Zealot

C.S. Pierce, an American Semiotician and Logician (Philosopher of symbols and logic), believed that the point of logic is to find either truth or some infinitely close approximation thereof. (Aristotle's deffinition of truth in Metaphysics being what Pierce means... Please read this quote carefully, because it is very easy to missunderstand. "Truth is to say of what is, that it is, or to say of what is not, that it is not" (Metaphysics 1011, a24). Inference is the process of taking observed data and drawing sound conclusions, whether using inductive or deductive methodology. What I am trying to understand is what fundamental difference between atheism and theism leads you to believe that atheism is more likely to succeed at drawing sound conclusions.

I have faith in my lack of faith because I believe there is no proof anywhere of God's existence. To believe He exists without any reason to do so would be irrational. I believe my perceptions and conclusions are reliable because I have no other choice. What I am trying to understand is not why you are not religious. I suspect I understand that far better than I want to admit, actually. I want to know why you trust that your lack of theistic religion is likely to lead you to correct inferences.

To make sure things don't get more confusing I embedded my response within your post. my words are in bold. There is a 3 headed dragon in your room right now. Your mind is not evolved enough to see it, puny human. :rolleyes:. Its a really silly game to play and avoids the point of an argument entirely I actually have to agree with your sarcasm here. God does not transcend logic. HE gives logic meaning. You are falling into what I said would be illogical by saying this. You agree that something - in this case - God has always existed to create a universe after an eternity of one not being there, however as I said before that is creating an illogical middleman. I see where the problem lies. Try and imagine a world without time. At the inception of this universe, not only space, but time as well began. To imagine God sitting, twiddling His thumbs, then suddenly thinking to Himself, "Hmm, all this twiddling is making me boored. I think I'll make the universe today." probably isn't a good way of thinking about timelessness. I'm not entirely sure what it would look like, or how consciousness can exist within it, but the notion of an eternity passing and then something happening is probably inaccurate. I suspect that whatever being was like before time is probably so alien to us that unless we somehow experience it, we can never comprehend it, but Plato's proof still stands. There has to be a first cause or else there is no reason why the much simpler Metaphysic "nothing exists" should not hold. I suppose that if you follow Hume and don't care about justification then that's not a problem, but if that is the case what I'm saying is so alien that real communication and understanding probably can not happen because I'm trying to talk about things which you don't even recognize as being possible. If you allow for an infinite sea of universes to have always existed and our universe coming into existence by a collision between two universes (or some other radical theory that exists that explains what might have happened before the big-bang) you would have the same result without the middleman to create it. Or even with the single universe possibility with something like an infinite cycle of universe expanding and collapsing to form another big bang. There are two problems here: first, no evidence has actually been found indicating any of the predictions of String Theory which are different from the Standard Model. If it proves to be the case there is a second problem: you have only pushed back the beginning. Perpetual motion is an impossibility irregardless of size. Energy must be dissipated every time that universes collide just as surely as stars, planets, or whatnot smaller units of mass. Or rather, I can not concieve of a multiverse which truely self-perpetuates energy unless it is part of something bigger still. The energy has to come from somewhere, doesn't it? As for the second, I have not actually seen a model which works and actually remains stable. Besides which, last time I checked Astronomers were saying the rate of expansion seems to be increasing, not decreasing. My point is you could imagine a natural order that could have always existed and allow new universes to exist without needing God to act as an operator to ensure that things run smoothly and continue to exist. Plenty of theories out there such as string theory or more specifically M-theory argue just this. As I said, string theory (as well as its variant m-theory) remains unproven. As far as actual observation is concerned, it appears no more effective at the moment than the standard model. If and when that changes I will say as much, but until then so far as I can tell, you are substituting a humanistically accepted pantheism for monotheism and calling it something new. I could cloud the issue with facts and point to human reason. The only way to truely assasinate flawless logic is to demonstrate that it is founded in a flawed system, or worse yet is the inevitable result of natural processes. Suddenly epistomologists and logicians dismiss it in droves. But praytell, how is it that without a coherent foundation human reason has accomplished so much to transform the world? Again, if you lean as Hume does and don't care about justification, then there is no point talking. We'll just be talking past each other anyway. And for a God to be truly a God he must be present in every universe and be able to interact and manipulate every single one, the definition of omnipotent says this must be allowed. This is precisely why His presence or absence has to be--erm--universal. We have no disagreement here. Unless I am still misunderstanding or misrepresenting your points, you have not proved to me that there is a need for a God to exist for the universe to exist. That's fine. My goal isn't to prove the necessity. That is most certainly a bridge too far. All I hope to accomplish is demonstrating that belief in God is reasonable. He wouldn't want me to force you to believe in Him. Dupin, I would ask you one question: Why do you have faith in your logic?

Shiny: Methinks that you need to learn a little about what infinite means. Infinite does not mean there is no definite boundary (eg. though numbers are infinite, no color is a number. The two categories hold almost nothing in common). It doesn't matter how many times or ways which you insist that omnipotence requires God be capable of doing things which don't make sense, you are simply using words to make non-meanings. Everything has boundaries. Some are very difficult to find. Honestly this one is not; even when I was not a theist I could see that this particular brand of argument about God is absurd, and not charitable to the many brilliant people who have held faith in some God or another. People don't tend to believe things once it is actually clear that there is an inherent contradiction within the belief. Within Christianity it is commonly held that God can do all things save one: sin. God is litterally incapable of being less than absolutely perfect. That includes logic. Logic works precisely because God is logical, but nonetheless God can not be less than perfectly logical even to make a rock so big he can't move it. Your most recent post actually illuminates something glorious. It's not about being right! I am absolutely sure that I am mistaken about a great many things regarding God and who HE is. Nonetheless HE loves me enough to overlook that and gently guide me toward the Truth. There is only one thing about HIM which I am actually absolutely sure of. HE is the being for which no greater being can be concieved. I am excited to get to spend forever getting to learn what that really means. Ring World: There is no contradiction here. There does appear to be one, because admittedly I am not arguing for a particular theism, but trying to go about showing a bit of philosophy of theistic religion. As it were the image of God I was attempting to paint pails in comparison to HIM. However, I fear that if you think my posts are long, technical, and annoying now (and even if you don't I'm sure others do--I admit it: I'm long winded about this) you would not even read the first sentence if I endeavoured to paint a more appropriate image. Quite litterally I could write an encyclopedia and not even begin to achieve that goal... God is creator. That does not mean that he came into being. In fact, it has to mean the exact opposite or else it is utter nonsense. Every effect has a cause. There are two possibilities which have been suggested for explaining being: either there is an infinite regression of cause-effect relationships, or else there is a finite regression of cause-effect relationships. If it is the second one, then there is a beginning--a first cause--which has to be self-existant and powerful enough to explain all subsiquent causes. If it is the second then you run into all sorts of trouble trying to explain why we live in a universe which is *only* 13.7 billion years old. That is to say, what caused time and space to begin unfolding in the first place? Admittedly the standard model of physics may not actually prove to be the case, and nature may actually be more like something that self-perpetuates somehow; but current models do not indicate such. As for the second part, I'm sorry. It is really confusing, but I am not saying God may exist in some universes but not in others. I mean to say precisely the opposite. If He exists at all then it is not actually possible to concieve of a universe in which there is no God. If it proves to be the case that no God exists, then that has to be true in every concievable universe. One way or another there are a lot of incredibly brilliant people who are mistaken about whether God is or is not. And this question will probably never be answered within this nature (or at least there are what appear to be powerful logical arguments to that fact).

I remember vaguely. That's been days and days ago, hasn't it?

Obviously not. Such a thing is an absurdity. Omnipotence means only that HE can do all doable things. If a thing is logically incoherent, such as creating a four-sided triangle, or a rock so heavy He can't move it, it does not reduce God's power in the slightest to say even He can't do such things... In fact, it simply illustrates that human reason is not perfect, because we imagine that we can concieve of such things, but are really speaking nonsense. [edit] You should read Aristotle's account of virtue in Nicomachian Ethics If his account is correct, then by necessity there are things which a perfectly powerful being can not do...

All that Goddess has said seems correct. I want to add something which is (hopefully) useful. I know how hard it is to do, but you really need to step back and really recognize that you are not the only person in the world. That is the only possible cure. Your mother is hurting. Clearly. She probably always will retain that ache, and you will probably never fully understand why she has it (though some day you will have the same sorts of aches and will understand how much they hurt, truth of the matter is that you probably have some inkling if you really examine your motives in wanting to save this relationship). You can not change that your mother is in pain, but you don't have to add to her pain. I hate to say this next part because I feel like a real jerk, but you are causing her a lot of unnecessary pain right now. You are abusing your mother's trust, as well as her emotions. People make a huge mistake frequently when they look at the relationship between hatred and abuse. Most people assume that the hatred (whatever causes it) leads to the abuse. The truth is actually precisely the opposite. When you misstreat people, and you will because you are as selfish as everybody else, it causes you to feel uncomfortable because part of you empathises and wouldn't like to be in their shoes. To cope you dehumanize those you misstreat. Eventually they become nothing more than a man-skinned demon to you, everything they do appears somehow aimed at causing you grief. And consiquentially you feel more and more justified in treating them more and more terribly, and the cycle builds on itself. Unless the cycle is broken, in the end you will find yourself alone, hating everybody and everything, including yourself. The only way to break this cycle is to take a step back and see the person as a person again. Then act on what you see. You probably don't want to hear this, but you are the only one who can mend the way you feel about your mother. To do so you have to take a step back, forgive her for every time she has wronged you, real or imagined, and actively look for what she has done to express love to you. This will probably be the most difficult thing you ever attempt. The analogy that comes to mind is teaching blind eyes to see again. But as somebody who has been there I can assure you it can be done. One of the best things which you can do to move the process along is to actively look for ways to demonstrate love to your mother (that is to say demonstrate that you wish the best for your mother). I'm not the one to tell you exactly what that entails. I don't really know you, only a few facts about you, and I likewise don't know your mother. You should probably ask your step-father for that guidance. If there is an expert on your mother, he's it. And he probably knows you pretty well also. When you approach him you must be serious enough that he becomes willing to talk about it, humble enough to listen to what he has to say, and meek enough to not try and defend yourself or your actions. Doubtless, he will have a list of things which you do which you probably need to stop doing lest they exacerbate the situation further (We all keep such lists, whether we mean to or not, about everybody we know). Once you have a starting point, start! For a while you will have to fake it, but eventually if you persist, the feelings will follow. Relationships have a remarkable way of mending themselves if we will only recognize and act on the humanity of those we relate to.

I fail to understand why it's such a big deal. Logistically there are problems to overcome. Maybe we have to find a way to increase the privacy individual service-members have at all times. Maybe we have to require that like women, gay service members can not serve in direct combat roles if they are openly gay (because it is frequently impossible in said roles to provide much privacy at all, and many service members are not going to be comfortable with wondering if their gay foxhole-mate secretly wishes that they were more than trench buddies). Nonetheless, I see absolutely no problem with not viewing sexual orientation as a barrier to service to one's country.

I think you missunderstand entirely. God is the fundamental fact about reality, not something which happens to inhabit it. He is not a middleman which was created out of nothing and subsiquently created everything else, but rather exists simply because He exists. He is Plato's first cause, if He is anything at all. To steal the ideas of much wiser persons than myself, provided his existance, the only appropriate deffinition for a being deserving of the title 'God,' is "the being for which no greater being can be concieved."(If you understand the philosophical theory of possible worlds you will recognize that His existance or lack thereof is the fundamental fact around which reality can exist, and He is necessarilly present or absent in all possible worlds, much as 2+2=4 is a necessary fact within all possible worlds [you can not imagine a coherent world in which 2+2=/=4 and mean what is really meant by 2+2=4. It is a logical truth rather than an incidental truth], though admittedly the question of God's presence or absence has yet to be addressed, and probably will remain beyond the scope of human knowledge. I can show no farther than that He either has to exist or else has to not exist but in either case it could not have been otherwise. This business of Him being a middleman holds no water once you properly begin to understand what you are really talking about.) I would also add (mind you, not to be mean-spirited, but to make what I believe to be a legitimate point) that semantically "God always existed" probably isn't the best way of describing His mode of being. It would be better to say that provided His existance at all, God always exists. He sees time always as present, never as past or future. I derive this from what a being deserving of the title "God" is, if anything at all. Think of it this way: temporally, we exist in one moment and only one moment. We call our moment the present; this present moment slips through time and follows our temporal progress perfectly. We are things capable of recalling that we existed in what seem to be different moments. We call all the moments which seem to have slipped away from us while we were paying attention to this present moment by the simple word "past." Basically, this is important because everybody I've read who has said anything at all about this (including Sartre, Husseral, and other atheistic philosophers as well as theistic philosophers such as C.S. Lewis) agree that the present is a much more important than all those moments which have passed combined. In a sence, at least humans seem to agree the virtue of time is the present (Further evidence includes the pittying way which people use phrases like "living in the past"). As such, provided His existance and that the present is in fact time's virtue, God necessarilly sees all moments as present. I add this paragraph in the hopes of helping you see a small glimpse of what God, provided His existance, must be like. For all things which are really virtue (that is to say praisworthy or excellent), God must possess that quality perfectly or else not exist at all; there is no middle ground. (Incidentally this argument is central to both Sartre's Atheism and Lewis's Christianity, though that is another topic entirely.) I can at least grasp the theoretical concept of a being which perfectly possesses all virtues after all. The only real work is to discover what is actually meant by the word "virtue" as it relates to every given thing or circumstance, and that is something which, quite litterally, God only knows.

I try to be honest about who I am, as much as I know how to be. I do however have secrets which I have only shared with a handful of people... things which I fear if people knew they would not be able to accept me. Perhaps everybody has something that they wouldn't want to tell even to a best friend.

First off, happy birthday. :) In addressing your question, I am an adult and have tried living on my own. It just doesn't make much sence to come home every night to an empty house, so I live with my family at the moment, paying a part of the bills and saving up money toward my eventual retirement and a much sooner wedding. In June I am getting married so I will be moving out in May to prepare an appartment for my fiance' and myself to live in, but in my family age is not viewed so much as the indicator as the level of responsibility exhibited in regarding what a person's privilages will be. It's a better system then assuming that because of an arbitrary number a person is ready to take responsibility for driving a car or whatnot so far as I can see...

It depends very highly on exactly who you are. There are some people who see the world through reason and experience little emotion and there are some people who see the world entirely through how they react to it emotionally... Most people fall somewhere between the two extremes. I happen to be one of the people who does not experience the world primarilly through emotion, prefering logic. That gives me certain advantages and disadvantages over people whos' views are more colored by emotion... but in the strictest sence neither is right or wrong, only different. To clarify my point, because I am not as affected by emotion it is very rare that I lose my temper and do something foolish because of it. However the tradeoff is that since I am not as affected by emotion I can not relate as much as I would like with other people, lacking a large part of the common experience that binds society together. Another advantage is that it is somewhat easier to choose to do what is best rather then what will make me feel best, so it is very easy for me to save money for the future or ignore company x's new advertising campaign... However to gain this advantage I forfeit being able to gain as much happiness out of life as people who are more heart-driven. There are many other tradeoffs between the two but I don't want to bore you with needless details. It ultimately boils down very much to what a person's personality pattern is whether they are heart or brain driven... And there are subcategories of both of these broad categories... and it is probably the case that there are no two people on the planet who are precisely the same in how this plays out in their lives and choices.

I have nothing against war personally. There are times in the course of human affairs in which it is inevitable. I wish that it weren't the case, but it is. However with that said I am only willing to take up arms to defend my home town. I will never fight except within the smallish valley that I call home. I would be willing to serve my country if it called for me, but in a non-combatant role only.

The only motive that I can concieve of for Iran attacking the US right now is if it were the case that they believed doing so would make Iraq become another Islamic Republic. That seems rather improbable to me at the moment even if the United States were forced to greatly reduce their presence there, so it seems equilly improbable that Iran will openly attack the United States. Support insurgency? sure... But they have little to gain and much to lose by awakening the sleeping giant's wrath. If it does come to war between the United States and Iran I suspect that it is more likely to do so via an attack on Israel... God help us all if that happens.

See, I always thought people were given the right to revolt if the government was unacceptable. Maybe that wasn't Locke, though....unless you're talking about actual government instead of Lockean theory. The Declaration of Independance makes the claim that people of good quality hold some obligation to rebel against an evil regime... yet when the Civil War was over the Executive branch concluded that the South's sepperation was illegal (and impossible) so no action was needed to reinstate the southern states' collective rights as members of the union. I think that the big issue that people forget when it comes to rights is that every right carries the responsibility to not abuse it. For example, the right to free expression carries with it an implicit responsibility to not use such a right to cause or encourage harm to others. (yet if one were to have the absolute right to free expression that would say that it is that person's right to use that to cause or encourage harm to others). If one has the right to possess weapons of some sort then that person also has the responsibility to not use those weapons to deprive rights to other people and to take reasonable safeguards against those weapons causing unneccessary harm. Aristotle's views on goodness seem to apply directly here. Goodness for any trait or quality forms a bell-curve. Too much or too little of a quality are both forms of non-goodness, and the point on the bell-curve which possesses the greatest positive value is the point of perfection in relation to that quality. So this is to say that too little right to freely express oneself would be a baddness called oppression and too much right to freely express oneself would be a baddness called encroaching on other people's rights. The happy medium in between these extremes is hard to see, but must be there somewhere. The same applies to absolutely any trait or quality that is not mathematical in nature.

Some day that debt is going to come due... Problem is, that means that in order to pay it the government is going to have to tax people like there is no tomorrow. Anybody who knows much about macroeconomics knows that taxing slows growth, and can actually generate recession... that means that in the end (and at this point it is probably already inevitable) either there is going to be depression like we have never known or the federal government is going to fail to meet a lot of obligations that it has made or both. In any case it is going to be highly unpleasant for everybody alive at that time and especially for people who are in some way associated with the governmen.

Thats like saying people who say being racist is wrong are forcing people to accept black people. And those people are no better than racists. Since when opressing racism or another that kind of thing is wrong? #-o Have you ever heard the phrase "I do not agree with what you say but I will defend your right to say it?" Just a thought.

In general I am pretty even-keeled. I don't experience either great rage or great affection. Emotions seem... abstract I suppose to me. I like it in a way and hate it in the other. Consiquentially I have never really been angry at my fiance. (We've been together for a little under 4.25 years now so that really is saying something) Sometimes like a blumbering moron I am able to really tick her off and we occasionally get the pleasure of sorting through a problem... but since both of us are committed to finding a solution that works in some sence it really is a good thing because at the end of a conflict we are closer together then when it started.

There are two things that I really fear: I fear forgetting to examine and understand myself and my life, and I fear failing to accomplish the specific mission that I was made for.

Not speaking for Ven of course, but I hold that philosophy and I find it to be a much more useful way to look at life than focusing on trying to comprehend something incomprehensible, like gods or the afterlife. It's nowhere near a 'problem'; it's simply a different outlook on life than your own. Though, I may simply just be having trouble understanding you. Why would you label such a mindset "a problem"? I don't intend to argue, only to attempt to demonstrate the Christian perspective on this and why in some sence it is a problem for you if you are not correct... If it is the case that there is a God... and it is the case that the Bible is an accurate rendition of God's general will for how HIS world should run and HIS creatures should behave... then it is the case that there is a real place that is Heaven (that is the presence of God) and a real place that is Hell (that is the absence of God), and it is also the case that every human being on the planet is going to either one or else the other. If Heaven and Hell are real and everybody is going one way or the other and you don't know it then I ought to do everything in my power to show you so that you don't unintentionally go somewhere you do not want to go. As a Christian who believes the Bible, Unorclan can not help but try to warn people off from a dangerious path any more then I, as a good Samaritan could not in good concience do anything but warn people that the bridge was out and they would probably be destroyed if they continued along that road they were on.

With due respect I do not believe that it is possible for one to genuinely be Christian, know what the Bible says, and still reject the Bible as God's word (and consiquentially the highest possible authority in matters of ethics). Any two of those three statements can be true of a person but not all three at the same time by the same person. However that is somewhat off topic and beyond this I have no intention of defending that possition here. I am well aware that my possition is unpopular, however let me attempt to reclarify. Homosexuality, like many things in human affairs, is not God's intended plan; it is a biproduct of the fall and a corruption of what was intended. "All have sinned and fallen short the glory of God." You, me, everybody. Don't ask me how it is possible that God is who HE is and yet the world is imperfect... I have no idea. However the fact that such is the case does not necessarilly mean, as you seem to believe, that God is behind the imperfections in the world. All that is necessarilly true is that God allows them for some reason. In the specific instance that is being discussed this means that God is not necessarilly behind homosexuality any more then he is necessarilly behind adultry, murder, theft, or any of the other actions that are frowned upon by HIS Book. All that it has to mean is that God allows them to exist.

This is more of a word play then anything else... Grammar is the key to solving it rather then logic or arithmatic. If there are three apple(s) then you can either take zero, one, two, or three. If zero or one then you are not taking apple(s) but rather not an apple or one apple, but you must leave at least two apple(s) in order to do so which means that you leave apples. If you take two or three apple(s) then you are taking apples. The same reasoning from language works for any number of apples greater then or equil to three... And if there was only one apple on the tree then you could not say that there are apple(s) on the tree. This isn't really a logic question however because I can concieve of (and use frequently) a language in which there is no differentiation between some and none (ie one or more and zero). It would be impractical to express the question in such a language because of grammar... meaning that this is a question for the grammarian rather then the logician.

I am going to state my thesis first, though I imagine that it isn't really what the author wishes to hear but please bear with my while I explain it. I believe that homosexuality is not what God intended when HE made anybody, but in many ways it is truer then the love and compassion that is felt and expressed by many heterosexual men in the world. The first part of my thesis is that I believe that homosexuality is wrong. As a Christian I must use the Bible as my final word for right and wrong in regards to ethics. There are a few places in the Bible in which it is classified with other sin that is sexual in nature (sex outside of marrage and beastiality being other examples from the Bible). Things that belong to the same class belong to the same class, so all homosexuality is an example of sexual sin. I honestly wish that I could disagree with myself on this issue but I can not. If the Bible is true and the God of the Bible is real then this must be true regardless of my views on the issue. I read a book a few years ago called Wild at Heart by John Eldridge. It is a Christian book attempting to deal with the concept of masculinity. One of the things which Eldridge brushed upon was homosexuality. One of the things that he said and that I agree with is that homosexuality is a corruption of something that was intended--brotherhood between men (or women). Really, it only becomes wrong when it is sexualized. Many heterosexual men are terrified that if they develope strong male relationships that may be an indicator that they are homosexual or bisexual. Consiquentially many live life without any genuine comrades and miss out on a large part of what is good in life. Though homosexuality is a corruption, men who practice it are in this way better off then many heterosexual men who allow it to get between them and having genuine friendship with other men. I have one final thing to say: I do not hold it against anybody if they fall short in some aria or other. "ALL have sinned..." myself included. I have lusted after women who aren't my wife. That is another example of sexual sin, and Jesus equated it with adultry. My fiance and I have been too cavalere in our relationship as well. I am human and to the extent that I have committed sexual sin I understand what it is to be a sexual sinner, so I will not throw stones. All I will say is that it amazes me to no end that a perfect being would be willing to go to such incredible lengths as to take my place in death for my many shortcomings... all so that I might live with HIM in spite of them.

Any life change is going to be difficult... especially one of such magnetude. Until a person is no longer in school it serves as your principle identifier socially, economically and in many ways emotionally. Beeing a part of a certain school gives a person a place in the world irregardless of anything else. However being forced to transition from one place in the world to another is always painful. You will probably find that you feel simmilar anxiety when you enter the work force and move from one job or company to another. It's just part of being human, and to some extent it is something that we all have to find ways of coping with. (Some people cope more readilly then others but nobody gets off completely free)

Warri0r45, I am no Biologist. However, it does seem to me that either life can rise from non-life or else life can not rise from non-life. It can not be both ways and there is no middle ground. However I don't really care to argue the point because I have insufficient information irregardless of the truth. It is however an important question from this perspective: if it is possible to demonstrate that the bio-diversity that we see on earth could be generated in the absence of God then it is possible to be intellectually honest and not believe in God. Or more accurately that is one of the prerequisites for an intellectually honest atheism or nontheism. Did you notice that even if it is possible to exclude God from creation that does not do anything to necessitate the exclusion of God from creation? The two statements, "There is a God" and "There is not a god" are in and of themselves equilly basic... Neither assumes more then the other, and there really isn't a middle ground position. If your intention is to demonstrate that it is not possible to be intellectually honest and believe in God then you are approaching the question from entirely the wrong angle. If you are merely attempting to defend your own beliefs then very well. I did not mean to attack them so much as explore them so please don't misconstrue my intentions.