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Originally Posted by [MERIT]
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I'm familiar with those. How do they relate to the thread topic?
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Originally Posted by riseagainstrocks
There is no compelling argument for theism. There just isn't. Religious apologist skirt around the following:
- The problem of evil
- Competing and contradictory revelations
- Suspension of natural law (for the occurrence of "miracles")
I really don't care if someone is a Christian, Muslim, etc. until they start foisting their religious beliefs on me. Big difference between myself and some of the more... militant non-believers here. I sympathize with their position but don't share the fervor. Anyway, let's turn to the thread topic.
What Pet Sounds appears to be saying is what degree of deism do we potentially live under; do I have that right?
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More or less correct. Essentially, my point is that we're in a closed system dictated by physical law, and because of our limited intelligence we're incapable of understanding a potential "meta-system" which could involve a God. In such a meta-system, the principles of causality and "existence" might not apply, meaning that God doesn't need to "exist" as we define the word in order to be real.
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Does the 'watchmaker' live inside the watch? If so, I would imagine him/her/it to be quite impotent once the big work of setting up the cosmos was completed. Outside of current technological limitation preventing perfect knowledge of the very small and very large, every phenomenon witnessed by humans has a naturalistic, deterministic cause: strike a match, produce a flame. So it begs the question, why is he/she/it just sitting around?
If the 'watchmaker' lives outside of the proverbial watch, then why consider him/her/it at all? Do we treat the architects of our homes with reverence? Do you find yourself praying to your parents? The 'god' you would be describing would be indistinguishable from empty space.
The only "wrinkle" I can see with how I approach this problem is the power of collective belief. Individual 'ideas' - as in a incorporeal representation of something - aren't any more or less real than any other. "God" is real because several billion people believe it is so and are motivated to action, some good, some bad, by this belief.
So:
Tangible, corporeal, "real" God - no.
Figurative, metaphorical God - yes.
I like to think about it like the Warp in Warhammer 40k. Emotions are reflected in the 'psychic ocean' of warp space, coalescing into 'deities' that are essentially manifestations of mankind's hopes, dreams, fears, and hates. BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD
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Agreed. Whether or not my proposed God exists has no effect on anything—it's just a philosophical concept.