Mormonism Live on Free Will

[drumdude]

Also, adding God to the equation sounds eerily like we're all just playing out a game in his own imagination. If God is some un-entity as is most often proposed, then He's everywhere, but nowhere, and everything that we think happens, that which we observe, is simply a thought he has while hooked up to his imagined virtual reality console. Our thoughts only come along because he conceived of them first. If that's the case we're all just pieces of him, summed up we barely make a blip on his radar. Interestingly on that thought, we are, after all, just a tiny spec on a insignificant seeming spot in a vast universe. So if God, then we're all just specs of nothing. If so, then why do we care about him?

To me this notion of God is meaningless. If he does exist, then we're not really here. If he does exist, then we're simply figments of his imagination that disappear faster than an electron reasonably should.

dasterdly stem, No theist believes god is nowhere(or your cartoon of god)You are simply restating that you do not believe in God. I can understand your statement that you do not believe.

I would be a little more charitable with his post. He mentioned the very common (non-Mormon) theistic understanding of God as being omnipresent:

This term means that God is capable of being everywhere at the same time. It means his divine presence encompasses the whole of the universe. There is no location where he does not inhabit.

What he means by God being nowhere, is that we cannot make a distinction between a God who does not exist and a God who is omnipresent. Both cases appear to us in the same way. It appears to me that God is not presently in my room, but theists turn this on its head and say "well God is everything and everywhere so even though it looks like he is nowhere, he is actually everywhere."

This is a textbook example of gaslighting.

[dastardly stem]

dasterdly stem, No theist believes god is nowhere(or your cartoon of god)You are simply restating that you do not believe in God. I can understand your statement that you do not believe.

Hi huckleberry. Thanks for calling this out. I think sir drumdude gave a very thoughtful comment on this and recommend his response as it fits nicely with my own explanation and intent.

To add some clarification I did not intend to suggest any theist would say god is nowhere. My comment intended to suggest god is everywhere until he’s not (coming from an interlocutors perspective of trying to understand all the explanations given of him). He’s explained to be everywhere and in everything, until someone points out there’s evil and suddenly god disappears and all the previous explanations of him get erased, ignored, and changed. For instance, if you think god is there, where is there? How do we understand his presence or existence? What suggests he exists in any sense?

[huckelberry]

What he means by God being nowhere, is that we cannot make a distinction between a God who does not exist and a God who is omnipresent. Both cases appear to us in the same way. It appears to me that God is not presently in my room, but theists turn this on its head and say "well God is everything and everywhere so even though it looks like he is nowhere, he is actually everywhere."

This is a textbook example of gaslighting.

drumdude.
I have held a belief in God as omnipresent for many years. I am familiar with the observation that that could be like god not there. I was in Junior high when I developed a hobby interest in astronomy. I did not miss the possibility that all that immensity could indicate that there is no god out there. There are other indications of no god. The extent of evil or more accurately brutality in parts of nature is important. These are considerations not hid from me but are things I can understand. No one is tricking me in this matter, the problem is clear and on the table for me to consider. I would not connect this situation with the idea of gaslighting where somebody is maliciously deceiving or tricking you.

Well people do find themselves sometimes dealing with a manipulative authority figure.If so some distance helps to enable your personal understanding and escape gaslighting.

[Physics Guy]

[W]e wouldn't know what a godless or god-created universe would be because we have no comparisons. Well, sure. But that doesn't argue for God, it argues either way (god or no god).

Quite right. It's important to be objective and see when the arguments are simply inconclusive. This cuts both ways, though. Look honestly at how often atheists try to claim they are somehow right by default. That's not the kind of argument anyone ever makes when they have powerful evidence—or when they have a really clear view of logic. It's more like what lawyers do when they try to get a case dismissed on technical grounds without having to argue it on its merits. It's the kind of argument you make when you know you don't have a convincing case but you still really wish you could be sure you were right.

The nonexistence of God is an obvious possibility. So is the existence of God. Which possibility is the actual case is not obvious. Scientifically, we seem to be stuck with the problem of initial conditions. Whatever determined them might not love us. It might not have sent its child to die for us, or anything like that. A lot of the supposed properties of God to which atheists like to object, though, it has to actually have. How much do you really think you know about it?

[drumdude]

What he means by God being nowhere, is that we cannot make a distinction between a God who does not exist and a God who is omnipresent. Both cases appear to us in the same way. It appears to me that God is not presently in my room, but theists turn this on its head and say "well God is everything and everywhere so even though it looks like he is nowhere, he is actually everywhere."

This is a textbook example of gaslighting.

drumdude.
I have held a belief in God as omnipresent for many years. I am familiar with the observation that that could be like god not there. I was in Junior high when I developed a hobby interest in astronomy. I did not miss the possibility that all that immensity could indicate that there is no god out there. There are other indications of no god. The extent of evil or more accurately brutality in parts of nature is important. These are considerations not hid from me but are things I can understand. No one is tricking me in this matter, the problem is clear and on the table for me to consider. I would not connect this situation with the idea of gaslighting where somebody is maliciously deceiving or tricking you.

Well people do find themselves sometimes dealing with a manipulative authority figure.If so some distance helps to enable your personal understanding and escape gaslighting.

I've never seen someone indoctrinating a child into Christianity say "God being omnipresent appears to us exactly the same as God being nonexistent."

I think if religions were honest with the children they raise into the religion, we would have a whole lot more agnostics/atheists. But on the flipside, we would have more nuanced and sophisticated believers like yourself which in my opinion is worth it.

One of the things that really grinds my gears is the disconnect between the "scholar Mormons" who know all the issues, and the "pew Mormons" who are blissfully unaware and still shelling out 10% of their income every year.

[Rivendale]

[W]e wouldn't know what a godless or god-created universe would be because we have no comparisons. Well, sure. But that doesn't argue for God, it argues either way (god or no god).

Quite right. It's important to be objective and see when the arguments are simply inconclusive. This cuts both ways, though. Look honestly at how often atheists try to claim they are somehow right by default. That's not the kind of argument anyone ever makes when they have powerful evidence—or when they have a really clear view of logic. It's more like what lawyers do when they try to get a case dismissed on technical grounds without having to argue it on its merits. It's the kind of argument you make when you know you don't have a convincing case but you still really wish you could be sure you were right.

The nonexistence of God is an obvious possibility. So is the existence of God. Which possibility is the actual case is not obvious. Scientifically, we seem to be stuck with the problem of initial conditions. Whatever determined them might not love us. It might not have sent its child to die for us, or anything like that. A lot of the supposed properties of God to which atheists like to object, though, it has to actually have. How much do you really think you know about it?

The burden of proof however remains on the person who makes the positive claim. Atheist usually do not make any claim. They usually don't claim they are right either, simply unconvinced.

[Physics Guy]

Some atheists do make positive claims. They say things like, “There is probably no God.” It’s hard to get attention, after all, for being unconvinced either way on an issue. It’s nicer to have your cake and eat it, too—if you can.

[Rivendale]

Some atheists do make positive claims. They say things like, “There is probably no God.” It’s hard to get attention, after all, for being unconvinced either way on an issue. It’s nicer to have your cake and eat it, too—if you can.

Theists also ignore the impossibility of proving the non existence of something. Giving them plenty of cake.

[drumdude]

Some atheists do make positive claims. They say things like, “There is probably no God.” It’s hard to get attention, after all, for being unconvinced either way on an issue. It’s nicer to have your cake and eat it, too—if you can.

What probability should we assign to God existing? Does it matter which God? Zeus? Xenu? Adam-God?

Are they all a 50/50 coin toss?

[dastardly stem]

Quite right. It's important to be objective and see when the arguments are simply inconclusive. This cuts both ways, though. Look honestly at how often atheists try to claim they are somehow right by default.

I haven’t seen that. Usually I see theists suggest they are right by arguing things like first cause, which as we’ve said is a faulty argument for god because it’s doesn’t favor the god proposition but leaves us without a reason to think god over non god. It’s precisely the opposite, it seems to me. The position, at least the one discussed here is, the arguments used to demonstrate god do not justify the claim.

That's not the kind of argument anyone ever makes when they have powerful evidence—or when they have a really clear view of logic. It's more like what lawyers do when they try to get a case dismissed on technical grounds without having to argue it on its merits. It's the kind of argument you make when you know you don't have a convincing case but you still really wish you could be sure you were right.

I’d suggest that’s what theists normally do. Instead of a clear and good argument they jump from possible to probable by sneaking in first cause type of claims. Again it simply doesn’t favor a god proposition to say it’s possible there’s a god hidden in our zones of ignorance.

The nonexistence of God is an obvious possibility. So is the existence of God. Which possibility is the actual case is not obvious. Scientifically, we seem to be stuck with the problem of initial conditions. Whatever determined them might not love us. It might not have sent its child to die for us, or anything like that. A lot of the supposed properties of God to which atheists like to object, though, it has to actually have. How much do you really think you know about it?

we’re not sitting 50/50 simply because we can acknowledge anything is possible. The only burden an atheist has in this discussion is to take any arguments for god and point out they don’t really justify belief since each one is either illogical or faulty in some way or leaves us concluding nothing more than god is possible but not probable since no god is just as possible on any argument ever offered. Atheists simply don’t have to prove there is no supernatural only that all we can verify is natural. There’s no needed added proposition. And as Dawkins and many others have pointed out all the claims for god starting it all fall when we actually make an observation. There’s no evidence of an intelligent designer. Again we can say he could still be there hidden behind what we view, but that’s simple adding an unnecessary claim.