Agreed. I give 2 tins of honey roasted peanuts and a box of kit kats. @gorski: get a check... I think you never thought of this: what if God heard the atheists on planet Earth saying there's no God and It said: "fine by ME" and decided to stop mingling in human affairs here on Earth and It got busy elsewhere? I'm pretty sure humans cannot tell if God is playin' "tag, you're it!" in the next galaxy or 10 galaxies away, isn't it? Eh... P.S. The Universe is/should at least 14 billions light-years old and who knows its size...I think God has a nice playground to play in/on...not only a micro-planet somewhere in MilkyWay... P.S.2: I bet you'll bring in "what about the believers?". Well, there are 2 types of believers: beggars (which are Pavlov-dog-like) and real believers. God had enough of beggars and real believers don't need a sign from It to believe in It.
If the bold one is true in your life, then you must be a person without any intuition, creativity and vividness, actually without any progress concerning self-awareness! There must be no unrealized potential for new achievements in your life. It is no false premise since it does not assume the existence of god which requires imagination. It points on the reality of a source which provides infinite amount of opportunities which have not become yet. The bit of Heisenberg points even on that. It furthermore points on the 'bottom' 'where' god is waiting for you. Means this source is accessible by humans. "The Kingdom of God Is Within You" 'God' and human Self are only differentiable when things have become.
Again, wordplay. "Believing in yourself" (aka your capabilites) is a whole different thing than believing in some reality that is not supported by evidence. This is a claim. Prove it. You need to stop taking the opinions of others as supporting evidence for anything. If Einstein takes the word "god" in his mouth, he is not proving there is a god (deistic, pantheistic, theistic, whatever). It's a belief of his that is still not supported by evidence, and the fact that he has come up with other strong ideas that are now the current theories does not in any way validate or support this belief. The argument by authority seems to impress you a lot. "Oh, he has come up with so many scientific theories and has changed our views of the world, so when he mentions god, _he_ must certainly know so that's strong evidence." His ideas about god are as valid as the ideas of the beggar next street. He was only human. I can't even decipher that (as usual).
Try self-esteem... What does it have to do with anything other than putting some good old hard work "into yourself"?
A friend sent Me this link. Please don't think that I assume this to be proof of anything. It is, however, very interesting reading. http://www.outerplaces.com/science/...sciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death For some of us, it can be construed to be a glimmer of hope.
I feel sorry for this guy: "The results of modern natural sciences only make sense if we assume an inner, uniform, transcendent reality that is based on all external data and facts. The very depth of human consciousness is one of them." Transcendent reality? A "scientist'??? Without any proof for it??? WTF? Wait! It gets "better" "Although there is no definitive concrete evidence for this theory, one could arguably afford some weight to these claims if some of the most brilliant minds in quantum mechanics believe..." In other words, they have NO evidence whatsoever (NONE!!!) and then there is a conditional "IF..." people who have some "authority" can speculate based on their beliefs... but still no evidence is needed or offered... Bonkers, if you ask me...
bonkers it is, gorski, every now and then the `media` revert to science, when they have space to fill. money-back-guarantee bonkers every time..
@Gorski: Yeah it's probably a load of quantum fertilizer. Then again, looking at some of the replies presented here (both pro -and- con), what makes this any different? None of us can prove or disprove -anything-. In our arrogance, we think we can, but in fact, no person here has a clue. No offense guys. We'll never know until the end of the show...
"...quantum fertiliser... " I never even attempted to prove or disprove anything here. In fact, that is my point - it is not possible. Let's move on, I said... But oh, no...
What about this argument. To Me, it sounds quite similar to this ongoing "quest for truth". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_many_angels_can_dance_on_the_head_of_a_pin? Okay...I moved on.
There is one ongoing quest for truth that allows you to post here and allows us to read it. Hint: It's not spirituality or telepathy.
For Science to "work" the context has to be liberal, respectful of differences, open to questioning... For Religion/Faith none of this is needed...
an open mind, and mutual respect easily fly out the window.... when `real`religion walks in... i once called tcm a troll, but my post disappeared like an angel fallen off a google cloud.. i saw words like imbecilty flying around, etc.. i try to respect my fellow members, wherever possible. but when i see such words flying around in what we please to call a serious discussion, i know that is time to save my breath..
I post about them because I know their creative works. And I post to illustrate that to famous scientists god can coexist as well. According to you a 'sane' person would not do that. We have different opinions that's no problem. Everybody can have a own meaning about their quotes I have posted.
Debating about a deistic god is really pointless when the topic is a about a god that still exists and knows current human events. It's also completely irrelevant to theism and even to spirituality. It's never provable and thus it remains an idea in a (flawed) human brain. You can't ignore our evolutionary traits when thinking about _any_ idea that a human comes up with. Whether the laws of physics and everything we can observe exist because of an acting agent - that has since removed itself from that reality - is IMHO not likely and rather fits our instincts that, while perfect for survivability in a wilderness full of acting agents that want to eat us, are harmful to give an intuition about reality. I'd invoke the anthropic principle here. The completely random existence of the Universe and our solar system and planet does not fit us perfectly because it was "made" for us by someone. It fits us because otherwise, we wouldn't be there to observe it. So by necessity, everything we observe must have the properties so that we can exist. It can still be a random 1 in a googol chance in the first place. When someone is a deist, that also has no relevance to their daily lives other than being a passive observer of the creation of that deistic god. The deistic god, by definition, has removed itself completely from reality. He was just the starter. So a deist is "on their own" regarding morality and what to make of their lives exactly as an atheist is. He just likes to think that the beginning of it all is somehow more than just randomness. Until we really know by scientific progress, the beginning remains a philosophical question that won't be answered by pretending to know the answer in advance or by making stuff up. Edit: You need to make up your mind if you are referring to deistic or theistic gods. It's easy to lull someone into thinking that because Einstein mentions something about a god, that somehow religion has valid ideas. If we talk about theism, Einstein has no place to be mentioned at all.
Can omniscience be possible? Consider this argument below. (P1) An omniscient being, God, exists. (assumption for indirect proof) (P2) God is and always has been omniscient. (from P1) (P3) A being's omniscience entails, among other things, that it has all experiential knowledge. (necessary truth) (P4) Having all experiential knowledge entails knowing what it is like to learn. (necessary truth) (P5) God knows and always has known what it is like to learn. (from P2-P4) (P6) Knowing what it is like to learn entails having learned something. (necessary truth) (P7) Having learned something entails that one has gone from a state of not-knowing to a state of knowing. (necessary truth) (P8) God has gone from a state of not-knowing to a state of knowing. (from P5-P7) (P9) There was a time when God was in a state of not-knowing. (from P8) (P10) God has not always been omniscient. (from P9) (P11) God has always been omniscient and has not always been omniscient. (from P2 & P10) (C) Therefore, an essentially omniscient god does not exist. (from P1-P11)
Your fundamental problem is that you perceive a God to be an entity, typical flaw of a human. What if everything that is, is God ? That is all that needs to be said.
To make an agument by reductio ad absurdum, you have to assume that a god with the required property exists, to be able to show he cannot logically exist. If you call something completely different "god", what's the point of the logical argument? And why the special name then? Why not call it "everything that is"? And then the property of omniscience also completely breaks down and you are left with nothing special, just everything there is.
Something completely different ?! You are making it sound like you have a standard definition of what a God is really? You suffer from the same problem like Sid , God must be a certain way or it can't be God. Mind you, personally I see no reason for a God to exist, we can make do quiet perfectly with an eternal Universe.