Where the rubber hits the road

Worldslaziestbusker · #1 18th July 2012, 04:24 PM

Where the rubber hits the road, or as Terry Pratchett had it in "Monstrous Regiment," where the meat meets the metal, are phrases denoting the moment of truth in testing something. I would like to further bastardise this idiom to match it to a thought I had about the nature of the deities people claim exist. Where the god meets the ground, is my new take on the matter.

Any deity which does not interact with matter is immaterial both in the literal and the figurative sense. If they cannot reach into the physical realm from whatever ethereal existence its proponents want to posit, it can't even communicate with us, let alone perform miracles or raise its champions high in triumph while crushing its detractors into the dust with the heel of its magnificent sandal. Without a god to matter conduit, the deity might as well not exist to those of us who do. Even if the deity does exist and intends punishing all humanity for the hubris of ignoring it, we can't know that that's the case, and anyone who says otherwise is talking through their hat, because they can't have experience of the deity any more than the people who run down their beliefs. Non interactive deities are non starters.

Deities alleged to be able to interact with us, to perform miracles, to have formed the universe through an act of will need to be able to move matter about and make it act the way they want. Having recently spent some time in the company of an organic chemist, who described the complex process of piecing together chemicals to act as forensic standards in drug prosecutions (cook at temperature X in company with Y and Z to get the hydroxyl group attached at point A, then shield points B and C with a temporary sheath of W so you don't get unwanted sulphur bonds at those sites while you get it to bend into a C shape at temperature T) I was reminded that making chemicals do your bidding without the luxury of enzymes to do it for you is hard work. But that's the sort of thing an intercessory deity needs to be able to do, and not just for a once off batch of laboratory grade methamphetamine, but sufficient to create a universe.
"The cat sat on the mat" is a simple phrase, but rendering it in a manner perceivable to a human, whether in a dream, written on a piece of paper or whispered on the lightest zephyr would require the manipulation of atoms. Without that link between the supernatural and the natural, the god's got nothing.
Saying that it occurs by an act of will makes no more headway on the problem than calling it magic. The atoms have to be moved in space, arranged relative to one another, and then made to bond or release bonds to fit the particular need. The more I think about the issue, the more I think anyone invoking a deity as the cause of all we see around us because they can't imagine it happening by natural processes occurring along paths delineated by the laws of physics is looking at the wrong end of the telescope. The incredulity rightfully belongs to anyone presented with the idea that a non-corporeal being can subvert the observed laws of physics by an act of will.

This line of thought was spurred by a discussion I had regarding death of god theology. My statement that the theologian I'd listened to on the matter alleged that the God of the Bible had actually died during the crucifixion was met by a disbelieving "That's a very literal interpretation of what they said." But if someone says their god is dead, what else can be interpreted from their words? If people want me to believe that their deity does or did once interact with what I know of as the world around me, they are making a very literal claim about the abilities of that god. If they state that their god died, they are either talking about it going beyond a point from which it cannot return and influence situations in the way it is claimed to have once done, or they have made a very poor choice of words.

Hold theists to the literality of their claims. If they shie from literal interpretations, they have nothing in hand they should be wasting your time with. If they accept the literality of their doctrine, they will happily provide you with the evidence you need to join them in believing in their claims. Or start getting vague on you and quickly turn into shiers. One or the other.

I realise this is nothing new. I have seen Jaar Gillon bring this up in debate with theists, and I'm sure he wasn't the first person to come to the conclusions he did come to on the matter, but the line of thought started from first principles with the death of god discussion and I wanted to get it out in one go to see how it looked.

Darwinsbulldog · #2 18th July 2012, 05:10 PM

IF god is interactive, then he is natural. If he is natural, then science should be able to detect him. If he is below the detection radar of modern science then he is even more piss-weak than a neutrino, so who gives a toss?
If he is supernatural, then he can't interact with nature [and of course us], and so again, he is totally irrelevant.