God the merciful

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Rivendale
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Re: God the merciful

Post by Rivendale »

dantana wrote:
Wed Mar 02, 2022 1:30 am
Physics Guy wrote:
Mon Feb 28, 2022 11:24 am
And perhaps we will all have cotton candy and ponies. Speculation obviously doesn't prove anything about any afterlife. It does perhaps serve to show how hard it is to prove that anyone's hopes for an afterlife must be self-contradictory, by pointing out this or that absurdity in some traditional scenario.
I couldn't decide for sure if this was a bit of gruffness aimed at me or just a simple point to be made. I decided it wasn't. But if it was, in my defense, any air of condescension that creeps into my posts is only aimed at Mormonism. I do not mock those who hold the belief that their identity continues after death. That is also my view. Just without the one God person in charge. If Philo can have his Christianity without the judging and sorting, then I guess I should be able to have my Pantheism. My intention isn't to point out absurdities, but to present thought experiment as to why I like coop theory better, because of what I see as holes in deity theory.

I don't think it is mocking or out of line to ask the question; Why do souls need sorting? Where did they first go wrong?
Why do you need your pantheism?
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dantana
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Re: God the merciful

Post by dantana »

Rivendale wrote:
Wed Mar 02, 2022 1:51 am
Why do you need your pantheism?
Because Physicalism isn't satisfactory enough for me, logically and emotionally.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=154480&start=20
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Rivendale
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Re: God the merciful

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dantana wrote:
Wed Mar 02, 2022 2:03 am
Rivendale wrote:
Wed Mar 02, 2022 1:51 am
Why do you need your pantheism?
Because Physicalism isn't satisfactory enough for me, logically and emotionally.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=154480&start=20
Interesting. Logically? How does that work.
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dantana
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Re: God the merciful

Post by dantana »

Rivendale wrote:
Wed Mar 02, 2022 2:06 am
dantana wrote:
Wed Mar 02, 2022 2:03 am
Because Physicalism isn't satisfactory enough for me, logically and emotionally.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=154480&start=20
Interesting. Logically? How does that work.
Well, Dean Robbers has tried many times to explain it to me, I still don't get it. My argument goes something like; since science can't explain through cause and effect logic Why there is being rather than non-being, it feels like then it must be something other.
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Physics Guy
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Re: God the merciful

Post by Physics Guy »

My line about cotton candy and ponies was just to remind myself not to take afterlife fantasies seriously. Up to a point I think it's worth thinking through possibilities, but no-one really knows what happens, if anything.
I was a teenager before it was cool.
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Rivendale
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Re: God the merciful

Post by Rivendale »

dantana wrote:
Wed Mar 02, 2022 2:15 am
Rivendale wrote:
Wed Mar 02, 2022 2:06 am
Interesting. Logically? How does that work.
Well, Dean Robbers has tried many times to explain it to me, I still don't get it. My argument goes something like; since science can't explain through cause and effect logic Why there is being rather than non-being, it feels like then it must be something other.
Logic can't be explained through cause and effect. It can only be applied and tested. So far it seems to describe reality better than anything. Being vs non-being is simply the argument "why is there something rather than nothing?". The laws of logic may be brute facts. They just are. If there are transcendental truths that supercede logical absolutes they certainly hide themselves well. And as we live our lives I don't see a distinction between them being real or not. The same argument applies to deists. There simply seems to be no distinction between a God who leaves and dosen't communicate to one that does not exist.
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dantana
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Re: God the merciful

Post by dantana »

Rivendale wrote:
Thu Mar 03, 2022 12:15 am
So far it seems to describe reality better than anything. Being vs non-being is simply the argument "why is there something rather than nothing?". The laws of logic may be brute facts. They just are. If there are transcendental truths that supercede logical absolutes they certainly hide themselves well. And as we live our lives I don't see a distinction between them being real or not. The same argument applies to deists. There simply seems to be no distinction between a God who leaves and dosen't communicate to one that does not exist.

Sounds just a little bit similar to a Mormon shelf. That is, Physicalism doesn't/can't write an equation for why there is something, rather than nothing, but it is unequaled in explaining everything that follows. And, it's better than the alternative - God did it. So, let's not worry about it because it is unexplainable.
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Re: God the merciful

Post by Physics Guy »

The problem isn’t just to explain why there’s something rather than nothing. It’s also to explain why there are all the specific things there are, in these specific ways.

Physical causality is a weird kind of law. Given sufficient initial conditions (like, say, initial position and velocity of every particle in the universe), everything afterwards is determined exactly. Nothing in science says what those initial conditions should be, though. Uncountably many quite different universes would appear to be just as consistent with all known laws of nature as the universe that we actually have. Those other possible universes would have the same laws of nature as ours, but different initial conditions.

So what determined the initial conditions? Whatever it was must have had a lot of the traditional features of God.
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Rivendale
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Re: God the merciful

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Physics Guy wrote:
Sun Mar 06, 2022 12:11 pm
The problem isn’t just to explain why there’s something rather than nothing. It’s also to explain why there are all the specific things there are, in these specific ways.

Physical causality is a weird kind of law. Given sufficient initial conditions (like, say, initial position and velocity of every particle in the universe), everything afterwards is determined exactly. Nothing in science says what those initial conditions should be, though. Uncountably many quite different universes would appear to be just as consistent with all known laws of nature as the universe that we actually have. Those other possible universes would have the same laws of nature as ours, but different initial conditions.

So what determined the initial conditions? Whatever it was must have had a lot of the traditional features of God.
If it is god that determined these initial conditions he has a lot of explaining to do.
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dantana
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Re: God the merciful

Post by dantana »

“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” ~ Arthur Conan Doyle.
Nobody gets to be a cowboy forever. - Lee Marvin/Monte Walsh
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