(December 3, 2013 at 7:41 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: You are completely mistaken though. Unlike the laws of nature, God is by definition a non-contingent, absolutely self-sufficient, and ultimately sufficient being. Such a being therefore requires no causal agent or mechanism in order to exist. I can however account for why I believe in the existence of such a being. You cannot account for why you believe in the existence of the laws of nature nor can you account for their origin since they are contingent laws.
The laws are contingent on us, and our pursuit of understanding, and are a product of such. The idea of such an entity as you describe is itself only sustainable so long as our understanding of the natural universe, and the "laws" we use to describe it remain consistent. The moment our understanding changes, so then will your description of God. This is historically true. Your defense of your hypothesis of God is a product of scientific understanding, and it is convincing to you, only because to you, it seems to fill the gaps of science's understanding. But just like many others have failed to nail down God's hiding place, so have you.
Often Athesits are accused of "worshiping science" or having "faith in science". I find the irony here laughable. Your entire defense of God hinges on laws that you think are absolute because you think science says so. You then see this as an opportunity to seize a gap of ignorance, and clumsily cram God into it. I imagine you very much like the idea of an "absolute anything" that is supported by scientific discovery because you think this "anything" can be attributed to the God of your creation so long as nobody else has a better solution. You mistakingly assume that these descriptive rules that the human mind has established are a "thing" at all, and you have mistaken them for objects that exists apart from a reflective mind giving them a purpose. The universe doesn't care about these "laws" that we use to describe it. The universe behaves, and we try to understand it by establishing what we think are norms. These norms are revisable and are not absolute as you desperately hope we will concede them to be.
But these "laws" are helpful to us as general rules of understanding. They're not at all absolute because they are tools that we create to understand, they are not given to us by a celestial entity as you seem to think. They are a product of our intellect. These "laws" are helpful in our understanding of the observable, and are the best we have, and have proven to be helpful assumptions that allow us to continue to expand our understanding. Science has shown us that the laws you claim exclusive rights to are not at all absolute when we look at the material world on the molecular level. Particles, (matter) violate these "laws" that we've created constantly. Quantum randomness and entanglement are just two examples. But all of these things exist naturally in our material world. Invoking a God gets us no closer to understanding anything. It's a cognitive sinkhole.
