Brent Meeker writes:
> > It's also possible that God intervenes all the time in a perfectly > > consistent > > manner to sustain natural laws, such that if he stopped doing so the whole > > universe would instantly disintegrate. > > That's possible, but then he's a deist God. He doesn't do miracles in > response to prayer. It seems to me there's a contradiction between > "intervenes" and "prefectly consistent". There's no more reason to believe > that the universe needs "sustaining" than to believe there's a teapot > orbiting Jupiter. A deist God does not intervene once the universe is set in motion. But one can imagine for example a gravity god, who pushes matter around in a perfectly consistent way so as to give the impression of natural laws. If he stopped doing his thing, stars would explode and the universe would fall apart. It's only because the gravity god is very conscientious in his work that we don't notice he is constantly performing miracles. Of course, there is no more reason to believe in the gravity god than there is to believe in any other kind of god, but at the same time it is not possible to be rigidly atheistic about the gravity god just as it is not possible to be rigidly atheistic about Zeus or Thor. > >This would make it seem as if God either > > does not exist or, if he does, he is a deist, whereas in fact he is a > > theist. The > > problem with this idea, and for that matter with deism, is that it is empty > > of > > explanatory value. Ironically perhaps, it is God-as-miracle-worker which > > comes > > closest to a legitimate scientific theory, albeit one without any > > supporting evidence > > in its favour. > > If it's lawlike it ain't a miracle. Deism was a common position that come > out of the Enlightenment. It comported perfectly with a Newtonian, clockwork > universe. It avoided the problem of evil. Franklin, Paine, and Jefferson > were deists. But it fits well with scientific models because it does nothing. Good old-fashioned miracles are not lawlike, which is what makes them subject to empirical verification. If God is a Protestant, then an examination of a list of lottery ticket winners or people with serious illnesses should show that Protestants are statistically more likely to have their prayers answered than Catholics, Muslims or atheists (who wish for things, even if they don't actually pray). If not, then either God is not a Protestant or there is no point in praying for anything even if you and he are both Protestants. And yet I doubt that there are any Protestants, Catholics or Muslims who be at all perturbed by the findings of such a study, or countless other possible studies or experiments. This cannot be explained away by "faith" in the sense that one can have faith in the gravity god or a deist god (because no empirical finding counts for or against such beliefs): rather, it comes down to a matter of simultaneously believing x and not-x. Stathis Papaioannou _________________________________________________________________ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
