Talk:God/Archive 16

Archive 10

←

Archive 14

Archive 15

Archive 16

Archive 17

Archive 18

→

Archive 20

Proving that 'something that does not exist' does exist ?

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)

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)Yoda

God's names

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)

Jah is a shortened for of Jehovah as in as in Hallelujah (praise Jah) Kljenni 20:06, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Lead, last sentence

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)

And now that we are talking about the lead, Roy's points are still valid. It doesn't summarize the names of God and the history, but I have no idea how to properly summarize the name of God section! I guess that's why nobody else has done it... :) --Merzul 03:11, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Intelligence + Belief

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)

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)

God cannot be illustrated

You cannot draw God on a piece of paper.

God does not have a beard nor is God white. How dare you try to physically conceptualize God.

I am removing this picture and will continue to as long as I am alive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Webucation (talk • contribs)

You may object to this classic conception of the Christian God: Detail of Sistine Chapel fresco Creation of the Sun and Moon by 16th Century painter Michelangelo. Please take it up with him. -- Ec5618 22:34, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Look, I've tried to resolve this by offering you other options. Appearently, the messages you post imply that we are the ones responsible for the Sistine Chapel painting. Nobody knows what god truly looks like, but the fact remains that artists have made conceptions in the past. The image is there to illustrate that fact. It isn't there to tell people "Hey look, God looks like this!" it's more of "Michelangelo drew a picture of what he thinks God would look like. Removing the image does nothing to prove that God cannot be accurately drawn. You may find a source which states that God cannot be drawn and add it to the article if it isn't there already. --w^{L<speak·check·chill>} 10:14, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

This whole thing has made me think though. Nobody knows what God looks like, although some religions believe that he looks human based on the "in his image" verse in Genesis. Many people think of God as a being who lives in heaven, a place in the sky. Do you think it's better if we use the image of the sky, that is further down the article, to be used as the main image instead? --w^{L<speak·check·chill>} 02:35, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe, this depiction of God can be moved to the history of monotheism section, although the image in the sky is maybe a bit too abstract, I think most monotheist still have a concept of a personal God, well not the old man with the beard, but still some consciousness of some sort. But if I would have to pick between those two, I might actually prefer the more abstract. I mean, this is 21th century wikipedia, and we should probably depict what most religious people associate with God. Still, the picture of God looks far more powerful than just some sunlight :) Anyway, I'm going to sleep, because I'm just rambling now... but yes I agree I think, uhm good night! --Merzul 04:06, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

There are people of various faiths objecting to the anthromorphization of their god. Of course it is not a justification for censorship, but given that any representation is bound to be just as valid as the next, why don't we use a picture of a god that the followers won't object to? All things being equal, I suggest we use the iconic Flying Spaghetti Monster image. I did try it on the page with the subtext "God is often viewed as powerful or even omnipotent as symbolized in the picture by the Flying Spaghetti Monster's many noodly appendages.". It was reverted without any given justification. --Denoir 07:24, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

It is not censorship to use a 21th century concept of God rather than the old man with the beard. There are good argument on both sides, but censorship has nothing to do with wanting to reflect a more modern understanding. And pushing the FSM on this page is hardly an act worthy of a true pirate! --Merzul 14:17, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

A more modern understanding of god sounds like a contradiction in term to me. It strikes me as something similar as a more modern understanding of alchemy. Perhaps I'm not up to date on these things, but it seems to me that people still use the Bible 1.0 and the Koran 1.0 as a foundation for their beliefs. AFIK there we have no new data on god that would enable us to define it differently than 500 years ago. The Michelangelo version at least has some form of cultural value. If you are thinking in terms of scientific knowledge pushing the concept of god into a more abstract domain (i.e. god of the gaps), sure but then what you chose to display becomes completely arbitrary. Which was the point of the FSM picture and description.

Saying that God is often viewed as like a force of nature — or rather as a consciousness which can be manifest as a natural aspect. Both illuminating light (pictured) and mysterious darkness are canonical symbols for representing God. (as the text was) is completely arbitrary. I could equally well put up a picture of a cup of coffee saying that "God is often seen as a source of warmth (pictured)". The combination of silly metaphors is endless, and I would say that the many noodly appendages of the FSM are a symbol of god's power that reaches everything and as good as any other analogy.

The line of thought behind the sky picture is not only arbitrary, but can hardly be said to be representative of any past or current religious majority. Which brings me to the main point - this is an encyclopedia article that should not be except from the standard rules of wikipedia which include verifiability and no original research. We might as well be debating what the wing color of fairies is. There are no peer-reviewed bodies of work that would be eligible according to wikipedia standards to say that god exists - much less what he might look like. The best thing we can do - the only thing we can do is to take a picture that we can say something objective about. Like a picture of Apollo saying "This is how the Romans depicted the god Apollo" or a picture of Thor, the FSM or any other deity where you can say "Group A thought/thinks that god B looks like this". --Denoir 15:26, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Just because they are unsourced doesn't make them OR, see the WP:ATT#No original research proposal for a good explanation of this difference. Most of those descriptions can easily be found in the relevant literature, even the "mysterious darkness" which might seem just like poetry is a term used by Richard Swinburne (and maybe others too) when he talks about the problem of divine hiddenness. --Merzul 16:32, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Again, that would justify "Swinburne says X" or "Book A says Y" - because Swinburne or Book A is notable. It does not in any way say that god is X or Y or even that a majority of religious believers accept it. Furthermore it has nothing to do with a picture, metaphorical or otherwise. The picture of a dark sky is no more an obvious choice to illustrate "mysterious darkness" than say a dimly lit bathroom. You can easly make up much more vulgar imagery ("where the sun doesn't shine") that would be equally valid. The translation from a metaphor to an image is completely arbitrary. It's just your own interpretation, and that doesn't cut it for wikipedia as basically every person that visits the page can have his or her own idea of what that picture should be (and what metaphor should be for that matter). The only acceptable thing is something that is invariant and factual. As for the exceptions of OR in the proposal, I don't see it. "Editors may make straightforward mathematical calculations or logical deductions based on fully attributed data that neither change the significance of the data nor require additional assumptions beyond what is in the source. " doesn't seem to apply to this case. --Denoir 17:12, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I changed the subtitle under the painting that I hope may be more palatable. I know it reads better for me. However, some of the words poped out of the box and I didn't know how to pop them back in. This painting is really one artist's view of God. A view that some may agree with, but that many Christians don't agree with. I think it is fair to say this is "his" view of God. And not the official Christian God.Simplywater 14:51, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Webucation's objections with respect to the current God page's "artistic" intro. The artistic depiction is not the only nor the main source of whatever God is held to be. Some may prefer their personal deity such as a pic of Jesus(with differing traits), perhaps. Given such varied cultural preferences, its best that all such pics be pushed down into a subsection, "Depictions of God". A text only presentation is sufficient in the introduction anyway. Modocc 18:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

External links

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)

75% of Scientists

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)

Keep dreaming... Science is very simple in this matter. God does not exist, randomness does. --Taraborn 20:18, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

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.[1] --Denoir 06:46, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

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)

Guys, you have not in any way shown that this stat is false. Personally it is the only stat I could find on the matter of worldwide opinion of scientists. If you have other stats, please let us know. And secular doesn't mean atheist. Plus America is secular. It pioneered secularism. 1st amendment and all. Plus it doesn't claim Hawking is a believer like you say, but says he says the laws of physics are the best path to God, whichever God he means. He clearly has used the word God in his books, like knowing the mind of God. I'm reinserting it until someone can actually dispute it with more than that they find it unbelievable. Roy Brumback 09:02, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

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)

Adherents.com, where I got it, is largely a reliable source. All the other stats on it seem about right with what I've read elsewhere. And if 40% of all scientists claim to believe in a personal God, why is saying 75% believe in God in general such a stretch? I honestly don't know for sure, but I have yet to see anyone contradict the claim here. And I simply added it because I saw the other stats, so I figured it was relevant. Scientifically the only thing we can really say about God is that it isn't proven or disproven that God exists, at least not if you don't accept things like reported miracles or such as you haven't seen them yourself. But simply stating that makes for a short section. What say everyone else? Roy Brumback 06:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

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)

I'm gonna weigh in as just another editor who thinks this info isn't really relevant to the article. JuJube 07:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

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)

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)

Regardless of it being relevant or not - the source is not a reliable one. Adherents.com have taken a very dubious reference from a clearly biased source. If you can provide a better reference or a more detailed one, then we can start discussing relevance. Furthermore these types of stats go in sharp contrast with the definition in the introduction (i.e " God is the deity believed by monotheists to be the supreme reality").

As it is today the article says that god = personal god. Hawking as Einstein before him uses the g-word but with the meaning that god = nature. We shouldn't confuse it with the sky-god that this article covers. Spinoza's variety that seems to be so popular with scientists is for all practical purposes equal to atheism - the difference is just in the use of the g-word, not ontological. --Denoir 08:31, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

BTW, why would anyone ask a scientist about the existence of God anyway? That's like asking a car mechanic about deep sea diving. If you want to ask someone about God, speak to a theologian. Science has a predisposition against God because it confines itself to physical reality. God is a metaphysical reality. Granted, theologians have various views, and many are not orignal thinkers and are just somebody's puppet, but there are those who have experienced God and have given their life to honestly understand Him.

I think "God" the wiki search should be split into several sub cattagories

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)

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)

I wish I had a little better understanding of not just the name of the Zorrastrian God, but rather what qualites that name encompasses. Then perhaps we would find that the names may be different but the definitions are actually the same. I mean, perhaps we are all looking at a banana, but using different names. Isn't the word God actually a saxton word for "Good". I guess I'll have to do a little more homework to put it on this page.Simplywater 19:32, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Citation Needed

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)

I love wikipedia

Except this section:

Some definitions of God equate the deity with "whatever entity created the universe", or in some cases with the universe itself, or with omnipresence in the universe. Some claim that this reduces the God controversy to a question of terminology. In popular controversies, scientific advocates sometimes claim that there is no coherent question to be answered. They allege that the definition of God is too nebulous, varied, controversial, or nonsensical,‹The template Talkfact is being considered for merging.›  that those arguing in favor of existence, when presented with evidence against, are always able to claim that the question has been improperly framed.‹The template Talkfact is being considered for merging.› 

Some claim that the multitude of world religions and historical evidence shows that humans invented God, not the other way around.‹The template Talkfact is being considered for merging.›  However, the attribution of omnipotence to God gives rise to the "problem of the supernatural". Any omnipotent entity could, by definition, obscure any confirmatory evidence, or "plant" evidence of its own non-existence. The assumption of omnipotence leads however to a number of logical problems and paradoxes.

Sigmund Freud regarded God as wish fulfillment for the perfect father figure, but this is recognized as an argument from motive.

There has been significant debate regarding the religious beliefs of scientists. After a 1998 survey on the beliefs of top U.S. scientists indicated that only 7% of National Academy of Sciences respondents professed a belief in God, the author concluded "...among the top natural scientists, disbelief is greater than ever - almost total." Mathematicians were the most likely to profess such a belief (14.3%), followed by physicists and astronomers (7.5%). Among biological scientists, only 5.5% responded that they believed in God. A University of Chicago study suggests that among physicians in the U.S. 76% believe in God.

Can we sort out this mess on the talk page? I will remove this from the article until these issues are resolved. --Merzul 16:28, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I will just briefly summarize the reason this was moved here in case people forget the history, because looking at the above one would think that the above unsourced statements was annoying us, but no, that's not the problem. The issue was that the last paragraph turned into a statistics competition of who could find the largest numbers, and well a few of us just didn't really understand what these numbers really meant, so I decided to just move it here until the battle is resolved.

I can personally understand the relevance of the Nature study, namely that top natural scientist don't believe in God. This shows something about the difficulty in doing science and keeping belief in the supernatural, it shows that NOMA is very difficult in practice. As the Nature study says, you can be a scientist and believe in God, but being a top scientist and believing in God is much harder. Being a top scientist requires that you dedicate your entire life to an essentially godless method of inquiry. This does not mean that scientists disbelieve in God because they are more intelligent, but simply because the methodological demands on a top scientist requires an attitude that is very hard to reconcile with faith. How can you dedicate your life to studying the neurological basis of consciousness and believe that the soul is immaterial? Well you can try to consider them non-overlapping, but it is incredibly difficult!

The rest of the statistics, however, I don't find particularly illuminating on the relationship between science and religion, e.g. take the number of physicians? What does that have to do with science? A physician is no more a medical scientist than a computer programmer is a computer scientist. The Chicago study was about practicing doctors, and their belief tell us very little about science and religion. What it does instead is to start a competition, where the statistics are no longer about science and religion, but about whether theism or atheism has more intelligent supporters. It is as if saying "religious people are educated too", well that's not what this section should be about, what we should do is make sure the nature study is not interpreted as saying religious people are less intelligent, but it does say something very important about the difficulties of NOMA, which is also what the original authors of the study are implying in their last sentence. --Merzul 03:23, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree most of this stuff is vague and needs cleanup, but the studies simply tell you what scientists believe about God, that's it. Not why. And science isn't "godless" it's simply using the experimental method. If an experiment showed God, like for instance God showing up at the lab at Harvard, then God would become scientifically testable. And scientifically showing there is no God is as hard or harder as showing something else, like for instance aliens, are not there. It's generally harder to prove a negative than a positive. And it's been known for thousands of years that there are materiel influences/sources on/of the mind, and that has never disproven the soul, although maybe it has given more scientists recently difficulties in believing in it, although over most history it certainly hasn't. Plus what exactly matter is is still not exactly clear. Whatever you find "illuminating" or not is not the issue. Should we include the opinions of scientists on the issue or not. They have no bearing other then telling you what scientists believe, and in what percentage. And physicians are certainly scientists. Every single one performs experiments on people every day to determine what's wrong with them and what to do about it. Are you actually saying only medical researchers are "real" scientists? And there was no "competition", I was simply trying to point out that disbelief in God among scientists was not as great as the article was making it out to be. And none of these studies tells us anything about science and religion, only what the religious beliefs of scientists currently are. One could easily also add up how many scientists over all time have believed in God or gods. Not that either stat would have any bearing on the scientific question of the existence of God or gods. Roy Brumback 07:50, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

You have made some valid points here, but I'm going to focus on where I disagree, namely your very wide definition of what it means to be a scientist. According to you definition a computer programmer, or even a plumber is a scientist, because they conduct experiments to see what is wrong, form a hypothesis, check to see if that's the problem and then fix your toilet. What the Nature study considers a scientist is someone who is doing science, that is, apply for funding, supervise or engage in novel research, and most importantly, publish their results in academic journals / conference proceedings. Now, since you will probably refuse to see how the Nature study reflects on NOMA, and I will strongly object to statistics about doctors and programmers or other professionals, I suggest we keep statistics out of this. --Merzul 10:43, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Interesting, in one of my favorite books, "Lost Discoveries, the ancient roots of modern science" medical science is not included. He gave a very good arguement that it is still a "soft science" like psycology. For the author, it just isn't in the same catagory as math, phyiscs, ect...Simplywater 06:13, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Roy Brumback said: And physicians are certainly scientists. Every single one performs experiments on people every day to determine what's wrong with them and what to do about it.

And garbage men are certainly scientists. Every single one performs collects empirical data about the state of the garbage cans, engages in hypothesis testing (is the garbage can full?) and determines what action is best (empty the trash or come back tomorrow?). In that respect everybody is a scientist as we do empirical testing and engage in building theories about the world around us. That kind of definition is not a very good one. --Denoir 11:09, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Except for a few exceptions, like Mengele, doctors don't perform experiments on people. And most of Menegele's experiments were warped, not scientific. Doctors aren't scientists. KillerChihuahua^?!? 11:34, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Science -- knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method m-w.com 70.57.216.200 18:04, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

You guys are seriously playing dumb. Now I'll admit that people wouldn't think of plumbers or garbage men as scientists, although they are certainly using the scientific method if they are using experiments to get to the truth of their respective subjects. And there certainly is a science of plumbing as well as waste disposal. But if you're going to use cultural definitions of "scientist", then I'm pretty sure that if you asked people if doctors were men and women of science, the majority would say yes. Would you? Our article on scientists says "A scientist is an expert in at least one area of science who uses the scientific method to do research." Doctors are experts in a field of science, medicine, and they do research, either abstract or practical, like finding out why you are sick. And all doctors do experiments on people, not just crazy ones Killer. Ever been to the hospital? Ever had scientific tests run on you? And, if we are only going to list people who do pure experimental research as scientists, then why list mathematicians? Many argue they are not scientists. A doctor is certainly more of a scientist than a mathematician is. Now I can see the point that a doctor might not be regarded as a "pure" scientist, but their opinions on God would certainly go in the scientific perspectives section. Roy Brumback 07:21, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

If you wish to go by wikipedia definitions you should note that the "Scientist" article does not mention physicians and the "Physician" article doesn't mention science. Well, actually it does, in the header it says "The word physician should not be confused with physicist, which means a scientist in the area of physics.". If you google "physician scientist", you'll see that the term "Physician Scientist" refers to medical researchers. Everywhere else there is a clear distinction between the two categories. That's if you wish to have the cultural definition - people do not consider medical doctors to be scientists. --Denoir 16:44, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

And, there are scientist that do not consider medicine a "science" in the true sense of the word. What are the general "truths" of medicine? Mostly the truths seem bound by time. Which is to say in 30 years, the facts have changed. I would love, some example of a medical "truth". A "truth" that will be true 100 years from now. Now, biology is a science and physiology is a science. But I think it would be hard to argue that medicine is a science in the true sense of the word. Although it is very helpfulSimplywater 21:39, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

All "scientific truths" are bound by time. Newton's laws were true, then they were not. Relativity and QM might not be found to be scientifically true in the future. And medicine is clearly defined as a science, at least on the wiki page about it. And who else practices the science of medicine if not doctors? You might argue they are closer to engineers, but the scientist page clearly says there is no sharp devision between the two. And it doesn't list archeologists as scientists either, or a host of other kinds of scientists. And all this misses the point. Should we include scientists' opinions on God or not, and if we do do the opinions of doctors belong in the section of scientific perspectives? I don't really care about the first, but I'm positive doctors' opinions would be part of the "scientific perspective". As much as mathematicians and psychoanalysts would anyways. Roy Brumback 09:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

This part in the intro needs serious revising:

"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)

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)

Christian depicdtion of God.

Suggestions for improving the site:

A have an old calender that pictures God as three entities. If God exists, he can create himself in any form, ie Jesus Christ, the God as a force is represented by the holy spirit, a dove. God the creater is part of the picture you show, the wise old powerful figure.

In a world of three dimensional world "God would have three parts', and all originating from " ", " Nothing ".

How do you visualize 'nothing', Jesus Christ, and a spirit force.....? A pyramid of sorts, with many eyes, with wings...?

--Caesar J. B. Squitti  : Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti 03:32, 25 January 2007 (UTC)