The Bible is not the word of God

[DrProctopus]

A bunch of people who believed that God was talking to them wrote down what they believed God was saying.

The more relevant or successful scriptures were kept and eventually composed into the OT.

Something similar happend after Jesus did his thing, and the NT was produced.


Nowhere in this process do I see any reason to believe that every single word in the Bible is the word of God. Why should I believe someone when they claim to speak for God?

So, the point of debate is this:

Is there actually any decent reason to believe that the Bible is 100% the word of God?

[QED]

Additionally AP as discussed earlier would make it impossible for us to “prove” that Mother Nature including us and Santa Claus and Christ and the Cosmos are a personification of God. BUT it wouldn’t make it impossible! And for those of us who believe in God that is important.

Certainly! If the existence of God could be shown to be impossible, well, that would be something for humanity to digest!

And I should think the fact that it is possible albeit not provable should have more importance among atheists.
But I don’t know why it doesn’t. Is it because they are only interested in the provable?

I can only speak for myself, but I do acknowledge the importance of the possibility. However I also find, when I study the world, that it behaves greatly as if there was no God pulling the strings. Nor can I see a necessity or logic in introducing a God into this role. But I think you're also on the money when you talk of only being interested in the provable, although I'm just as much a sucker for a really good hunch as the next guy. Just so long as it isn't contradicted by any simple observation.

Hello QED! Nice to see you back. You said:

I absolutely agree with McCulloch. It seems incredibly likely to me that from the very dawn of mankind's existence we noticed our capacity for the various spirits of kindness, mercy, giving etc. and thought about all this in contrast to the more selfish instincts born of our evolutionary past.

Interesting imagery QED. You talk about a “capacity” indicating some other force or interaction necessary to gain what might be seen as positive spirits of kindness, mercy and giving and yet the negative (expressed as selfish) seems to be inherent in our being as instinctual.

What would that other force be that would activate the fulfillment of our capacity with the spirits of kindness, mercy and giving? Free will?

I actually outlined this later on in the same post when I talked of potentiality. The imperative for those instincts we might like to call primitive is only bought about by the demands of surviving in a primitive world. As far as cooperative strategies go, the potential has always been present much as branches of higher mathematics were also a potential when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. This spirit has not being channeled down from above the clouds, it has lain in wait in logic for ever. Make of that what you will. Incidentally, I'm assuming that you are vaguely familiar with Game Theory as a branch of mathematics, if not it might help if you Google it up sometime.

We might wonder where this spirit comes from; I can just imagine a Roman Emperor exercising his ability to grant the life of a lucky prisoner and meditating on the process afterwards.

It’s funny that you should mention that because that’s what Pontius Pilot did albeit he was only a Roman governor not an emperor, after be condemned Jesus and granted life to Barabas. He stood there in his interior alcove inside from the balcony, washing his hands over and over again agonizing over condemning an innocent man. This is according to his wife who was interested in and later became a follower of Christ’s teachings, in a letter she wrote to a relative that was later transcribed and stored in a monastery in Lebanon to be translated to English later by Kahlil Gibran and later publish in a book of ancient letters he translated in the early 20th century entitled Jesus, the Son of Man : His words and His deeds as told and recorded by those who knew Him. New York, 1928. (Not online.)

Pilot was probably in the back of my mind when I wrote that. I'm very aware that a few thousand years is nothing in terms of the human race. This makes it possible to a degree to climb into the sandals of others and take a walk around the possible minset of a pre-industrialized philosopher. Using a subtractive process and steadily removing knowledge of Evolution, Geology, Cosmology, information theory etc. I think it becomes clear where the religious notions arise from. I'll add to this in the subsequent reply...

I see this in a similar light to the way in which moving away from subsistence living freed up certain men to spend time thinking and planning for the benefit of society. Our brains have evolved to the point where we are released from the imperative of survival of the fittest yet I would argue that it is vestiges of this more brutal and selfish past that make kindness and mercy stand out as something of a novelty.

I find this statement unusual because you previously posit that that ”from the very dawn of mankind's existence we noticed our capacity for the various spirits of kindness, mercy, giving”
Then here you say, “Our brains have evolved to the point where we are released from the imperative of survival of the fittest yet I would argue that it is vestiges of this more brutal and selfish past that make kindness and mercy stand out as something of a novelty.
How could kindness and mercy be a novelty if we were aware of it from the “very dawn of mankind's existence”?

I think the answer to this lies in the overlaying of the amygdala with the cerebral cortex, a relatively recent evolutionary development.
The Human brain stands out from other animals as having a relatively large neo-cortex (the part of the brain that does all the planning and reflecting). The more primitive reptilian brain, the amygdala, provides instinctive reactions like aggression, nurture, fear and desire. The cortex "gets to watch" the amygdala in action. In this sense modern man becomes aware of the potentials that exist for what you might term "goodness" and is able to contrast it with all the other instinctive reactions. When I use flowery language like the "dawn of man" I'm really referring to a gradual evolution spanning some millions of years.

At this point I can readily see people assuming that this spirit is being supplied from some external source when, in reality, it is a potential (something that can be quantified in game theory) that can only be realized at a certain stage of human development.

I find the coincidence of the many religions starting out at around the same time as Christianity, and the widespread use of written communication to be a strong indication that "man was getting his ideas down on paper as soon as he could". This seems like a far more plausible explanation for the flurry of divine activity that we are otherwise being asked to entertain.

Interesting scenario but it a bit obtuse in it’s purpose., isn't it?

By obtuse you mean pointless? I don't agree. I've already suggested we put ourselves in the sandals of people bereft of any knowledge of their evolutionary past. I feel strongly that compared to the way we can see ourselves today, they would feel cut-off, remote from their natural origins -- and this would easily lead to ideas about their supposed special place in nature.

Of course, for all I know, you might think in a similar way. But I have absolutely no doubt that our evolutionary pathway split off from the rest of the animal kingdom when we began to rely on "twig technology" for our survival. This development mandated a heightened ability to use imagination to visualize what might be done in order to set about doing it. As a consequence of moving away from sharp teeth to sharp sticks we have gained the ability to imagine almost anything and the notion of perfect forms would make an appealing contrast to the hum-drum life in a damp cave. Our ability to make these imaginary forms appear more corporeal through art and other forms of written communication only goes to reinforce such ideas.

What I wanted to convey most was the timetable that divine revelation seemed to be working to. With the exception of rare events such as the Urantia Book, most of the major parlance and interaction on a one-to-one basis with God(s) appears during the earliest periods of human art and literature. It's almost as if Jesus had the final say on things when he wrapped it up nearly 2000 years ago. Why has God since taken a back seat to apparently watch us stumble even deeper into trouble. Our mechanised world serves to amplify the vagaries of our moral code to a point unimaginable in biblical times.

Some might wish to argue that God has always been whispering in our ears but the historical staging of events looks very much like the Bible is the word of man rationalizing the world in the anthropomorphic terms he was most familiar with.

In terms of the “anthropomorphic” is there anything else man can do besides rationalizing the world in terms he is familiar with, regardless of whether or not God, real or imagined, is whispering in his ears as you put it?

Of course not. We always interpret things in terms most familiar to us. In the age of clockwork the world was described in terms of clockwork mechanisms. Now we talk in terms of computers and information theory. I think this only goes to show that any particular interpretation that occurs to us is likely to be limited to an analogy. The point is though, that analogy can lead to serious detours from actuality. The analogy of our propensity to plan and create, when applied to the world at large, delivers us with some ultimate planner-creator. Yet we conveniently omit the part of the analogy that covers our evolution from lower forms of life that merely existed. When someone explains how God evolved into (and beyond being) the smartest physicist ever -- without attending class -- then I'll be far more receptive to what seems an otherwise naive notion about the first thing that isn't nothing being the biggest and smartest thing that ever could be.

[Cephus]

That could depend upon what philosophical and theological definitions you're using for 'god' and 'evidence'.

Well, since we're using the capital-G version of God, it refers to a specific deity, so I guess that answers that. And I wouldn't mind some evidence that couldn't equally be used to support the existence of every deity and fantasy creature that man has come up with, but I know that's asking too much.

I'm not saying that I believe there is or isn't a god, but I certainly have more sympathy for some arguments over others.

I have no sympathy for anything that does not result in a search for actual truth. I don't care if something makes you feel good, I don't care if it makes your life easier, if you make a claim that something is true, I only care if it is actually, demonstrably, factually true.

God, at least so far as I have ever seen, does not have any evidence to support a factual, demonstrable existence.

[HughDP]

That could depend upon what philosophical and theological definitions you're using for 'god' and 'evidence'.

Well, since we're using the capital-G version of God, it refers to a specific deity, so I guess that answers that. And I wouldn't mind some evidence that couldn't equally be used to support the existence of every deity and fantasy creature that man has come up with, but I know that's asking too much.

I'm not saying that I believe there is or isn't a god, but I certainly have more sympathy for some arguments over others.

I have no sympathy for anything that does not result in a search for actual truth. I don't care if something makes you feel good, I don't care if it makes your life easier, if you make a claim that something is true, I only care if it is actually, demonstrably, factually true.

God, at least so far as I have ever seen, does not have any evidence to support a factual, demonstrable existence.

Cephus, I'm sure we'll get to debate these interesting points (well, they're interesting to me anyway!) in some future thread. I'm conscious that we're going way off-topic here.

[joer]

QED writes:

Certainly! If the existence of God could be shown to be impossible, well, that would be something for humanity to digest!

Nice Quip! But at least you’re acknowledging the Possibility of the existence of a God, a Supreme Being, An existence above all others.

I find that quite remarkable, honorable and worthy of respect considering the amount of repugnance it must cause you in spite of everything in you that begs to acknowledge the contrary as the likely truism. I admire you QED. Most atheists I’ve communicated with would not go so far as to give the possibility of there being a God that pittance of recognition. Thank You.

QED wrote:

I can only speak for myself, but I do acknowledge the importance of the possibility.

Thank You.

He also said:

However I also find, when I study the world, that it behaves greatly as if there was no God pulling the strings.

Interesting! What is it that indicates to you the Abensence of a GOD behind any natural thing at all in the world? I would think you might not see any evidence of a GOD at this time, just as during the dinosaur age I would think any itellegence in that age would fail see any evidence of Math. But I also would think any intelligence in that age would also fail to find any evidence of the absence of Math. I would think you would have to find Math first before you would notice the absence of it. Would you say that was logical QED?

QED wrote:

Nor can I see a necessity or logic in introducing a God into this role.

I wouldn’t see any necessity to introduce God into the role of being creator or at least the intiator of all natural processes. But I do see the logic. Simply humankind’s desire to understand the world, comos and the cause of all processes within and without their existence would be logic enough to postulate the introduction of a God concept. There must be something behind everything that happens. Not there has to be mind you, but that simple thought would be enough to lead one to postulate GOD. And as you so aptly describe instances in the concept of evolution in the physical realm. So to can you easily see the parallel to evoltion of the concept of GOD in the Siritual relam. From totems and sipirts in habiting water, stone, trees, to Gods of the sun moon planets etc. on to today where the concept of God is evolving to the initiator essence of all that is know and the unknown.

I mean I don’t really see a lot of difference in the processes of evolution. Only in the subject matter the evolutionary process in theory is being applied to. Do you see any difference other than that OED?
QED said:

I'm just as much a sucker for a really good hunch as the next guy.

Good that keeps us game.
QED said:

Just so long as it isn't contradicted by any simple observation.

And that remains too be seen. Perhaps we can soon get into what is getting contradicted, by what observation and how simple the observation really is. I wouldn’t mind that. The empirical data observed and gathered from the test we apply.

I’d like to see if we can agree on something to test. I’d liked to see what we could come up with for an experiment.

This spirit has not being channeled down from above the clouds, it has lain in wait in logic for ever. Make of that what you will

This is interesting maybe we can develpoe some tests for spirit. Maybe you can come up with a test of Spirit through game thoery and I can come up with a test of Spirit through invocation for Prayer. Than we’d have to try to setup some blinds for each test and regulate the observation to the tightest controls we can muster without to much diffuculty. Spirit in God theory is suppose to be functioning as an aid to humankind in advancing the kind of things you mentioned like kindness, mercy and giving as being controlled by “the large neo-cortex (the part of the brain that does all the planning and reflecting).” To perhaps conter the effects of the amygdala, which you say, “ provides instinctive reactions like aggression, nurture, fear and desire”.

What do you say QED? Want to test your Game Theory of Spirit against the God Theory of Spirit to compare and contrast the results and compile data form those results?


Using a subtractive process and steadily removing knowledge of Evolution, Geology, Cosmology, information theory etc. I think it becomes clear where the religious notions arise from. I'll add to this in the subsequent reply...


I wonder what you might say that was? I’m worried it might be verbose without a clear idea of where or when the religious notions you are reffering occurred or what they are or why you are even mentioning them.. By obtuse I mean not clear in what your trying to say.






QED wrote:



What I wanted to convey most was the timetable that divine revelation seemed to be working to. With the exception of rare events such as the Urantia Book, most of the major parlance and interaction on a one-to-one basis with God(s) appears during the earliest periods of human art and literature. It's almost as if Jesus had the final say on things when he wrapped it up nearly 2000 years ago.

Not true still goes on to a high degree today.

Why has God since taken a back seat to apparently watch us stumble even deeper into trouble.

God hasn’t has same message today as ever. Do Right, feed the hungry, help te poor the destitute the down trodden. Stop doing those things caused by the amygdala, which QED says, “ provides instinctive reactions like aggression, nurture, fear and desire”. Honor God do service to and for your fellow human. Do those things to make up for all the times it wasn’t done in the past. Stop doing the stuff that isn’t good for you and humankind. That’s what God continues to tell us through revelations appearances voices thoughts etc etc.

Our mechanised world serves to amplify the vagaries of our moral code to a point unimaginable in biblical times.

We must make what ever adjustment necessary to keep the world in balance and on the right track.

The analogy of our propensity to plan and create, when applied to the world at large, delivers us with some ultimate planner-creator.

Exactly The God Concept.

Yet we conveniently omit the part of the analogy that covers our evolution from lower forms of life that merely existed.

Not true! Modern evolve concepts of GOD believe GOD is behind ever thing. Including DNA the source of the possibilities of evolution.

When someone explains how God evolved into (and beyond being) the smartest physicist ever -- without attending class -- then I'll be far more receptive to what seems an otherwise naive notion about the first thing that isn't nothing being the biggest and smartest thing that ever could be.

God invented everything the smartest Physicists have been able to discern form his Plan and a lot more the smartest physicists haven’t even come close to discovering.

It’s easy to make statements QED. Lets start testing some of them. How about that one on Spirit I mentioned?

[QED]

The analogy of our propensity to plan and create, when applied to the world at large, delivers us with some ultimate planner-creator.

Exactly The God Concept.

Gaining a concept is one thing, using the analogy to prove the concept is an entirely different matter. We have to be very careful about this as some people seem to have the mistaken impression that analogies prove things.

Yet we conveniently omit the part of the analogy that covers our evolution from lower forms of life that merely existed.

Not true! Modern evolve concepts of GOD believe GOD is behind ever thing. Including DNA the source of the possibilities of evolution.

Sorry, no. You misunderstood what I was trying to say. It is was the "evolution of God" to which I was referring. We readily see an analogy between our evolved capacities to plan and create (the earliest forms of life being incapable of doing this) yet nobody seems to have given any thought to the analogy of our actual evolution as applied to God. Nothing we experience drops into place fully-formed -- everywhere we look we observe evolution bringing about gradual organization. Hence why I followed with...

When someone explains how God evolved into (and beyond being) the smartest physicist ever -- without attending class -- then I'll be far more receptive to what seems an otherwise naive notion about the first thing that isn't nothing being the biggest and smartest thing that ever could be.

God invented everything the smartest Physicists have been able to discern form his Plan and a lot more the smartest physicists haven’t even come close to discovering.

Yes, I already said he would be the smartest thing that ever could be so he would be bound to eclipse our brightest minds. But again, you seem to state this without any consideration of how such an infinite mind could come to be. Instead of there being nothing, we have something. We can all see that, but why do some people assume that that something could have started out as the most colossally empowered and intelligent thing that can be imagined?

It’s easy to make statements QED. Lets start testing some of them. How about that one on Spirit I mentioned?

I'm not sure I understand in any detail what you're suggesting. I have proposed a number of though experiments to test peoples ideas. When Harvey mentioned, for instance, that he felt God only intervened to make judgments during symmetry breaking events (on average he suggested that God can only act in ways statistically compatible with scientific observation) I suggested that were a game of Russian Roulette to be played between a convicted serial killer and Mother Teresa, the symmetry of the revolving barrel could be broken in ways that might surprise us if we held God to be in judgment.

This is the sort of thing that indicates to me the absence of a GOD behind all the natural things in the world.

[Cephus]

Cephus, I'm sure we'll get to debate these interesting points (well, they're interesting to me anyway!) in some future thread. I'm conscious that we're going way off-topic here.

Actually we're not, I just pointed out that the original topic is irrational and really cannot be answered at all until the question of "Is there a God" is answered first. Otherwise, it's just a bunch of people giving their opinions with absolutely nothing to back it up.

[joer]

QED said:

Gaining a concept is one thing, using the analogy to prove the concept is an entirely different matter. We have to be very careful about this as some people seem to have the mistaken impression that analogies prove things.

I agree. Acknowledging the existence of the concept is good enough for starters.

QED said:

Sorry, no. You misunderstood what I was trying to say. It is was the "evolution of God" to which I was referring. We readily see an analogy between our evolved capacities to plan and create (the earliest forms of life being incapable of doing this) yet nobody seems to have given any thought to the analogy of our actual evolution as applied to God. Nothing we experience drops into place fully-formed -- everywhere we look we observe evolution bringing about gradual organization.

QED, a friend of mine on another site, rherman, posted this link which I saw and read today. It about a scientist and theologian in England, Mr. John Polkinghorne. Maybe you’ve heard of him. Let me quote a bit from the interview.

For 25 years John Polkinghorne was professor of mathematical physics at Cambridge. He distinguished himself in the field of elementary particle physics. In 1974 he was named a Fellow of the Royal Society, the scientific academy to which Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Stephen Hawking have all also been admitted. Then, at the age of 49, Polkinghorne became a student again, this time of theology.

John Polkinghorne came to find scientific and religious questions to present a lively complement to each other, to be intellectual partners in discerning truth. He eventually returned to Cambridge as both a physicist and a theologian. He's published many books and articles and emerged as one of the world's leading thinkers on the shared ground between the insights of quantum physics and religion. In 1997 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. In 2002 he received the Templeton Prize for progress in science and religion.

John Polkinghorne's very way of thinking would reframe the modern idea that science and religion are competing disciplines. Strident voices on both sides of contemporary debates proclaim certainties. But Polkinghorne's vocabulary about God and science tends to stress qualities like beauty, subtlety and surprise.

http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/ ... ript.shtml

Now I haven’t search for scientists that have similar views as mine. But this gentleman certainly does. As may remember I’ve stated previously in this thread:

O.K. QED I guess I’ll just have to launch into it and see if you help me out. I was looking forward to getting into string theory, how science is the discovery of God’s creation, and stuff like that.

Let’s see how do you prove something that can’t be proven empirically? The reality of God is based on faith and belief. And somebody who is willing to explore the esoteric theorized realities of science that have not yet been proven but refuses to do the same thing in the field of Faith and Belief. Would you call that open mindedness or deselective reasoning?

Just as in evolution certain evolutionary paths hit a dead end, but that doesn’t stop the scientist from exploring more. Someone who is willing to seek the ethereal meanings in science but refuses to recognize the ethereal indications of a creator Being, what’s that? Someone is dedicated to blocking the exploration of such ideas of Faith as if in reaction to the dedication of the Inquisition to blocking scientists in the exploration and discoveries of scientific ideas centuries before. Is that right?

Just as the consolidation of five seemingly disparate lines of thought on string theory into the “M” theory opened up a multitude of possibilities of new discoveries and ways of looking at things that will hopefully achieve the impossible task of unifying Gravitational theory and Quantum Theory. I mean God (used here again only as a manner of expression) isn’t it exciting? I see no unbridgeable difference between science and spirituality. Some day I to expect a unifying theory of those two ideas as they are not disparate as they appear. We just need to look for the connections. What’s the common denominator?

You know QED you made a pretty interesting statement in your previous post:

Quote:
Now there are some mighty impressive structures that have been put in place over the last few thousand years. Men have laboured hard to create a coherent and organized presence for the almighty here on Earth. Living as I do not far from the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey I have often stood in awe and admiration for the inspiration of men in the past. But every work, be it painting, hymn or entire cathedral is crafted by men to a plan proposed by men. There is something inevitable about all this, something that is bound to occur to sentient beings like us if we ponder extremes.

As you know man is still labouring ('ou' British usage) hard to create those structures as I’ve mentioned with the string theory and such. But what is the highest structure that man can postulate? Wouldn’t the Creator of Everything, Basis of Everything, Source of Everything theory, qualify for that. 50 years ago science was debunking the GOD of the archaic Religion of that time. But as the concept of God develops with the advances of science how could we know that we won’t reach our highest structure: The basis of everything, The understanding of everything? No my friend QED we’re travelling this road together right now. You see us as separate BUT I see us together. You’re unwittingly discovering the God that I postulate and you deny.

Who knows perhaps when we find out what the other 7 dimensions of “M” theory are or the proof of the postulation of the graviton and the expected confirmation at the time of completion of the atom smasher in Scandinavia that I believe is 7 times more powerful than our current most powerful smasher, we may find some new esoteric meanings to the GOD theory. Exciting isn’t it. Also there’s the expected discovery of heavy tiny synchronous particles that are counterparts to our known electrons, protons, neutrons etc. I wonder if any of these are comparable to the basic unit of matter? If we find that perhaps we will have another clue to the Great Source and Center. You guessed it GOD.

Now I think Mr. John Polkinghorne would understand exactly what I was talking about. As I understand perfectly what he was saying in his interview. As a matter of fact if you have questions or doubts about anything he was saying I may be able to add to it for you in order to clarify and help you understand. I believe you will understand most if not all of what he’s saying but just disagree with portions of it. I’ll move on to the next point here about the tests.

QED wrote:

joer wrote:
It’s easy to make statements QED. Lets start testing some of them. How about that one on Spirit I mentioned?

I'm not sure I understand in any detail what you're suggesting. I have proposed a number of though experiments to test peoples ideas. When Harvey mentioned, for instance, that he felt God only intervened to make judgments during symmetry breaking events (on average he suggested that God can only act in ways statistically compatible with scientific observation) I suggested that were a game of Russian Roulette to be played between a convicted serial killer and Mother Teresa, the symmetry of the revolving barrel could be broken in ways that might surprise us if we held God to be in judgment.

This is the sort of thing that indicates to me the absence of a GOD behind all the natural things in the world.

I would enjoy the links to those proposed tests if you could get them, because I didn’t see them in this thread. Also I don’t understand the example you give:

I suggested that were a game of Russian Roulette to be played between a convicted serial killer and Mother Teresa, the symmetry of the revolving barrel could be broken in ways that might surprise us if we held God to be in judgment.

Or how it indicates the “absence of a GOD behind all the natural things in the world.” Perhaps you can explain that to me if it’s important to our discussion. Thank You in advance.

To continue the kind of experiment I was suggesting was the following:

Joer said;
This is interesting maybe we can develop some tests for spirit. Maybe you can come up with a test of Spirit through game theory and I can come up with a test of Spirit through invocation for Prayer.

You brought up this about Spirit:

At this point I can readily see people assuming that this spirit is being supplied from some external source when, in reality, it is a potential (something that can be quantified in game theory) that can only be realized at a certain stage of human development.

Since you posited the precept that

Spirit is a potential (something that can be quantified in game theory) that can only be realized at a certain stage of human development.

I figured that would be something worth demonstrating which Cephus emphasizes is important to prove the existence of GOD. So we can than debate the percentage question on the Bible.

And I proposed a test of "Spirit through the invocation of Prayer."

Now noted physicist Mr. John Polkinghorne , in his book Quarks, Chaos and Christianity, writes,

"We can take with absolute seriousness all that science can tell us and still believe that there is room left over for our action in the world and for God's action, too. Of course, this does not mean that prayer is just filling in a series of blank cheques given us by Heavenly Father Christmas. Prayer is not magic. It is something much more personal, for it is an interaction between humanity and God."

And he futher states in his interview (link already provided)

“And, of course, there are all sorts of different forms of prayer. I mean, there's sort of worshipful prayer. And I think a lot of scientists actually pray in that way without knowing that they're doing it, because one of the rewards for what is actually a laborious business doing scientific research is a sense of wonder when you see the beautiful structure of the world and the way things work. And I think, though scientists don't use the word wonder when they write formal papers for learned journals, they use it quite a lot in their conversation. And it is, as I say, the payoff for all the labor. And I think that actually is a form of worship, whether the scientists know it or not. But I suppose the crunch question is can a scientist ask God to do something? A petitionary prayer in that sense.”

I’m actually proposing to test what he’s positing: “I suppose the crunch question is can a scientist ask God to do something? A petitionary prayer in that sense.”, right here with you QED with anyone who wants to watch or join in the experiment with us.

So I’m assuming your test will demonstrate the existence of Spirit by natural occurrence vis a vis the tool, “Game Theory”. And in my test I will attempt to show what Mr. Polkinghorne calls “an interaction between humanity and God.", through the use of the tool, “Prayer”.

In addition I previously suggested:

Than we’d have to try to setup some blinds for each test and regulate the observation to the tightest controls we can muster without to much difficulty. Spirit in God theory is suppose to be functioning as an aid to humankind in advancing the kind of things you mentioned like kindness, mercy and giving as being controlled by “the large neo-cortex (the part of the brain that does all the planning and reflecting).” To perhaps counter the effects of the amygdala, which you say, “ provides instinctive reactions like aggression, nurture, fear and desire”.

What do you say QED? Want to test your Game Theory of Spirit against the God Theory of Spirit to compare and contrast the results and compile data form those results?

As you can see QED there is no analogy being used here simply the suggestion that we use the tennets of science to test our positions.

So what do you say now my friend? Are you willing to give it a try in the interest of Science?

Thank You for entertaining these ideas with me. I appreciate your gracious participation. I have no unrealistic expectations of these tests but I have Faith in God, Faith in Science and Faith in the Truth.

All positive affirmations be with you my friend.

[HughDP]

This is an interesting thread but I must confess, joer, that I still don't understand the test you're proposing.

I'm probably being a bit dense, but I've re-read it a few times and can't grasp what you're suggesting.

[QED]

Hugh, I don't think the details of any particular test have been suggested yet, more it seems that joer is looking for a willingness to participate with him in advance

joer - when it comes to oblique statements Mr. Polkinghorne seems to trump anything I can manage. If he thinks he's suggesting anything deep when, for example, he says all scientists are unwittingly worshiping God when they marvel at the world they are decoding, then this would be based on circular reasoning by assuming the existence of God in the first place. I am aware though of the popular science title mentioned -- I have a pile of reading yet to do.

Perhaps you have in mind something to do with prayer? I believe that this widely held superstition is thought by some to be a way of influencing outcomes, i.e. controlling fate. I am vaguely aware of studies that aim to demonstrate whether or not prayer has a genuine effect. Personally I would have to see a statistically significant outcome in a setup where the object of Petitionary Prayer was blind to the effort. Perhaps you ought to start a new topic to debate the sort of test that you have in mind. It certainly does not belong in this thread.

[HughDP]

Personally I would have to see a statistically significant outcome in a setup where the object of Petitionary Prayer was blind to the effort.

Yes, quite.

I always thought that petitionary prayer carried the "thy will be done" clause anyway, which would preclude any testing on the grounds that God just might not fancy doing what's asked.

There are more subtle forms of petitionary prayer whereby one prays for a change in the believer, but I can't see how they could be objectively tested.

I'm not certain I've ever been keen on the idea of petitionary prayer anyway; assuming one is a believer, isn't it rather presumptuous to bother God in such a way? Surely a believer must have faith that God knows best?

I can, however, see more of a point in prayer to help cement ones relationship with God, where the mere act of praying achieves the desired result, regardless of the words of the prayer.