Life and God

[Willum]

If there were a Biblical God, wouldn't we find a lot more life in the universe?

If life has purpose, and including the whole apple story,etc., we should see life everywhere, by design.

At least that is the premise, any counter-views?

[Justin108]

[Replying to post 37 by Justin108]

We have given you several examples of intelligent life doing things once.

No you haven't.

- one pet spider
- doing white water rafting only once
- having one light in my room
- one engine in my car
- one television in my living room

You've given several examples of intelligent things not doing things only once, in the context of an individual human being. Everything you have spoken of was repeated countless times, just not by one person.

That's the point! It was not repeated by that one person! In what way does the fact that other members of our species repeat what we do negate the fact that individuals can do things without repeating them? I, as an individual, have done many things without repeating them. Similarly, God, an individual, may very well have done things without repeating them. Your argument that other humans have repeated what we did is absolutely irrelevant to the argument. You are grasping at straws for dear life.

Are you with your own argument yet?

What does this even mean?

1. You could not do whitewater rafting only once

Umm... yes I can.

- someone else built the boats and equipment that were required to do it

What does this have to do with how many times I've done whitewater rafting...?

if it were done only once

Who said whitewater rafting was only done once? Kenisaw said that he, as an individual, only did it once. He never claimed the human race only did it once.

2. God is an alien, describing his motivation so summarily is presumptive. So you need to examine if God's motives are intelligent.

Again, I have no idea what you're trying to say.

Suppose I (an intelligent individual) had a tumor (a problem). Suppose I then had a surgery (a solution) to remove the tumor. Now the tumor is gone. The surgery was a success. Would it be unintelligent of me to have this surgery only once? What need would there be to have several surgeries when a single surgery was enough to solve my problem?

How did we learn we could do this to a tumor?

What does that have to do with the point I made?

Are you the only one to ever get a tumor, will no one ever get another?

Again, what does that have to do with the point I made?

Repetition/learning/improvement is the only intelligent answer.

God is perfect. He does not need to learn, he does not need to improve, and therefore he does not need repetition.

My refutation is that there is no perceivable need to do it several times. Unless you can demonstrate such a need, your argument is invalid.

And I disagree - I do not see how you arrive at this conclusion. Please describe why it would be done once, and not again

I already told you I am not going to let you shift the burden of proof. It is not my job to explain why God would only make life once, it is your job to prove that he needs to do it several times. Your list of logical fallacies is mounting up.

Give me an example of something only done once by intelligence...

Are you asking me to give you an example of intelligent individuals doing something only once? Or are you mashing all of humanity together as one intelligent collective? If you're mashing us all together, then why? Why would we be comparing God - an individual, with humanity - an entire collective? We are you comparing an individual to a collective?

Let's compare apples to apples. Individual to individual. I (an individual) have done many things only once. God (an individual) likely did too.

Some advise before you respond. Please do your best to avoid the following fallacies
- non sequitur
- red herring
- shifting the burden of proof
- moving the goalpost

I would start with dealing with the non sequitur your entire argument is based on. Please explain why it is necessary for an intelligent God to create life in several solar systems. Do not ask us why God would only do it on one planet as that would be shifting the burden of proof and don't insist that we give you examples of what an intelligent collective would do and ask us to compare it to God as an individual as this would be a red herring that was brought on by your moving the goalpost after we repeatedly demonstrated that intelligent individuals regularly do things only once.

Good luck.

[Willum]

[Replying to post 41 by Justin108]

How do you know an omnipotent God responds as an individual?
It's a trinity right?
Or a host?
A royal 'We.'

You still don't get the thing about intelligence and repetition?
You tell me then, what is an indicator of intelligence - solving problems, yes, but how about the material manifestation?

I already told you I am not going to let you shift the burden of proof. It is not my job to explain why God would only make life once, it is your job to prove that he needs to do it several times. Your list of logical fallacies is mounting up.

Because intelligence produces things more than one time.
Cars, life, spiders for pets.

Or do you really thing one man created every single car?

If it were done only once, the concept just wouldn't be there...

[Justin108]

How do you know an omnipotent God responds as an individual?

Because we're talking about the Biblical God, as your OP specifies.

Deuteronomy 4:35,39 — Unto thee it was shown, that thou mightest know that the LORD he is God; there is none else beside him

Deuteronomy 6:4 — Hear, O Israel: The LORD thy God is one LORD.

Galatians 3:20 — Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one.

If your insistence that we compare God to a collective depends on God himself being some sort of collective, then once again, the burden of proof is on you.

It's a trinity right?

That depends on your denomination. But if God is a trinity (three Gods), then it would be easy to think of examples of three people only having done something once. Myself and a group of 4 other friends have only ever gone bungee jumping once. The five of us have only done this once, so it is very possible that the trinity only did something once.

Or a host?
A royal 'We.'

If your argument depends on God being a host, then I suggest you prove that premise before continuing.

You still don't get the thing about intelligence and repetition?

No because you have yet to demonstrate it. The reality of the situation is that intelligence sometimes repeats things, and at other times doesn't. There is no natural law that states all intelligent beings must repeat everything they do.

You tell me then, what is an indicator of intelligence - solving problems, yes, but how about the material manifestation?

You were doing so well, Willum. You got this far without any logical fallacies and here you go, shifting the burden of proof again.

I already told you I am not going to let you shift the burden of proof. It is not my job to explain why God would only make life once, it is your job to prove that he needs to do it several times. Your list of logical fallacies is mounting up.

Because intelligence produces things more than one time.
Cars, life, spiders for pets.

Ok I've heard you say this over and over, and over and over we give you several examples of intelligent individuals doing things only once. Let me know when you have something new to say, ok?

Do intelligent individuals often repeat things? Yes. Do they always repeat things? No.

Or do you really thing one man created every single car?

What does the amount of people creating cars have to do with anything?

If it were done only once, the concept just wouldn't be there...

Ok cars are an example of humans (as a collective) doing things more than once. But as already explained, unless you can prove that God is a collective, it is senseless to compare our collective species with God. So before repeating this line of reasoning, please support your premise that God is indeed a collective.

[Willum]

[Replying to post 43 by Justin108]

So far all your arguments are self contradicting; argued both ways ending up at zero.
You quoted the Bible to demo a single God, but God refers to himself in plural and we have the trinity, and the very fact we can not be certain his intelligence is like our own.

Yet for some reason you feel these are sufficient to dismiss the OP, nay, they are good reasons to explore the OP.

You still don't get the thing about intelligence and repetition?

No because you have yet to demonstrate it. The reality of the situation is that intelligence sometimes repeats things, and at other times doesn't.

Again, argument that neither proves not disproves, what else is there then? I made my claim... You have not shown a single case where intelligence hasn't repeated things, you've shown only cases where only one person in a group of intelligent things hasn't repeated things. That's mission failure.
Here, I'll even be generous, allegedly God is immortal, so he has many opportunities to repeat - as if he were many people.
Anyway I demonstrated that God has started, repeated, or started over many times - The Garden, The Fall, Abraham, The Flood, Jesus, so that point is proved.
Now we can move on to the conjecture - life elsewhere, Earth was one path, why wouldn't we see several others nearby?

You were doing so well, Willum. You got this far without any logical fallacies and here you go, shifting the burden of proof again.

Negative, I made my claim, and ask you for other options, as I did not see any. I still see my statement as being a solid option (for something we don't understand), it is perfectly reasonable for me to ask you for better alternatives, I am not claiming to know, that's why I started the OP. I saw indicators, took a position... and had to defend inconsequentials to the premise.

It also seems pretty clear to me, without having better options to provide, you accused me of shifting the burden of proof, in the face of a sincere question.

[Justin108]

So far all your arguments are self contradicting; argued both ways ending up at zero.
You quoted the Bible to demo a single God, but God refers to himself in plural and we have the trinity, and the very fact we can not be certain his intelligence is like our own.

That's not a contradiction. I'm just listing the possibilities. Saying "either A or B might be true" is not a contradiction.

Yet for some reason you feel these are sufficient to dismiss the OP

For the umpteenth time, it is not my job to dismiss your OP, it is your job to prove it. I already dismissed your OP in post 32 when I demonstrated how your OP is a non sequitur.

No because you have yet to demonstrate it. The reality of the situation is that intelligence sometimes repeats things, and at other times doesn't.

Again, argument that neither proves not disproves

Again, I don't have to prove anything. You do.

I made my claim

And you left it unsupported.

You have not shown a single case where intelligence hasn't repeated things, you've shown only cases where only one person in a group of intelligent things hasn't repeated things. That's mission failure.

You have yet to give me good reason to. You have yet to explain why it is necessary to compare God to a collective rather than to individuals.

A Muslim once challenged me to write a book that is "more perfect" than the Quran, and if I failed, he suggested that it would prove that the Quran is in fact the word of God. Naturally, I did not take up this challenge. But then again, I had no reason to. The challenge is pointless and doesn't prove anything, just like yours. So I will ask again: what reason is there to compare God to a collective rather than to an individual?

Now we can move on to the conjecture - life elsewhere, Earth was one path, why wouldn't we see several others nearby?

Do you have a short memory perhaps? How many times are you going to ask the same question over and over? If God exists and he made the universe, then the reason he never made life outside of earth is because he didn't want to. Pretty simple, isn't it?

You were doing so well, Willum. You got this far without any logical fallacies and here you go, shifting the burden of proof again.

Negative, I made my claim, and ask you for other options, as I did not see any.

How is that different from a theist asking "if God didn't create everything, then where did we all come from?" Does our inability to answer that question mean that God necessarily exists? There is massive amounts of literature concerning the concept of intelligence and how it is defined. I recommend you do some reading. The OP didn't ask "what is intelligence?" and so I do not care to discuss it at length.

[Willum]

[Replying to post 45 by Justin108]

That's not a contradiction. I'm just listing the possibilities. Saying "either A or B might be true" is not a contradiction.

But if I can argue A and B to opposite conclusions, the net is zero.

I made my claim, presented my support, and I can not even remotely comprehend why you don't find it supported. Gonna have to help me.

You have yet to explain why it is necessary to compare God to a collective rather than to individuals.

I am sorry, God refers to himself in the plural, that should be a clue-bird to a rational person that our perception of his uniqueness may not be complete. There is the trinity, etc..
Then there is immortality, how many distinct perspectives have you had in your short life-time? That certainly accounts for something.
It really isn't that a important a detail. But I think you'll agree that, since you insist, God has aspects of more than one. If you don't, you're wrong.
Maybe God is something like a jelly-fish, really composed of many different animals, with specific purposes that work together to form one being. Who cares? It isn't really that important.

How many times are you going to ask the same question over and over? If God exists and he made the universe, then the reason he never made life outside of earth is because he didn't want to. Pretty simple, isn't it?

Yes, definitionally simple, uncontroversially simple, and unworthy of discussion simple. Yet you keep coming back to it, though I warrant you are the only player. I've mentioned this one particular solution is boring and unworthy of further discussion. I'm over it.

It's like x = 3y + 2a + 4b + 12n, you cleverly said all the variables are equal to zero. Heck if only x were zero, you'd still have many combinations that might be interesting.

But you are happy with, "it is what it is," and willing to defend this non-statement. Ho-hum.

So, "why didn't he want to?" - it is really the negative of the same question.

[Justin108]

That's not a contradiction. I'm just listing the possibilities. Saying "either A or B might be true" is not a contradiction.

But if I can argue A and B to opposite conclusions, the net is zero.

What you just said means absolutely nothing.

I made my claim, presented my support, and I can not even remotely comprehend why you don't find it supported. Gonna have to help me.

Silly me. If that is the case, I humbly apologize. Can you perhaps repeat the part where you support your claim that repetition of all actions is absolutely necessary for an intelligent being?

You have yet to explain why it is necessary to compare God to a collective rather than to individuals.

I am sorry, God refers to himself in the plural, that should be a clue-bird to a rational person that our perception of his uniqueness may not be complete. There is the trinity, etc..

Ok trinity. Three gods in one (or something to that effect). I already offered a rebuttal to this. Me and my group of four friends went bungee jumping once and only once. So evidently, small collectives can do something once without repeating it. Surely, the trinity can as well.

How many times are you going to ask the same question over and over? If God exists and he made the universe, then the reason he never made life outside of earth is because he didn't want to. Pretty simple, isn't it?

Yes, definitionally simple, uncontroversially simple, and unworthy of discussion simple.

Sometimes, the truth is simple. So can we wrap this up? OP solved?

[Willum]

[Replying to post 47 by Justin108]

Yes, the OP is solved.

[Kenisaw]

[Replying to post 36 by Kenisaw]

One of the observations we make about an intelligent creator would be that it would do things for a purpose.
Things done for a purpose are repeated.

I've asked you to logically connect these two things together. All you've done is restate them. While I appreciate the restate, we haven't moved any further into the conversation, because you've still failed to show how one (an intelligent creator does stuff on purpose) means it has to do two (it has to do those purposefully done things more than once).

Try as I might to wrap my head around this OP, I still can't make heads or tails out of the point of it. I'm not sure where to take the conversation.

I could ask follow up questions, like: Would it be your contention, then, that the creator god being has sacrificed it's son more than once?

I could tell you that I once tried to weld an egg to the top of a hammer. Please find me a second time where this has happened in the universe.

Or I could run with one of my conclusions, which is that this OP hasn't worked out the way you planned, but you are still attempting to defend it for some reason...

[Willum]

[Replying to post 49 by Kenisaw]

So you seem to be answering your own questions:
There is no purpose to welding an egg to a hammer, therefore it would not be repeated.
There is no purpose in sacrificing your son for no reason, therefore it is inconsistent with intelligence.

But to answer the question of putting these two in the context of your question - and trying to be bound by the OP:

One of the observations we make about an intelligent creator would be that it would do things for a purpose.
Things done for a purpose are repeated.

So I have tried to answer by analogy.
Man builds a fire to keep warm (purpose).
God creates life for some purpose.

Man builds fires repeatedly.
God (should) create(s) life repeatedly [conjecture].

Now, arguably God created life either all at once on Earth, or it could be argued that "this once" was several repetitions:
That's a good point of discussion.

Now, the balance of the argument is to come up with a line of reasoning, by which we could establish logical criteria for why there would/wouldn't be more/detectable intelligent life in the universe.

A tangent of this is also we can observe life and see why God created it - or the negative hypothesis...

Yes, there are leaps of logic in the OP, they are called assumptions - if you don't want to follow the assumptions of the OP, it doesn't make any use to comment - rather like declaring the Bible is not a credible source in "Theology and Doctrine."

Cordially,