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[leblon]

An excellent article by Adam Gopnik on the ideological warfare between atheists and believers.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2014/02/17/140217crat_atlarge_gopnik?currentPage=all

A sample snippet:

Yet the need for God never vanishes. Mel Brooks’s 2000 Year Old Man, asked to explain the origin of God, admits that early humans first adored “a guy in our village named Phil, and for a time we worshipped him.” Phil “was big, and mean, and he could break you in two with his bare hands!” One day, a thunderstorm came up, and a lightning bolt hit Phil. “We gathered around and saw that he was dead. Then we said to one another, ‘There’s something bigger than Phil!’ ” The basic urge to recognize something bigger than Phil still gives theistic theories an audience, even as their explanations of the lightning-maker turn ever gappier and gassier.

Comments

[misha-b.livejournal.com]

A very nice article.

One thing I find strange is that he and most other people in that debate rarely talk about intermediate possibilities -- i.e., we are created by beings that are powerful but not omnipotent. For example we can be a computer simulation or life on Earth could have been artificially created. These are perhaps somewhat plausible. These possibilities don't answer the big questions about God, the meaning of life, etc, as such, but they put our existence in a different light.

[leblon.livejournal.com]

Lots of possibilities here. Benign, but not omnipotent creators. Omnipotent, but not benign creators (like in Olaf Stapledon's "The Star Maker").

[misha-b.livejournal.com]

Amusingly, here is an article by Frenkel in the NYTimes on whether the Universe is a computer simulation. Very timely!