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Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on June 25, 2009 at 9:14pm

Honestly, "God of the Gaps" is the head game I'd play with myself as a child (without knowing it was an actual philosophy with an actual name that anyone else but me had thought of). The game would go like:

- Once, we thought rainbows were a big mystery.
- So, we figured God created rainbows.
- Now we know what really causes rainbows.

- Once, we didn't know what caused a fetus to develop into a boy instead of a girl.
- So, some cultures came up with rituals or silly hypotheses to say, "If you drink this potion, it will be a boy, or it will be a girl."
- Now we understand the genetics involved in what causes a fetus to develop as one gender or the other.

- We don't understand the origin/mechanics of X.
- Therefore, we say God did it or assume that because we drank this potion or did this dance we somehow affected the outcome of X.
- Unless I am prepared to say we currently know all that is knowable, which I very much am not, then it is reasonable to think X will someday have a mundane, scientific explanation.

Anyway, that's how my 6-year-old brain occupied itself in Sunday School.

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Permalink Reply by Jared Lardo on June 26, 2009 at 5:59pm

It's hard to argue against, but arguing at all is optional. It's a stupid argument, and every time I come across it I say "That's a stupid argument." and I go back to whatever I was doing before.

The only winning move is to not play.

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Permalink Reply by Anette on July 1, 2009 at 10:20am

I cannot agree with this.

While you don't play, others do...and they influence those that want to play, but don't have the capacity to play with bullies.

If you can play, then do. Don't leave it up to some-one else. Alway's act, and know how to act.

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Permalink Reply by Howard S. Dunn on July 1, 2009 at 4:11pm

A Matrioshka is one of those dolls that you find in RUssia (though it is possible the originated in Japan) You know the ones - a smaller doll is nested inside and a smaller one in that,etc.

Sure, atheists can's answer the question - where did the ordering principles come from? Math, the forces, the laws of motion, thermodynamics, fluid dynamics ... dimensions. But most of don't claim to know while most theists are 'certain' that their version of god is the source.

So, ask them where their god came from. Whatever answer they give - even the eternal god answer - destroys the logic that something complex and ordered had to come from somewhere. That's that with that.

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Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on July 2, 2009 at 11:50am

But most of don't claim to know while most theists are 'certain' that their version of god is the source.

Exactly. If we accept a given that something had to already/always exist, that something need not be a god.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Howard on July 4, 2009 at 7:53pm

The entire question is and always has been a mute point as far as creationists are concerned. Science could, without question find the answer to the origin of the universe tomorrow, have it peer reviewed, studied and picked apart, found to be conclusive and someone win a Nobel Prize for the research. Creationists would still disbelieve the proof, call it the work of the devil and call for a ban on its teaching. They just find more gaps.

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Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on July 5, 2009 at 12:49pm

"Science could, without question find the answer to the origin of the universe tomorrow ... Creationists would still disbelieve the proof, call it the work of the devil"

Too true. Like Holocaust deniers, there will always be nutcases who, despite all rational evidence to the contrary, will believe what they want to believe.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Howard on July 5, 2009 at 3:03pm

"Mute(SP) point"....sometimes even the bright end up looking dim....geez MH!

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Permalink Reply by mthoreau on July 5, 2009 at 6:05pm

Don't worry about it, I do that kind of thing all the time. Life's too short for spellcheck!

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Permalink Reply by Rev Hellbound Alleee on July 6, 2009 at 10:04pm

And if there were an impersonal prime mover, how would it change our lives?

And what if instead of "something that always existed" you change that to "The Universe?" Then you wouldn't have to fret at all.

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