Design a God Experiment

[Unveiled Artist]

The OT posits an even more personified god than the new. It clearly depicts him as a powerful, judgemental person.

You're switching points in the middle of a conversation. It makes it seem like I'm purposely gearing the topic away from the OP when that was it naturally shifted during the conversation. Taking my points and rephrasing them to associate with the OP does not change what we are originally talking about now.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Gods are scary and powerful, and aren't necessarily particularly interested in human affairs, but they can harm you if you annoy them, so it's best not to; and to flatter them.
Big Gods Came After the Rise of Civilizations, Not Before, Finds Study Using Huge Historical Database - The Conversation - Pocket

I never knew god at all (no concept of him) to even have any realistic interpretation of god actually harming a person. That's like saying some entity in the middle of know where reached out and harmed people back then and still does it today. I know some people have actually seen ghosts. Mother has before. But to associate them with actually harming human beings????

I just observe and interpret what I experienced and know from other christians and their bible. Like people back when, it's hard to know what the purpose of life is (for them). Some say "but we must have came here by creator" etc so they fill in that "must" with god (god of the gaps). In order to make sense of this god or mystery personified, they build a culture and tradition around it. They have a personal relationship with it through idols and ideas that are incarnations of people, thoughts, feelings, hope, and dreams.

and.

When they're upset, have guilt, it becomes feelings of god harming them, teaching them, warning them, etc. I hear every so often when someone happens to get into a bad consequential situation, they say "god must be telling me something." Nothing in their experiences have proposed such a god but what they already know and describe of him already.

The article is interesting but doesn't quite capture what many christians feel when they believe in god. Look past the clouds, metaphors, and scary people. It goes beyond that.

 

[Left Coast]

You continue to equivocate terms. 'God' with a capital 'G' is a proper name for a distinct, individual concept. What you're doing is equating the name 'God' with the term 'god'. God is a god, but there are many other things that are also gods.

The discussion here was about God, capital G. See Unveiled Artist's original post. She literally quoted the Bible. Your accusation of equivocation seems like a pretty clear projection.

Again, this is semantics, and you may think it's an arbitrary distinction, but it's not. You are using a proper noun and a common noun interchangeably; that's clearly not going to lead to a coherent discussion.

I don't understand why you think this is an issue, and I can only assume that you must not know what the term "worship" actually means, so here:

wor•ship wûr′shĭp
►

• n.
  The reverent love and devotion accorded a deity, an idol, or a sacred object

The issue is that I don't know what "worship" of a non-person looks like. I highly value honesty, for example. In what sense do I "worship" it?

Again, this all seems like a way to preserve and legitimize religious language and ideas while completely altering what those words and ideas have traditionally meant, and what most people today actually mean by them.

 

[izzy88]

The discussion here was about God, capital G. See Unveiled Artist's original post.

This is the topic I was responding to:

Replace "love, fullness, and joy" with literally any other word and the logic remains valid.

God is ice cream.
Ice cream exists.
Therefore God exists.

God is my pen.
My pen exists.
Therefore God exists.

So why have the word "God" at all? God is just a proxy here in all these syllogisms. What does calling any of these things "God" contribute to our understanding of them in any verifiable way?

Yes, and love and joy actually exist too. So why call them God

You demonstrated a lack of understanding about what the term 'god' means, and I was trying to help clarify.

When someone says that their god is love, it means that love is their highest ideal, it's what they worship, what they reverence.

The issue is that I don't know what "worship" of a non-person looks like. I highly value honesty, for example. In what sense do I "worship" it?

Again, this simply shows that you evidently don't understand what the term "worship" means.

Worship is reverence and devotion to something we hold as sacred.

Reverence is defined as "honor or respect felt or shown."

Devotion is defined as "ardent, often selfless affection and dedication, as to a person or principle."

If you still aren't grasping the concept, just continue looking up definitions of the various terms involved (honor, respect, dedication, etc.) until you get a handle on it.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

In response to this comment.

Theology is Falsifiable, thus, - Scientific.

So this handy 5th grade or so tutorial tells you how science experiments work.

https://explorable.com/conduct-science-experiments

1. You need to do testing (preferably repeated, by several other scientists after yourself)
2. You need to use the scientific method.
3. You need a hypothesis, either that God exists/does not exist/cannot be proved either way.
4. You need to set up an experiment which will entail trying to "observe" something that is not readily observed.
5. You need a control and something different from the control to be experimented on.
6. Then you need to get results and form a conclusion.

So how would you go about this? What would your experiment be like, what would your controls be, etc?

I'm asking, because while I can generally prove to myself to sufficient degree, I'm not actually sure the falsifiability thing the poster in the other thread is as easy as they think. Would this be a biological experiment? A psychological one? A psychics or astronomy experiment? Or something else?

Or like me, would you conclude that you can't even think of any experiment?

The model needs to be testable.

Untestable models are not scientific and can't be verified. They are completely useless, merritless and infinite in number.

God is an untestable model. And thus useless.

The only rational thing to do is to reject it. Just like you reject all other unfalsifiable and untestable models at face value.

it's okay to reject it at face value.

Because what is asserted without evidence, may be dismissed without evidence.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

and you don't trust your thoughts?

Mere thoughts don't lead to accurate answers.

thought experiments lead to great things

Albert E. had nothing but his mind to work with

well....a chalkboard

That is just false. Einstein had plenty of data to work with and a problem to solve. Newtonian physics wasn't enough to properly explain all observations.

Einstein didn't dream up his theories out of thin air.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I propose.....and have often done so here at the forum....

the ROTATION is the proof

if the primordial singularity had simply expanded
ALL we would see is ONE percussion wave
a hollow sphere of energy moving in equal proportions all at once

that is not what we see when we look up

so......the ROTATION would NEED to be in play......BEFORE the expansion begins

THAT would be the pinch and snap......of God's Fingers

No, clearly the rotation is the result of the angle in which the Great Universe Crapping Unicorn was farting.

See? That's how easy it is to just assert things.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Einstein is famous for his thought experiments. The principles of relativity began entirely in his head. The mathematics and, later, the validating experiments, occurred later.

But it's very wrong to pretend as if these thought experiments occured in a knowledge vaccuum and that he dreamed them up out of thin air for no apparant reason.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

What it means it that I have a series of anecdotal events that are too bizarre to be explained rationally

So you'll just explain them away irrationally instead?


How about this : "i don't know / understand"? Instead of making stuff up which, as per your own acknowledgement, is irrational?

 

[Unveiled Artist]

God is seen as a personage. The Bible, when it's not waxing poetic, speaks of god as an actual, conscious entity, and this is how your average Joe thinks of him.

I used the word personification. You can use athromopolizing to. When you take out the poetic language, metaphors, god doing this and saying that, it all goes back to what christians feel, believe, have faith in, and interpret. It's an I-faith. Without christ, they don't know what god is because it's bigger than their comprehension. I've never heard any christian believe god as an actual semi-invisible ghost. There's no physical attribute to the creator. It's just expressed by what they say it does.

Expressing god as a person is part of the poetry. When you take the "waxing" poetry out and just focus on what christians say and feel, it's very I-focused. "I was born again. God talked to me. God gave me life. I am moved by the power of god."

If christians actually knew god/creator, they would not be able to express it in human terms. They do. So, it's not supernatural entity but a reflection of ourselves, our hopes, love, and mystery of life already within us; our spirit.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

The OT posits an even more personified god than the new. It clearly depicts him as a powerful, judgemental person.

I'm reading through the thread. The OT does posit god as a personified person. When it's not personified, it just describes people's experiences with their object of devotion (what or who they worship). They can't explain it alone. They need a label and they call it god.

An example of a feel/god experience

For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!" The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God. -Romans 8:15-16

Christians don't believe a ghost/casper came and scared them (at least I hope not). It's more personification and action as a response to one's guilt, doubt, or gratitude, and love, so have you.

Is it possible to drop theist language and see it from a mundane earthly perspective?

It's hard to explain the "scientific" nature of god if we have to depend on the language that in itself is not quite scientific.

 

[Milton Platt]

In response to this comment.

Theology is Falsifiable, thus, - Scientific.

So this handy 5th grade or so tutorial tells you how science experiments work.

https://explorable.com/conduct-science-experiments

1. You need to do testing (preferably repeated, by several other scientists after yourself)
2. You need to use the scientific method.
3. You need a hypothesis, either that God exists/does not exist/cannot be proved either way.
4. You need to set up an experiment which will entail trying to "observe" something that is not readily observed.
5. You need a control and something different from the control to be experimented on.
6. Then you need to get results and form a conclusion.

So how would you go about this? What would your experiment be like, what would your controls be, etc?

I'm asking, because while I can generally prove to myself to sufficient degree, I'm not actually sure the falsifiability thing the poster in the other thread is as easy as they think. Would this be a biological experiment? A psychological one? A psychics or astronomy experiment? Or something else?

Or like me, would you conclude that you can't even think of any experiment?

I see no way to test for a god, unless it is part of the natural world (as opposed to supernatural). How do you test for the supernatural, period?
It would be possible to test for some of the things a god is given credit for, such as whether prayer is answered in any other rate that random chance. This has been done and shown not to work.

 

[Left Coast]

This is the topic I was responding to:

Take a look at the post I was quoting there. It should help illuminate your misunderstanding. The Christian God was the one in question.

Again, this simply shows that you evidently don't understand what the term "worship" means.

Worship is reverence and devotion to something we hold as sacred.

Someone.

Reverence is defined as "honor or respect felt or shown."

Devotion is defined as "ardent, often selfless affection and dedication, as to a person or principle."

If you still aren't grasping the concept, just continue looking up definitions of the various terms involved (honor, respect, dedication, etc.) until you get a handle on it.

I've looked up the terms. I offered an example myself, but I didnt see you address it.

And frankly, all of this is irrelevant to whether the thing that the vast majority of theists call "God" actually exists. Which is what I care about. If you want to relabel my coffee cup my "God" because I love coffee, knock yourself out. But it only confuses the more fundamental, substantive question.

 

[Thief]

Mere thoughts don't lead to accurate answers.



That is just false. Einstein had plenty of data to work with and a problem to solve. Newtonian physics wasn't enough to properly explain all observations.

Einstein didn't dream up his theories out of thin air.

you didn't see the documentary.....did you

 

[izzy88]

Take a look at the post I was quoting there. It should help illuminate your misunderstanding. The Christian God was the one in question.

Someone.



I've looked up the terms. I offered an example myself, but I didnt see you address it.

And frankly, all of this is irrelevant to whether the thing that the vast majority of theists call "God" actually exists. Which is what I care about. If you want to relabel my coffee cup my "God" because I love coffee, knock yourself out. But it only confuses the more fundamental, substantive question.

I genuinely can't tell whether you're being deliberately obtuse or you're legitimately struggling this much with what I'm saying, but either way you've been acting like an *** the entire time so I think I'm done with this conversation.

Maybe work on not being so condescending and combative when another human being is simply trying to engage with you in good faith.

 

[Left Coast]

I genuinely can't tell whether you're being deliberately obtuse or you're legitimately struggling this much with what I'm saying, but either way you've been acting like an *** the entire time so I think I'm done with this conversation.

Maybe work on not being so condescending and combative when another human being is simply trying to engage with you in good faith.

I apologize if I came across as an *** to you. That wasn't my intention. This is not my first argument about God, and I grow very tired of arguments about semantics instead of substance. I'm happy to concede your point that people use "god" in metaphoric or poetic ways. But I'm vastly more interested in the God theists think exists outside their heads. And I think most theists are, too.

Fair?

 

[dad]

In response to this comment.

Theology is Falsifiable, thus, - Scientific.

So this handy 5th grade or so tutorial tells you how science experiments work.

https://explorable.com/conduct-science-experiments

1. You need to do testing (preferably repeated, by several other scientists after yourself)

If the other scientists were willing to lean not to their own understanding, but in all their ways acknowledge God, they too could partake of tests that show God is real. Tests in the bible include repenting. Being sincere and asking God.

2. You need to use the scientific method.

Since God is a spirit the physical science methods won't work.

3. You need a hypothesis, either that God exists/does not exist/cannot be proved either way.

He does and He does make Himself known to those that ask. Those who insist He does not exist exclude themselves from the process.

4. You need to set up an experiment which will entail trying to "observe" something that is not readily observed.

Fulfilled prophesy is already observed.

5. You need a control and something different from the control to be experimented on.

Well God is different from any little control man cooks up. Man is not in control of God though, so man must realize God is in control.

6. Then you need to get results and form a conclusion.

Results are promised in the bible. If any man do His words, then he will KNOW.

 

[Valjean]

You're switching points in the middle of a conversation. It makes it seem like I'm purposely gearing the topic away from the OP when that was it naturally shifted during the conversation. Taking my points and rephrasing them to associate with the OP does not change what we are originally talking about now.

OT, not OP. I was referring to the Old Testament, the Torah.
You were commenting on whether the Jews saw God as an abstraction or an actual entity. I referenced the Jewish holy book, with its stories of a personified, non-omniscient God wandering in the garden, betting about Job and writing the commandments with his finger.

 

[Valjean]

I never knew god at all (no concept of him) to even have any realistic interpretation of god actually harming a person. That's like saying some entity in the middle of know where reached out and harmed people back then and still does it today. I know some people have actually seen ghosts. Mother has before. But to associate them with actually harming human beings????

I just observe and interpret what I experienced and know from other christians and their bible. Like people back when, it's hard to know what the purpose of life is (for them). Some say "but we must have came here by creator" etc so they fill in that "must" with god (god of the gaps). In order to make sense of this god or mystery personified, they build a culture and tradition around it. They have a personal relationship with it through idols and ideas that are incarnations of people, thoughts, feelings, hope, and dreams.

and.

When they're upset, have guilt, it becomes feelings of god harming them, teaching them, warning them, etc. I hear every so often when someone happens to get into a bad consequential situation, they say "god must be telling me something." Nothing in their experiences have proposed such a god but what they already know and describe of him already.

The article is interesting but doesn't quite capture what many christians feel when they believe in god. Look past the clouds, metaphors, and scary people. It goes beyond that.

I'm just saying that the modern, Abrahamic concept of God as a lawgiver and judge; a God concerned with individual humans' proper behavior, is a new and very unusual concept.

For many of the ancients, gods lived their own lives and had their own concerns, independent of humans. As long as we kept out of their way and didn't annoy them we were OK, but the consequences of annoying them could be grave, since they were powerful and magical.

 

[Valjean]

Mere thoughts don't lead to accurate answers.
That is just false. Einstein had plenty of data to work with and a problem to solve. Newtonian physics wasn't enough to properly explain all observations.

Einstein didn't dream up his theories out of thin air.

Einstein's daydreams and thought experiments are famous: riding on a beam of light, riding a train and lightning strikes -- these daydreams inspired his theories of relativity.
Einstein’s Relativity Explained in 4 Simple Steps
Newton? How about newton's cannonball, which inspired his theories of gravity and planetary motion?
Newton's cannonball - Wikipedia

The actual mathematics and experimentation came later. The inspiration to inquire was a product of daydreams and imagination.