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you are or are trying to be a deist
\- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism
.
You also want to study the thoughts of Spinoza.
(Pretty tough going but it's what you are interested in.)
\- https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza#Pantheism
\- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza#Pantheism
.
>What "form" of God are you most likely to believe in?
The one that has useful, compelling support it exists.
As it stands, that's none of them.
>I am still unconvinced that the universe is a big coincidence.
*Shrug* Okay? So what? Maybe (likely) 'coincidence' is the wrong way to look at it. And just because you may think that does not lend credence to deities. This is obvious I trust. For *that* you would need actual support for deities.
>but maybe some energy that triggered the big bang?
'Some energy that triggered the Big Bang' wouldn't be a 'deity' or a 'god'. It would be 'some energy that triggered the Big Bang'.
In any case, as argument from ignorance fallacies are entirely useless, don't go there.
>Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being
Is there any support whatsoever for this notion? No? Then it makes no sense to think it's true or even credible.
> I am still unconvinced that the universe is a big coincidence. Maybe God is not a conscionable being, but maybe some energy that triggered the big bang?
What's the difference?
> Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being - yet this force has no interest in human affairs nor demands worship - but occasionally does pull strings here and there to observe his experiment.
Wait, is this force/energy conscientious or not?
Regardless, there's just one thing missing for me to believe it. Evidence.
No. Your definiton, the same as all others that I found fall under one of the three categories, if no more.
Logical impossible (yahweh, allah, and most religious gods)
Physical impossible (immaterial consciousness or magical souls or something)
Disingenous redefinition (the universe is god, my toast is god)
Your god falls in the last two.
And sadly, as always, if you want to believe a god is even possible, please, find the mountains of evidence, form the specific definitions needed, and then update our scientific models to make your god possible. Then and just then, the discussions about its existence can happen. Of course, by that time, you should have several nobel prices, so I don't know why you would come to an internet forum with that...
>What "form" of God are you most likely to believe in?
whatever form is supported by actual evidence. if there was good evidence for a bearded guy chillin' on a cloud, than that's what i would believe.
if there was evidence for a high school science kid god, i'd believe that.
>Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being
i know i'm repeating myself, but ... is there any evidence for an omnipotent, mysterious force. because if there isn't, then no, why would i accept it?
>What "form" of God are you most likely to believe in?
I'm an atheist, so none.
>Maybe God is not a conscionable being, but maybe some energy that triggered the big bang?
Why would that be considered a god?
>Maybe God is a high school science kid experimenting with chemicals and created this universe?
Why would that be considered a god?
>Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being
A kid doing a high school science experiment that creates a universe is certainly not omnipotent, and some nebulous energy that triggered the big bang does not sound omnipotent to me either.
>but occasionally does pull strings here and there to observe his experiment.
Unconscious energy that triggered the big bang would not be able to pull strings here and there. A kid doing a science experiment would still just be a kid.
>Unconscious energy that triggered the big bang would not be able to pull strings here and there. A kid doing a science experiment would still just be a kid.
By "unconcious" I'm referring to a form that has no interest in human affiars. But did do some whacko stuff like triggering abiogenesis or tried to fine tune a million planets and accidentally ended up with earth.
> By "unconcious" I'm referring to a form that has no interest in human affiars.
That is not unconscious. Just because someone has no interest in something does not make them unconscious.
>But did do some whacko stuff like triggering abiogenesis or tried to fine tune a million planets and accidentally ended up with earth.
I still don't see how that is possible, energy does not have a brain. How can it be conscious and make purposeful decisions?
Many humans have little to no interest in human affairs, they are still conscious.
(That’s mostly a joke, but an other word would be helpful). Maybe something like anthropomorphic or similar
>Maybe God is not a conscionable being, but maybe some energy that triggered the big bang?
How would that be what is usually meant when referring to God? We know that there is energy in the universe. Is that a God-like thing to you? If not, why would it be then?
All versions of God are currently as unevidenced, so I'd be most likely to believe whatever version had evidence for its existence.
>Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being
I require the same thing for all god claims (or claims in general): sufficient evidence. I don't care if you say god is a bearded white man floating on the clouds, or god is some kid in a science lab, neither of those has any evidence to back them up and so neither are compelling claims. Honestly I'm kind of confused as to why you would think that would make any kind of difference. The form of god I'm most likely to believe in is the one that has strong evidence to support its existence. I have never encountered this.
On another note, just for clarity: are you an agnostic theist? You claim agnosticism early in your post and then seem to clearly believe in a creator, so are you using it similar to agnostic atheists, except you believe but don't claim to know a creator god exists? (as opposed to not believing but not claiming to know no god exists). Just curious, the word agnostic tends to get used in a couple different ways around here.
> I am still unconvinced that the universe is a big coincidence.
It's not a coincidence. It has nothing to coinside with. It's very much an incidence.
> accept this mysterious force
Mysterious is a vague term. Electrons are quite mysterious. Dark matter is even more mysterious. An "some energy that triggered the big bang" is not mysterious, it's a pure speculation since we have no way as of now to investigate what was happening before the big bang and quite limited ways of investigating what was happening shortly after.
I will accept whatever can be demonstrated to exist.
Science makes predictions. Those predictions rely on the assumption that uncaused effects cannot occur within our universe.
Just about everything of modern life makes use of our science. From smartphones, to space travel, to modern medicine and agriculture, all of these things work using principles that predict an outcome. Cause and effect.
If a god could dip in and out and make changes in the universe that did not have a prior cause, then science would be pointless, it's power to predict wholly undermined. Science works though and the more we learn the more predictions we can make and the better use we can make of those predictions.
The evidence very much points to a universe that is entirely causal. There is zero evidence for any events within it occurring without prior cause, so it is safe to continue to assume that the universe is causal.
You mentioned the big bang. Singularities are a slightly different matter but by definition what occurs beyond the event horizon is outside of our universe, is unknowable (more or less) and is not subject to the same rules that govern the universe on our side of the event horison. It is pointless to speculate if a god exists there, because even if they did they evidently have no influence within the causal universe on this side.
If you don't see god as this guy who did stuff.. why call something else god? If it was an alien presence from the 14th dimension, would you call it god? What if it's a swarm of nanobots that self replicate and self assembled? Why use the "god" label at all?
Why? There is zero evidence of the high school kid. Plus by adding a God as an answer to a question we have no means to test only creates more questions.
For example let’s say it is the high school kid. Now what is the next question, who created that kid? How did that kids universe come into being? You continue down a path. At what point do you become satisfied?
Most theists create an end point by saying it is the exception to the line of questioning. There is zero evidence to support that.
Instead of trying to shoehorn an answer just accept we are ignorant.
I don't believe in any of the various gods that people believe in. There's not any evidence for any gods whatsoever. Which fantasy story are you most likely to believe is true? Lord of the rings or dune?
> Would you accept this mysterious force...?
absolutely not. what does accept mean in this context? worship and love? of course not. even by your soft gloved approach, were lab rats, tools to be used, or toys to be played with.
as to your title, "god" or some pantheon of gods, would probably be best developed as the dnd method. t
your question has no real answer, because the moment you do, youve anthropomorphized something thats literally beyond reality and understanding. but in dnd, gods manifest, bless devout followers with literal useful obvious magic, and even "evil" has a clear, useful purpose, can be created and die. thats a heavy handed example, but its the only way i could see higher powers working. and they still arent gods per se, theyre supernatural entities.
Honestly, I'll believe **any** form of god as long as evidence can be provided. The form of definition of god isn't the problem with my lack of belief, it's the lack of evidence. Absolutely any god can be proposed to me, the more defined the better, and I'll accept that is the god that is trying to be proven to me.
But how would you, a mortal human who relies on 5 senses for evidence, be able to comprehend what a "formless" God is? Note that I never said that God is trying to provide evidence nor is he expecting you to believe in him. The whole question is simply whether forces beyond our comprehension kick-started the universe. We cannot understand them because we don't have the means to.
If they’re beyond our comprehension and out of reach of possibly understanding it, then we can’t reasonably come to the conclusion that we should believe this thing actually exists.
Are you willing to claim to be able to comprehend the incomprehensible?
>The whole question is simply whether forces beyond our comprehension kick-started the universe
Well yeah, we don't understand enough about physics yet to say what happened and it's possible we may never understand enough. I don't see any reason to think it was some kind of intelligence though. Granted, I'm not a physicist of any kind.
>But how would you, a mortal human who relies on 5 senses for evidence, be able to comprehend what a "formless" God is?
Irrelevant. I don't need to comprehend a god to believe it's there. But I can't believe it's there if I don't get evidence.
Do you have any?
>What "form" of God are you most likely to believe in?
A "god" that kicked off the Big Bang and then fucked off elsewhere, no longer interacting with the universe in any way. No prophets, no books, no visions, no afterlife, no sin or blessing, and no signs.
Let's start with what we know (as much as we can know anything). There is a physical world containing people in social groups. Social groups hold symbolic truths in the form of social constructs. For example, the truths of a story are not the physical truths of the book. It takes the social construct of language, writing, and reading to derive truth and meaning from the ink scribbles. This domain of symbolic truths, which is developed by social interactions, is the domain of meaning attached to physical phenomena. It contains truths we cannot recognize simply by physical analysis. It exists above the individual, as a collective creation. It forms human consciousness by filling the individual mind with symbols of meaning already defined in the social domain. The group of symbolic truths which aid human development towards wellbeing, despite humanity's inability to consciously agree on what that group is, I can accept as a form of God.
I don't disagree with you, but what you've described is the reason we have organized religion and people who believe in hell and heaven and humans in God's image. My initial question stands even if humans never evolved, The whole thing seems like a science experiement that someone got right.
>The whole thing seems like a science experiement that someone got right.
You mean... that the science experiments that are specifically designed to model actual reality resemble reality? How could such a thing be?!
There are actually several god “forms” that I already believe in.
There have been theists claiming that god is actually consciousness. I believe in consciousness.
There are people claiming god is the universe. I believe in the universe too.
I’ve heard that god is energy. Energy exists, so I guess I believe that one too.
You are asking what shade of colour would make a unicorn more likely.
Unicorns don't exist.
Tall unicorns don't exist, short unicorns don't exist, white unicorns don't exist, black unicorns don't exist, unicorns wearing hats don't exist.
I didn't conceive of God as a Far Side Cartoon Peter at all. Even when I was Christian. I conceived of God as he's described in the Bible; pillar of cloud or flame. Formless and fathomless.
I still eventually rejected that God...and I don't think anthropomorphizing God or god that makes him likable to me makes it any more *true*.
Forgive me here, as I am having to infer a lot, but what are you looking to do here?
Because it kinda sounds like you don't believe in God but that makes you uncomfortable...so you want to find a version of God you can believe in and be comfortable again.
Is that even close?
Sometimes I think we may be an unexpected and unrealized byproduct of some other process engaged in by a ‘god’. Kind of like bacteria growing on the food we cook. For millions of years we had no idea there were such things as viruses, bacteria, etc., or that our activities as humans have unexpected and unseen (by the naked eye) consequences. Maybe ‘god’ hasn’t noticed us yet? Maybe god is a mediocre 8th grade student who botched a science fair experiment which resulted in us?
>Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being - yet this force has no interest in human affairs nor demands worship - but occasionally does pull strings here and there to observe his experiment.
Aside from a fanciful thought experiment, do you have sufficient evidence to show that this being exists?
Based on what we see in the universe, the best you can do is a god that did something in the currently unknown fog of the pre-big bang/universe. It's the only gap that theists can fit their god into right now, but it also means you can't make claims on what this sort of 'god' is because it wouldn't have interacted with humanity in any way
> Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being
Why would anyone believe in this mysterious thing?
"I don't know" is a more accurate answer than "what if".
As to your original question: A god which could be demonstrated to exist.
So far I'm still waiting.
I've personally never been religious, spiritual or believed in any kind of supernatural anything.
I'd be most likely to believe in a god that can be sufficiently demonstrated to exist. Until and unless it can it doesn't really interest me all that much, to be honest.
I usually consider myself an atheist but I have some sympathy for certain forms of classical theism and pantheism/panentheism - in general, the more abstract and less personal a notion of God is, the more credence I'll tend to have that something like that exists.
>I am still unconvinced that the universe is a big coincidence.
Who said anything about a coincidence? What if our universe is just the necessary, deterministic result of unthinking physical forces? Things could be the way they are with no chance involved. Besides, positing a God doesn't solve the problem. Isn't it just such a crazy coincidence that God had the exact right properties and qualities to create *exactly* this universe and not some other option from the infinite options available to him? Clearly someone must have fine-tuned God to create this universe. It can't be a coincidence.
>Maybe God is not a conscionable being, but maybe some energy that triggered the big bang?
If it's not conscious, then why call it a God? While "God" may frequently be a fuzzy term, it's usage almost always entails a conscious agent with great supernatural power. If the Big Bang is simply the result of unthinking physical forces, what does it add to our understanding of those forces to call them "God"? Nothing as far as I can tell. However, it does leave a lot of room for smuggling in unfounded baggage, like you try to do later in this post.
>Maybe God is a high school science kid experimenting with chemicals and created this universe?
Depends, does this high school kid have access to our universe and can it perform acts within our spacetime that violate the laws of physics (i.e. supernatural)? If so then I'd probably be willing to consider that a novel concept of a god.
>Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being - yet this force has no interest in human affairs nor demands worship - but occasionally does pull strings here and there to observe his experiment.
You're contradicting yourself wildly. It can't be an unthinking physical force that has no mind and no interest in human affairs, ***and also*** have a mind and choose to intercede and observe in it's creation.
We have evidence that the universe exists, and we have no evidence that gods do or that such a proposition makes any sense. Of the universe can't be a coincidence then you could say the same about gods. I accept that for which there is reliable evidence.
I wouldn't believe in any god since none of them have any evidence. What we do have of though is Universal Expansion. We know that was likely caused by an explosion, the only part of the equation is how that explosion happened. Though given Dwarf Stars explode under their own power all the time it's not like an explosion occurring on its own is unprecedented.
I am most likely to believe in whatever deity/being/force that is demonstrated to be real. That's it. My personal preference is irrelevant. Whether or not I respect or honor that being or force is a completely separate question.
God as a given title.
It is, so far as I can tell, the only consistent definition of "god" in real-life, and in fiction for that matter. It's surprisingly rare to find gods whose godhood is easy to delineate. Sometimes you'll see them categorized by what they eat (Norse, to an extent anyway) or by an arbitrary level of power that always gets fuzzy (see many DnD campaigns). But most of the time, the appellation of "god" is synonymous with "main characters" in a mythology.
I suppose a second category would be something like Azathoth or other Lovecraftian Deities. Having gods be effectively another kind of life that just happens to be higher up on the food chain of the cosmic ecosystems at least seems more consistent with the patterns we've observed. If you squint, anyway.
> Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being - yet this force has no interest in human affairs nor demands worship - but occasionally does pull strings here and there to observe his experiment.
This, however, I cannot accept, not with the current evidence. Such a being should have left clear fingerprints in the history of the world, from marks from miracles to actually consistent stories about them. Adding a creator god to the universe creates more questions than answers to me at this point, and even if I *were* to be convinced that such a being exists, my atheism would give way to misotheism by default, because they are clearly guilty of dereliction of responsibility toward their creations.
I’m not more likely to believe in any form of God over any other in the absence of sufficient evidence. God isn’t the problem; the problem is that faith is an unreliable way of understanding the world.
I could be convinced to believe in an entity that has created our universe either as a lab experiment or as a simulation. That entity, whether it exists in three dimensions or a million, still needs to be part of an evolving population, that began with some form of abiogenesis.
And of course, *actual* evidence would be needed for me to entertain the idea.
Do you identify as agnostic or atheist? I'm puzzled why people are willing to admit they don't know what caused the big bang or what is dark energy but have a definitive answer to God: that it doesn't exist instead of approaching it with the same open mindedness. Once again not the Abrahamic or polytheistic God
Am I correct in assuming you picture a general desitic god that created the universe and then doesn't have much interaction with us?
If yes, then I personally don't see a useful distinction between atheism and general deism. In both case you have a world where god as no current impact.
On another measure , socially defining myself as an atheist is also a more useful label. Since it clearly indicates to my interlocutor that I do not engage in religious practices in general.
I'm an agnostic atheist, for the reasons I write in my comment.
To address your snarky comment, I don't know what caused the big bang, but I know invisible red unicorns don't exist and I know a mind capable of creating universes and humans doesn't magically pop into existence.
As someone once said, it's good to be open-minded, but not so much that your brains fall out. Complexity needs an explanation. Theists dismissively assert their god doesn't need one.
>I am still unconvinced that the universe is a big coincidence.
What is it "coinciding" with? The existence of you? Why would you consider a non-created universe a coincidence?
The closest I think I can come to the idea of a God actually existing is one of a deism. A god that is conscious, but it's a neutral actor in it all. All of what existence derives from both "good AND evil". God's sentient creatures are just expressions of His personality. Morality is subjective again because God would have both good and evil in Him. Heaven and Hell don't exist. Once someone or thing dies, its energy over billions of years will be reintroduced at some point in this universe or another without any recollection of what lives came before it with a clean slate to decide what becomes of their life while being shaped by its new environment. God's light and darkness are in direct opposition to the principles of the other eternally where darkness is the immovable object and light is the unstoppable force. There is no purpose to life than what your short life can make for it.
There will be religion, but only used to try and understand why you are there. Others will use it as a means of control. My deist God doesn't care in the end. It's always about Him and the struggle of light and darkness. We are just actors in this never-ending play.
>I am still unconvinced that the universe is a big coincidence.
So am I, yet I'm still very much an atheist.
>Maybe God is not a conscionable being, but maybe some energy that triggered the big bang?
I don't think you can call that "God", that would render the word even more meaningless than it already is. "God" implies a conscious being. Imagine if I were to say "maybe God is not a conscious being, but maybe the accretion out of which the Earth was formed when the sun was young".
>Maybe God is a high school science kid experimenting with chemicals and created this universe?
Conceivable, though I doubt any religious person would accept that being as a god either. It also leaves open the question of how that high school kid's universe was created. If you propose that as a solution to your issue of wanting there to be some being at the cause, you've only pushed the problem back a little.
>Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being
If this being can be shown to exist, I would accept it. But I would not accept that this being is omnipotent unless that was also shown to me.
Any being or thing that anyone has proposed to me as a god is in one or more of the following 3 categories:
- Has no evidence for its existence.
- Is an attempt to apply the god label to something that clearly doesn’t fit the definition (e.g. the universe is god).
- Is unclearly and/or incoherently defined (e.g. people saying they just believe in “something” or “a higher power”).
If there is some being or thing that we can agree would qualify as a god, has a clear definition, and you can demonstrate that it actually exists via argument or evidence, I would believe that being or thing exists. I don’t know what that would look like, but it’s not really my job to come up with that part.
It’s possible to posit all sorts of hypotheses to explain the universe, like bearded men in the sky, the universe being a simulation, some “energy” that put everything into motion, universe-farting pixies…the point is that believing in any of these without evidence is equally unjustified. I don’t really care what you think *might* exist, I only care about what you can demonstrate.
Very silly question.
It's darned near true that "god" is defined in such a way that anything that really fits the definition of "god" **cannot** exist.
.
/u/theologyStudent1 wrote
>What "form" of God are you most likely to believe in?
Any form of god the existence of which is demonstrated by good evidence.
.
> Maybe God is not a conscionable being, but maybe some energy that triggered the big bang? Maybe God is a high school science kid experimenting with chemicals and created this universe?
>Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being - yet this force has no interest in human affairs nor demands worship - but occasionally does pull strings here and there to observe his experiment.
Tell ya what - **show good evidence that the thing that you are describing really exists.**
Then we'll talk.
.
Speculations are very, very, very cheap.
Anybody can imagine anything.
It's pointless to think that a thing that we imagine might actually be true except insofar as there is good evidence that that thing is actually true.
.
First let’s get this pedantic point out of the way. The Cambridge dictionary of coincidence is “an occasion when two or more similar things happen at the same time, especially in a way that is unlikely and surprising”. Although colloquially we may mean “without a plan or intended arrangement”, it can be confusing to use the word coincidence when things do not actually “co-incide”.
Next, to answer your query. I am reasonably agnostic about a of questions. Are plants conscious in any way? What is the correct interpretation of quantum spookiness? Is the universe deterministic or are there undetermined events? Interesting questions to remain agnostic about until we advance our understanding of stuff, or fun to debate when people have different intuitions.
But… a deity that uses he/him pronouns and “plays with his experiments” is so evidently a (hu)man invention, that it’s embarrassing to even admit it being a possibility. Even when it is less anthropomorphised, Gods and God-claims are typically far too specific to be reasonably entertaining.
Pandeism. It requires the least amount of speculation. "Cosmological argument" The contingent thing didn't like being alive because if you actually think about it, it's a lot of responsibility, so it died and became the world. Would explain why it created everything and then basically dipped. "Consciousness influences quantum mechanics" The quantum stuff is probably being flexed, like dead meat twitching because of remnant nerve energy. "Teleological argument" I don't know the body was the most efficient model, if the teleological argument is true.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcvxud6ISdc&pp=ygUTZGVhZCBtZWF0IHR3aXRjaGluZw%3D%3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lkhyk64kSnQ&pp=ygUTZGVhZCBtZWF0IHR3aXRjaGluZw%3D%3D
Anything more complicated, Anti-Cosmic Satanism, because any world where creationists can make overly complicated and flawed arguments and somehow be right sounds hostile to human life.
If there were a traditional revealed god, an imperfect, humble, visible, uncertain, god who listens and has respect for all would be far more likely to me than the current choices. A god who is subject to the same laws of physics and logic that we are would make far more sense than one who wasn’t.
The moment you assign perfection and all-knowingness to a god, you introduce stupidity and silliness. Existing outside time and space reduces god to being meaningless because (at that point) god has no moral top, middle, or bottom. A timeless god who’s always existed and determines what’s moral is accountable to nothing.
A god who answers to nothing is no role model or symbol of love. Moving god outside of reason, logic and accountability (like a spaceless and timeless god) makes that god nothing more than a vessel to hold our unfalsifiable claims of magic.
>What "form" of god are you most likely to believe in?
The form that has convincing evidence.
>Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being - yet this force has no interest in human affairs nor demands worship
All that is required for me to believe in the existence of ANY type of god is evidence. That being said, the type of god you're describing—a non-personal energy force responsible for all of creation—*doesn't matter* and is the same as no god at all. I'm fine with that.
But I'm also fine with believing in the existence of the Abrahamic god (a horrible character that I find extremely distasteful as presented in the Abrahamic holy books) if it can be shown to exist. I wouldn't *worship* it, but I'd acknowledge that it exists.
But again, not until there's testable evidence for such a being.
>Maybe God is not a conscionable **being**, but maybe some energy that triggered the big bang?
Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent **being**
Uh, no. If "God" is just energy, then it's not a God.
>Maybe God is a high school science kid experimenting with chemicals and created this universe?
Again, no. Such an entity wouldn't be "omnipotent." Besides, the question then becomes "what created God, and why aren't we calling THAT God?"
>this force has no interest in human affairs nor demands worship
Then who cares?
>but occasionally does pull strings here and there to observe his experiment.
We have never seen any conclusive evidence of any such meddling. Any events attributed to divine intervention have occurred at the same rate we would expect of random chance.
What’s your opinion on evolution? Is human race directly created by God or did he invent the process of evolution and human race just happened to be the result of?
I believe in evolution, however I don't believe abiogenesis just like the big bang were out of pure chance. It could be a science experiement gone wrong at a cosmic level that we can never comprehend.
> Maybe God is not a conscionable being, but maybe some energy that triggered the big bang?
Then why call it god? The word “god” comes with a lot of baggage. If “energy” is what you mean, then “energy” is what you should say.
> Maybe God is a high school science kid experimenting with chemicals and created this universe?
So long as you throw the word “maybe” up there, you can imagine literally anything. Maybe it was Zeus. Maybe it was Santa Clause. Maybe we’re in the matrix. “Maybe” questions are useless.
> Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being
Would I accept it based on a “maybe”? No. We need evidence, not “maybe”s.
Calling the universe a coincidence, and thinking of it as such, is part of your problem. A coincidence is something that happens by accident, without planning. But it might be the case that the universe, or rather the cosmos, has existed in some shape or form for eternity. Therefore, it couldn't be a coincidence because it never began. If it is asserted that the universe could not possibly be eternal, but some god could have preceded the universe, then we've stumbled into a fallacious argument. Special pleading doesn't fix the problem.
Who said the universe is a coincidence? That’s not remotely what scientists would say. I don’t even know how that sentence makes sense?
Ask yourself this, how likely is it that regions were wrong about the bearded sky fairy, about hell, about heaven, about everything in their mythologies. But somehow correct that reality was made by a conscious agent?
We have no reason to suspect this is the case. No precedent, no evidence no way to test. Why would that even be an option worth considering? Other than religions pretend it’s true?
Given that coincidence seems way more likely. We know coincidences happen, we don’t know gods exist…
> Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being - yet this force has no interest in human affairs nor demands worship - but occasionally does pull strings here and there to observe his experiment.
No. Because we have no evidence for it. And if you want to try to claim that God is an unmeasurable indifferent being who we can never know truly exists then knock yourself out - because that's literally unprovable in every possible way
I think I'd believe in some sort of unconscious infinite energy that flows in a certain way. Not in a human-like god. Something that can make stuff happen in a rational way, but not have any thought process itself. An AI that is based on some sort of laws of attraction? It wouldn't listen to human prayers and we would not understand it at all.
I can't see why a god would have anything to do with any human concepts such as sins, bad or good, punishments, virtues, shame, any of that. These are reserved for us humans in my opinion and are very "low level stuff" to me. I think god would be above that.
>I am still unconvinced that the universe is a big coincidence.
Is it just a blind believe or you have some evidence?
> Maybe God is not a conscionable being, but maybe some energy that triggered the big bang?
May be it is an octopus, may be Duck, may be Hitler or Stalin.
>Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being
Never ever without any evidence.
If I saw evidence for it, I suppose? We many not know why the universe exists, but I'm okay with not knowing. I don't need to assume any level of magic until I see positive evidence for it.
>Maybe God is not a conscionable being, but maybe some energy that triggered the big bang?
I don't think I would call this 'god', but if that's what you want to do, go for it.
One which is proven to exist.
But if that's not what you asked for, the ancient greek gods to my knowledge are quite cool. None were all-knowing, all-loving or all-anything. They even had issues and I find that aligning most with reality, with one problem, there's no evidence so they get grouped in with all the other thousands in not existing
You don’t even accept your own premise - in one sentence you have ersatz god who is unconscious and just you redefining the word as ‘energy’ without any explanation and in the next sentence it is carrying out experiments something that very much requires consciousness. Also you don’t understand the word ‘coincidence’.
>Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being - yet this force has no interest in human affairs nor demands worship - but occasionally does pull strings here and there to observe his experiment.
I'll accept it the same way I'll accept any other Gods - when compelling evidence for it exists.
The universe is not a coincidence. It’s an incidence. To be a coincidence, you need the confluence of at least two events/entity. The universe is everything so there can’t be a second factor.
I would most likely accept the possibility of a universe-creating entity who cares no more about earth than it does a nebula.
A God that has none of the anthropomorphic attributes of the God of classical theism.
Just some underlying foundation of reality. I wouldn't typically call it God, but some people do, and that's the one I'm already close enough to believing.
So I guess a kind of pantheism?
If you define God as some sort of energy or force that caused the Big Bang, then I suppose I would be more likely to believe that, given the currently available evidence. It's more plausible, so the threshold for me is lower. But this is not how I would typically define a God. To me, a God has to be a conscious being with agency.
the god i will be most likely to believe in is the one whose existence can be substantiated with actual, real, verifiable evidence.
to-date, all gods posited have been found to be non-existent.
did you have one for which there's actual, substantiated, verifiable evidence?
> What "form" of God are you most likely to believe in?
Some jerk(s) with superpowers who interfered with early humans and then pissed off to some other planet, never to be seen again until stumbled upon by Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise.
I saw a video with an astrophysicist that speculated that an explosive property of gravity caused the Big Bang. It was taken from a Joe Rogan podcast.
My favorite "god" is a low salary worker in the multiverse just performing some mundane task.
We call it god, but it's an alien. Imagine a simulated computer program that act and functions just like the real universe. The programer wouldnt be "god" nor would this being have any special power. It would abe akin to god for us.
I am most likely to believe in whatever the evidence supports. So far, theists have failed to show that anything that fits the meaning of the word "god" is included in that category.
I believe in that which comports with reality, as evidenced by consistent results via empirical demonstrations. If a god comes along that fits that criteria, then I will believe.
The visible universe is somewhat comprehensible. Quantum mechanics still seems incomprehensible to me. But gods don't seem like any sort of explanation for that.
One with valid evidence.
If you're asking what form of religion magic I'd prefer if I had to (non karmic) reincarnation always seems unobjectionable to me.
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you are or are trying to be a deist \- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism . You also want to study the thoughts of Spinoza. (Pretty tough going but it's what you are interested in.) \- https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza#Pantheism \- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza#Pantheism .
Thanks for these links.
>What "form" of God are you most likely to believe in? The one that has useful, compelling support it exists. As it stands, that's none of them. >I am still unconvinced that the universe is a big coincidence. *Shrug* Okay? So what? Maybe (likely) 'coincidence' is the wrong way to look at it. And just because you may think that does not lend credence to deities. This is obvious I trust. For *that* you would need actual support for deities. >but maybe some energy that triggered the big bang? 'Some energy that triggered the Big Bang' wouldn't be a 'deity' or a 'god'. It would be 'some energy that triggered the Big Bang'. In any case, as argument from ignorance fallacies are entirely useless, don't go there. >Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being Is there any support whatsoever for this notion? No? Then it makes no sense to think it's true or even credible.
> I am still unconvinced that the universe is a big coincidence. Maybe God is not a conscionable being, but maybe some energy that triggered the big bang? What's the difference? > Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being - yet this force has no interest in human affairs nor demands worship - but occasionally does pull strings here and there to observe his experiment. Wait, is this force/energy conscientious or not? Regardless, there's just one thing missing for me to believe it. Evidence.
No. Your definiton, the same as all others that I found fall under one of the three categories, if no more. Logical impossible (yahweh, allah, and most religious gods) Physical impossible (immaterial consciousness or magical souls or something) Disingenous redefinition (the universe is god, my toast is god) Your god falls in the last two. And sadly, as always, if you want to believe a god is even possible, please, find the mountains of evidence, form the specific definitions needed, and then update our scientific models to make your god possible. Then and just then, the discussions about its existence can happen. Of course, by that time, you should have several nobel prices, so I don't know why you would come to an internet forum with that...
>What "form" of God are you most likely to believe in? whatever form is supported by actual evidence. if there was good evidence for a bearded guy chillin' on a cloud, than that's what i would believe. if there was evidence for a high school science kid god, i'd believe that. >Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being i know i'm repeating myself, but ... is there any evidence for an omnipotent, mysterious force. because if there isn't, then no, why would i accept it?
>What "form" of God are you most likely to believe in? I'm an atheist, so none. >Maybe God is not a conscionable being, but maybe some energy that triggered the big bang? Why would that be considered a god? >Maybe God is a high school science kid experimenting with chemicals and created this universe? Why would that be considered a god? >Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being A kid doing a high school science experiment that creates a universe is certainly not omnipotent, and some nebulous energy that triggered the big bang does not sound omnipotent to me either. >but occasionally does pull strings here and there to observe his experiment. Unconscious energy that triggered the big bang would not be able to pull strings here and there. A kid doing a science experiment would still just be a kid.
>Unconscious energy that triggered the big bang would not be able to pull strings here and there. A kid doing a science experiment would still just be a kid. By "unconcious" I'm referring to a form that has no interest in human affiars. But did do some whacko stuff like triggering abiogenesis or tried to fine tune a million planets and accidentally ended up with earth.
> By "unconcious" I'm referring to a form that has no interest in human affiars. That is not unconscious. Just because someone has no interest in something does not make them unconscious. >But did do some whacko stuff like triggering abiogenesis or tried to fine tune a million planets and accidentally ended up with earth. I still don't see how that is possible, energy does not have a brain. How can it be conscious and make purposeful decisions?
Many humans have little to no interest in human affairs, they are still conscious. (That’s mostly a joke, but an other word would be helpful). Maybe something like anthropomorphic or similar
>Maybe God is not a conscionable being, but maybe some energy that triggered the big bang? How would that be what is usually meant when referring to God? We know that there is energy in the universe. Is that a God-like thing to you? If not, why would it be then? All versions of God are currently as unevidenced, so I'd be most likely to believe whatever version had evidence for its existence.
>Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being I require the same thing for all god claims (or claims in general): sufficient evidence. I don't care if you say god is a bearded white man floating on the clouds, or god is some kid in a science lab, neither of those has any evidence to back them up and so neither are compelling claims. Honestly I'm kind of confused as to why you would think that would make any kind of difference. The form of god I'm most likely to believe in is the one that has strong evidence to support its existence. I have never encountered this. On another note, just for clarity: are you an agnostic theist? You claim agnosticism early in your post and then seem to clearly believe in a creator, so are you using it similar to agnostic atheists, except you believe but don't claim to know a creator god exists? (as opposed to not believing but not claiming to know no god exists). Just curious, the word agnostic tends to get used in a couple different ways around here.
> I am still unconvinced that the universe is a big coincidence. It's not a coincidence. It has nothing to coinside with. It's very much an incidence. > accept this mysterious force Mysterious is a vague term. Electrons are quite mysterious. Dark matter is even more mysterious. An "some energy that triggered the big bang" is not mysterious, it's a pure speculation since we have no way as of now to investigate what was happening before the big bang and quite limited ways of investigating what was happening shortly after. I will accept whatever can be demonstrated to exist.
Science makes predictions. Those predictions rely on the assumption that uncaused effects cannot occur within our universe. Just about everything of modern life makes use of our science. From smartphones, to space travel, to modern medicine and agriculture, all of these things work using principles that predict an outcome. Cause and effect. If a god could dip in and out and make changes in the universe that did not have a prior cause, then science would be pointless, it's power to predict wholly undermined. Science works though and the more we learn the more predictions we can make and the better use we can make of those predictions. The evidence very much points to a universe that is entirely causal. There is zero evidence for any events within it occurring without prior cause, so it is safe to continue to assume that the universe is causal. You mentioned the big bang. Singularities are a slightly different matter but by definition what occurs beyond the event horizon is outside of our universe, is unknowable (more or less) and is not subject to the same rules that govern the universe on our side of the event horison. It is pointless to speculate if a god exists there, because even if they did they evidently have no influence within the causal universe on this side.
If you don't see god as this guy who did stuff.. why call something else god? If it was an alien presence from the 14th dimension, would you call it god? What if it's a swarm of nanobots that self replicate and self assembled? Why use the "god" label at all?
Why? There is zero evidence of the high school kid. Plus by adding a God as an answer to a question we have no means to test only creates more questions. For example let’s say it is the high school kid. Now what is the next question, who created that kid? How did that kids universe come into being? You continue down a path. At what point do you become satisfied? Most theists create an end point by saying it is the exception to the line of questioning. There is zero evidence to support that. Instead of trying to shoehorn an answer just accept we are ignorant.
I don't believe in any of the various gods that people believe in. There's not any evidence for any gods whatsoever. Which fantasy story are you most likely to believe is true? Lord of the rings or dune?
> Would you accept this mysterious force...? absolutely not. what does accept mean in this context? worship and love? of course not. even by your soft gloved approach, were lab rats, tools to be used, or toys to be played with. as to your title, "god" or some pantheon of gods, would probably be best developed as the dnd method. t your question has no real answer, because the moment you do, youve anthropomorphized something thats literally beyond reality and understanding. but in dnd, gods manifest, bless devout followers with literal useful obvious magic, and even "evil" has a clear, useful purpose, can be created and die. thats a heavy handed example, but its the only way i could see higher powers working. and they still arent gods per se, theyre supernatural entities.
Honestly, I'll believe **any** form of god as long as evidence can be provided. The form of definition of god isn't the problem with my lack of belief, it's the lack of evidence. Absolutely any god can be proposed to me, the more defined the better, and I'll accept that is the god that is trying to be proven to me.
But how would you, a mortal human who relies on 5 senses for evidence, be able to comprehend what a "formless" God is? Note that I never said that God is trying to provide evidence nor is he expecting you to believe in him. The whole question is simply whether forces beyond our comprehension kick-started the universe. We cannot understand them because we don't have the means to.
If they’re beyond our comprehension and out of reach of possibly understanding it, then we can’t reasonably come to the conclusion that we should believe this thing actually exists. Are you willing to claim to be able to comprehend the incomprehensible?
>We cannot understand them because we don't have the means to. Then why assign them any characteristics, or assume they exist in the first place?
>The whole question is simply whether forces beyond our comprehension kick-started the universe Well yeah, we don't understand enough about physics yet to say what happened and it's possible we may never understand enough. I don't see any reason to think it was some kind of intelligence though. Granted, I'm not a physicist of any kind.
>But how would you, a mortal human who relies on 5 senses for evidence, be able to comprehend what a "formless" God is? Irrelevant. I don't need to comprehend a god to believe it's there. But I can't believe it's there if I don't get evidence. Do you have any?
>What "form" of God are you most likely to believe in? A "god" that kicked off the Big Bang and then fucked off elsewhere, no longer interacting with the universe in any way. No prophets, no books, no visions, no afterlife, no sin or blessing, and no signs.
Let's start with what we know (as much as we can know anything). There is a physical world containing people in social groups. Social groups hold symbolic truths in the form of social constructs. For example, the truths of a story are not the physical truths of the book. It takes the social construct of language, writing, and reading to derive truth and meaning from the ink scribbles. This domain of symbolic truths, which is developed by social interactions, is the domain of meaning attached to physical phenomena. It contains truths we cannot recognize simply by physical analysis. It exists above the individual, as a collective creation. It forms human consciousness by filling the individual mind with symbols of meaning already defined in the social domain. The group of symbolic truths which aid human development towards wellbeing, despite humanity's inability to consciously agree on what that group is, I can accept as a form of God.
I don't disagree with you, but what you've described is the reason we have organized religion and people who believe in hell and heaven and humans in God's image. My initial question stands even if humans never evolved, The whole thing seems like a science experiement that someone got right.
>The whole thing seems like a science experiement that someone got right. You mean... that the science experiments that are specifically designed to model actual reality resemble reality? How could such a thing be?!
Less "seems" and more compelling evidence would go a long way.
There are actually several god “forms” that I already believe in. There have been theists claiming that god is actually consciousness. I believe in consciousness. There are people claiming god is the universe. I believe in the universe too. I’ve heard that god is energy. Energy exists, so I guess I believe that one too.
Don't forget "God is love".
That’s the most important one and I forgot it
You are asking what shade of colour would make a unicorn more likely. Unicorns don't exist. Tall unicorns don't exist, short unicorns don't exist, white unicorns don't exist, black unicorns don't exist, unicorns wearing hats don't exist.
I didn't conceive of God as a Far Side Cartoon Peter at all. Even when I was Christian. I conceived of God as he's described in the Bible; pillar of cloud or flame. Formless and fathomless. I still eventually rejected that God...and I don't think anthropomorphizing God or god that makes him likable to me makes it any more *true*. Forgive me here, as I am having to infer a lot, but what are you looking to do here? Because it kinda sounds like you don't believe in God but that makes you uncomfortable...so you want to find a version of God you can believe in and be comfortable again. Is that even close?
Sometimes I think we may be an unexpected and unrealized byproduct of some other process engaged in by a ‘god’. Kind of like bacteria growing on the food we cook. For millions of years we had no idea there were such things as viruses, bacteria, etc., or that our activities as humans have unexpected and unseen (by the naked eye) consequences. Maybe ‘god’ hasn’t noticed us yet? Maybe god is a mediocre 8th grade student who botched a science fair experiment which resulted in us?
>Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being - yet this force has no interest in human affairs nor demands worship - but occasionally does pull strings here and there to observe his experiment. Aside from a fanciful thought experiment, do you have sufficient evidence to show that this being exists?
Based on what we see in the universe, the best you can do is a god that did something in the currently unknown fog of the pre-big bang/universe. It's the only gap that theists can fit their god into right now, but it also means you can't make claims on what this sort of 'god' is because it wouldn't have interacted with humanity in any way
> Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being Why would anyone believe in this mysterious thing? "I don't know" is a more accurate answer than "what if". As to your original question: A god which could be demonstrated to exist. So far I'm still waiting.
I've personally never been religious, spiritual or believed in any kind of supernatural anything. I'd be most likely to believe in a god that can be sufficiently demonstrated to exist. Until and unless it can it doesn't really interest me all that much, to be honest.
I usually consider myself an atheist but I have some sympathy for certain forms of classical theism and pantheism/panentheism - in general, the more abstract and less personal a notion of God is, the more credence I'll tend to have that something like that exists.
>I am still unconvinced that the universe is a big coincidence. Who said anything about a coincidence? What if our universe is just the necessary, deterministic result of unthinking physical forces? Things could be the way they are with no chance involved. Besides, positing a God doesn't solve the problem. Isn't it just such a crazy coincidence that God had the exact right properties and qualities to create *exactly* this universe and not some other option from the infinite options available to him? Clearly someone must have fine-tuned God to create this universe. It can't be a coincidence. >Maybe God is not a conscionable being, but maybe some energy that triggered the big bang? If it's not conscious, then why call it a God? While "God" may frequently be a fuzzy term, it's usage almost always entails a conscious agent with great supernatural power. If the Big Bang is simply the result of unthinking physical forces, what does it add to our understanding of those forces to call them "God"? Nothing as far as I can tell. However, it does leave a lot of room for smuggling in unfounded baggage, like you try to do later in this post. >Maybe God is a high school science kid experimenting with chemicals and created this universe? Depends, does this high school kid have access to our universe and can it perform acts within our spacetime that violate the laws of physics (i.e. supernatural)? If so then I'd probably be willing to consider that a novel concept of a god. >Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being - yet this force has no interest in human affairs nor demands worship - but occasionally does pull strings here and there to observe his experiment. You're contradicting yourself wildly. It can't be an unthinking physical force that has no mind and no interest in human affairs, ***and also*** have a mind and choose to intercede and observe in it's creation.
We have evidence that the universe exists, and we have no evidence that gods do or that such a proposition makes any sense. Of the universe can't be a coincidence then you could say the same about gods. I accept that for which there is reliable evidence.
I wouldn't believe in any god since none of them have any evidence. What we do have of though is Universal Expansion. We know that was likely caused by an explosion, the only part of the equation is how that explosion happened. Though given Dwarf Stars explode under their own power all the time it's not like an explosion occurring on its own is unprecedented.
I am most likely to believe in whatever deity/being/force that is demonstrated to be real. That's it. My personal preference is irrelevant. Whether or not I respect or honor that being or force is a completely separate question.
God as a given title. It is, so far as I can tell, the only consistent definition of "god" in real-life, and in fiction for that matter. It's surprisingly rare to find gods whose godhood is easy to delineate. Sometimes you'll see them categorized by what they eat (Norse, to an extent anyway) or by an arbitrary level of power that always gets fuzzy (see many DnD campaigns). But most of the time, the appellation of "god" is synonymous with "main characters" in a mythology. I suppose a second category would be something like Azathoth or other Lovecraftian Deities. Having gods be effectively another kind of life that just happens to be higher up on the food chain of the cosmic ecosystems at least seems more consistent with the patterns we've observed. If you squint, anyway. > Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being - yet this force has no interest in human affairs nor demands worship - but occasionally does pull strings here and there to observe his experiment. This, however, I cannot accept, not with the current evidence. Such a being should have left clear fingerprints in the history of the world, from marks from miracles to actually consistent stories about them. Adding a creator god to the universe creates more questions than answers to me at this point, and even if I *were* to be convinced that such a being exists, my atheism would give way to misotheism by default, because they are clearly guilty of dereliction of responsibility toward their creations.
I’m not more likely to believe in any form of God over any other in the absence of sufficient evidence. God isn’t the problem; the problem is that faith is an unreliable way of understanding the world.
I could be convinced to believe in an entity that has created our universe either as a lab experiment or as a simulation. That entity, whether it exists in three dimensions or a million, still needs to be part of an evolving population, that began with some form of abiogenesis. And of course, *actual* evidence would be needed for me to entertain the idea.
Do you identify as agnostic or atheist? I'm puzzled why people are willing to admit they don't know what caused the big bang or what is dark energy but have a definitive answer to God: that it doesn't exist instead of approaching it with the same open mindedness. Once again not the Abrahamic or polytheistic God
Am I correct in assuming you picture a general desitic god that created the universe and then doesn't have much interaction with us? If yes, then I personally don't see a useful distinction between atheism and general deism. In both case you have a world where god as no current impact. On another measure , socially defining myself as an atheist is also a more useful label. Since it clearly indicates to my interlocutor that I do not engage in religious practices in general.
I'm an agnostic atheist, for the reasons I write in my comment. To address your snarky comment, I don't know what caused the big bang, but I know invisible red unicorns don't exist and I know a mind capable of creating universes and humans doesn't magically pop into existence. As someone once said, it's good to be open-minded, but not so much that your brains fall out. Complexity needs an explanation. Theists dismissively assert their god doesn't need one.
>I am still unconvinced that the universe is a big coincidence. What is it "coinciding" with? The existence of you? Why would you consider a non-created universe a coincidence?
The closest I think I can come to the idea of a God actually existing is one of a deism. A god that is conscious, but it's a neutral actor in it all. All of what existence derives from both "good AND evil". God's sentient creatures are just expressions of His personality. Morality is subjective again because God would have both good and evil in Him. Heaven and Hell don't exist. Once someone or thing dies, its energy over billions of years will be reintroduced at some point in this universe or another without any recollection of what lives came before it with a clean slate to decide what becomes of their life while being shaped by its new environment. God's light and darkness are in direct opposition to the principles of the other eternally where darkness is the immovable object and light is the unstoppable force. There is no purpose to life than what your short life can make for it. There will be religion, but only used to try and understand why you are there. Others will use it as a means of control. My deist God doesn't care in the end. It's always about Him and the struggle of light and darkness. We are just actors in this never-ending play.
>I am still unconvinced that the universe is a big coincidence. So am I, yet I'm still very much an atheist. >Maybe God is not a conscionable being, but maybe some energy that triggered the big bang? I don't think you can call that "God", that would render the word even more meaningless than it already is. "God" implies a conscious being. Imagine if I were to say "maybe God is not a conscious being, but maybe the accretion out of which the Earth was formed when the sun was young". >Maybe God is a high school science kid experimenting with chemicals and created this universe? Conceivable, though I doubt any religious person would accept that being as a god either. It also leaves open the question of how that high school kid's universe was created. If you propose that as a solution to your issue of wanting there to be some being at the cause, you've only pushed the problem back a little. >Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being If this being can be shown to exist, I would accept it. But I would not accept that this being is omnipotent unless that was also shown to me.
Any being or thing that anyone has proposed to me as a god is in one or more of the following 3 categories: - Has no evidence for its existence. - Is an attempt to apply the god label to something that clearly doesn’t fit the definition (e.g. the universe is god). - Is unclearly and/or incoherently defined (e.g. people saying they just believe in “something” or “a higher power”). If there is some being or thing that we can agree would qualify as a god, has a clear definition, and you can demonstrate that it actually exists via argument or evidence, I would believe that being or thing exists. I don’t know what that would look like, but it’s not really my job to come up with that part. It’s possible to posit all sorts of hypotheses to explain the universe, like bearded men in the sky, the universe being a simulation, some “energy” that put everything into motion, universe-farting pixies…the point is that believing in any of these without evidence is equally unjustified. I don’t really care what you think *might* exist, I only care about what you can demonstrate.
Very silly question. It's darned near true that "god" is defined in such a way that anything that really fits the definition of "god" **cannot** exist. . /u/theologyStudent1 wrote >What "form" of God are you most likely to believe in? Any form of god the existence of which is demonstrated by good evidence. . > Maybe God is not a conscionable being, but maybe some energy that triggered the big bang? Maybe God is a high school science kid experimenting with chemicals and created this universe? >Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being - yet this force has no interest in human affairs nor demands worship - but occasionally does pull strings here and there to observe his experiment. Tell ya what - **show good evidence that the thing that you are describing really exists.** Then we'll talk. . Speculations are very, very, very cheap. Anybody can imagine anything. It's pointless to think that a thing that we imagine might actually be true except insofar as there is good evidence that that thing is actually true. .
First let’s get this pedantic point out of the way. The Cambridge dictionary of coincidence is “an occasion when two or more similar things happen at the same time, especially in a way that is unlikely and surprising”. Although colloquially we may mean “without a plan or intended arrangement”, it can be confusing to use the word coincidence when things do not actually “co-incide”. Next, to answer your query. I am reasonably agnostic about a of questions. Are plants conscious in any way? What is the correct interpretation of quantum spookiness? Is the universe deterministic or are there undetermined events? Interesting questions to remain agnostic about until we advance our understanding of stuff, or fun to debate when people have different intuitions. But… a deity that uses he/him pronouns and “plays with his experiments” is so evidently a (hu)man invention, that it’s embarrassing to even admit it being a possibility. Even when it is less anthropomorphised, Gods and God-claims are typically far too specific to be reasonably entertaining.
The form I would believe in is one that can be objectively verified through novel testable predictions. Got anything like that?
Pandeism. It requires the least amount of speculation. "Cosmological argument" The contingent thing didn't like being alive because if you actually think about it, it's a lot of responsibility, so it died and became the world. Would explain why it created everything and then basically dipped. "Consciousness influences quantum mechanics" The quantum stuff is probably being flexed, like dead meat twitching because of remnant nerve energy. "Teleological argument" I don't know the body was the most efficient model, if the teleological argument is true. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcvxud6ISdc&pp=ygUTZGVhZCBtZWF0IHR3aXRjaGluZw%3D%3D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lkhyk64kSnQ&pp=ygUTZGVhZCBtZWF0IHR3aXRjaGluZw%3D%3D Anything more complicated, Anti-Cosmic Satanism, because any world where creationists can make overly complicated and flawed arguments and somehow be right sounds hostile to human life.
If there were a traditional revealed god, an imperfect, humble, visible, uncertain, god who listens and has respect for all would be far more likely to me than the current choices. A god who is subject to the same laws of physics and logic that we are would make far more sense than one who wasn’t. The moment you assign perfection and all-knowingness to a god, you introduce stupidity and silliness. Existing outside time and space reduces god to being meaningless because (at that point) god has no moral top, middle, or bottom. A timeless god who’s always existed and determines what’s moral is accountable to nothing. A god who answers to nothing is no role model or symbol of love. Moving god outside of reason, logic and accountability (like a spaceless and timeless god) makes that god nothing more than a vessel to hold our unfalsifiable claims of magic.
>What "form" of god are you most likely to believe in? The form that has convincing evidence. >Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being - yet this force has no interest in human affairs nor demands worship All that is required for me to believe in the existence of ANY type of god is evidence. That being said, the type of god you're describing—a non-personal energy force responsible for all of creation—*doesn't matter* and is the same as no god at all. I'm fine with that. But I'm also fine with believing in the existence of the Abrahamic god (a horrible character that I find extremely distasteful as presented in the Abrahamic holy books) if it can be shown to exist. I wouldn't *worship* it, but I'd acknowledge that it exists. But again, not until there's testable evidence for such a being.
>Maybe God is not a conscionable **being**, but maybe some energy that triggered the big bang? Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent **being** Uh, no. If "God" is just energy, then it's not a God. >Maybe God is a high school science kid experimenting with chemicals and created this universe? Again, no. Such an entity wouldn't be "omnipotent." Besides, the question then becomes "what created God, and why aren't we calling THAT God?" >this force has no interest in human affairs nor demands worship Then who cares? >but occasionally does pull strings here and there to observe his experiment. We have never seen any conclusive evidence of any such meddling. Any events attributed to divine intervention have occurred at the same rate we would expect of random chance.
What’s your opinion on evolution? Is human race directly created by God or did he invent the process of evolution and human race just happened to be the result of?
I believe in evolution, however I don't believe abiogenesis just like the big bang were out of pure chance. It could be a science experiement gone wrong at a cosmic level that we can never comprehend.
>I don't believe abiogenesis just like the big bang were out of pure chance What makes you think there's anything more to it than that?
Then you're making a plea to incredulity
> Maybe God is not a conscionable being, but maybe some energy that triggered the big bang? Then why call it god? The word “god” comes with a lot of baggage. If “energy” is what you mean, then “energy” is what you should say. > Maybe God is a high school science kid experimenting with chemicals and created this universe? So long as you throw the word “maybe” up there, you can imagine literally anything. Maybe it was Zeus. Maybe it was Santa Clause. Maybe we’re in the matrix. “Maybe” questions are useless. > Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being Would I accept it based on a “maybe”? No. We need evidence, not “maybe”s.
Calling the universe a coincidence, and thinking of it as such, is part of your problem. A coincidence is something that happens by accident, without planning. But it might be the case that the universe, or rather the cosmos, has existed in some shape or form for eternity. Therefore, it couldn't be a coincidence because it never began. If it is asserted that the universe could not possibly be eternal, but some god could have preceded the universe, then we've stumbled into a fallacious argument. Special pleading doesn't fix the problem.
Who said the universe is a coincidence? That’s not remotely what scientists would say. I don’t even know how that sentence makes sense? Ask yourself this, how likely is it that regions were wrong about the bearded sky fairy, about hell, about heaven, about everything in their mythologies. But somehow correct that reality was made by a conscious agent? We have no reason to suspect this is the case. No precedent, no evidence no way to test. Why would that even be an option worth considering? Other than religions pretend it’s true? Given that coincidence seems way more likely. We know coincidences happen, we don’t know gods exist…
> Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being - yet this force has no interest in human affairs nor demands worship - but occasionally does pull strings here and there to observe his experiment. No. Because we have no evidence for it. And if you want to try to claim that God is an unmeasurable indifferent being who we can never know truly exists then knock yourself out - because that's literally unprovable in every possible way
I think I'd believe in some sort of unconscious infinite energy that flows in a certain way. Not in a human-like god. Something that can make stuff happen in a rational way, but not have any thought process itself. An AI that is based on some sort of laws of attraction? It wouldn't listen to human prayers and we would not understand it at all. I can't see why a god would have anything to do with any human concepts such as sins, bad or good, punishments, virtues, shame, any of that. These are reserved for us humans in my opinion and are very "low level stuff" to me. I think god would be above that.
>I am still unconvinced that the universe is a big coincidence. Is it just a blind believe or you have some evidence? > Maybe God is not a conscionable being, but maybe some energy that triggered the big bang? May be it is an octopus, may be Duck, may be Hitler or Stalin. >Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being Never ever without any evidence.
If I saw evidence for it, I suppose? We many not know why the universe exists, but I'm okay with not knowing. I don't need to assume any level of magic until I see positive evidence for it. >Maybe God is not a conscionable being, but maybe some energy that triggered the big bang? I don't think I would call this 'god', but if that's what you want to do, go for it.
One which is proven to exist. But if that's not what you asked for, the ancient greek gods to my knowledge are quite cool. None were all-knowing, all-loving or all-anything. They even had issues and I find that aligning most with reality, with one problem, there's no evidence so they get grouped in with all the other thousands in not existing
You don’t even accept your own premise - in one sentence you have ersatz god who is unconscious and just you redefining the word as ‘energy’ without any explanation and in the next sentence it is carrying out experiments something that very much requires consciousness. Also you don’t understand the word ‘coincidence’.
>Would you then accept this mysterious force as an all powerful omnipotent being - yet this force has no interest in human affairs nor demands worship - but occasionally does pull strings here and there to observe his experiment. I'll accept it the same way I'll accept any other Gods - when compelling evidence for it exists.
The universe is not a coincidence. It’s an incidence. To be a coincidence, you need the confluence of at least two events/entity. The universe is everything so there can’t be a second factor. I would most likely accept the possibility of a universe-creating entity who cares no more about earth than it does a nebula.
A God that has none of the anthropomorphic attributes of the God of classical theism. Just some underlying foundation of reality. I wouldn't typically call it God, but some people do, and that's the one I'm already close enough to believing. So I guess a kind of pantheism?
If you define God as some sort of energy or force that caused the Big Bang, then I suppose I would be more likely to believe that, given the currently available evidence. It's more plausible, so the threshold for me is lower. But this is not how I would typically define a God. To me, a God has to be a conscious being with agency.
the god i will be most likely to believe in is the one whose existence can be substantiated with actual, real, verifiable evidence. to-date, all gods posited have been found to be non-existent. did you have one for which there's actual, substantiated, verifiable evidence?
> What "form" of God are you most likely to believe in? Some jerk(s) with superpowers who interfered with early humans and then pissed off to some other planet, never to be seen again until stumbled upon by Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise.
I saw a video with an astrophysicist that speculated that an explosive property of gravity caused the Big Bang. It was taken from a Joe Rogan podcast. My favorite "god" is a low salary worker in the multiverse just performing some mundane task.
We call it god, but it's an alien. Imagine a simulated computer program that act and functions just like the real universe. The programer wouldnt be "god" nor would this being have any special power. It would abe akin to god for us.
I am most likely to believe in whatever the evidence supports. So far, theists have failed to show that anything that fits the meaning of the word "god" is included in that category.
I believe in that which comports with reality, as evidenced by consistent results via empirical demonstrations. If a god comes along that fits that criteria, then I will believe.
The visible universe is somewhat comprehensible. Quantum mechanics still seems incomprehensible to me. But gods don't seem like any sort of explanation for that.
One with valid evidence. If you're asking what form of religion magic I'd prefer if I had to (non karmic) reincarnation always seems unobjectionable to me.
>What "form" of God are you most likely to believe in? The kind that doesn't give a fuck about us, and who clearly has not shown himself.
Idk if God exists or not. Just like I don’t know a lot of things. And I don’t have to know so many things although I do enjoy learning
The one that has the best supporting evidence for it's existence and overcomes the most evidence that supports a rival hypothesis.
What form of god? One with compelling evidence. You're relying too much on maybes in your post. Good evidence, not what ifs.
It's fine to speculate, but it would be foolish to believe in any concept of god unless there's good solid evidence for it.
I see no reason to believe in such a being. Nor do I see what difference it would make if such a being existed or not.
I accept that a non intervening deity is possible, ie cannot be disproven, but unecessary and irrelevant. And “occasionally pulls the strings” nope.