77 KiB
[Q] What proof would you need to believe in God?
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Author: u/pizzahotdoglover *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3scx9q/q_what_proof_would_you_need_to_believe_in_god/
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Score: 26
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Created: 2015-11-11T02:35:15
Post:
To begin with, I'm asking this out of curiosity because I want to see the discussion, not as an attempt to convert anyone. Yahweh, God, or Allah: What proof would you need to be convinced that God is real, as opposed to an advanced alien trying to trick you, or your own insane mind?
Comments:
u/xamueljones [+42] My arch-enemy is entropy (32 minutes later)
An exorbitant amount.
It'd be comparatively easy to prove that a godlike being exists when compared to the amount of evidence it'd take to prove a God from the Abrahamic religions does in fact exist.
A godlike being could convince me of its power by preforming actions which either breaks the laws of physics as I currently understand it (assuming that I am capable of seeing through any 'tricks' to fake the abilities) or feats which are impossible for current level of technology.
Note that the above cases are distinguishing between supernatural abilities, or highly advanced aliens.
However for the existence of a religious God, my requirements simplifies to treating religion like any other scientific hypothesis and finding evidence to support it. The main reason why religion isn't considered to be scientific is because the existence of God can't be falsified. But if God exists and there is evidence of God's existence, then we can apply the scientific method to proving God's existence.
After all of that, it'd boil down to me deciding between the existence of God, or me living in some stimulation of the universe with a construct of God. Evidence sufficient to convince me of a God as described by Judaism, Christianity, Muslim, or others of a similar type would require events such as religious prophecies coming true, priests/rabbi/mullah developing genuine abilities which can't be replicated by science in any form, AND the revelation of a valid argument for how an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent God could exist while allowing the current state of the world to occur.
u/Mablun [+25] (11 hours later)
AND the revelation of a valid argument for how an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent God could exist while allowing the current state of the world to occur.
I didn't think I'd find a good answer to that question. But then I read this. (Although I still don't believe for the other reasons you list):
Job asked: “God, why do bad things happen to good people? Why would You, who are perfect, create a universe filled with so much that is evil?”
Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the whirlwind, saying “WHAT KIND OF UNIVERSE WOULD YOU PREFER ME TO HAVE CREATED?”
Job said “A universe that was perfectly just and full of happiness, of course.”
“OH,” said God. “YES, I CREATED ONE OF THOSE. IT’S EXACTLY AS NICE AS YOU WOULD EXPECT.”
Job facepalmed. “But then why would You also create this universe?”
Answered God: “DON’T YOU LIKE EXISTING?”
“Yes,” said Job, “but all else being equal, I’d rather be in the perfectly just and happy universe.”
“OH, DON’T WORRY,” said God. “THERE’S A VERSION OF YOU IN THAT UNIVERSE TOO. HE SAYS HI.”
“Okay,” said Job, very carefully. “I can see I’m going to have to phrase my questions more specifically. Why didn’t You also make this universe perfectly just and happy?”
“BECAUSE YOU CAN’T HAVE TWO IDENTICAL INDIVIDUALS. IF YOU HAVE A COMPUTATIONAL THEORY OF IDENTITY, THEN TWO PEOPLE WHOSE EXPERIENCE IS ONE HUNDRED PERCENT SATURATED BY BLISS ARE JUST ONE PERSON. IF I MADE THIS UNIVERSE EXACTLY LIKE THE HAPPY AND JUST UNIVERSE, THEN THERE WOULD ONLY BE THE POPULATION OF THE HAPPY AND JUST UNIVERSE, WHICH WOULD BE LESS GOOD THAN HAVING THE POPULATION OF THE HAPPY AND JUST UNIVERSE PLUS THE POPULATION OF ONE EXTRA UNIVERSE THAT IS AT LEAST SOMEWHAT HAPPY.”
“Hmmmmm. But couldn’t You have have made this universe like the happy and just universe except for one tiny detail? Like in that universe, the sun is a sphere, but in our universe, the sun is a cube? Then you would have individuals who experienced a spherical sun, and other individuals who experienced a cubic sun, which would be enough to differentiate them.”
“I DID THAT TOO. I HAVE CREATED ALL POSSIBLE PERMUTATIONS OF THE HAPPY AND JUST UNIVERSE AND ITS POPULACE.”
“All of them? That would be…a lot of universes.”
“NOT AS MANY AS YOU THINK.” said God. “IN THE END IT TURNED OUT TO BE ONLY ABOUT 10^(10^(10^(10^(10^984)))). AFTER THAT I RAN OUT OF POSSIBLE PERMUTATIONS OF UNIVERSES THAT COULD REASONABLY BE DESCRIBED AS PERFECTLY HAPPY AND JUST. SO I STARTED CREATING ONES INCLUDING SMALL AMOUNTS OF EVIL.”
“Small amounts! But the universe has…”
“I WAS NOT REFERRING TO YOUR UNIVERSE. I EXHAUSTED THOSE, AND THEN I STARTED CREATING ONES INCLUDING IMMENSE AMOUNTS OF EVIL.”
“Oh.” Then: “What, exactly, is Your endgame here?”
“I AM OMNIBENEVOLENT. I WANT TO CREATE AS MUCH HAPPINESS AND JOY AS POSSIBLE. THIS REQUIRES INSTANTIATING ALL POSSIBLE BEINGS WHOSE TOTAL LIFETIME HAPPINESS IS GREATER THAN THEIR TOTAL LIFETIME SUFFERING.” ...
and it continues too long to put in a comment so click the link.
u/xamueljones [+16] My arch-enemy is entropy (13 hours later)
That argument almost works to convince me that a moral God can exist and still allow evil to occur. It just means God has decided that it's more important to have a large quantity of goodness even if it allows a small amount of evil over a small amount of good with no evil at all.
I wouldn't agree with the morality of such a God, but it works well enough to convince me that a benevolent (by my standards) God can exist and still allow the current world to exist. Congratulations! You have convinced someone on the Internet!
Of course, this brings up the question can a objective moral system exist where it is considered good from every individual's subjective perspective?
This is a hard problem in logic and philosophy where you can have different axiomatic systems which are each internally consistent, but disagree with each other.
Note that I'm distinguishing between a God who follows a moral system (especially one we can understand and agree with) which seems to be the type you are describing, and a God who is perceived as 'good' by every single sapient being which every religion uses to persuade people by saying "You can't question God, He's perfect in every possible way! Never mind that it's logically impossible!".
u/ZeronTheXeon [+2] (23 hours later)
[deleted]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^0.1996
u/xamueljones [+3] My arch-enemy is entropy (a day later)
I'm not entirely sure, but I think the point that the argument is making is that God is only allowing our current universe to exist is because God has already created all other possible universes which are more 'good' from an objective point and if our universe is any more 'good', it'd be identical to one of the other universes already created.
The need for many universes seems like they are existing only for us to compare against.
That's kinda the point of the argument.
Although....it brings up the interesting scenario, is there any reason for God to have created our particular current universe, assuming that there is only ever exactly one universe?
u/narfanator [+4] (14 hours later)
Omnibenevolence doesn't require an objective morality, you can just integrate over all the subjective moralities, instead.
Edit: That might be the objective morality, actually.
u/xamueljones [+2] My arch-enemy is entropy (19 hours later)
integrate over all the subjective moralities
That doesn't make sense to me. What does it mean to integrate over multiple moralities? Also, there is no guarantee that it's even possible to reconcile different moral systems.
For example, our culture considers cannibalism to be a deeply unethical act (barring circumstances where both people would starve to death otherwise). However, there have been other cultures throughout history who considered it to be a necessary ethical behavior to eat the flesh of our ancestors once they have passed on out of a 'life is a cycle' style philosophy.
How do you reconcile two moral systems who have opposite opinions of the same action?
u/SirReality [+3] (23 hours later)
When he says 'integrate over all the subjective moralities' I believe he's just saying to take the average over everyone's individual subjective morality. I can't write it well in reddit's markup, but take its own actions, and sum how moral those are perceived to be by EVERYONE, and divide by number of people judging you.
In your example of cannibalism (good choice, btw), a 'omnibenevolent' being would seek to maximize their total moral character as seen by everyone - thus, if more people think allowing cannibalism is morally abhorrent than not, it is not allowed.
Caveat to all the prior: I don't actually agree with this as a sound moral framework, as it inevitably leads to tyranny of the majority extending to definitions of morals. It is, however, an interesting model, and one I can see a bit of in society as a whole; once something gets majority approval, it ceases to be morally repugnant for that society.
u/gabbalis [+4] (a day later)
This god is choosing who gets to exist too. So is he integrating over the morals of every possible mind when making that decision? Because the paper-clippers and negatilitarians are going to poison the utility function pretty hard there.
u/jls17 [+2] (2 days later)
Seems like for any morality system you could define a (possibly very ugly, possibly just an arbitrary list of values) function M1 = f(x) that outputs the moral value of any possible action.
There is exactly one moral system defined by M2 = -f(x), the function of an agent who would be seen as pure perfect evil under M1. (and to it, agents operating under M1 would be seen as pure perfect evil)
Any summing or averaging or integrating of all possible moral systems seems like it would produce a function that calls every possible action morally neutral, ie 0.
u/None [+1] (5 days later)
That sounds like a great argument against utilitarianism. Probably because it's basically the Repugnant Conclusion.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+8] (40 minutes later)
Excellent point about the possibility of a simulation. I should have included that option in the OP.
u/None [+6] (5 hours later)
The main reason why religion isn't considered to be scientific is because the existence of God can't be falsified.
Eh, I don't really think anything can be considered to be non-scientific. Basically all proofs made outside of axiomatic systems, are going to be probabilistic.
If we pick another hypothesis like: 'the sky is green'. Then if we observe evidence to the contrary, I can make a hypothesis to explain the new data such as: 'the Illuminati hypnotised everyone'. Even though we might scoff at it and call it a rationalization, it is still a valid hypothesis.
The only difference between 'the sky is green' and 'god exists' is the number of people willing to support it. So it's not the hypothesis which is non-scientific it's just people not acting rationally.
u/None [+6] (5 hours later)
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u/None [+8] (7 hours later)
Ah, just to head off communication issues before they happen, I should mention that I'm an agnost. With that said, I feel like you should avoid statements like: "how the mighty have fallen". It needlessly polarizes a discussion, and is basically acting anti-rationally.
Aside from that, I do not believe falsifiability to be a necessary condition, for the scientific method to be applicable. As I stated above, that limitation would restrict the domain of science, to axiomatic systems; and while we all agree that math is the foundation of science, I do not think anyone would say it is it's sum total.
So, if I'm understanding your thoughts correctly (which you may correct me on, if I am not). You believe religion to be non-scientific, on account of the inability to use evidence to refute it. But the same can be said for any other hypothesis, in the same vein as the story of the Dragon in the Garage (http://lesswrong.com/lw/i4/belief_in_belief/).
The point I was getting at in my previous post, is that, in order to gain information one needs to make certain assumptions. An example of a common assumption is Occam's razor, but one can make alternate assumptions (Such as, a religious one). How you treat evidence, is dependent on this perspective.
Under this guise one can think of rationality, as a sort of meta level assumption. In words it would be something like: 'I will assume that which will increase my expected utility, by the largest amount'. Which means people who hold a belief in belief, are generally acting irrationally.
Now, it is my personal opinion, that arguments in favour of religion are as irrational, as arguments in favour of the sky being green. But under another set of assumptions, I could be made to believe otherwise. This does not affect the applicability of gathering evidence, either for or against a hypothesis, it only reflects my personal assumptions. So as per my previous post, it isn't the hypothesis which is non-scientific, it is the people.
u/None [+5] (9 hours later)
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u/narfanator [+3] (14 hours later)
By definition, scientific claims must be falsifiable
I agree with you, but I think our reasons for agreeing on this are different.
AFAIK, "Science" is a method to determine better/best/good questions. Ideally, you can use information theory and Science! to determine the "question which will teach you the most" (information quotient), although I don't think that's usually possible. Still, ideals to strive for and all that.
As such, non-falsifiable claims aren't useful (scientific) because they cannot result in questions with answers.
Note that this means Science! can be applied to subjective things, which is pretty cool (it's just that the subjective learning can't be applied to other people).
u/Nepene [+1] (a day later)
God's existence is famously unfalsifiable, since religious people like to point out that if God exists (and is omnipotent) he can easily confound any tool used to look for him.
That would make the non existence unfalsifiable. The existence could be easier to falsify. If God was dancing around on your streets throwing thunderbolts around that would be easy enough to test.
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
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u/Nepene [+1] (2 days later)
You can falsify the non existence of something. "All gods are non existent" is a statement. If there's a god outside your house that evidence would make the statement seem unlikely. If all gods are outside your house that statement is very false.
I'm doubtful that scientists actually work with Popper's falsification theories. Some like it, some don't. It was made to try and distinguish science from pseudoscience- the idea that there's some bright line between pseudoscience like astrology and tarot reading and such and astronomy and mathematics that he has found.
But, scientists don't generally actually widely use that as a guide to their experiments. Explanatory power, empirical value, scientific method, and being about reality are also important factors.
u/None [+3] (2 days later)
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u/Nepene [+1] (2 days later)
Well. Obviously. I said that existence of things generally can be proven but not falsified, and conversely that non-existence generally can be falsified but not proven.
Existence often makes claims about specific existence.
For example you might claim "God is existent on Mount Olympus, visible by looking at the thrones and the human like beings on the top in their palace." and that is a very falsifiable statement.
That's true, because this is not science, it's the philosophy of science. That is, it's relevant in order to demarcate what science is and what science can do. It's of no use when doing science or experimenting.
When trying to demarcate what science is and what it isn't the practical effect is to stop people who make claims like that they can see the future from being in the same boat as people who claim they can make fire come out of metal sticks using gunpowder and metal.
What science do and their experiments is more important than what some random philosophers believe.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+2] (6 hours later)
To be fair, most claims can't really be proven or disproven, all that can be said is whether an observation conforms to previous observations or not.
u/Rationalfideism [+3] (14 hours later)
for the existence of a religious God, my requirements simplifies to treating religion like any other scientific hypothesis and finding evidence to support it. The main reason why religion isn't considered to be scientific is because the existence of God can't be falsified. But if God exists and there is evidence of God's existence, then we can apply the scientific method to proving God's existence.
I'm not incredibly familiar with the rationalist community but I haven't seen anyone yet talk about the falsifiability vs. verifiability distinction. As you say, what makes a hypothesis "scientific" is that it is falsifiable. But try to create a falsification test that I exist. You cannot, one because to disprove my existence you would need to search the entire universe and not find me and two because I do, in fact, exist. Like my existence, any hypothesis seeking to prove God's existence must be a test of verification. Am I making any sense?
If my argument stands, then searching for God using the scientific method would a bit like looking for a rose while wearing rose colored glasses. You're excluding the possibility of finding it by the method you're employing.
u/Nighzmarquls [+3] (17 hours later)
You can solve the existence thing by cutting existence down into parts or 'dissolving the hypothesis' into smaller chunks.
I could be wanting information of many kinds.
Like I can ask a question "is there a shape of matter which obstructs moving sticks through it that matches your shape definition?" that is easier to falsify and test.
To be more specific and even more broken down I can test "Is there a shape of matter defined as you that obstructs me moving a stick through it which is actually in reach of my stick poking?"
We can break down to simpler or move on to different discrete tests for the capabilities/properties of 'things' like 'god' and 'you' until we run out of attention, resources or questions that are useful.
So yes I can't falsify 'you existing' but I can narrow down the properties about your hypothesis of 'you existing' until I don't care about whatever extra semantics you want to throw at it.
u/xamueljones [+3] My arch-enemy is entropy (19 hours later)
FOR EVERYONE - Here's a good link that better sums up the difference between falsification and verification for anyone reading this who may be confused.
FOR RATIONALFIDEISM - You are right that proving your non-existence is difficult because it requires searching the entire universe for you or evidence of your existence (for example this post is sufficient to prove you exist even though I have never seen you in person). It is only after searching the entire universe (or just planet since you are assumed to be human) that I can actually say that you don't officially exist.
However, the above paragraph has detailed an entire procedure for how I can conceivably prove the statement 'Rationalfidiesm doesn't exist'. When it comes to God, there is no test that I can even conceive of to prove to people that God doesn't exist. It's only the fact that we have never found evidence of God weakly proves the statement 'God doesn't exist' (I know other people think they have found proof, but I don't consider anything in religion to be evidence).
To clarify further, let's do a thought experiment. Pretend for a moment that a subatomic physicist has been thrown to the ancient past of humanity around 100 B.C. There is no way for him to recreate any of his physics experiments to prove his knowledge due to lacking the advance technology to prove it. Yet he can still imagine some theoretical test which doesn't violate any laws of physics (otherwise it'd be just a thought experiment), making his knowledge falsifiable.
It basically boils down to whether or not that there exists some potential test to disprove your statement (regardless of the feasibility of your test) that determines whether or not the statement is falsifiable.
u/FaceDeer [+11] (2 hours later)
If an all-powerful being wants to convince me that it's all-powerful, it'll come up with something that'll convince me. I don't know what but it's all-powerful so it can do that. Maybe it'll just tweak my brain so that I believe it regardless of evidence, that seems like the simplest approach.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+1] (3 hours later)
This is true, but it avoids the question. What I'm really asking is, what evidence could God give that would convince a truly skeptical mind? It's almost tragic that even if there is a God, there isn't really any fair way it could convince us of its authenticity.
u/FaceDeer [+10] (3 hours later)
There are a lot of questions that just don't make sense in the face of an omnipotent actor.
For example, an omnipotent actor could decide to make "I diddle with your brain so that you believe in me anyway" into a "fair way" to convince us. You wouldn't be able to argue that it's not a fair way to convince us because an omnipotent being just made it so.
It's kind of an uninteresting question when you get right down to it. Like asking what we should do if the Sun just exploded. Nothing we could do makes the remotest bit of difference, so why bother with the question? The existence of an omnipotent being makes the answer to any question come out as "whatever the omnipotent being wants."
The gods that are indistinguishable from advanced aliens are more interesting because they've at least got some limitations on them.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+6] (3 hours later)
Let me rephrase the question for you:
A being claiming to be the God of the (Torah/Bible/Koran) appears, and he wants to convince you of his identity without manipulating your mind and solely by providing whatever evidence you request. His goal is to honestly convince you of his identity by argument and evidence. You may demand any proof you can think of that could convince you that he is who he claims to be. He won't use his power to "cheat" in any way, unless you specifically ask him to supernaturally change your mind. What proof do you ask for?
u/FaceDeer [+9] (4 hours later)
Tricky. The God of the Torah/Bible/Koran is all over the place as far as what the documentation describes, there isn't just one non-contradictory description that can be distilled out of that.
I suppose I could ask it to let me into Heaven. Heaven is usually where God is described as keeping all the most Godly stuff. If Heaven's nice enough I might just go ahead and concede the argument so I can stay there. Conversely if it sucks I could try to take a look at what the competition has to offer downstairs. :)
That's a little cheaty, though, and if this is really God it's supposed to be able to see through such "I'll believe if you pay me well enough" approaches. In fact, it's often described as getting a bit cross when such arguments are attempted.
Hm... Honestly? I think this is the real best approach: get a team of experts on the subject. I'm really not well qualified to judge this personally, but I've generally found that the scientific community does a good job in the long run. So I'll tell "God" that I'll believe it when the overwhelming majority of the scientific community has become convinced it's telling the truth. I'd then send it off to go do its best to argue its case to the various scientists and researchers of the world and see how it goes. The physics community is probably the most important subset of those since they're down into the basics of how reality works.
Ultimately, this is how I would answer most questions about things that are well outside my areas of expertise - turn the actual experts loose on the question and see what their consensus is once they settle on one.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+4] (4 hours later)
This is the answer that seems most logical to me by far. Great ideas! I would just post on /r/rational and see what they came up with :p
u/khafra [+6] (11 hours later)
Computational complexity lets us pose questions which cannot be answered by anything operating within the most reliable laws of physics, but which we can still check the answers on, like so.
u/Pluvialis [+4] Second Age Sauron (17 hours later)
It's almost tragic that even if there is a God, there isn't really any fair way it could convince us of its authenticity.
Well, my parents can't convince me of their authenticity either, if we're being truly skeptical. But at some point you just say 'well this seems to be a reliable hypothesis' and run with it.
I don't leave my house by the second-storey window, I know I can get food at the supermarket, I know I'll be able to check reddit by turning on my computer, and if some 'God' rocked up and started showing off, I wouldn't be worrying about demons, aliens, simulations or delusions for long.
u/LiteralHeadCannon [+17] (27 minutes later)
There is no meaningful way to distinguish between God and an advanced alien trying to trick you. You might as well just take things God-like beings say at face value.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+5] (30 minutes later)
I agree with your first sentence for the most part. As to the second, is that because they wouldn't be meaningfully distinguishable from what we perceive as "God"? Or because it would be dangerous to doubt such a being? Or because you think it's likely that any being that claimed to be the same one depicted in our mythology most likely is?
u/LiteralHeadCannon [+17] (2 hours later)
Because there's no test for a truth-telling-all-powerful-being that a lying-all-powerful-being can't cheat on.
u/None [+5] (3 hours later)
And further, that kind of being is so many levels above your own cognition, that you don't have a prayer of divining their intentions or guessing whether what they say is true or false. If they wanted to harm you, they could erase you from all time and everyone's memory. You exist on their whim. Since you aren't dead yet, it's because they haven't noticed you, haven't wanted you dead yet. So if they talk, you listen. They command, you obey. They ask nicely, you ask if you can do them any other favor. Because you want to live, right?
u/pizzahotdoglover [+2] (3 hours later)
Sure, but in my hypothetical, the being claiming to be God is actually God, and merely wants to convince you of his identity, using your own standards of proof and logic. There is no penalty for disbelieving and he won't supernaturally alter your brain to make you believe. However, he does present himself and is perfectly willing to accommodate any demand of proof you can think of.
u/None [+5] (5 hours later)
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u/pizzahotdoglover [+6] (6 hours later)
Hahaha you got me there. I guess I was just trying to emphasize the impartiality of the rational test you might come up with, without the threat of hell for being wrong looming over your head.
u/None [+2] (8 hours later)
I wasn't talking about hell. I believe my comment applies to godlike aliens as well as gods.
u/NotAHeroYet [+6] City of Angles Municipal Government (2 hours later)
I'd go the other way around. You might as well assume they're telling the truth about their power, but scrutinize everything else incredibly closely. xe may be all powerful, but if he cares to trick you, you have leverage. Of course, I'm paranoid about single omnipotent beings- we got powerful by working together, and while some are more powerful than others, the same reason i can be doing this translocationist magic is other people worked to create it. Either xe is omnipotent- what happened to the others- xe is a collective- in which case everyone he cared about before today is himself- or xe is a single, isolated instance- in which case, why should i expect unity amoung your number.
u/awesomeideas [+9] Dai stiho, cousin. (4 hours later)
Xe is noble, at least.
u/Geminii27 [+2] (7 hours later)
Mostly that at a certain level of power/ability/technology, such a being could fake our sensory inputs in real time so what we perceive as reality is whatever they want. Or they could brainwash us into believing we'd seen some sign of divinity.
u/C_Densem [+2] LessWrong (than usual) (a day later)
If God created the universe, then He is not of this universe. And if He can create universes, then He is very advanced.
God is an advanced alien!
e: aaand now I see someone already mentioned this. Blast :)
u/None [+7] (2 hours later)
Depends precisely what sort of theology you're looking to prove.
For Biblical literalism, well, that conception of God might as well be a sufficiently advanced reality warper, so hey, just show me the sufficiently advanced reality warping. You'll have a hard time convincing me you're the only SARW around, or the precise one featured in the Bible, but hey, that's because your powers are so advanced the likelihood functions for "can you do that?!" go to almost 1.0 everywhere.
If you're going for some more Medieval "ground of being" metaphysical stuff, then I consider it logically incoherent and will require infinite proof, or at least, proof at the levels of abstraction where I consider the incoherency to exist.
u/narfanator [+3] (14 hours later)
I think if you could prove that there were no other possible SARWs, that might work, and you might be able to do that by assuming there is another one and proving that means a contradiction.
u/PlaneOfInfiniteCats [+2] (a day later)
Could you please elaborate? It's not clear to me how such contradiction would arise.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
"In five seconds, I will unmake and remake the universe excepting myself and you, and will not remake any other SARW. If anything opposes this operation, it will not function. Any other SARW fits the set "not me or you". A SARW would not want to be unmade. if this operation completes, there are no SARW. If this operation completes, there will be no SARW. Five, four, three, two, one."
I know this has holes - you can't trust him, verification, whatever.
u/PlaneOfInfiniteCats [+1] (2 days later)
It also has problems with unknown unknowns. For example, if the SARW you talk with thinks it can unmake entire universe, but in fact there are part it cannot affect, and SARW doesn't know it, the operation will complete and other SARW will keep existing.
I like your idea, but as you said, it has holes.
Thanks for clarification.
u/IWantUsToMerge [+5] (7 hours later)
Even if I watched a deity resurrect christ, I would still not believe that god was what it claimed to be. Not just in the sense of never being able to be absolutely sure of what I'm seeing, I mean in the sense that Yahweh appears to be lying about its own motivations, and that the things it has said about itself don't seem to be actually useful for predicting its future actions.
It seems very very strange to me that it does not seem that anyone in this religion has discussed the possibility that their god which claims to be able to do anything, which clearly needs us for something, and is unwilling or unable to intervene beyond a certain point, might have lied to us about anything at all.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+1] (17 hours later)
Interesting thought. What could its true motivations be?
u/callmebrotherg [+3] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (18 hours later)
According to Philip K. Dick's short story, Faith of Our Fathers, it wants to eat us.
u/None [+1] (5 days later)
Define "eat" in this context.
u/callmebrotherg [+2] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (6 days later)
Link here if you want to read the whole story.
When God (or the Demiurge, arguably, given PKD's gnosticism) appears:
It was terrible; it blasted him with its awareness. As it moved it drained the life from each person in turn; it ate the people who had assembled, passed on, ate again, ate more with an endless appetite.
Part of Tung Chien's internal monologue:
I see that Arabic poem, the searching for the flowers of life to each them -- I see you astride the plain which to you is Earth, plain without hills, without valleys. You go anywhere, appear any time, devour anything; you engineer life and then guzzle it, and you enjoy that.
There are some other relevant passages, but they lose a lot of oomph without context. Basically, God/Demiurge created living things in order to snack on their souls.
(And apparently there are worse things than it out there)
u/ArgentStonecutter [+5] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (9 hours later)
I'm not sure there is anything a sufficiently advanced alien couldn't do, down to re-wiring me to believe in a specific god. Though that would be a kind of Pyrrhic victory for said alien/god, it meets the victory conditions.
Put into those terms, I guess the answer is "nothing", even if it does succeed, it could still be a trick.
In practice, I doubt I would be as thoroughly rigorous.
Let's try this one on for size:
- The Catholic church, the Anglican church, all the various denominations or protestants and pseudo-protestants, they all shed the 2000 years of obvious nonsense that have been layered on top of their religions, stripping everything from Saul's letters onwards out of their holy books, and the Council of Nicea is undone.
- Priests that are insufficiently Christ-like spontaneously leave the church and take up secular occupations.
- Prayer is unambiguously answered, laying on of hands actually heals people, and so on.
I don't think I'd remain skeptical in that situation. And, hey, that's how things are supposed to be, right?
u/NotAHeroYet [+2] City of Angles Municipal Government (13 hours later)
I'd change that to prayer is unambiguously answered to individuals who meet certain parameters. It's not just an excuse, praying to god to summon a million demons to destroy the world is a good reason for god to have added acceptance parameters. Presumably, true christians could do it consistently, though, and expirimentally prove it worked.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+6] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (14 hours later)
The answer to prayer may be "no". Unambiguously.
"NO, I WON'T HELP YOU WIN THE BIG GAME, THAT'S NOT MY SCHTICK"
"Um, OK, sorry to bother you."
u/None [+4] (55 minutes later)
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u/pizzahotdoglover [+4] (an hour later)
Great question, I should have clarified this in the OP. "God" is the creator of our universe and has the attributes and history described in the relevant religious text. An advanced alien either evolved naturally or was created by God, and did not create our universe, although it may have visited earth in the past to do the things attributed to God in religious texts.
u/nevinera [+5] (12 hours later)
A definition of "god" that is sufficiently rigorous to discuss, and which implies some testable difference between a world in which he exists and world in which he does not. And then multiple tests of that difference, and a few years of analysis attempting to come up with alternative explanations.
If you are God, then the proof I require can easily be provided by simply making all diseases non-contagious for one year, and causing a pizza to appear spontaneously in my living room. And if you could tell the zealots to lay off the gays, I'd appreciate it.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+1] (17 hours later)
Done!
u/nevinera [+6] (18 hours later)
This chinese food is appreciated, but is not convincing proof.
u/Jiro_T [+4] (14 hours later)
There's a difference between "prove there is a God" and "make me think the evidence for God is a whole lot better than it is now". Having some entity come down from the heavens and perform a miracle wouldn't prove there is a God; it could be an advanced alien or a magician. But it would certainly be one step towards proving there is a God; my estimate for the chance of God existing would be a lot higher after that.
If the entity were to then explain how many apparently incoherent philosophical claims made by religions really were coherent after all, my estimate would go even higher. Likewise if science suddenly started finding evidence that religious texts predicted things about the real world that could not possibly have been known or guessed by the authors.
At some point, the evidence would be so good that I would agree that there is a God, even though
-- no specific piece of evidence completely proved it and
-- nothing can be proven to certainty.
u/None [+7] (39 minutes later)
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u/Rationalfideism [+4] (14 hours later)
But if you don't apply that same argument to all your other observations of reality then aren't you committing an isolated demand for rigor?
u/None [+2] (15 hours later)
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u/eaglejarl [+2] (22 hours later)
it's possible to know when you're hallucinating even if you ignore that fact at the time
This is really interesting. How do you do this?
u/pizzahotdoglover [+3] (53 minutes later)
Even if you can rule out insanity, you still may be in a simulation, as /u/xamueljones pointed out. What's more likely, that you're in a simulation that includes God, or that there really is a God?
u/None [+4] (an hour later)
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u/rakov [+4] (2 hours later)
But God is also omniscient. You may create simulation, but not have full knowledge of every byte of it.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+1] (2 hours later)
Is omniscience necessarily an attribute of God? There seems to be mixed evidence from religious texts as to whether God is truly omniscient. If God admitted not knowing something, would that make him not God? What about the paradoxes that happen when omniscience conflicts with omnipotence? If God knows something is going to happen does he not have the power to change it?
u/FaceDeer [+3] (4 hours later)
If a being is omnipotent then it can grant itself omniscience. Because it can do anything.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+1] (4 hours later)
Correct. And omnipotence creates its own host of paradoxes. However, the God of the bible is not omnipotent (according to some interpretations- "almighty" notwithstanding) because there are things that he cannot do; e.g. he cannot lie. He's also not omniscient because there are things he doesn't know (Depart from me etc. etc. I never knew you).
u/Kishoto [+2] (19 hours later)
As someone who was raised in a fairly average Christian home, my interpretation of it wasn't that God was incapable of doing any of those things. It was that God wouldn't do those things (lie, abandon you, etc.) He chooses to not do those things out of love or what have you.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+2] (20 hours later)
I was referring to Titus 1:2 (KJV) "In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began". The church I used to attend interpreted this as a literal restriction on God's possible behavior. Although I was never sure if God prevented from saying something untrue, or if by virtue of saying it, he made it true (i.e. God cannot say, "The sky is green" vs if God says "The sky is green" the sky would instantly turn green.)
u/Kishoto [+2] (a day later)
Feel like that's probably an example of the contradictory nature of the bible. It's real easy to ignore huge chunks of a book when there are other chunks you can use to support your own views :P
u/pizzahotdoglover [+1] (a day later)
I agree completely. People will always cherry-pick what they want to support their particular beliefs.
u/rakov [+2] (5 hours later)
Maybe everything is already the way he wants it to be.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+1] (5 hours later)
Maybe, but I was trying to point out some of the paradoxes that could happen when you imagine an omnipotent being. If you claim that time travel is possible and I ask what would happen if you went back and killed your former self, it doesn't really address my argument to say that you wouldn't want to do that.
u/None [+1] (6 hours later)
Consider a multiversal approach to your idea of going back in time to kill yourself.
Physicists like to make thought experiments within a multiverse approach. Where being every choice on the quantum level makes a universe with every possible quantum state. Now think about that from a linear time traveller.
As soon as the time traveller decides to go back in time they are creating an endless amount of possibility, (if the standard model holds true) thus anything they are going to do, as in actions in their own personal future on a linear time scale, will create the universes necessary to accomplish any task regardless how improbable the time traveller's actions may be. This universe creation includes futures where the time traveller travels back in time to kill themselves.
However since the time travelling happened in the future from when the time traveller decided to go into the past, then travelling into the past is not necessarily in the same universe, maybe the time traveller was shunted into another universe.
Even if it was the same universe that the time traveller traveled into the past to, as soon as the time traveller kills their past self, then the time traveller may be shunted into a new quantum reality the moment when they've killed their past self. A universe where this very thing has happened.
Now framing this into the original idea of an omnipotent God. Perhaps the omnipotent God exists across and maybe even outside all multiverses simultaneously, reasonably an omnipotent God could create, destroy and alter all realities and itself. Could an omnipotent God create an object that God couldn't destroy? Yes, and no: at the same time. It depends on the scope of perspective really.
Could God create a universe where it sets the rules for itself that it cannot destroy objects? If God is omnipotent then yes, it could. An omnipotent God would be able to limit it's omnipotence without limit, but still retain omnipotence.
Sort of like Schrodinger's cat, the wave function is only collapsed when an outside perspective is inteoduced making either the yes or the no true. However if God's Perspective is the only perspective in a universe where the omnipotent God limited its omnipotence and created an object it couldn't destroy, then from the singular perspective that is true, that object cannot be destroyed by God.
Though that's just in that particular singular reality. If you are asking the blanket statement of "can an omnipotent God create an object it cannot destroy" then that answer should be yes. But that does not mean the omnipotent God is not omnipotent, just that there was a self-imposed restriction of omnipotence by making multiple realities where in one reality the answer was yes, and another reality is no.
u/Geminii27 [+3] (7 hours later)
Well... godlike. And presumably somewhat commutative, as our universe-sim could have been created by a being just dicking around with a Build Your Own Universe kit, or a kid playing a game which simulates a universe for the game characters to exist in (and we're procedurally-generated NPCs on the edge of the map). The beings who built the kit or game might not be the ones responsible for it coming up with our particular universe.
Heck, if it's a game engine, it might provide a game arena by simulating a Big Bang and a trillion years of fast-forwarded evolution before the game starts. We could just be part of the automatic precalculation process; extrauniversal beings might not start interacting with our simulated spacetime continuum until well after our sun goes dark.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+2] (an hour later)
I'm trying to figure out how this is wrong, but I can't. I suppose the creator would be all powerful from our perspective.
u/DataPacRat [+3] Amateur Immortalist (6 hours later)
The last time I was asked this question, I took a certain inspiration from the site "Why won't God heal amputees?". Direct experience of such an event could be considered a necessary piece of evidence, if not sufficient in itself. However, since, as I don't anticipate any removed limbs of mine to be able to be replaced, I have no incentive to put any putative deities to the test by removing one of my limbs and having them replace it, I came up with an equivalent test: Just have me grow a new limb, in a fashion current science couldn't manage. A nice, long tail would be ideal.
(Why yes, I did suggest to certain people that if they wanted me to avoid the pains of hellfire for not believing as they did, that they should pray for me to grow a lovely tail. I have no idea whether any of them actually did or not.)
u/pizzahotdoglover [+8] (6 hours later)
I'm praying for you now. Please reply when you receive your tail.
u/MugaSofer [+3] (8 hours later)
Wait, would that actually convince you? I mean, I believe in God and I'd still blame that on aliens.
u/DataPacRat [+3] Amateur Immortalist (15 hours later)
Not by itself, no. But remember, just as every theory needs to pay rent in anticipated experiences, every question has to pay rent by letting you change your behaviour depending on the answer. If a putative deity can't do at /least/ one small miracle on demand, then I have no reason to put said deity to further questioning. Thus, growing a tail is a particular example of a class of miracles, the demonstration of any one of which would be necessary to start considering further questions and evidence, even if, on their own, they are insufficient to differentiate between God and aliens.
Having heard of various stories where someone demanded, "Prove your power by doing X!", and having X demonstrated to the demander's sorrow, out of that class of miracles I simply picked one that had the combination of highest predictive power (as in, being incredibly unlikely to happen without Something Unusual going on) and the least likelihood of my regretting it should it actually happen (ie, I'm reasonably confident that I could live a happy life with such a tail).
This particular piece of evidence also has the interesting property of, very likely, being time-limited; in that, depending on certain advancements in various possible technologies - robotics and cybernetics and human-computer interfaces, or biotechnology, or uploading minds into software form with customizable virtual bodies - then me living with a tail may turn out to be something that can be accomplished within the century, without any alien or divine intervention required.
u/None [+3] (6 hours later)
I could be persuaded into believing in a creator of our universe. I feel like that proof wouldn't even have to be difficult, show me the universe untethered by a linear time point of view. That'd probably do it.
If I was at a bar, and a person sat down next to me and was like "I'm God, check it." And then showed my brain the universe from start to end without the complication of time. I'd totally believe.
The belief wouldn't change anything about my life though. I believe a creator of our universe may exist. I do not believe in God as any religion on Earth frames it, because people are bullshit, and the more people there are, the more bullshit happens. A human being cannot even keep their own memory straight. You can introduce false memories that people will fervently believe are absolute fact with very little coaxing. I can't imagine any religion is even close to correct on what God is or represents.
I'm not even certain that we're not just like the cells and/or neurons of God's mind. Maybe we're all just autonomic functions of God's being that it is barely aware of.
The average human breathes 12 to 20 times per minute. How many neurons does that take to make sure that task functions? I don't know, but are you aware of every firing of each neuron that it takes to make you breathe roughly 20,000 times per day? Are your cells aware that they are part of a larger being? Awareness relies on definitions of consciousness that the greatest philosophers throughout the ages have yet to come to consensus on.
Do I believe in a creator? I cannot prove or disprove nor am I qualified to make such judgements.
Do I believe in anyone's "God"? I cannot.
I could not accept any religions version of God. Especially a judeo-christian God. Any omnipotent being, who sets moral codes of behavior for humanity and then sits by and allows those doctrines to be blatantly broken, to the suffering of "God's children" is no deity of mine.
u/TBestIG [+3] Every second of quibbling is another dead baby (20 hours later)
I have no idea frankly. But if there were one, he would know exactly what it would take to convince me
u/Jinoc [+3] (a day later)
A God that fulfills the conditions of theodicy? There's no such proof. The existence of any such evidence is a logical impossibility.
In fact, the amount of power I can absolutely believe any godlike entity to possess in defiance of physical laws is bounded by the power needed to make me hallucinate completely, i.e. the power needed to control most of my brain chemistry and sensory inputs, and that's not much at all.
u/NotAHeroYet [+4] City of Angles Municipal Government (an hour later)
Very little to believe he exists. To let it actually alter my paths, a lot more. I've examined my internal beliefs, and I do believe in God. I just don't believe in that belief. I disbelieve my belief, so to speak. It's a facet of my upbringing- i know there's no reason to believe he exists, but at the lower levels, i believe in him. if i stop and think i don't, but until then i do.
I don't believe in him at the level in the religious texts... but i do believe he exists, even if as propoganda and excessively moral absolutist.
In other words, in the same way i know reality is really made up of lots of complex things, i know god doesn't exist. but in the same way i don't conciously think of everything being made up of atoms, when i'm not conciously planning it, i'm far too superstitous.
It wouldn't take a ton to prove his existence beyond my doubt level because of that, but for me to think it's worth changing plans would require substantial proof and deviation from the religious norm.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+7] (an hour later)
That's very interesting. Many people who are religious believe in their belief, but aren't actually capable of the core belief. In other words, their self image includes them believing in God, but deep down, they don't truly hold that belief. /u/EliezerYudkowsky wrote a very interesting article on this topic that is worth reading if you haven't yet. I came from a very religious household, and after long discussions with my parents, I am confident that my mother truly believes deep down, while my father only has a belief in his belief.
u/NotAHeroYet [+3] City of Angles Municipal Government (2 hours later)
Yes, that might be it. The reason is inverted though- deep down, I believe in god. But I do believe in a world where god, gods, could exist. I don't know how delusional that is. On the other hand, examination implies god either doesn't exist, or is so subtle as to be irrelevant to my mental model of the world.
Unexamined, I believe god exists, that that's an immutable facet of the universe. I've adjusted my parameters for god's behavior over the years, but i never really disbelieved he existed, merely that his defeinition of good was accurate. For me, God is like some lovecraftian deity, or a paperclip AI. His priorities are close enough to think we can know him, but more than far enough away to prove futile, and powerful enough to avoid our gaze if it would be counterproductive. As such, if he is defeatable, the best course of action is to plan around him and if neccessary, to wage war on him, and if he isn't, pursue your goals while trying to avoid his gaze and minimize his harm to your life. I don't think he's omnipotent- or if he is, he's doing this for the game, like a video game player- they could hack in and insta-win, but that wouldn't be any fun, so they follow rules anyways- but i do think his power outscales ours tremendously.
I tend to find myself thinking, or even planning as though this is the case, if i'm not careful. little, superstitous things, like not taking deities' names in vain or believing in providence rather than luck. It's an undercurrent of belief, i suppose.
If someone walked up to me and tried to prove god existed, I'd be far too credulous, I suspect. Carefully examined, I believe god doesn't exist. but the instant i turn my back, i find myself thinking like he does. It's not a huge difference, but it is there.
I don't believe God doesn't exist, but I should, hence why I said "I disbelieve in my belief." But that doesn't change the fact, that when you asked if there is a creator when i'm distracted I'd say yes, before pausing and correcting myself.
If you asked where god is, I'd say I don't know, but if you asked if it would be possible to see him with omni-knowledge i'd say yes- because it's not a matter of throwing the flour in the garage, it's a matter of a single invisible dragon somewhere in the galaxy.
But since most don't have any proof he does exist, I believe he doesn't IFF I stop and check my beliefs, or manually replace them. But it just keeps sitting there anyways, a subtle trap for any future plans.
Tested, reality implies god doesn't exist, or doesn't have enough power, or doesn't care to meddle with us- that this is all some salt crystal collection, and our existence is a coincidence, or that our origins aren't from a meddling creator, so it shifts my plans very little.
But very little isn't none. It leads to a slight bias towards what I consider moral behavior, which doesn't always overlap with right behavior, in the same way belief in karma might.
It might be belief in belief, but I want to disbelieve in god. It's just not that easy. Wanting to disbelieve doesn't make me disbelieve it. It's a bit of "disbelief in belief", really. I believe something, but I don't want to believe i believe it.
huh. I notice i am confused. Something in this is probably innacurate... on the other hand, i'm talking about how the map i use automatically doesn't match up with the one i'd use if i manually thought it through. of course i'm a little confused.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+3] (2 hours later)
This is a really well thought out reply. Perhaps there could be a God that retreats upon examination, like a computer simulation creating more and more of the map as you explore. E.g., there was no need for atoms or quantum particles until people performed experiments that demanded answers. Or the only stars that existed were the ones visible to the naked eye, until the telescope was invented. I'm not sure exactly where I'm going with this, but I'm sympathetic to your point and I think it's a reasonable position. I suspect the best answer we have is that humans have evolved an evolutionary bias towards believing in the supernatural because those types of beliefs and resulting actions have kept us alive through either rudimentary science or social cohesion.
u/NotAHeroYet [+2] City of Angles Municipal Government (3 hours later)
Thank you. I was worrying the entire time- does this represent my beliefs accurately? I think it does. I don't know god exists, my hypothesis/theory/law- in the scientific sense, i.e. can be disproven - is he doesn't, but the instant i turn my back, I'm thinking like he does.
The closest one word for the map I find myself using is deist. it's not ideal.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+2] (3 hours later)
I understand completely. Does this describe your mental state?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alief_(mental_state)
u/NotAHeroYet [+2] City of Angles Municipal Government (11 hours later)
the first line lines up wth it, but the examples don't feel like they match up well.
u/MultipartiteMind [+2] (7 hours later)
To echo some other comments here: I will treat [X] as if [X] = [Y] if enough evidence is provided that [X] = [Y] is the most compelling hypothesis.
To portray this in terms of Occam's Razor: badly-faked, it's a simpler proposition that [X] is only pretending to be [Y] and is in fact something else. Perfectly faked, it's a more complex proposition to imagine levels of pretending (more so if successive). The most likely version of reality will be treated as true, always while keeping in mind that I could in fact be a brain in a tank or a vacuum fluctuation or similar. (There's the perspective of 'if someone is willing to go to these lengths to fool me by satisfying my curiosity, I might as well give up and reward their dedication'.)
In practice, both 'reality as consistent with that deity existing actually make sense' and 'it doesn't just make sense, something with that level of control actually exists' would need to be demonstrated, at least ideally. If minds really didn't die when they were thought to, but 'woke up' from a simulation (or afterlife, et cetera) then a lot could be explained in terms of permitted ethics (though easily disagreed with, regarding suffering). For example, I'd be much more okay with {agreeing beforehand to put myself through the fear of death without risk of death} than I would be with actually facing the risk of death, and I might be willing to forgive a lot if I learned I had never actually risked death. That said, while it would be wonderful if there weren't actually any risk of death, it's not at all convincing that that's the case, and so it is wholly appropriate to act as though there's no safety net. ...though then there's the valid perspective of 'even if a being shows you an afterlife, should you devote your life to immortality research to improve your chances in the slim-subjective-probability event that you're being tricked?'.
If your brain's inner workings are being messed with, then your final mental state is disconnected from your processing intentions beforehand in any case.
u/logrusmage [+2] (9 hours later)
You'd have to disprove the very system that makes proof a thing (logic, non contradiction). So basically, there's no amount of evidence that would prove the existence of the Abrahamic god. If you had such evidence, evidence becomes meaningless.
This is similar to asking how much evidence it'd take to prove reality is an illusion.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+1] (17 hours later)
Wouldn't removing you from the illusion and showing how it can be manipulated prove that you were in an illusion? Neo seemed convinced.
u/logrusmage [+3] (19 hours later)
Nope. That would still be reality. The Matrix is just as much a part of reality as Zion.
Existence means everything that exists. Existence is.
Now, I could be convinced that I'm a brain in a jar if you pulled me out and showed me the system, but that's not proving that existence is a false existence.
I don't think we disagree, just having a semantic difference (like a tree falling in the woods).
u/pizzahotdoglover [+2] (20 hours later)
I see what you're saying. By that definition reality being an illusion is logically impossible.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (22 hours later)
There's a wiggly-finger gesture used in some of the social circles I move in that means "I don't want to interrupt you and don't have a specific thing to say here, but I want to provide positive reinforcement for saying something smart."
finger-wiggles for being publicly convinced of another's argument with which you originally disagreed
u/blindalchemist [+1] (7 days later)
I just saw this at CFAR. It's like a drumming action or a sign wave, traveling from little finger toward index.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (7 days later)
Yes, exactly. With fingers full extended towards the person.
u/Farmerbob1 [+2] Level 1 author (10 hours later)
If the convincer is acting in good faith, then I'd need to see miracles performed.
If the convincer is acting in bad faith, then I'd have to at least think I'm seeing miracles performed.
Then comes the question... How can I tell if the individual convincing me is acting in good faith or not.
In the end, if they are sufficiently enough advanced over humanity, perhaps they ARE what they say they are, and our ancestors were simply too crude to articulate it.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (14 hours later)
Depends on your definition. If you just mean "omnipotent" then sure, that's pretty straightforward -- or, at least, it can convince me that it's so powerful that it might as well be considered omnipotent.
If you also need "Creator of the universe" then pretty much nothing. It could show me the universe without time so that I can see it doing the creation and I'd have no reason to believe that that was a true vision.
Well, it could always tweak my brain to force me to believe, but that's not what you're asking.
u/AlanCrowe [+2] (16 hours later)
The real issue is the authentication of the instruction book. If God reveals his existence to me then leaves before I can ask whether I'm supposed to follow the Bible or the Koran or the Book of Mormon, that leaves me stuck. How am I supposed to live my life?
How do you recognise God's book of instructions to humans? I came up with five marks.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+1] (17 hours later)
So is my iPhone a holy book? :)
u/AlanCrowe [+2] (18 hours later)
Maybe. We need to check the fifth mark. I suggest that you give it to me, and wait to see if God gives you a replacement.
u/castleborg [+2] (17 hours later)
What's a God?
u/Sinity [+2] (19 hours later)
Omniscient God? No amount of proof will convince me. Mind can never be sure it knows everything. First, there are unknown unknowns. Things like "Am I on top of existence, or simulated on computer set up by other agent" or there could be other Universe, completely disconnected/not interacting with it's own.
No one can rule this out.
And knowing everything... umm... recursively explodes. Mind can't know all of it's implementation details at once. Because then it needs additional memory and computing capabilities, which themselves are part of the mind, so it needs additional memory and computing capabilities....
u/None [+2] (3 hours later)
The first necessary but insufficient condition is that the proposed god must not be self-contradictory. If it's self-contradictory, then I don't need any evidence at all: It doesn't exist. This rules out all omnipotent gods, all omnipresent gods, all omniscient gods, all omnibenevolent gods, any gods that "ever" exist "outside of" space or time, and all gods who freed the Jews from slavery in Egypt, who created grass before the Sun, who caused a worldwide flood that killed all but a few people, who sacrifice their son as an act of goodness and forgiveness, or who led King CyberHitler the 14th of Japan to victory over the Scientologists in 13BC at the battle of Waterloo.
The second necessary but insufficient condition is that it must be explicable. If it took the time to explain itself to me, it would help, but with sufficient scrutiny of the phenomenon this might not be necessary. Perhaps it is a remainder in the fundamental constants of the big bang taken sentience, which somehow allows it to selectively manipulate spacetime and the forces to achieve its miracles, in a process that can be described by physics and experimentally verified. If after learning about a phenomenon the phenomenon is still MYSTERIOUS, then we don't yet understand the phenomenon well enough to conclude it an act of god rather than an act of David Copperfield.
The third necessary but insufficient condition is that it must be demonstrable. That is, despite being possible, and explicable, it must yet turn out to actually occur. At some point, the god has to actually show up and offer to buy me a drink, or have an effect on the world which is different from how the world should be expected to progress if it were absent, which can be distinguished and verified. It must not be merely a fiction written by a creative person with a plausible explanation of how god could be.
The fourth necessary but insufficient condition is that it must be deific. My shoe is demonstrable, is self-consistent, and explicable, but it is hardly a god. The entity proposed must be capable of doing something that will by some mechanism be forever beyond the ability of humans to duplicate. This is the difference between a god and a Kryptonian. Perhaps as in the above example the god is "made" of a self-propagating remainder in physics. Humans will never have access to such materials as generate such a force to build with, and so cannot replicate the god. The god must also be in some way sentient, if not an actual personality that can be talked to. This excludes the mundane and the universe itself from being god.
Fail any one of these, and I am not convinced. Succeed in all, and I will believe in it. And then, if it turns out to be responsible for all the suffering of humanity by having shoddily created the universe in a premeditated act it foresaw the consequences of, I will attempt to murder it.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (14 hours later)
The first necessary but insufficient condition is that the proposed god must not be self-contradictory. If it's self-contradictory, then I don't need any evidence at all: It doesn't exist. This rules out all omnipotent gods, all omnipresent gods, all omniscient gods, all omnibenevolent gods,
Seems to me that you can have some of those traits while still being consistent, if you add the minor restriction that omnipotence is defined as "can do anything that is not logically self-contradictory". So, an omnipotent being can't (eg) make a round square, but can rearrange every star in the heavens to spell your name.
A god could be (omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent){1-3} or (omnibenevolent, omnipresent){1-2} but also completely {apathetic, !empathy){1-2}; that would match what we see. It's only when you add omnibenevolent to the first set that you have a problem. A being could also be omnibenevolent and lack the power to effect change. (Whether this is a god is an open question.)
Side note: my iPhone knows "omnipotent" and "omniscient" but not "omnibenevolent". There's a joke in there somewhere about corporate beliefs and Apple's culture.
u/None [-1] (19 hours later)
Once you water down omnipotence in such a way, it makes me omnipotent. I'm a being made of some finite number of physics-obeying particles in a particular configuration. It's logically self-contradictory for me to perform magic. So everything I can't do is handwaved away by your definition. I'm omnipotent! Hooray! And omnipotence is now meaningless as a word. All the other omni-attributes also fail on their own.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+2] (19 hours later)
That isn't really what /u/eaglejarl is saying. No matter how powerful a being, or what physical laws it obeys, it cannot do something logically self-contradictory. If you were powerful enough, you could perform magic, but no matter how powerful you are, you can't make a circle with corners, because by definition, a circle has no corners. An omnipotent being could create the universe, but couldn't make 2+2=5 without changing the definition of one of those terms.
u/None [-2] (20 hours later)
That is what eaglejarl is saying though - it follows by necessity from what he meant. It's logically impossible for me to do it without being powerful enough. Because I have to obey physics, and am a configuration of particles with insufficient power. Change me into something with enough power, and some things stop being impossible and others become possible.
u/eaglejarl [+3] (22 hours later)
Don't be difficult. If you don't want to respond to my point you don't have to.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+2] (22 hours later)
No. You should reread this conversation again and really think about it, because you are entirely missing the point again. His point is that there are some things that by their very nature are impossible no matter how much power you have. Something is not logically impossible just because you aren't powerful enough to do it.
"Logical impossibility. a condition or statement involving contradiction or absurdity; as, that a thing can be and not be at the same time."
u/None [+2] (23 hours later)
I agree that we're talking past each other.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+1] (3 hours later)
all gods who freed the Jews from slavery in Egypt, who created grass before the Sun, who caused a worldwide flood that killed all but a few people, who sacrifice their son as an act of goodness and forgiveness, or who led King CyberHitler the 14th of Japan to victory over the Scientologists in 13BC at the battle of Waterloo.
I completely agree with the first part, that any God that is logically inconsistent or paradoxical cannot exist. But why would a God who acts in the ways you described in the quote above be a being you could not believe in, even with any proof you could demand? Those are falsifiable claims about actions in the past or future that such that it could provide proof of its participation.
beyond the ability of humans to duplicate
This seems like a low bar. Plenty of Kryptonians could easily perform feats beyond the ability of humans to duplicate. If Superman arrived here and claimed to be God the creator, you would have plenty of reason to doubt him, despite his blatant supernatural abilities. I think your criteria are all necessary but still insufficient because they don't rule out very powerful aliens. They also don't rule out insanity or a simulation, but I'm not sure if that's even logically possible. What do you think?
u/None [+2] (3 hours later)
Those are falsifiable claims about actions in the past or future that
are already false. Claiming to have done things a way other than the way they happened in reality makes you wrong. Getting more evidence about how creationism is wrong won't make things better for the creator god.
Plenty of Kryptonians could easily perform feats beyond the ability of humans to duplicate.
Lex Luthor duplicated Kryptonians several times. They operate on DNA that can be cloned, giving him control. He made a superpotion that gave him Superman's powers. The methods used in-setting by Kryptonians to achieve their feats are human-attainable. If we find a Kryptonian in real life, and they work by magic humans can't have, we're in business.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+2] (3 hours later)
Ok I see what you mean now about the parts that I quoted. However, if God explained to you that he intentionally erased the evidence of the flood and planted false evidence of no worldwide flood happening, that would be at least logically possible, unlike an omnipotent being.
As to your Kryptonian point, that still seems to me to be a strange bar to set for the supernatural. There are plenty of logically possible feats that a hypothetical alien race could achieve that are outside the capability of humans and that would not prove the existence of any gods. Still, I applaud you on your knowledge of the example you chose. I didn't know that about Lex.
u/None [+4] (3 hours later)
ANY god, will ALSO be an alien. So yes, I am explicitly allowing alien gods. And we might be able to do something they can't.
There is nothing intrinsically implausible about Cthulhu.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+1] (4 hours later)
Everything you just said is true, but how does that support your point that if an alien can do things we can't, it is supernatural? Or your apparent point that a sufficiently powerful being couldn't plant false evidence to deceive our primitive scientists?
u/None [+1] (4 hours later)
I didn't say a god had to be supernatural. Supernatural is another self-contradiction. The opposite of "existing in nature" is "not existing in nature".
u/pizzahotdoglover [+1] (4 hours later)
Hmm. Good point. It seems like most conceptions of God are that he exists outside of the universe (since he created it) and is not bound by its laws. In some sense, anything that interacts with our universe, whether it follows the perceived laws of nature or not, must be natural, but at that point the definition becomes so broad as to be almost unusable.
u/None [+1] (5 hours later)
To exist is to "occupy a region of space for a duration of time".
The universe is "the set of all things that exist".
Saying your god is beyond the universe, outside space and time, makes it not exist.
Most people prefer their god to exist always and everywhere, not nowhere and never.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+1] (5 hours later)
So how would you define the existence/non-existence of a being that created an entire universe, who possibly exists in a different universe with different physical laws (or none at all)?
u/None [+2] (6 hours later)
If we were to find a magical wardrobe that opened into Narnia, that wouldn't be another universe, it would be part of this one. And we'd just have been wrong about the shape of it. There can't be a being that created the entire universe. It would have to exist somewhere, somewhen, and that would put it in the universe.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+1] (6 hours later)
Outside of its computer? In some sort of dimension we are incapable of comprehending? I can't give you a scientific answer, but that doesn't mean it's hypothetically impossible. There is no way we know enough to make definitive statements about something so bizarre.