particles and connections (General)

by David Turell , Monday, February 13, 2017, 16:36 (2842 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Of course we can discuss how we relate to God, and wonder how He relates to us. You are taking my approach to a silly extreme, which is fair enough in any debate.

dhw: I don’t know why it’s “silly” - though it’s certainly fair enough - to question how a relationship can be possible without contact and without common ground. If you can’t answer, then perhaps you should face up to the possibility that there may be something wrong with your approach (e.g. perhaps God has actually endowed us with some of his own traits).

He may have. My point is we cannot know that, so why presume it. I don't think discussing it adds anything to our knowledge. I think God can have goals or purposes without self-gratification.

DAVID: Your 'weapons of mass destruction' are Earth's requirements for life. It suggests God could not make the Earth in any other way. Perhaps He has limits. Your humanizing approach limits you vision of what actual capacities a creator God might have. We can only work with what we actually know of our reality.

dhw: Please reread what you have written. First you say that perhaps he has limits (he had to use weapons of mass destruction to create life), and then you tell me that it’s MY approach that imposes limits on him! It’s YOUR approach that imposes the limits. I merely wonder why a God with limitless powers couldn’t find a less destructive way to create life.

You are again making religious assumptions about the description of God's powers. I've said he probably had to make Earth this way. His powers may be limited.

DAVID (referring to Musser’s article): The answers you seek are not present. That was the point of presenting Musser.

If I am trying to make sense of a confused set of arguments, I’m afraid it’s not very helpful to be presented with a long article which answers none of my questions but shows that everyone else is confused, including you (see your next comment), although you are convinced that somehow or the other it all makes sense.

It is important to know quantum facts, even if we don't understand how it works. That is a major point of all the articles.

DAVID: Psychokinesis is wooly thinking. My guess is still God uses quantum mechanics as the basis of reality. How? I don't know because I don't understand quantum mechanics an more than Feynman did. BUT quantum mechanics IS the base.

dhw: I simply asked how an immaterial being could “control” (your term) matter, so why is psychokinesis woolly thinking? You have often suggested that beings communicate by telepathy in the afterlife. The principle is the same: the power of thought. You don’t know how God does it, but you know it’s not by mental power, though your God is all mental power?

You are right. God wills things into existence through quantum dynamics. I guess I don't like the word psychokinesis as it reminds me of spoon-benders.