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I don't recall you ever asking me that question, but then I do have a tendency to speed read your epistles.
Above, probably the day before yesterday -
Concerning "God of the gaps" thing. Do you think that as long as anything and everything is not completely understood by science that should be the reason not to believe in God ?
I think you "speed write" your smack also.
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09 Sep 19
@sonship saidYou should put that on a t-shirt.
@Ghost-of-a-Duke
Science has shown enough to rule out the likelihood of a deity.
No, scientists haven't shown that God does not exist.
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@Ghost-of-a-Duke
Like what can fit on a T-shirt can't be true.
Name the scientist then who has proved the non-existence of God.
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09 Sep 19
@sonship saidWe are a collective. resistance is futile.
@Ghost-of-a-Duke
Like what can fit on a T-shirt can't be true.
Name the scientist then who has proved the non-existence of God.
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09 Sep 19
@sonship saidIn God: The Failed Hypothesis, physicist Victor Stenger argues that science has advanced sufficiently to make a definitive statement on the existence or nonexistence of the traditional Judeo-Christian-Islamic God. He invites readers to put their minds--and the scientific method--to work to test this claim.
Name the scientist then who has proved the non-existence of God.
After evaluating all the scientific evidence--the studies done by reputable institutions on the power of prayer; the writings of philosophers who have puzzled over the problem of God and of good and evil; the efforts of biblical scholars to prove the accuracy of holy scriptures; and the work of biologists, geologists, and astronomers looking for clues to a creator on Earth and in the cosmos--Stenger concludes that beyond a reasonable doubt the universe and life appear exactly as we might expect if there were no God. He convincingly shows that not only is there no evidence for the existence of God, but scientific observations actually point to his nonexistence.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-01/pb-spe013007.php
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A summary of one of Stenger's arguments on the impossibility of God.
From http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Godless/Summary.htm
An All-Virtuous Being Cannot Exist
1. God is (by definition) a being than which no greater being can be thought.
1. Greatness includes the greatness of virtue.
1. Therefore, God is a being than which no being could be more virtuous.
Did Stenger propose that human imagination has created a more virtuous character then Jesus Christ?
Who was this person thought of which was more virtuous then Jesus ?
Did he propose names?
[my bolding]
1. But virtue involves overcoming pains and danger.
1. Indeed, a being, can only be properly said to be virtuous if it can suffer pain or be destroyed.
I don't agree with the destroyed part. Christ of history we Christians believe as God incarnate who suffered but could NOT be destroyed forever because of His resurrection.
Stenger is kind of arguing that if Christ had remained dead He would have been a better candidate to be the maximal person with the greatest virtue.
But this really makes his highest power DEATH.
No Victor. Christ as "the resurrection and the life" (John 11:25) was the most virtuous God-man above none that I know of has ever been thought.
What literary work imagined a greater person or a more virtuous one?
What historical person would he consider more virtuous and greater then Jesus Christ ?
1. A God that can suffer pain or is destructible is not one than which no greater being can be thought. [/b]
I don't agree with that. Jesus as God become a man, came and suffered supremly while living a perfect human life. He died with a crown of thorns representing His entire time on earth was crowned with human suffering though He was God incarnate.
He not only suffered and died. It is said that He bore the judgment of God upon all the sins of the world on our behalf. That was unimaginable agony of soul. No one else could do it. No one else could have born under it.
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?"
I don't think there is anyone more virtuous.
And I don't think anyone suffered more.
And His resurrection FROM suffering and death show His greatness more than His remaining dead and defeated, rotting in the grave, overcome by His enemies.
Stenger's concept of most virtuous I think is warped.
It is jury rigged to exclude the resurrection of Christ victoriously OVER all suffering, death, and opposition.
1. For you can think of a greater being, one that is nonsuffering and indestructible.
1. Therefore, God does not exist.[2]
By incarnation Christ was "the Word was God" Who suffered but rose with the power of an indestructible life.
That God came to be "God with us" - Emmanuel is great in His empathy, sympathy, identification, yet sinless perfection. His overcoming death in resurrection is greater then His having stayed dead and defeated by the forces of evil.
Maybe he should stick with his area - Quantum Physics.
I will be looking more into Stenger's attempts to prove to the world God does not exist. Actually it fits in somewhat with the OP.
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Another VIctor Stenger philosophical argument -
A Perfect Creator Cannot Exist
1. If God exists, then he is perfect.
1. If God exists, then he is the creator of the universe.
1. If a being is perfect, then whatever he creates must be perfect.
1. But the universe is not perfect.
1. Therefore, it is impossible for a perfect being to be the creator of the universe.
1. Hence, it is impossible for God to exist.[5]
Perhaps Stenger means PERFECT means INDEPENDENT from God.
God created everything. But He did not create anything that could be completely self sufficient and independent from Himself. It makes sense. How could anything be totally independent and work right from the Creator of all and the ground of all being and well being? Such a being temporarily is Satan, who has "the might of death"
I don't agree with Stenger's logical line because the creation of another free will gives occasion for a being to CHOOSE to oppose God. And that therefore oppose all life, well-being, righteousness, truth, beauty, blessing, moral light and goodness.
And therefore bringing with this freedom to rebel all that is against His will.
Secondly, after the time allocated for this experiment of a contrary will OTHER THAN the will of God, we are told of a perfect creation in which righteousness dwells forever.
What I see in the Bible is an inevitable journey towards the "ONE WILL" universe once the terribly failed "THE OTHER WILL VERSES GOD'S WILL" runs its course into eventual oblivion.
Maybe Stenger would say that a perfect being would never create a being which had the capacity to rebel. I don't know about that.
This nemesis of God was created with greatest wisdom over all the other created beings. It could be just a matter of some inevitablility that such a mind assumed that God could be replaced, overthrown, conquered, out-witted, which was impossible. It did cause a lot of terrible problems temporarily in the scheme of eternity. But they are all overcome apparently.
And the once for all experiment of "Can God Be Out God-ed?" will never again occur. It occurred ONCE under the highest possible CREATED being - Lucifer [Latin] who became Satan.
While the physicists proposes an interesting philosophical argument, it doesn't persuade this believer.
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Another Victor Stenger summary argument on proof of no God -
http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Godless/Summary.htm
A Transcendent Being Cannot Be Omnipresent
1. If God exists, then he is transcendent (i.e., outside space and time).
1. If God exists, he is omnipresent.
1. To be transcendent, a being cannot exist anywhere in space.
1. To be omnipresent, a being must exist everywhere in space.
1. Hence it is impossible for a transcendent being to be omnipresence.
1. Therefore it is impossible for God to exist.[6]
God has the freedom to penetrate and enter into time and space though transcendent to it.
Stenger tries to limit God's ability. He is not allowed to penetrate the creation He transcends.
This might be something like saying Shakespeare could not write himself into one of his own plays. He could if he wanted to.
Shakespeare could be totally aware of every part of his play. He could also make himself one of the characters if he was so creative to do so.
09 Sep 19
@sonship saidAs with other figures in 'revealed' religions, I believe the human imagination created the character Jesus Christ - as Christians perceive him - decades after he was executed. What does your question ~ about what Stenger did or didn't propose ~ have to do with whether or not what I believe is true or whether or not Jesus was a supernatural being?
Did Stenger propose that human imagination has created a more virtuous character then Jesus Christ?
09 Sep 19
@sonship said...I don't think anyone suffered more [than Jesus]
And I don't think anyone suffered more.
Didn't the Romans crucify countless Jews? It was a method of execution that involves suffering. Haven't you had any relatives who died a slow and excruciating death because of cancer? You believe no human has ever "suffered more" than when Jesus was executed by the Romans?
10 Sep 19
@ghost-of-a-duke saidNo, if you go back through what was being said I was agreeing. Show me where I was disagreeing with if true it would be true for all either for or against.
Getting you to agree to that was like pulling teeth.