Disclaimer: This is not a original argument but it is still beautiful. It goes something like this.
The poet once said: "The whole world is in a glass of wine". I don't know what he means by that but scientifically he's quite right! You can separate the wine in pieces: you can learn about physics by the flow of the wine, the density of the wine, the electrons and atoms that are inside, you can learn about geography by scientifically researching its origins because a few atoms of the dirt that are from Italy, you can make psychological experiments on how it effects you, you can make mathematical formulas about how the water flows, you can learn about architecture and engineering by seeing how the wine glass is constructed and is holding the wine and you can break this wine into infinitely many pieces that we call subsets of science. I however say: we should put all these pieces together, not to have a even greater science or meaning, but instead to drink and enjoy the wine.
For those that didn't get the metaphor: God is the wine which we should drink, instead of empirically analyze.
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Well, I far prefer drinking real wine to imaginary stuff.
And, having a lovely Pinot Gris right now:-)
Your god is the wine? You get drunk off your god? What evidence do you have that your god is really the wine?
I have had some lovely wines. A taste of a 200 year old sherry. French Cabernet before the nematodes. Real wine(from grapes) out performs the god thing hands down.
what mankind owes himself and to others is a serious logical approach to the God question since it is a serious subject, I don`t drink anything in that is going to make me gag, As for god or gods there is no evidence for this god or gods I don`t take in your bitter substance of god or gods.What has he done for humanity hey,? uncaused suffering for the millions, false hopes and washed up dreams etc. Look at the natural disasters, the children born with major deforms and your going to try to convince me there is a god or gods over seeing this. Please don`t be ignorant. WHy so many religions so many denomination so many bibles and teachings, if there is a god or gods then he is one of total confusion.
VFD, you said "you can break this wine into infinitely many pieces that we call subsets of science." Not true. You can break the wine down to the quantum level and no further. It is not infinite. Neither is your god. Your god was made recently by exceedlingly ignorant homophobic mysogynists based on previous myths from Mesopotamia and Greece. The one thing really infinite about that glass of wine is how much more satisfying, beneficial and real it is than the mythical psychopath called "god".
Reminds me of a question I used to ask people:
Given a set of magic tools that can cut anything in half; how many times can you cut a block of gold in half (each time discarding 1 of the pieces then cutting the remaining piece of gold in half), starting with a 1 kg block. See if you can work it out! (I'm sure Alembé can get the answer in his sleep).
Yikes! Where is Alembé when you need him. I have no idea how many times that kg block of gold would need to be cut in half, but I suppose you'd get to a single atom of gold. Someone who knows would need to comment on whether that atom could be cut in half. There are 79 protons and naturally the same number of electrons, and 118 neutrons. I guess if a person could get it to the quantum level that makes 591 quarks and the 79 electrons. Maybe that number could be halved and halved again. I'd stand back if someone tried to break the strong nuclear force holding the damn thing together, though!
You've got the right idea. At some point you will reach a state where you have 1 gold atom. After you cut that what you have remaining is NOT gold, and the problem stated that you would be cutting gold, so that would have been the final cut.
My grade school chemistry teacher would smack me with a yardstick for not catching that. Thanks for the lesson!
@VFD: "God is the wine which we should drink, instead of empirically analyze."
My best experience drinking wine was at an outdoor concert in New Zealand listening to a Russian soloist playing Mozart's Oboe Concerto in C major (K. 314). We were sitting on the grass under some trees. I'd already had several glasses of a fine Pinot noir. As I listened to the wonderful pure notes, I looked up and saw a flock of geese crossing the blue sky of late summer. The leaves on the trees moved in patterns as the breeze blew across them. My loved ones and friends were around me. I was seeing an amazing world of life, light, sound, movement, accompanied by music written by one of the greatest geniuses in history.
There was no need for god. God isn't the wine. He's the ugly, dirty bug that falls into it and spoils the whole glass.
Worse than a bug, we are supposed to believe that the wine is 2,000 year old zombie blood that you use to wash down the zombie human sacrifice flesh, cannibal style. Your understanding of the awe and wonder of reality is splendid, their's is psychotic. Thanks for sharing that experience.
Let me put it this way. You walk into a bar and a shady looking man offers you some wine. You decide to drink the wine. When you wake up your in a jail cell. There is a gaurd you ask him how did I get here. He says "So your the crazy guy who killed everyone at the bar?" Perhaps you should have analysed the wine after all.
Wine isn't the best example. let me give another one.
Imagine someone were to hear a joke and then analyze every single word. They found out every single antonym and synonym to the words. They found out how fast the voice of the person telling the joke is. They researched the historical context of the joke. and much more (it doesn't matter if its infinitely many subsets of science or not). At the end the imaginary person would know every single thing about the joke. But something would be lost. The effect and impact of the joke. And again maybe analyzing god would ruin the effect of god.
vfd: "Wine isn't the best example. let me give another one."
The point of your metaphors is clear. You want people suspend logic, intellect, mind, and disbelief, and just somehow feel god. There actually has to be something there for that to happen.
Let me offer you another metaphor that I found in one of Kurt Vonnegut's books.
God is what you have left after you peel the skin off a toy balloon. Just a lot of noise and no substance really.
That is true only if you were talking about the kind of gods like the christian god or those like the christian god. I would suggest a god who is more like Baruch Spinoza's god. Spinoza said god is all the natural laws we see around us. God is what keeps science so organized and rational (not ID; His god would be in a sense our idea of mother nature). So he said praying is stupid, because if one sees life as a game, one who prays wishes to change the rules of the game (These would be the people who are a lot of noise and no substance), we should not endeavor to change the game. Instead we must understand it. (aka We need to do more science). This idea of god does not fall under Kurt Vonnegut definition of god
@VFD: "Spinoza said god is all the natural laws we see around us."
That sounds perilously close to intelligent design, or perhaps the Gaia theory. How would the laws of nature and science be different without god? What do gravity, the nuclear forces, and photosynthesis tell us about god?
The core difference is he doesn't say there is a god and he made the natural laws. He says all of the natural laws are god. His statement would be something like: God is science and science is god. And if one is trying to understand the meaning of life and existence one must dedicate himself to science.
The laws of nature would cease to be if if his god did not exist. Because his god is the laws of nature.
Sounds pretty wishy-washy.
Yeah it does but sounding wishy-washy doesn't make something intrinsically wrong
Right, it makes it useless.
Yeah it does but sounding wishy-washy doesn't make something intrinsically wrong
You keep moving the goal post for your god. Your god is not the laws of nature. Your god is human created, just like religion is meant to control how people think.
You misunderstand my friend. I'm not saying god is a angry dude in the skies or has any mythology (which is the standpoint of nearly every theist). I'm defining god as being the laws of nature itself. This idea is a human creation. The same way mathematics is a human creation. Yet I say this human creation (just like mathematics) is true.
Then why give the laws of nature a confusing new name? Just call nature what it is = nature, not 'god'. Changing the name is just silliness.
I concede. You are completely right.
I am impressed by your concession, vfd.
Thank you very much. I've learned to concede when there are no rational arguments left or at least withhold opinion until more arguments are discovered.
Thank you very much. I've learned to concede when there are no rational arguments left or at least withhold opinion until more arguments are discovered.
I have a life-threatening disease that only makes living more complicated when you add alcohol. I think I'll just continue to analyze. :)
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