not exist? Would that be a good universe? Or is pain an inescapable truth of the reality of God?

If you say God is responsible for pain, as it seems you must if God is responsible for everything, then God is responsible for the alleviation of that pain as well. Certainly death cures a squirrel's pain. Do squirrels have souls?

My personal beliefs are most in-line with Classical Pantheism (though I don't want to label myself.) I believe God is the totality of everything, so I do claim that God is not only evil, but the epitome of evil. Though I think God's good triumphs over Its evil as a whole. If evil is what causes death and destruction and God is eternal and indestructible, it seems it must.

 

So an example of intervention is what? Yeah, think really hard. I look forward to giving you a logical explanation to the miracles of God so many seem to see all around them.

I agree, great that the squirrel died and fed all the little microbes that ate it, great for the microbes, by why did the squirrel need to suffer a long and painful death, that is where a merciful Christian Intervening God comes in... NOT.

Only ethno-centric humans of the animal kingdom would place other animals below themselves and try to deny them a soul. In biology BIO-189 it is argued that three animals may exceed the intelligence of humans (brain size is much bigger and they demonstrate advanced intelligence), maybe only they have souls, as one could argue that only they live daily lives in peace with their families without destroying the Earth that sustains them and live taking only what they eat to survive. Who is smarter? You were saying who has a soul?

If God does no good nor evil then I do not care about God, great God exists but he does nothing I care about. I think we all agree the Bible God on the cross is ridiculous, but God in my view looks a lot like an advanced little green man who is only around long enough to drop off an occasional new species on planet Earth and their involvement is the hope that the life they drop off is smart enough to not kill themselves off from their own stupidity. God = little green man = very advanced life in the Universe which would be mistaken for Gods just like you would be to a caveman.

 

bnaur

You have asked the right questions.
To do so i what i think philosophy is all about.
Why did you ask them?
Not agreement.But heartfelt use of reason... good eh?
It's what makes us think.

I agree .. there is and never has been any indication of 'intervention'
But you still speak in the language of religion...why?
You say 'miracals of god' as tho the religious depiction of any high order
direction can only be explained in the language of human religion.
This is the trap we must escape from.. not the concept of direction.

The sarcasm of your comment on the squirrel shows only that you hang tough
on the morality issue. Which means nothing as morality is a product of
human society. To believe there is good and evil. Denies nature.
There is no morality in the world of ants for example. Yet they are just as
successfull as we at surviving.. better actually.
Sharks have no 10 commandments but have prospered in a 75 million year history.

The 'direction'. the 'god'.
Is NoT
intervention.. it is design. we question the parts.. but not the machine.
And when we question the machine we seem to get stuck on the stupid rung of the ladder.. 'what came before'
The stupid human desire to have a beginning and end because we have one.
What was before is what is here now.
The sum total of everything never changes.. it get rearranged.
and this entire universe is but a speck in that sum total.

U see.. ? This 'in the universe thing'. Use imagination.. thats whats its for.Outside the universe is where it began. Think of the universe as a town.
That is in the provence of local reality in the nation of greater reality
in the system of total reality that has no beginning or end.
who makes towns?

occam

 

Razorofoccam, I totally agree with you. And you correctly perceived my long history as a Mormon which religion I left behind as dogma and delusion. Still I was raised in it, but in leaving it opened a new realm which we explore here.

I keep good and evil not in a dogmatic way, but to express that which helps humanity and evil is all that hurts humanity. It has no religious hold in my use of that language.

 

Intelligent design may be a possibility. But it would probably be easier to think about if you don't try to look at it terms of mankind's place in teh universe. The "big picture" must be observed.

Is this universe finite or infinite? We would like to think so because our bodies are finite and we think the universe in an extension of us. But we are an extension of the universe. Our bodies are nothing but energy. And physics has explained that energy can never be destroyed , only change forms. Maybe there is some (or many) life after this one. After all our bodies break down and end up being fertalizer for a tree or the grass. It's simply an endless cycle. I , personally , believe that there is some force , superior to us , that motivates teh universe. But organized religion and actual names for this "force" are excessive. The Bible , Torah , Qu'ran and all other religious texts have been written by man. They (and the ministers who preach from them) are not infallible.

Is this the only universe? Is there another outside of this one? If so , is life there? Are they aware of us?

 

Bnaur

Understood my friend.

Occam

 

Geechee

Yes.. i will be fertiliser for grass.
recycled
What more could a man want. [toke]

occam

 

Geechee

99.99% of all life exists outside our universe.. lol
how could it not.

occam

 

So, if you believe that God is the totality of everything, an example of intervention is any time anyone or anything intervenes in anything. And God may be the totality of everything -- there is no reason to accept that God must be as Christianity envisions It. Though this does raise the question of whether or not one can truly intervene in one's own affairs. I never claimed that God performs miracles, though God does do things for which science currently has no explanation.

Like I said, I don't think the Christian ideal of God makes a lot of sense either. But also, like I said, why the squirrel needed to suffer a long and painful death boils down to a question of what pain is and whether or not it must or should exist. Personally, I feel that pain is an inescapable property of reality.

Yes, I was asking whether or not a squirrel has a soul, but as that relates to pain. Because there is something to be gained from enduring pain. So, if the squirrel has a soul, perhaps its pain was actually a good, learning experience for it.

I don't know exactly what a soul is to believe in it, but I think it would be ridiculous to think that humans would have one and not all living things. I don't think we're really superior to any animal.

 

4 species are now considered 'sentient'
Man, 2 species of primates and one of auquatics [dolphins]

All as sentients, must have a soul. or thay are not sentient.
Why?. because we will soon make a machine that is sentient.
so bio life has to hang together against the machines lol.


no-one wants arnie knocking on the door lookng for Sarah Connor.


occam

 

Yes, I agree these are sentient.

I also believe that any serious discussion about intelligent design must include a discussion about advanced extra terrestrials.

As far as pain goes, and God being all things, well perhaps. I can conceive that possibility as long as we don't get all up on the Bible. So if God works through me (a very real possibility I might add) then I have just intervened in your life wit these very thoughts. (Get behind me Satan - LOL - - Just kidding).

Actually that makes more sense than anything else I have ever contemplated and it was the God in you (both) that intervened in my thinking and changed my life forever!

We are the manifestation of God.

I like it!