What are the strongest arguments for atheism?

[harvey1]

You know, come to think of it. I haven't seen any arguments that support the atheist claim that God doesn't exist. Why is that? So, let's turn the tables for a second, and ask, what are the strongest arguments in support of atheism?

Btw, don't bother answering if you either don't have an argument or don't feel that you are required to support your philosophical position.

[harvey1]

I have to take issue with this, it's obviously an important part of your motive towards theism. There is no shortage of 'unbelievable' facts before us, right here on our tiny little planet let alone the entire cosmos. I suggest that the human perspective is too poorly equipped to make assessments of the sort you make... I think it is highly erroneous to dismiss 'cosmic' numbers as you do. Particularly when, like the shark, you know the subject to be 'real' -- you are familiar with cosmic evolution, so you are rejecting a linear extrapolation of something 'real' in favour of a leap into something 'imaginary' (like a jump into hyperspace). This makes no sense to me and would feel like I was taking an impatient short-cut to an easy solution -- particularly when it would only shift the questions of origin to a new subject. This non-linear move might be a good way to define theism and I personally prefer to "stick to the path" of atheism.

If we ignored every coincidence and left it at that, then there would be no need to explain anything! Again, QED, we have to establish parameters as to what is odd enough to look for solutions, and what can simply be odd but not worth getting caught up in an elaborate theory as to explain it. For example, the Face of Man doesn't require an elaborate new theory to explain how it is that a face of humans can be seen on another planet (from space). However, we do need to account for the enormous coincidences seen in the values of the physical constants. We can do that in two ways. We can look at the possibility that there is a multiverse with our universe just happening to fall in the range of life supporting conditions, or we can look at another possibility that the laws of physics are such that our universe as a life producing universe is somehow required. When we look at the last scenario, lawful necessity is often how phenomena are explained in science, and I don't see why we shouldn't continue that line of thought that has been so successful up to this point.

I would argue that we are all born as atheists, after all, to be agnostic at birth would be impossible as the concept of god would not be present in our minds.

That's not a tenable position QED. If that were taken seriously, then we ought to say that we should all be anti-scientific since we are not born with an inclination to think scientifically.

Unlike you it would seem, I am not intimidated by the prospect of finding myself to be mistaken in this, but nothing you have come up with so far has provided a compelling reason to make the transition.

Many people are content to find a purposeless existence as meaningful. I'm sure I would be able to accept it too, but it's a position that I see no motivation to take. In fact, motivation-wise, I find the theist view much more compelling for the reasons I cited to MY.

[QED]

I would argue that we are all born as atheists, after all, to be agnostic at birth would be impossible as the concept of god would not be present in our minds.

That's not a tenable position QED. If that were taken seriously, then we ought to say that we should all be anti-scientific since we are not born with an inclination to think scientifically.

Well it was partly serious in that it makes us think about the conditioning involved in developing our world view. A natural skeptic like me would always question what is being presented to a degree proportional to how extraordinary the claim might be. The problem faced with establishing the parameters for judging parsimony is that if a 'points' system were devised to assign 'simplicity' to competing explanations, then the thing blows-up in our faces when trying to ascribe points to god. You might want to argue that he deserves a handicap of zero, and I one of infinity.

Being fascinated by the way nature works from a very early age always led me to wonder if there were more 'down to earth' alternatives to the answers provided within the christianity I was subjected to in my formative years. Hence I've seen too many examples of god-of-the-gaps being banished to ever more distant positions to entertain the notion that god might offer a simpler explanation than any other. Whether you insist that the universe (or the laws that bring about the universe) are god in its entirety or that god pre-existed the creation in some way, I simply can't see how the explanation for god's existence could be below par with an independant explanation for the universe.

[harvey1]

Well it was partly serious in that it makes us think about the conditioning involved in developing our world view. A natural skeptic like me would always question what is being presented to a degree proportional to how extraordinary the claim might be. The problem faced with establishing the parameters for judging parsimony is that if a 'points' system were devised to assign 'simplicity' to competing explanations, then the thing blows-up in our faces when trying to ascribe points to god. You might want to argue that he deserves a handicap of zero, and I one of infinity.

It's always a pleasure to read your posts (btw)...

The problem with establishing parameters for judging parsimony is that the evaluative means to do so is also the same philosophical structure that determines what we see as parsimonious! For example, as a theist, my concept of parsimony is significantly different than your own. You might accept a universe that exists as having no need for an explanation, so you might rate that universe as very high on parsimony points and give a God very low parsimony points because it totally contradicts your conception of parsimony.

I, on the other hand, look at any structure that is taken as brute fact, and I ask that that structure be simpler than dirt. That is, I want to have confidence that if the wheel of existence were spun multiple times, each time it would come up dirt and not something so sophisticated as to make life possible, etc..

Hence, right off the bat, atheism strikes me as very unparsimonious. I look at the Universe, and if the wheel of existence were spun multiple times, I just can't imagine that whatever that wheel landed on, it certainly wouldn't land on a multiverse (or a single universe capable of undergoing a big bang and inflation). That just sounds way too bizarre fiction for me.

I would look at establishing parsimony points based on any scenario that could adequately explain the universe without something extremely elaborate at the very beginning. This is why I favor theism. Not any kind of theism, though, in particular, it must be a "out of time" God where you would expect laws to act as God's thoughts in the world. In that sense, God is very high on the parsimony points.

Being fascinated by the way nature works from a very early age always led me to wonder if there were more 'down to earth' alternatives to the answers provided within the christianity I was subjected to in my formative years. Hence I've seen too many examples of god-of-the-gaps being banished to ever more distant positions to entertain the notion that god might offer a simpler explanation than any other.

We come from such different perspectives, so I hope you can appreciate that I see the world differently. From my perspective, it is atheism that is slowly being banished. Its lost some key battles due to the growth in scientific knowledge, and therefore the way I see it, it's almost out the door. Replacing the LaPlacean mechanical-materialist model (remember, it was LaPlace who told Napolean when asked about God, "I have no need for that hypothesis") is a mathematical model of the world where symmetries actually exist, the laws of physics are derived from symmetries, the universe is a consequence of the laws, and so on. In short, we are gradually building a theistic view of the world. Slowly but surely, atheists are losing key battle after key battle. It's fun for me to watch, but frustrating when I talk to atheists who simply act as if they have no clue as to what is happening!

Whether you insist that the universe (or the laws that bring about the universe) are god in its entirety or that god pre-existed the creation in some way, I simply can't see how the explanation for god's existence could be below par with an independant explanation for the universe.

Once we give up on this notion that the universe was always there as some unreasonable thing that exists ("atheistic mysticism"), we can then address the real reason that the universe exists. The most basic place to start is with nothing! Why not? I mean what gives us the right to assume there should be something? Once we start there, we immediately see the problems with nothing existing (an oxymoron statement), and that is the issue of there being concepts like truth, causality, logic, math, etc., are all concepts that must exist in order for nothing to be a meaningful state (i.e., no spacetime or energy-matter). This is a theistic conception of the universe. This is God. Everything that exists is because this state exists. And, why wouldn't it exist? It's what "there" if you take the simplest route to the universe's origin.

So, it's really quite obvious to me. Atheists are just wrong.

[Nyril]

You're inconsistent.

I, on the other hand, look at any structure that is taken as brute fact, and I ask that that structure be simpler than dirt. That is, I want to have confidence that if the wheel of existence were spun multiple times, each time it would come up dirt and not something so sophisticated as to make life possible, etc..

I would look at establishing parsimony points based on any scenario that could adequately explain the universe without something extremely elaborate at the very beginning. This is why I favor theism. Not any kind of theism, though, in particular, it must be a "out of time" God where you would expect laws to act as God's thoughts in the world. In that sense, God is very high on the parsimony points.

So, your position is this?

Naturalistic Universe "just existing" (no god needed): Impossible.
All powerful god "just existing" to create the Universe: Plausible.

Once we give up on this notion that the universe was always there as some unreasonable thing that exists ("atheistic mysticism"), we can then address the real reason that the universe exists.

Once again,

Universe "just existing for all time": stupid.
All powerful/knowing/etc god "just existing for all time": likely.

So, it's really quite obvious to me. Atheists are just wrong.

Sorry, I'm still confused.

Once we start there, we immediately see the problems with nothing existing (an oxymoron statement), and that is the issue of there being concepts like truth, causality, logic, math, etc., are all concepts that must exist in order for nothing to be a meaningful state (i.e., no spacetime or energy-matter). This is a theistic conception of the universe. This is God. Everything that exists is because this state exists. And, why wouldn't it exist? It's what "there" if you take the simplest route to the universe's origin.

I'm sorry, I just don't see how you can "start with nothing" as you put it, and immediately put god in there.

[harvey1]

I, on the other hand, look at any structure that is taken as brute fact, and I ask that that structure be simpler than dirt. That is, I want to have confidence that if the wheel of existence were spun multiple times, each time it would come up dirt and not something so sophisticated as to make life possible, etc..

I would look at establishing parsimony points based on any scenario that could adequately explain the universe without something extremely elaborate at the very beginning. This is why I favor theism. Not any kind of theism, though, in particular, it must be a "out of time" God where you would expect laws to act as God's thoughts in the world. In that sense, God is very high on the parsimony points.

So, your position is this?

The simplest position to hold about the beginning is that there was nothing in terms of no space, time, matter, energy. In order for that to make any sense, we need a concept of truth, a concept of causality, a concept of logic, a concept of math, etc.. These concepts entail the existence of God.

Naturalistic Universe "just existing" (no god needed): Impossible.
All powerful god "just existing" to create the Universe: Plausible.

A naturalistic universe "just existing" has its structure explained by the complexity of its interactions with matter-energy fields. To produce a universe sophisticated enough to bring about life, it must have some pretty complex structure to make that happen. Just as an example, what if this "beginning state" was irreducible dirt. Irreducible dirt would presumably just stay there and always be dirt, even 10 trillion years later, it would still be dirt. Nothing interesting happens. There's nothing in the naturalistic universe "beginning state" possibility that indicates that irreducible dirt couldn't have been the case. So, spin the wheel of existence again, and maybe next time it does come up as irreducible dirt. Next time it comes up as irreducible clay, and so on. What this indicates is that the structure of our universe is dependent on pure unexplainable luck. It's a violation of parsimony to think this way (in my opinion).

In the case of God, such is not the case. We go one step less complex than "just dirt exists," we say that "nothing" is all that is phenomenal in the world. If the phenomenal world is nothing, then the interesting stuff is the laws that exist above the nothingness. The complexity of the laws can be explained in terms of a deductive chain that exists. If there is a complex theorem that exists that describes what it means for there to be nothing, this theorem is a derivation of other theorems that are true, which are derived eventually from some simple set of axioms. The axioms are judged for their truth value based on possibility. So, axioms that aren't possible do not have truth value, and therefore there are no valid theorems that derive their truth from those axioms. Those axioms do not exist.

Of course, any time one mentions the notion of truth, they must compare a language statement (e.g., a statement of possibility) with the implications with other true statements (or, statements already found to be true). That evaluation requires mind. Without mind, there is no evaluation, there is no definition of a phenomenal world (even nothing), and therefore those possible realities themselves do not exist. The only reality that can exist is the one where a mind co-exists with the truth. Hence, God exists. And, God is Truth.

I'm sorry, I just don't see how you can "start with nothing" as you put it, and immediately put god in there.

The only premise I make in all of this is that the Universe must have a causal, logical, mathematical, truthful structure at its base. If that simple (and necessary, I'm afraid) assumption is made, then God exists no matter how many times you spin the wheel of existence.

[QED]

Nyril speaks for me precisely, but I'm frustrated (with myself, I must add) at not being able to follow your counter arguments all the way to the end:

The simplest position to hold about the beginning is that there was nothing in terms of no space, time, matter, energy. In order for that to make any sense, we need a concept of truth, a concept of causality, a concept of logic, a concept of math, etc.. These concepts entail the existence of God.

I don't understand why for "one plus one" to equal two requires a god? You seem to jump to your conclusion about gods existence right here.

A naturalistic universe "just existing" has its structure explained by the complexity of its interactions with matter-energy fields. To produce a universe sophisticated enough to bring about life, it must have some pretty complex structure to make that happen.

I thought that light elements and gravity were the only ingredients? Just six numbers set the stage for these and time does the rest. It's not really complex, but fantastically improbable by the standards of our everyday experience, however, nobody has a feel for the cosmic potential, so nobody can say if it's reasonable or not.

Just as an example, what if this "beginning state" was irreducible dirt. Irreducible dirt would presumably just stay there and always be dirt, even 10 trillion years later, it would still be dirt. Nothing interesting happens. There's nothing in the naturalistic universe "beginning state" possibility that indicates that irreducible dirt couldn't have been the case. So, spin the wheel of existence again, and maybe next time it does come up as irreducible dirt. Next time it comes up as irreducible clay, and so on. What this indicates is that the structure of our universe is dependent on pure unexplainable luck. It's a violation of parsimony to think this way (in my opinion).

I see nothing to prevent as many spins of the wheel as it takes before you and I can stand back and admire everything around us.

In the case of God, such is not the case. We go one step less complex than "just dirt exists," we say that "nothing" is all that is phenomenal in the world. If the phenomenal world is nothing, then the interesting stuff is the laws that exist above the nothingness. The complexity of the laws can be explained in terms of a deductive chain that exists. If there is a complex theorem that exists that describes what it means for there to be nothing, this theorem is a derivation of other theorems that are true, which are derived eventually from some simple set of axioms. The axioms are judged for their truth value based on possibility. So, axioms that aren't possible do not have truth value, and therefore there are no valid theorems that derive their truth from those axioms. Those axioms do not exist.

This just seems like a short-cut to me, in preference to hanging around for an unspecified amount of time waiting for the right universe to come along. None of us really knows what fifteen billion years means let alone if it is a long or short amount of time compared to what time can do I simply cannot accept that anyone could have an expectation for this.

Of course, any time one mentions the notion of truth, they must compare a language statement (e.g., a statement of possibility) with the implications with other true statements (or, statements already found to be true). That evaluation requires mind. Without mind, there is no evaluation, there is no definition of a phenomenal world (even nothing), and therefore those possible realities themselves do not exist. The only reality that can exist is the one where a mind co-exists with the truth. Hence, God exists. And, God is Truth.

I'm sorry to say you lose me here -- on minute you have me nodding along with the though of our minds evolving from slightly more primitive forms of consciousness, then wham, in parachutes god from nowhere! From this point on I cannot follow your argument which concludes:

I'm sorry, I just don't see how you can "start with nothing" as you put it, and immediately put god in there.

The only premise I make in all of this is that the Universe must have a causal, logical, mathematical, truthful structure at its base. If that simple (and necessary, I'm afraid) assumption is made, then God exists no matter how many times you spin the wheel of existence.

[harvey1]

The simplest position to hold about the beginning is that there was nothing in terms of no space, time, matter, energy. In order for that to make any sense, we need a concept of truth, a concept of causality, a concept of logic, a concept of math, etc.. These concepts entail the existence of God.

I don't understand why for "one plus one" to equal two requires a god? You seem to jump to your conclusion about gods existence right here.

Yes, "one plus one" entails God iff what we mean by that is "one plus one" is an independent truth of the world. If all we mean is that "one plus one" refers to objects that exist, then this does not entail God. To be an independent truth, we'd have to say that truth exists outside the human mind. If truth is like Yahtzee! (the board game where if you get 5 of a kind in cards, you yell "Yahtzee"), then truth obviously doesn't exist, nor does God have to in that case. It's just a certain relationship of stuff that we call "truth" (or "yahtzee") and we just happen to bestow some kind of privelege to that case. However, if truth is not like Yahtzee, but more like the interwoven fabric of the Universe, then God exists.

A naturalistic universe "just existing" has its structure explained by the complexity of its interactions with matter-energy fields. To produce a universe sophisticated enough to bring about life, it must have some pretty complex structure to make that happen.

I thought that light elements and gravity were the only ingredients? Just six numbers set the stage for these and time does the rest. It's not really complex, but fantastically improbable by the standards of our everyday experience, however, nobody has a feel for the cosmic potential, so nobody can say if it's reasonable or not.

It's nothing close to that simple. Current cosmology always uses quantum theory, that's an absolute given. It also takes great liberties in describing complex spaces that exist (e.g., Friedmann-Walker geometry, de Sitter space, etc.), and it might use other complex structures such as strings, quantum loops, Calabi-Yau spaces, etc., etc.. It's no easy feat in trying to bring about our universes. One thing for sure, it won't happen with starting with a one-dimensional Euclidean on DVD pause as the "beginning state."

Just as an example, what if this "beginning state" was irreducible dirt. Irreducible dirt would presumably just stay there and always be dirt, even 10 trillion years later, it would still be dirt. Nothing interesting happens. There's nothing in the naturalistic universe "beginning state" possibility that indicates that irreducible dirt couldn't have been the case. So, spin the wheel of existence again, and maybe next time it does come up as irreducible dirt. Next time it comes up as irreducible clay, and so on. What this indicates is that the structure of our universe is dependent on pure unexplainable luck. It's a violation of parsimony to think this way (in my opinion).

I see nothing to prevent as many spins of the wheel as it takes before you and I can stand back and admire everything around us.

Well, that's a beginning state in itself. In other words, what I mean by beginning state is what you are given as part of your explanation in order to logically show how everything else came about. If you need an infinite multiverse with fractal inflating universes occuring throughout time, then that's a beginning state even if the state is occuring into the infinite past. In other words, it's what we need to know about the world before we take it a step further and start talking about the big bang, inflation, etc..

If you require a universe that keeps trying different ideas, then this adds to the complexity of your beginning state. It's far more complex than a one-dimensional Euclidean space stuck on pause. However, if you really like that idea, there's other problems with this kind of beginning state. For example, why does the universe stop one failed attempt and try another? Why does the universe allow a successful story to continue? What does the universe consider a success? All of these kind of questions would add further complexity to your beginning state, when in fact parsimony requests that you start off as simple as possible. If you need so much top heavy structure to explain our world, then why not just say the universe started with a big bang and then inflated? No other explanation is needed? Of course, the reason such a beginning state should be rejected is because its way too complex. You might as well say everything was created 5 minutes ago complete with memories (or, that there's only "me" (or "you"), and "me" has not only memories implanted, but "I" have been put inside the Matrix as well). If such kind of unparsimonious accounts are acceptable, then we don't need to be talking about the merits of parsimony.

In the case of God, such is not the case. We go one step less complex than "just dirt exists," we say that "nothing" is all that is phenomenal in the world. If the phenomenal world is nothing, then the interesting stuff is the laws that exist above the nothingness. The complexity of the laws can be explained in terms of a deductive chain that exists. If there is a complex theorem that exists that describes what it means for there to be nothing, this theorem is a derivation of other theorems that are true, which are derived eventually from some simple set of axioms. The axioms are judged for their truth value based on possibility. So, axioms that aren't possible do not have truth value, and therefore there are no valid theorems that derive their truth from those axioms. Those axioms do not exist.

This just seems like a short-cut to me, in preference to hanging around for an unspecified amount of time waiting for the right universe to come along. None of us really knows what fifteen billion years means let alone if it is a long or short amount of time compared to what time can do I simply cannot accept that anyone could have an expectation for this.

I have no problem with a beginning state that assumes a temporal dimension with your beginning state geometry. However, it sounds like you want more than just a temporal dimension added to some kind of multi-dimensional geometry, you also want "stuff" to happen. Okay, but that's more complexity that you have to assume in a geometry that really shouldn't be there, at least nothing as complex as something that it would take years of study to understand. Let me repeat. The beginning state should be so simple that it should not only be likely, it should be what you'd expect if you spun the wheel of existence over and over again.

Of course, any time one mentions the notion of truth, they must compare a language statement (e.g., a statement of possibility) with the implications with other true statements (or, statements already found to be true). That evaluation requires mind. Without mind, there is no evaluation, there is no definition of a phenomenal world (even nothing), and therefore those possible realities themselves do not exist. The only reality that can exist is the one where a mind co-exists with the truth. Hence, God exists. And, God is Truth.

I'm sorry to say you lose me here -- on minute you have me nodding along with the though of our minds evolving from slightly more primitive forms of consciousness, then wham, in parachutes god from nowhere! From this point on I cannot follow your argument which concludes:

Hmm... How can I put this? If you assume that truth is not like Yahtzee!, but something that exists independently of the universe, then you're basically saying that truth is a statement of fact that exists. Now, if something true ultimately means there exists a statement which happens to be a fact, then what that means is that a statement exists independent of what the statement refers to. For example:

Statement: "snow is white"

If "snow is white" is true, then snow is white.

Or, "snow is white" is true, if that statement satisfies the criteria of snow actually being white.

Truth is determined by a relational property of the statement with the phenomenal condition (i.e., real world condition) that exists. So, as another example:

If "you wrote a post today" is true, then this statement satisfies the criteria of actually spending time on the computer and typing and sending a post.

Hence, if truth actually exists, then there exists actual knowledge "out there" that you wrote a post today. It doesn't have to be known by anyone, but it is an independent fact that you wrote a post today. Notice, this interpretation of truth is opposed to a Yahtzee! interpretation where we've merely labelled an existing phenomenal condition by a special phrase (e.g., Yahtzee, truth, false, grue, etc.).

Getting back to the beginning state, if nothing exists, then we say:

If "nothing is the case" is true, then nothing is the case is true

Or, using our convenient relational property:

If "nothing is the case" is true, then this statement satisfies the condition that there is no space, time, matter, energy.

Okay, so if truth exists (keep repeating myself...), then there exists something even if space, time, matter, energy don't exist. What actually exists is the statement "nothing is the case." It is a statement of fact that is required to exist based on the assumption that there is a concept of truth, causality, logic, etc.. A very simple assumption.

Alrighty then, where does God parachute from nowhere in this picture? Very simple. If we say that a concept of truth is required, and we say that any phenomenal condition (even nothing at all) requires a statement to exist which reflects the truth of that condition, then we've introduced a little hiccup in the beginning state. We've asked the beginning state to be smart.

How? Well, look at the statement again:

If "nothing is the case" is true, then this statement satisfies the condition that there is no space, time, matter, energy.

The relational property of satisfying a condition is something that takes smarts. If it is not understood that a statement (a proposition) is about what is actually the case, then the statement cannot be true or false, it would be meaningless. In order to be understood that a statement is about what is actually the case, something in the truth, causality, logical, mathematical nature of reality must have mind along with those fundamental concepts. Otherwise, there's no way those properties of reality can hold any meaning for reality. If they hold no meaning for reality, then we shouldn't talk about reality having the properties of being logical, or being causal, etc.. However, if we take that step, then we've given up on any comprehension of the universe, and we've assigned ourselves to mysticism.

If you choose to be a mystic (i.e., rejection of reason), then that's fine, however you leave yourself with few options to consider something being correct beyond its pragmatic value. In which case, your only argument against theism is that it is not pragmatically useful, but that's not a good argument since theists find theism pragmatically beneficial.

[Nyril]

The simplest position to hold about the beginning is that there was nothing in terms of no space, time, matter, energy.

Why not time?

To produce a universe sophisticated enough to bring about life, it must have some pretty complex structure to make that happen.

By your reasoning, this god of yours must be more complex then the universe. Won't your god require something more complex then it to make it? And then so on and so forth for the infinite number of slightly more complex gods?

[harvey1]

The simplest position to hold about the beginning is that there was nothing in terms of no space, time, matter, energy.

Why not time?

You mean why is "no time" simpler than having time? Time is another structure that presumably will have some type of mathematical description once it's all said and done. If you can start from nothing and show how that naturally produces time (e.g., Hawking-Hartle hypothesis tried to do with imaginary time), then that's more parsimonious (unless the structure you're advocating is more complex...).

By your reasoning, this god of yours must be more complex then the universe. Won't your god require something more complex then it to make it? And then so on and so forth for the infinite number of slightly more complex gods?

No, because God is everything that is true that knows what is true and understands what is true. There's no need to postulate another more complex entity since there's nothing left out of the original God property of the Universe that is not already self-contained in the original God property. That's why we say something needs a creator because something is left out to explain that original property (e.g., it's cause, it's reason of persisting through time, etc.). If we can't find an explanation within the property, we look to its parent, or we look for higher laws, etc.

In the case of God, we came to the conclusion that God exists because we need Truth/Logic to exist. If Truth/Logic don't exist (hence God does not exist), then there's nothing more we can say which is more fundamental about the Universe since there's nothing True or Logical that can be said.

[The Happy Humanist]

Uh-huh. It needs to be "intelligent-like". And what does this mean? Does it mean "intelligent when discussing whether Harvey should worship it, and unintelligent when it seems Harvey has to demonstrate the existence of such intelligence?"

Funny! But, no. It means that something can be unintelligent, but it behaves intelligently.

Ah, okay, a more straightforward answer. But let me make sure I have it right. So a god can be utterly unintelligent, according to you, as long as it manages to fool some people into thinking it's intelligent (like Searle claims about the Chinese room)? Can a toaster count as a god as long as it looks smart about how well it times the toast and stuff? Just to be clear: you think it makes sense to call something totally unintelligent a god, right?

I'm a little late to this discussion, but could it be that Harvey is saying that God possesses some quality that is "like intelligence," but not as we understand intelligence, e.g. on a IQ scale; perhaps something like HAL, only multiplied a million fold, so that it "may as well be intelligence."? I think what is unfolding from Harvey's multi-faceted mind is a "blind-men-touching-the-elephant" view of God. You are looking for a measurable IQ, and Harvey may be talking of something completely different, but that acts so "intelligent-like" that it accomplishes the same goals as intelligence. Am I close? Just trying to close the gap here.