Some of us can. Others are blinkered to others views. Its why its fun to just keep prodding. Well, playing a bit of DA and its cold outside, what else is a man meant to do?!
Yes exactly. There is the microcosmic God (my terminology, rather than anyone more profound's) and the macrocosmic God. The microcosmic God would be interested in human affairs. He'd be worth praying to, placating with rituals and worshipping. If you did everything right, he'd look out for you. This is the god of religion. The macrocosmic god is a supposed intelligence as the genitor of the universe. His existence implies that the universe has a purpose, some sort of ineffable design. Given the size of the cosmos, the trillions of stars and their planets, the inconceivable separation of these things, there can be no difference between highly evolved apes and ants. They are both but dust motes in the cosmos. On the one hand you have the odds that there is a God who is interested in us - particularly interested in us. And in some religions, he's only interested in some of us. On the other hand, you have the odds that humans created him to explain stuff that was not understood, and to console us for our extreme loneliness in a universe that just doesn't seem to care much if we live or die, and if our lives are happy or not. Weighing the odds, I come down a few zillion to one in favour of the second argument. I can't see that the microcosmic god exists and I am not about to waste any of my life doing things to make him happy (in the hope that this will be ultimately of some benefit to me). The macrocosmic God? As we know nothing about the universe's purpose and there is no evidence that it has one, and if we accept that, there being no microcosmic god, it's not listening to us and we are unlikely to ever be able to contact it, there is no point losing any sleep over it. It's a completely indifferent god, in so far as our personal fate is concerned. This for me, means that it isn't a god in any accepted sense at all. An indifferent god is nothing to pray to or worship. And if you're not going to do either of those things, then you may as well forget about it. Now, if you want to be agnostic about the possibility of the macrocosmic god, be my guest. I'm not saying there isn't one. I'm just saying, so what if there is? What are the consequences for me, or us? And it strikes me that there are none. It doesn't change my mortality and at the end of the day, isn't that what all God-believers are ultimately interested in?
At the stage when language had appeared, and when parents started to have to explain to their children mystifying things which they themselves didn't understand. So they began to make up stories about gods, demons, angels, fairies, ghosts, etc. Some of the children continued to believe this stuff, or pretend to, even after they had grown up. And there you have it.
Who said they don't exist Could they come from another world that we don't know about There is no smoke without fire
Pete says they don't. Of course he can't actually provide any proof to substantiate his claims, but that's never bothered him before. He does have an MA and an MBE you know, so he must be right...
Tell me quantum physics isnt done by fairies. These isnt proof the connection of particles across space are connected any other way. Yep. Solved. Fairies. Definately fairies.
It's OK, DB. Anything Pete believes in is reality and anything he doesn't believe in, is fantasy. You're good to go now!
If you choose to head off down that road, good luck with that. Billions of fictional characters, myths, or lies "might" be real, if you want to take the line that it's somebody else's job to "prove they are not true". I cannot actually prove that there isn't a chocolate teapot orbiting Jupiter, but my view is that I don't need to - if you want to say the teapot exists, it is up to you to prove it exists (or at least is reasonably possible), not up to me to prove that it doesn't. Each of us can live our lives based as far as we can on the real world of people and knowledge, evidence and reason; or we can drift away into an alternative world of speculation, unsupported notions, and fantasies. Just try not to go too far in that direction, or you might end up in a mental institution. Or a church.
