Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Cheapshot1 3702 days ago
No, you are misrepresenting what he was saying. If god created the universe, but did not interact with it after it's creation then you can't claim him to be one of the many mythical figures people make him to be. Second, if god does interact with our universe he is than testable to some degree.
1 comments
dragonwriter 3702 days ago
> If god created the universe, but did not interact with it after it's creation then you can't claim him to be one of the many mythical figures people make him to be.

Sure, you can, since the watchmaker god precisely is one of the many mythical figures people make him out to be.

> Second, if god does interact with our universe he is than testable to some degree.

Not really; if you have a complete model of all interactions within our universe, you can test whether there is anything else acting on our universe (though that's indistinguishable from a gap in your model of what goes on in our universe). OTOH, if you have a predictive model of how God interacts with our universe (which mythical portrayals disagree on whether this is even in principle possible) you could test if that particular model seems accurate.

link
Cheapshot1 3702 days ago
>Sure, you can, since the watchmaker god precisely is one of the many mythical figures people make him out to be.

Or it could be magical fairies with magical universe creating powder. You can't claim something without something to support the claim. My fairies with magical fairy universe creating powder is just as plausible as any god in this scenerio.

Also if it manifests in the universe it is at least detectable. We might not know the cause but we can see the "supernatural" event taking place in the universe

link
PhasmaFelis 3702 days ago
> Or it could be magical fairies with magical universe creating powder. You can't claim something without something to support the claim. My fairies with magical fairy universe creating powder is just as plausible as any god in this scenerio.

You're moving the goalposts. First you said that a non-involved deity is incompatible with any religious conception of God, which is incorrect. Now you've shifted to asserting that there's no evidence for the existence of a non-involved deity, which is reasonable, but has nothing to do with whether or not the idea is compatible with theism as it exists.

link
dragonwriter 3702 days ago
> Or it could be magical fairies with magical universe creating powder.

Sure, the watchmaker god is not distinguishable from lots of other things, but that's different than it conflicting with all mythical portrayals of god (which it can't do since it is one such portrayal.)

link
Cheapshot1 3702 days ago
The problem with this is the assumption of the god. God of the gaps argument. Unless the evidence points to it being a god we can not start making claims about it.

Example. You can't disprove god but he is all knowing loving and created the universe. This logic makes me scratch my head. Thinking Why just Why

link