"IF" there was a God....

[Jackalope]

By infinity, you mean infinite regress, yes?

The jury's out on both.

Oh wait, that's a third option. Kind of blows your false dilemma there.

Your third option is to not pick an option? You have just blown my mind.

You asserted that you had to believe in one or the other, which is false. You can believe in neither, absent justification.

[Undeceived]

Your third option is to not pick an option? You have just blown my mind.

You asserted that you had to believe in one or the other, which is false. You can believe in neither, absent justification.

Okay, I get it. You were referring to the "you believe" part. But the framework of my dichotomy still stands. If you intend to pursue logic toward an answer, you must choose either infinity or an uncaused cause.

[FifthElement]

Your third option is to not pick an option? You have just blown my mind.

You asserted that you had to believe in one or the other, which is false. You can believe in neither, absent justification.

Or it could be infinite number of finite causal chains

[Angrboda]

You asserted that you had to believe in one or the other, which is false. You can believe in neither, absent justification.

Okay, I get it. You were referring to the "you believe" part. But the framework of my dichotomy still stands. If you intend to pursue logic toward an answer, you must choose either infinity or an uncaused cause.

The dichotomy only stands if you can demonstrate that those are the only two options which exist. If you actually had the knowledge and arguments necessary to do that, I suspect the rest would be rather academic. However, I'll bet dollars to donuts you can't demonstrate that these are the only two possibilities, so we're left with the possibility that you don't correctly know how many possibilities there are, and so any attempt relying upon there being only these two possibilities without a proof that these are the only two possibilities will ultimately be logically invalid.


Anyway, I guess I'd start with the following three questions.

What exactly is a god? Are you a god? How would I go about determining for certain that your first two answers are true?


I'd have some curiosity, but the epistemic questions would be the most important.

[ITChick]

This then gets to the reasons we are followers of Christ. LOVE. I won't preach to you here, but let me just say that we as people have the power to help and love each other. And probably (over time) eradicate every disease, ailment and problem known to man! But, we will never conquer Death, or sin! Jesus did that for us! And that my friends is the basis of our Christian faith.

Thanks, this was a fun thread! Keep it comin'. R

Interesting. On the one hand we have you saying that we should love each other (which I personally think is great) and on the other hand we have some of the Christians saying that Christians do not have to worry about hell because they made the right choice.

So - do Christians really love no one (this posts indicates that this is not true), do they not believe in hell (Drich post indicates this is not true) or are they just *uhm, I hate to use this word and I do apologise in advance for the offence it will cause. It has to be asked though* stupid?

Or am I missing something obvious? Why are you guys ok with the thought of people being tortured?

(I do apologise for keeping on about this. But I'm going to keep asking every time someone says something like "hell is a choice" until I receive a satisfactory answer)

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4) What's up with the design of our windpipe? I constantly choke on food - not cool

I had this problem too. try to not inhale or even make the effort to hold your breath while you swallow.

Thanks for the pro tip!

[pocaracas]

First, Id' like to thank Drich for answering all the question I had for a god.

I'd also like to thank whateverist for covering for me in the night-shift. Good reply there, mate!

First off... I'm not the bit least angry at any god.
It is my understanding that all gods that humans worship or have worshiped in the past are, most likely, made up by some humans.

So, if any god does exist and does present itself for me to ask it whatever I want...

All of this stuff is in the bible here is what God says:

You answered these questions under the assumption that I was addressing the christian god.
I wasn't.
The title of the thread is "IF there was a god", not "IF the god of the bible exists", or something like that.
The fact that this thread is in the christian section of the forum was something I didn't take into consideration for a few reasons:
- Knowing that ron is a catholic, it is fair to assume he spends most of his time here in the christian section, so I'd expect any thread by him to be in this section, regardless of the content.
- I browser the forum from the "today's posts" link, getting all posts in chronological order. True, it does say in which section the post is, but I rarely notice that.
- If I remember correctly, Ron himself said in one of the first few posts of this thread that he wasn't after the "if the christian god exists" perspective, but rather the any god view.

Given all this, your answers from the bible, only answer to the hypothesis of the christian god...
Nonetheless, thank you for your effort in answering. I'll try to do something cool with them

- What are you?

He told Moses "I am the alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of all things."

This phrase demonstrates two primary things. God is the ultimate authority as He does not answer to anything higher than He, and "I am that I am" Means He is whom ever He wants to be. (No stupid paradoxes with that.)

Curious... If that is what god told Moses, he must have said it in hebrew, not greek.
Alpha and omega and the first and last letters in the greek alphabeth... both vowels and the hebrew letters didn't have vowels.
Anyway, that's just a curiosity... the meaning is that god is the start and end of all things, as is explained in the sentence that comes after the "alpha and omega" bit.

Now, I wouldn't be satisfied with that answer.
Considering that I'm having a private Q&A with a god, I'd try to flesh out a bit more. "what are you?" What are you made of? What sort of matter? How does that matter work?
If you can't explain it in terms I'd understand, then make me understand and show it to me.
If that requires a whole different set of dimensions and coordinate systems, then... do it! Show me satisfactorily "what are you".

And this... I guess... is not in any bible.

- How did you come to be?

"coming to be" binds one to linear time. God existed before time began @ the point of creation. You see creation is the start point for all thing with in creation itself. God is outside of creation and thus does not need a start point.

"before time began"? What is the meaning of that?
Our understanding of time is strange, but I can safely say that there can be no "before time".
Just to establish a parallel which I hope you'll understand, it's like you're saying there's something below the center of the Earth.

- What is the meaning of life,

Choice. To choose where you wish to spend eternity. Either in service of God, or eternally separated From God.

the universe, and everything?

We are told by Christ that He goes to prepare a place for us, and that when we get to heaven we get job/task/responsiablities.

Keeping this in mind along with the fact that our time under God is infinite, and the universe is infinite, it will be the place where we work and live.

If we get to explore it in starships I call dibs on "enterprise."

I was hoping for "42"...

Living just to choose where to spend eternity based on other people's testimonies of some vague, possibly misunderstood, mental processes... doesn't seem right. On top of that, your choice is heavily dictated by your geographical birth place... Not the right way to build such an important process, I'd say... this god needs a refresh.

My ship will be called "ide todos pocaraças"!

- Did you create this Universe?

In the creation account we are told yes.

Simple yes or no question gets a yes or no answer!

- If yes, did you create any other universes?

if by universe you mean dimension I say yes. Because Christ said His 'Kingdom' is not of this world, and revelations points to a 'new Heaven and a New earth' once we are done with the stuff that is to go on here.

By Universes I mean other universes similar to our own, but different. Other planets with life, other galaxies, other "finely tuned constants"
Heaven and hell would be some other realms all together... which may aggregate souls from these other universes as well!

- If yes, what are the differences between them?

Heaven, Earth, Hell I'm sure your aware of them

Yes... I see where you're coming from (previous question), but that's not what I meant.

- Is the vacuum speed of light a real maximum speed for anything in this Universe?

lol, no. google 'black holes' and how they effect light/time.

ok, perhaps the "anything" wasn't exactly what I wanted to say.
Is the speed of light is the maximum speed at which any form of information can travel?

- How do you make universes?

with a big bang!

Follow up, how do you create big bangs?

- What is time?

Merrium Webster defines it as the measure of one moment to the next.

If the guy created time itself, I'm guessing it's definition would be much better than any dictionary.
Perhaps similar to "a measure of the increasing entropy of the Universe"...

- What is your source of energy?

How do you know God works on energy?
If He did I would say love. As that is the primary focus we have been directed to share and preserve. Love God, and Love each other.

I don't know it... that's why I'm asking. If god doesn't require energy, then how can it do anything?
What's the driving force?

You say it may be "love". "Before time" (there's that thing again) what love did god have, but it's own? And yet, it made all we see, according to your previous answer on that.

Of course, astrophysicists tell us that the net energy of the Universe is zero, so... yeas... this god could have expended zero energy to create the universe.

- Can you impart on me the ability to perform real magic?

If you had the ablity to do 'real magic' it cease being 'real magic.'

Think how babies are born. Is that magic? do you think you could do it without any of the elements we currently use, and consider common place?

No, it's not magic. It's biology.
What I call "real magic" is akin to an unknowable source of energy that accomplishes whatever I desire.

- Are there any more like you?

There is only one God.

Could be more...
If I remember correctly, the christian (actually jew) god was jealous: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me"... that doesn't necessarily mean that there aren't others.

Finally, the greatest one:
- What do you think of the religions that humans have made up; and of all the ways they have managed to attempt to describe you?

Most of them do what they can, but few have heard how He describes Himself.

Has any heard that? I have my doubts...

PS: can't wait to see if Drich can answer any of these on it's behalf....

The wait is over, now I can't wait to see what you do with these answers.

yeah!!! Took you long enough! Keep it up!

[Esquilax]

Okay, I get it. You were referring to the "you believe" part. But the framework of my dichotomy still stands. If you intend to pursue logic toward an answer, you must choose either infinity or an uncaused cause.

Not at all! Lemme give you a third option, off the top of my head: Sometime in the future, I invent a pair of machines. One creates universes from nothing. The other is a time machine. I figure I might as well make a closed causal loop, and so I travel back beyond the Planck barrier, and set off my first machine, creating the universe it was made in.

Bam. No infinite regress, and no uncaused cause. Dichotomy destroyed.

[Jackalope]

You asserted that you had to believe in one or the other, which is false. You can believe in neither, absent justification.

Okay, I get it. You were referring to the "you believe" part. But the framework of my dichotomy still stands. If you intend to pursue logic toward an answer, you must choose either infinity or an uncaused cause.

If I was interested in constructing sound arguments whose validity is unknown, yeah I'd have to choose *something*. The point of such exercises in mental masturbationis a bit of a mystery - an argument dependent on a vary large indeterminate IF doesn't hold any explanatory power until that IF is resolved.

I do see the value in such exercises - but not in picking one unknown IF over another. Ignoring some of the possibilities (or that there might be choices currently unknown to us) isn't particularly intellectually honest, IMO.

Put mor succinctly, I may have to choose one or the other for the sake of argument, but I don't have to build a worldview around either.

[Mister Agenda]

lol no you weren't. You were born into a version of a made made religion who took the title of Christianity. Biblical Christianity is a personal choice we all must make apart from what religion we were born into.

And you don't think your kids would have even a slight unfair advantage when it comes to becoming biblical Christians compared to, say, the children of an Imam of the Taliban?

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By infinity, you mean infinite regress, yes?

The jury's out on both.

Oh wait, that's a third option. Kind of blows your false dilemma there.

Your third option is to not pick an option? You have just blown my mind.

Someone admitting they honestly don't know which of two options is actually the case can have that effect on some people.

[smax]

It's human ego that causes us to invent god in the first place, which explains why all gods are inexplicably obsessed with the human plight. If there really is a god (or gods), it (or they) are a million times more advanced in every way, and there's practically no chance of that god having any particular interest in human beings.

That's reality.

In fantasy, however, here on Earth, which happens to be dominated by human beings for the time being, God wants:

Humans to enjoy hundreds of virgins
Experience indescribable bliss
Own our own planets
Become celestial beings
Live in a mansion with him

And thousands of other things that we've committed him to through our yet to be verified communications with him.