You understand that I wasn't arguing for "everything as subjective" - just for all experienced subjective events as existing ( however fleetingly ) and related to the non-subjective world with varying degrees of correspondence. Some of these subjective entities correspond strongly to non-subjective reality and some don't. The engineer's subjective modelling of a bridge he's working on must correspond strongly to physical reality if his bridge is going to stand. The mother's sadness will probably manifest in her physical self and in her actions and be apparent to other persons. The lunatic's subjective experiences may have little to do with the world outside himself but may be strongly determined by errant physical events in his brain. But in none of these instances of relationship between the subjective and non-subjective is anyone but the subject privy to the subjective experience per se. ____ Science doesn't grind to a halt so we can be pretty sure that not everything ( in reality ) is subjective although our experiences are. _____ A lot of very bright people don't see God inferred in the physical world so you're in good company. A lot of bright people see the non-existence of God inferred in the physical world. A lot of bright people see inferences for God in the world.. so you pays yer money and you takes yer choice. Or, like all good agnostics, you don't take a choice.
For those who think possibility = probability (which i don't), My belief is that it is meaningless to talk about the probability of the existence of any "unknown" creator. In case someone want to prove or show that the probability of the existence of the unknown creator is very small, i think it is a lot easier for them to show the probability of the existence of a "known" creator is even smaller. Probability(an unknown creator) >= Probability(Jesus as the creator).
The probability of God is .2673911418 I did a lot of work to get this result and I won't appreciate being challenged on it.
there is a huge definitional problem around the notion of god in the jc tradition, such that no 2 believers believe the same thing, nor would they be able to clarify what it is exactly they believe in, other than "that that we don't understand, allmighty etc" type stuff. if as an atheist buddhist humanist etc i satisfy myself with the following definition: "God is Love", and nothing else, which in fact i do funnily enough, i am none the wiser... i don't know what "love" is, at least not from a scientific standpoint (and thank god for that!!!)... but its undeniably a very potent glue... an entanglement of a higher order prevailing amongst evolved life forms to the extent we can observe (not sure about plants but why not, if one knows how to talk to them ) )... back to the grind... btw guys, have you ever had a look at this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E8_(mathematics) looks familiar somehow doesn't it? and the following raging debate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Exceptionally_Simple_Theory_of_Everything its not pretty... very demanding, the scientific approach...
Love from the scientific standpoint would be something basic like 'instinct' - as in mother whatever's love for her offspring, or something that a behaviorist could observe and ascribe to some need or other. I think there's a special kind of human love that's of a higher order than any that can be found in the less intelligent species. We are the only animal that's conscious of our mortality and of the mortality of others; I believe that this awareness is an important element of true human love.
There is a love for this universe that's like a mother's whatever for her offspring. And that's because it's something made by the seeming contents of it. The maker has a kind of 'love' for what it makes. The world is a divided phenomenon, originating as one, such that any man would be able to say correctly, "I made the maker of this world". And this is the maker of mortality. It's a rather strange love. So love really isn't known in this world. The best a man can do is to have charity. Charity is the willingness to look at someone as having progressed farther than they currently exhibit. One way to do that is to look at the persons immortality, instead of their mortality...which is temporary and illusory. You have influence one way or another. So in looking we must ask ourselves if we would give life, or give death. Jesus