Okay...let's see...where was I...

while we don't really crave evidence proving unicorns, etc., that isn't logic; it's negligence. we should question the existence of everything, but, since few people can live that way, we instead confine our questions for "The Big One". If you are going to dismiss anything as nonexistent, especially something with as much potential relevance as "God", then you need to have proof. And, if you are going to commit this dismissal during a debate, then you need to explain why.

this shift arose with domestication of wheat, cattle and goats.

circa 10,000 years ago -- the beginnings of farming
circa 6,000 years ago -- settlements in near mid-East perhaps as large as 5,000 in population

circa 3,000 to 1,000 years ago -- monotheism gains ascendance over polytheism in Judaic tradition

So, one needs to consider how a hierarchical religious notion might operate in conjunction with (or as a facilitating mechanism for) the political organization necessary in large, permanent human communities.

We do accept that unicorns, manticores, griffins and the like are false without any real evidence, yet we haggle endlessly over "God's" existence. The reason for this, in my opinion, is the influence these doubted beings have over us. If there was, in fact, a unicorn in existence...it would not affect me very much. If there were a God, however, that would illuminate parts of our (humanity's) past we had no way of ever discovering, reveal truths of our present that we have no knowledge of, and possibly even show us the future.

: About 7 pages ago , you made the argument that "the burden of proof" was not on you, since nobody is expected to disprove Urban Legends and the like.

It is intriguing to wonder what it might feel like, from the inside, if one's mind were the victim of a ``virus.'' This might be a deliberately designed parasite, like a present-day computer virus. Or it might be an inadvertently mutated and unconsciously evolved parasite. Either way, especially if the evolved parasite was the memic descendant of a long line of successful ancestors, we are entitled to expect the typical ``mind virus'' to be pretty good at its job of getting itself successfully replicated.

[...]

Like computer viruses, successful mind viruses will tend to be hard for their victims to detect. If you are the victim of one, the chances are that you won't know it, and may even vigorously deny it. Accepting that a virus might be difficult to detect in your own mind, what tell-tale signs might you look out for? I shall answer by imaging how a medical textbook might describe the typical symptoms of a sufferer (arbitrarily assumed to be male).

1. The patient typically finds himself impelled by some deep, inner conviction that something is true, or right, or virtuous: a conviction that doesn't seem to owe anything to evidence or reason, but which, nevertheless, he feels as totally compelling and convincing. We doctors refer to such a belief as ``faith.''

2. Patients typically make a positive virtue of faith's being strong and unshakable, in spite of not being based upon evidence. Indeed, they may feel that the less evidence there is, the more virtuous the belief (see below).

This paradoxical idea that lack of evidence is a positive virtue where faith is concerned has something of the quality of a program that is self-sustaining, because it is self-referential (see the chapter ``On Viral Sentences and Self-Replicating Structures'' in Hofstadter, 1985). Once the proposition is believed, it automatically undermines opposition to itself. The ``lack of evidence is a virtue'' idea could be an admirable sidekick, ganging up with faith itself in a clique of mutually supportive viral programs.

3. A related symptom, which a faith-sufferer may also present, is the conviction that ``mystery,'' per se, is a good thing. It is not a virtue to solve mysteries. Rather we should enjoy them, even revel in their insolubility.

Any impulse to solve mysteries could be serious inimical to the spread of a mind virus. It would not, therefore, be surprising if the idea that ``mysteries are better not solved'' was a favored member of a mutually supporting gang of viruses. Take the ``Mystery of Transubstantiation.'' It is easy and non-mysterious to believe that in some symbolic or metaphorical sense the eucharistic wine turns into the blood of Christ. The Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, however, claims far more. The ``whole substance'' of the wine is converted into the blood of Christ; the appearance of wine that remains is ``merely accidental,'' ``inhering in no substance'' (Kenny, 1986, p. 72). Transubstantiation is colloquially taught as meaning that the wine ``literally'' turns into the blood of Christ. Whether in its obfuscatory Aristotelian or its franker colloquial form, the claim of transubstantiation can be made only if we do serious violence to the normal meanings of words like ``substance'' and ``literally.'' Redefining words is not a sin, but, if we use words like ``whole substance'' and ``literally'' for this case, what word are we going to use when we really and truly want to say that something did actually happen? As Anthony Kenny observed of his own puzzlement as a young seminarian, ``For all I could tell, my typewriter might be Benjamin Disraeli transubstantiated....''

(this offered by Bernie who is not talking for now because he's actually working, if you can believe that):

(blatham posting from beneath a skirt)

frank

I didn't join in on this discussion as I've been banging my head over a thematic problem

The question, of course, is did God create the universe billions of years ago (in order to let the light naturally reach us) or did He create the universe fully functioning (with the light instantly visible to us)? In my opinion, creating a fully functioning universe is the most logical approach. For example, if I wanted to make a botanical garden, I would not plant seeds and wait 30 years for the vegetation to mature before I opened it to the public. I would import fully mature vegetation and start out with a fully functioning garden.

Some Christians have said that God would not have created a fully functioning universe because that would have given the universe an appearance of age. They say creating the universe with an appearance of age would be deceptive, creating a universe that looks like it is 15 billion years old would be the same as lying.

Would creating something that was fully functioning (and thus having an appearance of age) be deceptive and the same as lying? Let's go back to the botanical garden I was talking about earlier. Didn't I create an "appearance of age" when I imported mature plants for my garden? What was my motivation and intent? Was I trying to be deceptive or was I just being practical? Obviously, my intent was not to be deceptive. Likewise, I don't think it would be deceptive for God to make a fully functional universe.

If you take this approach, you still have to answer the question of how God created the first plants: Did they start out as seeds or as little plants. (It's kind of like the question, "What came first, the chicken or the egg?") When you think of it, both the seed and small plant have an appearance of age. No matter what part of the plant's growth cycle you start with, it will always have an appearance of age. This fact is inescapable.

I have one final point to make. Revelation 21:1 says that in the end times God is going to destroy the heavens and earth and create a new heaven and earth. When God creates this new world for us, will we have to wait 15 billion years for the light to naturally reach us before we can inhabit it?

Obviously, the things I've pointed out in this chapter do not prove the universe was created in seven days. The only thing it shows is God could have created a fully functioning universe without being deceptive. In my opinion, if God says He created the world in seven days, I think we should take Him at His Word.