Posted by Andy [65.123.82.149 - ] on 12 July 2002 at 20.07.14 ZuluTime:
In Reply to: You're anthropomorphising posted by Gremlin on 12 July 2002 at 19.01.25 ZuluTime:
Notice I said as much as you can worship physics. That was intended to mean that physics is not a worshipable object. I suppose the best thing you could do to worship it is to explore it and learn about it.
When you write a book, you don't know what's going to happen. This is very true, not from experience but from self- analysis I do agree with you that I could not write a book and know in the end what was going to occur.
Now for how you continually say that there is more than just one deity, I have to object. There is either deity or no deity. How the deity exists makes no difference. If this deity did in fact create the universe in order to entertain his fellow deity, this is of no value.
The closest thing we have ever come across to a deity expressing itself within the universe is the bible. That statement was not true given the validity of the bible. The bible states that god visited adam and eve, god visited abraham, moses, etc...he even made a special trip down to earth as one of us. This is where you come in saying that I'm talking about an illogical work. Then I would have to rebut by stating that you're calling a work illogical that you approached with, as open a mind as you could with the prejudice of not believing in it. So for you to just tell me that the bible is fiction, I am forced to request for proof. You cannot simply say that something is fact within this discussion because you and those with similar beliefs hold to it as fact. In order for it to be fact, proof must be brought forward, and examined by me (and also by any one else participating within the discussion).
My characters are limited in that they can't actually be any smarter than I am. Truth, but do you suggest that you, or anyone else, are smarter than said deity? You yourself said that, although ranking off the charts in IQ, you do not view yourself as being all that intelligent. Forgive me if I misquoted you, I do not have the exact reference where I saw this. So then, if you are not all that intelligent, isn’t it possible that an existing deity might possess more intelligence?
And I realise that any deity who would create anything so remedial would be a moron. This is a realization by an error-prone human. I am not arguing that is a god and that this god is yhvh, as I have frequently stated, but I am arguing that there is the distinct possibility of a god. And if this god does indeed exist, atheistic behavior is much like that of The Matrix. Who’s to say if this behavior is wrong? We may find out in the sequel.
No deity qualified to create anything as complex as a website would create light four days before creating stars. Why?
As you’ve said before, there are many ways for the universe to work. Just because everything is the way it is, doesn’t mean that it has to be that way. I believe that a god could create the universe in any way he wanted to.
. I've seen nothing describing any deity which suggests that it's qualified to create me. Here’s a few qualifications for a deity, pretty much the only qualifications I mandate in this discussion: omnipotence, omniscience, eternal. I would include omnipresence, but a deity constructing a book would be omnipresent within that book in a sense. The beautiful thing about this book, is that it’s not a book. I said that this analogy is very very sketchy. It would be painstakingly hard, perhaps impossible, and even, for entertainment values useless to write a book on earth that would require the level of detail the Book of Life (I liked your title, so I shall refer to this analogy by this name), if it exists, has.
You ask why anybody would ask you to subscribe to the universe? When did anybody ask an electron if it wanted to subscribe to the electric service? When did anybody ask radio signals if they wanted to be part of UHF transmittance? You sound like the universe is an escort service where you would apply for a position and then have a right to complain if it’s not working correctly. If the universe is subject to an infinite deity, you have no right to be in or out of it, you just are. For the most part, you have stated that you have free will, and assume that you are an independent entity. If there is a deity (for the sake of this debate, any time I simply use the term deity I am going to be assigning it the characteristics described above), you are a part of it’s “fiction”. Fiction is in quotations there, because fiction is not the actual term here. If a deity exists, what is real, is that which the deity makes real, which is the utmost point in my beliefs. It has been said in the Christian realm that if god were to stop interacting with the world, the world would do one of two things – cease to exist or stop, as if the universe were frozen at absolute zero. I contest that. The universe would only exist because of what god has done and continues to do. If that were not the case, than the universe would become a second deity, or a second entity which exists self-sufficiently. I have not dismissed this possibility simply because I cannot. As illogical as it may seem to me, I don’t have the logical capacity to weigh in all factors.
The deity of the bible, specifically, is an idiot. Again with this stating things as fact when they are only held to as such within a limited circle which I am not a part.
But have my characters got free will? I never said free will existed, and you’ll have a hard time finding proof for it.
As far as the deist being an entertainer writing a book, I didn’t say the Book of Life was written for entertainment purposes. I never indicated that another deity existed. Has no one ever written a book simply because of what he wanted to write? Sure, with humans money, power, fame, popularity are all considerations, but a god would be self-sufficient and these are all nothing to him.
souls would be nothing more than the audience's memories of them in a deist world, if souls do, in fact, exist, which we have no proof as of yet, then souls would be part of the Book of Life existing only within the created realm, unless the deity chose to create them as self-sufficient beings as well. As I have explained before I have not the capacity to rule this out.