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Old 05-20-2005, 08:11 AM
goofball goofball is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 43
Default Re: A Reasonable Religion

Mundane details are pointless i agree, (how logn didit take him, or something). Even pointing out 4 or more dimensions was slightly nitpicky of me (to be accurate i think a 'he designed the universe as we know it' would suffice, because the number of dimensions in th euniverse in unknown)

However, you stipluate that there is some kind of post or near death reward punishment system and that strikes me as non trivial because it has to fall within the laws of physics. Changing ones perception of time as death nears is within the laws of physics but has the problems you mention. A physical heaven or hell where people are pehaps taken runs into the problem of us finding it. Several other systems I've thought of seem implausible too (him physically transporting you to a place in his universe). The biggest problem with a post/near death system, is that we don't know it exists. Sure some people think it does, but I for one don't. I base my behavior on many things but the afterlife is not one of them, and if I didn't have other reasons not to behave badly I would with little to no fear of a postmortem punishment.

Beyond all of this though, I have a hard time seeing why he would even care if we are happy. There seems to be no logical reason for you to include this among your stipulations. Of all the reasons I can think of for the god you describe to create a universe like ours more have him being indifferent to what happens to us than not.

Saying "god wants us to be happy" strikes me as introducing unnecesary complexities to the system, and we all know waht William of Ockham said about that.
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