Christoid Logic

[robvalue]

To the opening post:

Yes, pretty much every conversation I've ever had ends up with "God is magic". I don't generally bother debating people anymore unless I detect a genuine interest in a proper evaluation of their beliefs. It is still worthwhile however online, because the audience can benefit from the cop-out and flawed nature of every theistic argument.

As to God and time, it makes sense to say God is outside of our time, but it doesn't make sense to say he doesn't have his own timeline. If he has no timeline, he's not able to do anything. If you don't want to call it time, call it fairy dust, whatever you like. If he "created our reality" (not the universe, he can't have created that because he already existed) then that gives two clear different states: before the creation, and after the creation. Fairy dust point 1, and fairy dust point 2. Otherwise, he didn't really "do" anything, and our reality has always existed from his point of view. This is all a lot easier to visualise when you realize "God" could be a computer programmer, and this is a simulation where aspects have become self-aware.

Of course, the bible shows God just walking around like a human, clearly part of our timeline too. But people just ignore inconvenient details like that.

[Alex K]

.... don't use such big words! Lol. I don't even know what you're asking. 

Such false modesty! You're smarter than you let on.

Yes, you see, CL, you agree with the great Chad on something (belief in God), so you can't be all that dumb

[Neo-Scholastic]

Kraus is a bozo. The terms of the equations are something's not nothings.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I didn't say anyone had to take it seriously. It is what I personally believe, but f you don't believe it, that is 100% fine by me. 

As for your first question.... don't use such big words! Lol. I don't even know what you're asking. 

Atemporal frameworks lack time, therefore, the concepts of "before" and "after" are incoherent in such a framework. Causality is concerned with causes and effects, which under our understanding, the former must occur before the latter. Causality is therefore incompatible with atemporal frameworks.

Okay now I understand. You definine causality to exclude atemporal relationships. I see causality as the necessary conditions and constitutive requirments for something to be as it is.

[Athene]

To the opening post:

Yes, pretty much every conversation I've ever had ends up with "God is magic".  

This is true.

The properties that define invisible "God" are constantly being shifted, altered, and made up on the fly at any given moment. I used to say "Hey! You can't do that! You can't just change the specifics regarding the nature of your god, mid-discussion." 

I've since come to accept that theists can very well do this; There simply aren't any limits in the land of make-believe.

[GrandizerII]

Atemporal frameworks lack time, therefore, the concepts of "before" and "after" are incoherent in such a framework.   Causality is concerned with causes and effects, which under our understanding, the former must occur before the latter.  Causality is therefore incompatible with atemporal frameworks.

Okay now I understand. You definine causality to exclude atemporal relationships. I see causality as the necessary conditions and constitutive requirments for something to be as it is.

And if it can work with your god, then it can work with other entities as well. No special pleading.

[God of Mr. Hanky]

No it is just those crippled with literal mindedness that are prone to this sort of gaff.  Of course many theists are guilty of taking for granted that it is possible to know fantastic things - just because it is what the institution they subscribe to believes.  So many think it is an advantage of their mindset that they have answers to far out propositions whereas we have none.

I just don't understand why people care so much, honestly. Every religion (or lack thereof) that is not Catholic involves different beliefs than the one I have. Does it upset me that these people believe in things that I don't think are true? Absolutely not. It's a notion that I cannot understand.

Those who follow other religions have their own make-believe ideas, which the majority of their leaders unofficially understand as well as any atheist, including your Vatican officials - therefore, why should leaders of any religion get upset and rally their troops against different stories? Since when have the ideas of one fiction writer conflicted with those of another? Oh, but then sometimes they do - N. Ireland is still a particularly unfriendly place for Catholics, and Poles who are Protestant are to some extent second-classed in their country.

I guess it can be a problem when one true-believer fiction fan club insists that said ideas are fact, therefore others who insist their different ideas are better...they inexorably will be in dispute with them. Protestants and Catholics killed each other for several centuries, but no group can upset a theist group like the atheists, who's answers actually work when they are given, and they don't even play the same game with the storytelling. Oh, and you actually believe we're wrong, and you just said we're all wrong by saying what you believe (the ideas are necessarily mutually exclusive), and why should we get upset over that? Say what you will, scientific ideas have passed the falsifiability test, they've been heavily documented and peer-reviewd, therefore there's no need to prove them when they are asserted, and no need to defend them when challenged by theistic argments. But it can be very frustrating to see billions of people insisting they have a better answer of fact, when it so obviously isn't that.

Actual scientists are overwhelmingly atheist or agnostic, but that's not why I believe them - it's because they impress me in ways that no priest or preacher can by not making unsupportably grandiose claims. They don't offer a complete answer on our origins, and then why should that be expected for a society which hasn't even journeyed to the nearest planet where walking is even feasible? it's a very big and complex universe, of course we should not pretend to know it all, and to bump that up to a mystery god who's very invocation shuts down any further discussion in search for answers is a pitiful cop-out, and this can, it has, and in many ways still does harm the progress of human understanding. Therefore scientists choose to ignore the default answers of their culture, but continue to study more and learn more, and the more they succeed, the closer they get to the complete truth. The closer they get to the truth, the more they displace old fables which were spun millennia ago to placate the ignorant who were (and still are) too simple to know better than to demand answers to unanswerable questions. They don't try and cover up the gaps in their understanding with bullshit - it isn't harmful to admit you don't know when in fact you don't, these gaps inspire the challenge to learn more.

Can you, as a theist, describe the doctrines of your church in any way similar to the above? Are you even allowed to question the answers which you are given by church authorities? Why then should an atheist not be upset when people continue to promote ideas which discourage thinking like the above, when that is so important to us?

[Jenny A]

Kraus is a bozo. The terms of the equations are something's not nothings.

Lawrence Krauss?

Do you really have any interest in discussion or are you just popping in to confirm most other people aren't experts in your particular philosophical hobbies? Try putting a sentence or two together for the purpose of actually communiating.

[robvalue]

To the opening post:

Yes, pretty much every conversation I've ever had ends up with "God is magic".  

This is true.

The properties that define invisible "God" are constantly being shifted, altered, and made up on the fly at any given moment. I used to say "Hey! You can't do that! You can't just change the specifics regarding the nature of your god, mid-discussion." 

I've since come to accept that theists can very well do this; There simply aren't any limits in the land of make-believe.

That's it, exactly. When the whole thing is made up and not real, you can't do it "wrong". It can be internally consistent, or not. And when something isn't real, and so never comes under any sort of actual scrutiny, it can get away with being inconsistent.

[Alex K]

Kraus is a bozo. The terms of the equations are something's not nothings.

For once I agree with you. It's not quite nothing.

Though hardly anyone would argue that it is the equations pre- existed. Rather, some kind of quantum state which the equations describe.