God is a point in an uncertain future. The more uncertain the future the bigger God wil be. This also explains the friction between science and religion,because science makes the future less uncertain and thus god smaller.
I'd say science makes the future more uncertain, not less, by giving us more tools to change it. It's easier to figure out how to change things than to understand the impact of those changes.
I think this must be true. The greater our understanding of the world, and the greater our ability to manipulate the world, the greater the options available to humans and the more complex their interaction. The world has been significantly less predictable since the Enlightenment, and the rejection of the fixed socio-theological order that preceded it. Life in pre-modern Europe was very predictable - almost everyone was a peasant who followed the same seasonal cycle, and stood in deference to the same feudal and religious system.
If one's understanding of _part_ of a system increases to enable manipulation of that part of the system, but one's ignorance of the effects of that change in the broader system remains, meaning that the increase in understanding has led to an increase in unexpected effects in the broader system, has one's overall understanding increased, or decreased?
Not sure if that's too abstract, but your statement that "the world has been significantly less predictable since the Enlightenment" made me wonder, because you'd think "less predictable" means that understanding has gone down.
I would draw a sharp distinction between 'understanding' and 'predictability'. Understanding is about our knowledge of and ability to manipulate the world. Predictability is our ability to reliably forecast the future of the social world.
Of course our understanding has increased. But that has generated rapid and accelerating changes in society and a monumental increase in its complexity, which together, make it significantly harder to predict the future of the social world.
I am not saying that we don't have a better predictive grasp of the natural world. We obviously do.
Fundamental research or purely scientific research is not intended to solve a predetermined practical problem, but in the long run fundamental research eventually also results in practical applications. Like for example the internet and the weather report.
Given that God is omnipotent, you can always build a narrative where God is responsible for science and whatever future. You can't make the concept of God smaller. At best you can make a religious narrative irrelevant.
But you also don't need a religion to play with the concept of God. And you certainly don't even need God to have a religion.
If he(?!?) is omnipotent, he's a massive douche.
Or as Epicurus put it:
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?
One of the many problems with this argument is it presumes that your personal moral compass is objectively and universally true.
I don't mean this to argue otherwise - it is my personal belief that it is not possible to prove or disprove the existence of God with reason alone, thus why the argument has lasted for millenia. The mass of texts written to do one or the other are worth, in my opinion, for nothing much besides exercising your mind.
Or you're just asking the wrong question. "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?"; "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Our language has the ability to frame nonsensical dichotomies.
Or to put it another way, perhaps you're asking for a three dimensional array, but you want its contents to only have two-dimensional qualities. Or you want force and acceleration, but no mass.
You assume God's goal is human pleasure. What if it was human growth? A person never grows more than in the struggle of life. What if it was human freedom? Freedom means that evil must sometimes be permitted in the face of overwhelming power. What if it was something outside of human imagination?
You want a God that hands out straightjackets and drugs. I think he has a higher goal than that.
Epicurus doesn't assume anything here. If the 'higher goal' involved human suffering, then why would you condone that and worship the originator of suffering?
If your god would be a real person, you would not just accept 'oh, but I have a plan!'
If you really believe what you're saying, I hope you don't eat fish, or own jewelry, or use coal or oil derived power, or watch sports that have a non-zero rate of player injury, or eat at restaurants that use grease friers or knives, or any number of other commodities that are directly or indirectly the product of human suffering.
I can't really empathize with someone who sees no value in suffering. Suffering is not the ultimate evil, and pleasure is not the ultimate good. Go read some Cicero. He tears Epicurus a new one in much better language than I can muster.
Many believe God does not have the power to be other than what God is. If God is existence itself, then evil, as humans understand evil, seems to be within God, just as it is within each of us.
I despise the idea of the God of the gaps. I don't believe in a supernatural God, but in one who presides over nature. Not one who defies science, but even allows himself to be known by personal experiment. Why should a miracle be wrought by magic, when physics would suffice?
My God is never so small as to hide in the cracks in reality.
AH! I immediately googled "My God is never so small as to hide in the cracks of reality" because it sounds so much like something Bonhoeffer would say. Well done.
Also, excellent point, I might disagree with your disbelieving in a supernatural God, especially in terms of design and origin, but yes, physics is an incredible canvas. "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." Romans 1:20
God of the gaps is rejected by most well-educated theologians, especially in the Catholic Thomist tradition. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, God is the foundation of existence, like a substrate underlying reality, but distinct from all other things. God maintains the existence of all things, including the laws of physics. Although God does not have to operate the universe in a consistent manner, he does so for at least two reasons. 1) a well ordered universe operating according to consistent laws has a beauty that reflects the nature of God, who is not arbitrary, but faithfully keeps his word. 2) It provides a predictable and stable place in which life can develop and thrive.
However, since God operates physics, he certainly could "violate" it, but we believe he has done so only in very rare cases to get peoples' attention.
I think that there's a few semantics we could quibble about, "wouldn't anything God did be natural by definition," and so on.
But I wholeheartedly agree with your first statement, and I find it profoundly frustrating that atheist tracts immediately assume that you do believe in a God of the gaps.
Yeah, to me the miraculous existence of anything at all, the ability to enjoy pure wonder, and a fully "unitive" experience once in a while...is more than enough for me. That God certainly lives up to its name.
Your comment history suggests that your beef with the Mormon faith has only a little to do with the subjectivity of experience. If you really want to talk about it, I will, but it might be a better discussion for another thread or forum.
My disaffection has a lot of facets, but the unreliability of "personal revelation" is a pretty large one. To be honest, I would actually love to talk to you about it. I wish I could teleport to where you are and have a friendly discussion over coffee and hot chocolate or whatever :). I enjoy the topic, and especially enjoy discussing it with thoughtful believers like yourself. The willingness to discuss these things is extremely asymmetric in my experience, and only a small handful of people have ever expressed interest.
That being said, it's a pretty involved discussion, and I agree that a Hacker News thread is an odd place for it, though a rare thread like this is the closest it ever gets.
If y'all are taking this offline, may I join, at least to read? (Not sure if I'll have input or not, really just looking to learn) Reply with forum/ contact if you don't mind.
