Quote from: Beliathon on July 09, 2015, 01:08:07 AM

Quote from: MakingMoneyHoney on July 08, 2015, 08:27:36 PM

I don't know how anyone can read the bible and call it boring.

Not the first time, no. The problem with Christians is that one read is never enough, and they can never stop yapping about the (2,000 year old) "good news" from their "good book".

Quote from: MakingMoneyHoney on July 08, 2015, 08:27:36 PM

And it's a bit more than just "one book"...there are 66 books in the bible.

66 "books", each being the length of short stories written for 8th graders... I think I've just discovered the root of the problem, Christians don't know what books are!

Quote from: BADecker on July 08, 2015, 09:40:50 PM

You could say God is trying to know Himself and self-actualize via a superpositional, singular act of creation; that reality is essentially a theory of itself; that we are stratified, isomorphic images of God who attempt to know ourselves and self-actualize via our perceptions of objective reality and the theories we derive therefrom.

You could also say that all the matter in the universe is secretly made of of mashed potatoes from an extra-universal potato God, but there isn't much evidence to support either claim, so sane people don't go around saying such things.

BADecker didn't say the last part. I did. And, to counteract your (invalid) secret mashed potato rebuttal, here is more of, well, me to elucidate your fallacy:

Quote

First, it's a false-analogy to liken an omnipotent god to some imaginary dragon, even if you ascribe the imaginary dragon to be omnipotent. This is where logic weighs in on things and can catch subtle distinctions which make a world of difference. Instead of an imaginary dragon, let's use the well-know examples of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Russel's Teapot. Again, for simplicity, let's just focus on the FSM.

Specifically, the problem is that the FSM, even if omnipotent, is a false analogy. This is because the identifying characteristics (i.e. what constitutes its identity) of an omnipotent god is its omnipotence, whereas for the FSM it is both omnipotence and the topological characteristics of being a monster made of spaghetti who flies, i.e. its physical constraints. So, an omnipotent god, or ID for "intelligent designer," is defined in terms of a total lack of constraint, whereas the FSM is defined in terms of both constraint and a total lack of constraint.

This is critically important because it means one cannot be the other. If an ID omnipotently assumes a level of topological constraint, it does not lose any aspect of its identity because it remains omnipotent and thus is still equal to itself. However, if an FSM omnipotently changes its topological constraints, e.g. it becomes a teapot or a dragon, then its core identity is changed and is no longer equal to itself. An FSM who becomes a teapot is no longer an FSM no matter how omnipotent it is.

Second, and stemming from this first point, we must then concede that if an ID exists, it falls totally outside of observation and empiricism, and is therefore a priori untouchable by empirical science. Therefore, Occam's Razor, which only applies to empirical phenomena, is irrelevant. What then matters is whether an ID is implied by logical necessity, and the method of exploration required to determine this is in no way based upon observation of empirical events. There needn't be any assumption of a "God-of-the-gaps" if you can determine what is logically necessary at a fundamental level, and at a 100% level of tautological confidence.

Edit: To this extent, I could put Richard Dawkins out of business.