[Particle Person]

Like I said, calling the Universe G-d is something with which I disagree, but it makes more sense than atheism. The question "Who made G-d" is actually rather puerile. Aristotle spoke of the Uncaused Cause, the Unmoved Mover. I think Plato did as well. In spite of their unusual, well, let us just call them "habits", they weren't stupid. No one really cares about the question. Most people accept the fact that there is one thing in the Universe that had no creator, but has always been. Only whiny kids get hot and bothered over the question for more than five minutes. I mean, we can go round and round w/ it, but all it is is mental masturbation, ultimately. I can get you MOST of the way to G-d using reason alone. The rest you DO have to do on faith. I have never denied that.

"How can G-d exist without a creator?"

"No one really cares."

This is some seriously hardcore theology.

[Ghost of V]

Like I said, calling the Universe G-d is something with which I disagree, but it makes more sense than atheism. The question "Who made G-d" is actually rather puerile. Aristotle spoke of the Uncaused Cause, the Unmoved Mover. I think Plato did as well. In spite of their unusual, well, let us just call them "habits", they weren't stupid. No one really cares about the question. Most people accept the fact that there is one thing in the Universe that had no creator, but has always been. Only whiny kids get hot and bothered over the question for more than five minutes. I mean, we can go round and round w/ it, but all it is is mental masturbation, ultimately. I can get you MOST of the way to G-d using reason alone. The rest you DO have to do on faith. I have never denied that.

Who gives a f#@k what Aristotle or Plato said. They are ancient dead guys who would be considered retarded by today's standards.

[Particle Person]

They also kissed boys, which is a logical fallacy.

[Rushy]

Like I said, calling the Universe G-d is something with which I disagree, but it makes more sense than atheism. The question "Who made G-d" is actually rather puerile. Aristotle spoke of the Uncaused Cause, the Unmoved Mover. I think Plato did as well. In spite of their unusual, well, let us just call them "habits", they weren't stupid. No one really cares about the question. Most people accept the fact that there is one thing in the Universe that had no creator, but has always been. Only whiny kids get hot and bothered over the question for more than five minutes. I mean, we can go round and round w/ it, but all it is is mental masturbation, ultimately. I can get you MOST of the way to G-d using reason alone. The rest you DO have to do on faith. I have never denied that.

Do you honestly not see the logical paradox that you create by saying the universe must have been caused by something but an "uncaused cause" exists? Then you basically rolled that up afterwards by saying god exists because lots of people believe god exists.

They are ancient dead guys who would be considered retarded by today's standards.

Well... not really. Their science and mathematics skills are still impressive given the time they resided in, though most of their science ended up being completely wrong (Aristotle, for example, thought maggots arose spontaneously from rotting meat). Their math is very important historically and their philosophical ventures are still discussed in pretty much every philosophy course.

[Ghost of V]

They also kissed boys, which is a logical fallacy.

That was completely platonic. I see no problem here.

[Blanko]

ITT: Vauxy demonstrating how to make a Yaakov thread worse than it already is.

[Yaakov ben Avraham]

And mind you, no one disputes that Schliemann was a pompous arrogant ass of a man who clobbered the site of the real Troy with his sloppy work. But, he did find it. And he found it based on reading Homer, and taking him at his word. But I'll just tell him to put Homer down and go look for Troy in Antarctica or Tibet.

[Vindictus]

And mind you, no one disputes that Schliemann was a pompous arrogant ass of a man who clobbered the site of the real Troy with his sloppy work. But, he did find it. And he found it based on reading Homer, and taking him at his word. But I'll just tell him to put Homer down and go look for Troy in Antarctica or Tibet.

It's because the Jews put Troy there.

[Yaakov ben Avraham]

And mind you, no one disputes that Schliemann was a pompous arrogant ass of a man who clobbered the site of the real Troy with his sloppy work. But, he did find it. And he found it based on reading Homer, and taking him at his word. But I'll just tell him to put Homer down and go look for Troy in Antarctica or Tibet.

It's because the Jews put Troy there.

Ah, ok. That is a simply nonsensical, rather dumb response, but fine.

[Vindictus]

And mind you, no one disputes that Schliemann was a pompous arrogant ass of a man who clobbered the site of the real Troy with his sloppy work. But, he did find it. And he found it based on reading Homer, and taking him at his word. But I'll just tell him to put Homer down and go look for Troy in Antarctica or Tibet.

It's because the Jews put Troy there.

Ah, ok. That is a simply nonsensical, rather dumb response, but fine.

I thought I would play your game :^)

[Ghost of V]

The Jews wrote Homer's Odyssey and also built Troy. There are several Jew words used in the epic poem, that's how I know this.

[beardo]

Why are you wasting your time with us dirty gentiles?

[Yaakov ben Avraham]

VINDICTUS, I realise that you will probably never be called by Mensa, but still...

[Ghost Spaghetti]

The idea that God is the universe is an interesting one. Or maybe the universe is God. The universe brought us galaxies, solar systems, life, planets and celestial bodies, and the means to survive on those bodies, etc. I see no reason why the universe can't be God. Of course it wouldn't be the God of the good book, but a representation of an omnipotent force that makes all things possible.

What is this, 5000 BC? The universe "brought us" nothing.

If anything, we exist in spite of the universe. We've dragged ourselves kicking and screaming to life on a knife-edge of survivability. Even this veritable Eden of a planet we call Earth is mostly uninhabitable without technology. (Oceans, desert, tundra, sky, rocks, disease-filled, vicious predator-filled, too lava-filled, too high, too craggy, etc) If the universe or God or whatever is actively trying to support humans then it's doing a fairly sh*tty job of it.

[beardo]

Why do you ignore everything I ask you?

[Yaakov ben Avraham]

Beardo, the question is kind of stupid, really. Ghost Spaghetti, as you are no doubt well aware, the Bible resolves that problem by saying we once lived in Paradise, and screwed it up. Now, you don't have to accept that. No one is trying to make you accept that, least of all me. But if you do not, you run into the whole issue of theodicy.  Why would G-d permit the crap to go on that does? If you don't answer the question in the Biblical way, and you are certainly free not to, then you have to answer it some other way. And how you interpret the Garden of Eden story, and Adam and Eve, and all that, is really up to you.

[beardo]

Beardo, the question is kind of stupid, really.

So?

[Ghost Spaghetti]

I wasn't directing that post at you. I have no interest discussing magic gardens, talking snakes and mentally unhinged gods, I was discussing the idea of the 'universe' providing for us, either as a conscious or unconscious benefactor.

[jroa]

Yaakov, why do Jews drink non-kosher water?  http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/09/02/whats-water-tiny-invisible-shrimp/

[juner]

Yaakov, why do Jews drink non-kosher water?  http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/09/02/whats-water-tiny-invisible-shrimp/

And don't worry. The bugs are kosher.

In a 2004 article in The Jewish Press, Rabbi David Berger, a professor of history at the City University Graduate Center, said, "The notion that God would have forbidden something that no one could know about for thousands of years, thus causing wholesale, unavoidable violation of the Torah, offends our deepest instincts about the character of both the Law and its Author."

Seems they gave themselves an escape plan using infallible logic.