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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Created Yesterday (actually, nature of God (again))
Message-ID: <118@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 10-Jun-85 22:22:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.118
Posted: Mon Jun 10 22:22:38 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Jun-85 01:21:50 EDT
References: <45200012@hpfcms.UUCP> <1310012@acf4.UUCP>
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 53

In article <1310012@acf4.UUCP> mms1646@acf4.UUCP (Michael M. Sykora) writes:

>>>Some people really like to solve puzzles, so they put a lot of effort into
>>>trying to figure out how the whole world as we observe it might have arisen
>>>from structurally simple origins tranformed by uniform rules.
>>>Other people don't, so they say "God did it".  This reduces insomnia.

This is a silly argument, but someone had to fulfill the Barnum prophecy...

>>There you go again, Jim!  The value, truthfulness, validity, and strength
>>of an argument is directly proportional to the amount of effort required
>>to formulate it.  Talk about arrogance!!!  This is the whole problem
>>between God and man - pride.  "God" is a "boring" model - too simple, too
>>many questions answered (some by "We'll never know in this life.").

There might actually be some truth in this, but its chief "merit" was to
draw the following response.

>The god model is not a simple solution, or a solution at all, because
>it leaves unanswered at least as many questions as it answers.  That
>god created the world begs the question "Who created god?"  I could
>come up with atheory that said tha god1 created th world and that god2
>created god1.  Furthermore, I could say that there is an infinite series
>of gods, god1, god2, . . ., godn, . . ., etc.  This "theory" has as much
>merit as the monotheistic one, yet I suspect that you find it less
>appealing (correct me, of course, if I'm wrong).  Why?

It's a red herring, Mike, because one can simply "sum" all these together,
and get One God, instead of an infinite series of angels.  Moreover, the
same argument works on natural law;  it too can exist in infinite series.
The fact that we would rather consider the whole series all at once can be
considered sufficient reason to do the same with the infinite series of
so-called Gods.  I say so-called, because, by any standard other than
creation, they don't fit into any but a strangely contrived definition of
the divine.


Not content with that, the two contenders felt the need for the following
exchange:

>> Perhaps God doesn't put much stock into these "deep" and "demanding"
>> theories, either.
>No.  God uses a ouija board.
>> Perhaps He is intellectually stagnant too.
>He is.

Mike, I suggest that your employment of an obsolete and threadbare argument
against a god indicates that, among the housewares of philosophy, you make a
nice pot next to Bill Gate's kettle.

Charley Wingate   umcp-cs!mangoe

   "a veritable sage among limpets..."   C. S. Lewis