Talk:God/Archive 16

message: Proving that 'something that does not exist' does exist ?
Let us theorize that God is "       ", that is "nothing", 'the word'.  Now how do we prove that this entity does exist, even those the proposition is that this entity does not exist in the physical world.  ( world of  half-truths )
Well in physics we encountered similar problems, and sometimes the 'shadow movements' of the entity were isolated.
Can we not look back in history and isolate 'tracks' of God to suggest that such an entity does exist, even though it is 'nothing' in the pure sense ?
--Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti 20:54, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: God could never be disproved, but IMO that's a bad argument, as it violates the "burden of proof" rule, unless the christian (or whoever) brought up the evidence that God does exist. 
Yoda921 12:29, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proving that 'something that does not exist' does exist ? 

message: Abba Latin? It's Aramaic. http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/bible/tarazi_name_of_god.htm
: Thank you! --Merzul 05:29, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  God's names 

message: It used to only describe faith, requiring "risk"... Something needs to be said about the other way of believing that religion is rational, I added Swinburne, but maybe he is not the best example. Any ideas? --Merzul 03:03, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead, last sentence 

message: There was an article of a meta-analysis once in the Mensa Magazine that proved that the more intelligent you are, the smaller the chance of being religious is. Any ideas whether or where this should be included in the article?NJlo 20:21, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't really see why we would want to include such information here. I was, however, surprised that Religiosity and intelligence does not mention this study, but it is included in Atheism#Demographics. I have not seen the study, and I only know it is mentioned in "The God Delusion", but how this guy has "proven" this conclusions I don't know. --Merzul 21:28, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intelligence + Belief 

message: There are some problematic external links on this page and due to the popularity of the article, I assume it is (and will be) an ongoing problem. Has there been a previous discussion about what links are thought to be worth keeping? There appear to be several at the moment in violation of WP:EL, WP:COI, WP:OR, WP:RS, and WP:V. I just removed one blatant promotional link in violation of WP:COI. Currently, there are two links to angdatingdaan.org (an unnecessary amount) which don't lead to exceptional content that improves the article. I'd propose removing them. I invite you to discuss what should be kept and what should be removed. See also WP:NOT. Nposs 19:54, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: External links

message: Source trace: 
* This search seems to mention Italian magazine "class"
* Here is the same source.
I will specify in the article. --Merzul 21:00, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Keep dreaming... Science is very simple in this matter. God does not exist, randomness does. --Taraborn 20:18, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This doesn't by a long shot qualify as a serious reference. And it is of course blatantly false - the majority of the world's scientists come from the developed world that with a few exceptions (like America) is mainly secular. That the scientists would be more religious than the average population doesn't sound very plausible. Furthermore, the reference that you cite lists Stephen Hawking as a beleiver, which is complete nonsense. --Denoir 06:46, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, the actual source we used was adherents.com, and we are still using them for some statistical data. The fact that they have taken a poll from an obscure magazine and have hidden the dubious nature of the data by citing an intermediate source makes me very angry. I mean, this is just awful misinformation, why do people do this? --Merzul 13:57, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Roy, the burden is on you to provide an acceptable source, per WP:V. It is better to have no stats than poorly referenced ones, and I for one don't see the point in the polls and stats at all in this context. There isn't a "vote" on whether God exists. I fail to see the relevance of the statistics at all. Perhaps you could begin by explaining why you think this belongs in this article at all. Thanks KillerChihuahua?!? 12:23, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Even if 75% is true, what significance does it have?  Are scientists somehow more expert than any other profession on the subject?  Does God treat them differently?  What relevance (verifiability aside) does this material have to the article?  Its not really a rhetorical question István 06:57, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

text: It's only relevance is simply telling you what scientists believe.  I agree that a scientist's belief, pro or con, is no different than anyone else's, but if were going to delete what scientists believe, than the section will largely be one sentence, we scientifically don't know one way or the other, but pretty much everyone already knows that don't they? Roy Brumback 07:41, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see the point of that section as correctly summarised in its second sentence: "A major point of debate has been whether God's existence or attributes can be empirically tested"- i.e. if/how scientific method might describe God.  Religious comment on science might also be equally valid.  However, the statement "75% of scientists believe..." is neither scientific method nor religion but rather politics; neither science nor religion works on consensus, as many examples in both fields indicate. István 16:48, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  75% of Scientists 

message: I am a Christian who has studied the faith all my life and other Religions. I searched God and came across a single section created to show "God" in all his forms mixed with the sources from different religions, and found it very misleading. I noticed Allah as one of the names among Yahweh and Jehovah to name a few. I strongly believe that each name should be in a choose-able index after you search "God" for it can refer to any God in any religion where God is seen differently or as "The existence of a God", "The God of the Christian Faith" or "The God of Islam", etc., creating a contradiction among faiths as I am pointing out. I don’t mean to be a bother or to be viewed as Religiously Racist and I'm not here to force my religion on others, but I think it will be beneficial for all religions and to who search "God" to understand Him/Her as different among different Faiths. For instance; to some Christians or Jews their faiths may refer "Allah" to be seen as a false "God", but in the Islamic Faith "Allah" may be seen as the God of all three religions, thus creating the predicament I stated above. 
Here is my solution: When searching "God" give a sub index with: 
Pick a God from a list of Religions 
(This link will give a page with different religions and underneath links to specific names and explanations of their version of God) for example.
Very true.  In fact, the Christian religion teaches that all other "gods" are various manifestations of satan.  BTW, the word "GOD" is not a name, but a job description.  His Jewish name is "I AM" (Hebrew=YHWH) the Christian name is "Savior" (Greek=Jesus).   
------------
Christianity
Sub Groups of Christianity:
Catholic,
Protestant,
Baptist,
Etc.
Names of the Christian God
with explanations pertaining 
to their Faith:
God,
The Lord,
The Trinity,
Etc.
---------
Islam
Islamic
Names of God 
Pertaining to
their Faith:
Allah,
Etc.
-----------
Mormonism
Etc.
--------------
Jehovah Witnesses
Etc.:
Jehovah,
Etc.
---------
Hindu
Etc.:
Etc.
And
The proof of the existence of God
(This gives a page with info on the evidence of a God)
--71.104.65.80 03:38, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, you are raising a valid point. If we look in the archives at the time when this article was a FA candidate, and look at one of those versions, then you will notice that a large section indeed looked like that. As the article expanded, that material has been moved to Conceptions of God, and so on. As a result, arguably the most relevant section is now missing from this article. --Merzul 19:00, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  I think "God" the wiki search should be split into several sub cattagories 

message: Regarding the first few paragraphs there is a request for citation in which it says that theologians have assigned various attributes to God.  Wouldn't the Nicene Creed be one possible source for that reference? 200.121.111.113 17:53, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation Needed 

message: "All the notable medieval philosophers developed arguments for the existence of God, attempting to wrestle with the contradictions God's attributes seem to imply. The last few hundred years of philosophy have seen sustained attacks on some of the arguments for God's existence. The theist response has been either to contend, like Alvin Plantinga, that faith is not a product of reason, but is properly basic; or to pursue, like Richard Swinburne, an approach of rational apologetics."--Steven X 12:16, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The article wouldn't suffer much if it was removed entirely, but do you have any specific ideas on what needs to be improved? The last sentence is a bit simplistic, but it used to only mention Plantinga; and clearly that was even worse. The current problem with this last sentence is that there are billions of approaches to apologetics, and when it comes to Christian apologetics, Swinburne is hardly representative, he is maybe more of a philosopher of religion than a theologian. Anyway, I don't know what your main concern is with this section, but I would encourage you to just go ahead and fix it! --Merzul 16:05, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  This part in the intro needs serious revising: