I am confused. I see smoke, but where is the fire? On 18 Apr 2005,
Nick Arnett said
I have to have gasoline for my car to go, but that doesn't mean
the gasoline is in charge. Not a great metaphor, as gasoline is
unintelligent ...
which tells us, correctly, that petrol is necessary for most cars to
go, but is not sufficient, since you have to start them, too.
That fits with Nick's statement that
I didn't say that God was in charge of all things, only involved.
However, on 16 Apr 2005, Nick also said
Without God's constant, total involvement, all of creation would
come to a halt and we would cease to exist.
which does make Warren Ockrassa sound right when he said on 18 Apr 2005,
I thought you wrote that the universe would grind to a halt without a
deity.
Put another way, it looks like a deity is a necessary condition.
Given that understanding it makes sense for Warren to remember
European history and say,
That reminds me of a god that is (for instance) constantly
supplying propulsive force to keep the planets in motion.
just as gasoline is necessary to supply the energy used by a car in
motion.
A related issue: what, if anything, prevents this understanding of a
deity from being different than Tipler's suggestion that we are,
probabilistically speaking, a simulation running in an antiquarian
AI's supercomputer?
After all, that entity's supercomputer is also necessary, else `all of
creation would come to a halt and we would cease to exist.' Moreover,
the antiquarian may, or may not, respond to prayers and/or works by
his simulations. And his purposes may be hard for a simulation to
figure out.
--
Robert J. Chassell
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http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc
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