Philosophy, Riddles and complete mind[bleep]s

[Shiny]

But surely, if he is supremely powerful, he can do everything. After all, that is somewhat the point of an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God.

 

om·nip·o·tent

   /ɒmˈnɪpətənt/ Show Spelled[om-nip-uh-tuhnt]

adjective

1.

almighty or infinite in power, as God.

 

I also suggest you read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotence_paradox

[Shiny]

You must remember, as well, that each different religion is made by man, and not God. Therefore, contradictions arise between each religion, and you ultimately ask yourself, which religion has the right view, and does that 'right' view also cancel out everyone elses? Zealot, you believe you are right. What about Muslims, and more specifically Sunni? Shi'ite? And within Christianity, becasue fundamentalist Baptist believe one thing, and High Anglicans another, which is wrong? My point is that your very view of God is subjective and man-made, thus prone to flaws, and thus highly likely cannot explain God.

[Zealot]

But surely, if he is supremely powerful, he can do everything. After all, that is somewhat the point of an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God.

 

om·nip·o·tent

   /ɒmˈnɪpətənt/ Show Spelled[om-nip-uh-tuhnt]

adjective

1.

almighty or infinite in power, as God.

 

I also suggest you read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotence_paradox

 

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).

[Dupin]

People who argue against God have misunderstood the preliminary concept: God transcends logic. Human minds are simply incapable of comprehending him, and that is where the contradictions arise. They are mistakes of the human mind, not of God.

[Dupin]

People who argue against God have misunderstood the preliminary concept: God transcends logic. Human minds are simply incapable of comprehending him, and that is where the contradictions arise. They are mistakes of the human mind, not of God.

 

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.

There's a reason I'm an atheist. My point is that arguing logic with a theist is backwards because the concept of God is based on faith, not logic.

[Zealot]

To make sure things don't get more confusing I embedded my response within your post. my words are in bold.

People who argue against God have misunderstood the preliminary concept: God transcends logic. Human minds are simply incapable of comprehending him, and that is where the contradictions arise. They are mistakes of the human mind, not of God.

 

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.

 

 

 

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).

 

 

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?

[Dupin]

Dupin, I would ask you one question: Why do you have faith in your logic?

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.

[Zealot]

Dupin, I would ask you one question: Why do you have faith in your logic?

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.

[Dupin]

I think I'm misunderstanding your question. To which inferences are you referring? Atheism is a belief. Any logical conclusions which assume atheism must be sound if the logic and other assumptions are sound, based on the belief that atheism is logical.

[Zygimantas]

I don't see much wrong with Zealot's idea of god. I basically agree with him, accept that I don't like to use the term "god". When I think of the word

"god" I tend to think of one higher-being that is somehow separate from others. The way I see it, god is before everything, but it is not something, rather god is nothing. So "everything" came from nothing to me is also synonymous to saying everything came from god. Though true personification of god is not possible, so any religious ideas or beliefs are strictly just ideas and beliefs like everything else and hold no absolute value. God is just aware, and everything we do to try and comprehend it just gives us a deeper illusion of what it might be. God is beyond ideas, beliefs, words,time,space... simply it is there before all of it. It caused all of it, and at the same time is it. There is just god, or there is just nothing. Either way you look at it doesn't matter, the idea by itself is not going to allow you to understand something beyond ideas.

 

Why is it like this? I have no idea, there is one thing we will never be able to truly answer and that is the question "Why?"

[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.

[Dupin]

Since I believe theism is incorrect, any conclusions based on theism would also be incorrect. Conclusions by a theist not involving theism are not more likely to be incorrect based on this chain of logic, but may be more likely to be incorrect based on other factors.

 

Zygi, define "God" as it is used in that post.

[Zygimantas]

Zygi, define "God" as it is used in that post.

I can't correctly define it because it is truly undefinable. God is..... nothing. Yet naturally as humans, we even think of nothing as something.

[Zealot]

I don't see much wrong with Zealot's idea of god. I basically agree with him, accept that I don't like to use the term "god". When I think of the word

"god" I tend to think of one higher-being that is somehow separate from others. The way I see it, god is before everything, but it is not something, rather god is nothing. So "everything" came from nothing to me is also synonymous to saying everything came from god. Though true personification of god is not possible, so any religious ideas or beliefs are strictly just ideas and beliefs like everything else and hold no absolute value. God is just aware, and everything we do to try and comprehend it just gives us a deeper illusion of what it might be. God is beyond ideas, beliefs, words,time,space... simply it is there before all of it. It caused all of it, and at the same time is it. There is just god, or there is just nothing. Either way you look at it doesn't matter, the idea by itself is not going to allow you to understand something beyond ideas.

 

Why is it like this? I have no idea, there is one thing we will never be able to truly answer and that is the question "Why?"

 

Have you ever read Sartre? I imagine that you might enjoy his book, Being and Nothingness. His thesis, in a nut-shell, is that the world around us is full of an apparent realness which he refers to as "being." Consciousness on the other hand is intangible. Irregardless of how we attempt to define it, what consciousness is continues to evade us. Sartre believed that is because consciousness is some sort of nothingness, but very peculliarly is capable of apparently modifying the modes of being around it. I daresay that it is a rather silly stance to defend, but he does a good job of defending it, and it is a very enjoyable read so far as Philosophy and Theology go.

 

By the way, the reason I can not believe in some intangible life force or pantheistic God is that personality seems to be a virtue. If so, then if God exists He must be personal (more likely super-personal in some surprising way). Further, there appears to be virtue in relation, and therefore God is also relational. However, I daresay that the Eastern Mysticisms seem much more developed then their Western counterparts. (Please don't confuse that with monotheisms though... I mean stuff like neo-Peganism, decendents of Native American Animism, Cosmos worship, and simmilar pantheistic systems. It isn't really fair to compair pantheism and monotheism. It's true that God can only be one or the other, but the boundaries are very difficult to chart between a mature and coherent pantheism and a mature and coherent monotheism. The only critical difference I recognize is whether God has personality or not.)

[Zealot]

Dupin, that's fair enough. Provided your premise is correct so are your conclusions. I don't think it is really getting at the core of the matter however. The fundamental difference between theism and atheism is presumably, either God exists or else God does not exist, but it can't be both ways... Right? Is there anything about that distinction or some other distinction which I happen to be overlooking that makes atheism seem more probable to you? I happen to be a theist precisely because it seems more probable to me, and I am trying to understand if you choose atheism for the same sort of reason, or if it is an act of will.

[Zygimantas]

I don't see much wrong with Zealot's idea of god. I basically agree with him, accept that I don't like to use the term "god". When I think of the word

"god" I tend to think of one higher-being that is somehow separate from others. The way I see it, god is before everything, but it is not something, rather god is nothing. So "everything" came from nothing to me is also synonymous to saying everything came from god. Though true personification of god is not possible, so any religious ideas or beliefs are strictly just ideas and beliefs like everything else and hold no absolute value. God is just aware, and everything we do to try and comprehend it just gives us a deeper illusion of what it might be. God is beyond ideas, beliefs, words,time,space... simply it is there before all of it. It caused all of it, and at the same time is it. There is just god, or there is just nothing. Either way you look at it doesn't matter, the idea by itself is not going to allow you to understand something beyond ideas.

 

Why is it like this? I have no idea, there is one thing we will never be able to truly answer and that is the question "Why?"

 

Have you ever read Sartre? I imagine that you might enjoy his book, Being and Nothingness. His thesis, in a nut-shell, is that the world around us is full of an apparent realness which he refers to as "being." Consciousness on the other hand is intangible. Irregardless of how we attempt to define it, what consciousness is continues to evade us. Sartre believed that is because consciousness is some sort of nothingness, but very peculliarly is capable of apparently modifying the modes of being around it. I daresay that it is a rather silly stance to defend, but he does a good job of defending it, and it is a very enjoyable read so far as Philosophy and Theology go.

 

By the way, the reason I can not believe in some intangible life force or pantheistic God is that personality seems to be a virtue. If so, then if God exists He must be personal (more likely super-personal in some surprising way). Further, there appears to be virtue in relation, and therefore God is also relational. However, I daresay that the Eastern Mysticisms seem much more developed then their Western counterparts. (Please don't confuse that with monotheisms though... I mean stuff like neo-Peganism, decendents of Native American Animism, Cosmos worship, and simmilar pantheistic systems. It isn't really fair to compair pantheism and monotheism. It's true that God can only be one or the other, but the boundaries are very difficult to chart between a mature and coherent pantheism and a mature and coherent monotheism. The only critical difference I recognize is whether God has personality or not.)

The thing is, the more attributes or ways I describe god, or being,or nothingness or whatever it is, the further away I am moving away from the truth. It seems to be beyond humans to correctly label it or describe it, so I don't see why I should....

[Dupin]

Yes, atheism seems more probable to me and that is why I am an atheist. This decision is based on a lack of any reason to believe in theism. On what evidence do you base your own opinion that the existence of God is probable?

 

Zygi, the reason I ask is that you don't really seem to be a theist in the traditional sense of the word. If God is nothing, then does He exist? Or is it just a name you have given to the Nothing?

[Zygimantas]

Yes, atheism seems more probable to me and that is why I am an atheist. This decision is based on a lack of any reason to believe in theism. On what evidence do you base your own opinion that the existence of God is probable?

 

Zygi, the reason I ask is that you don't really seem to be a theist in the traditional sense of the word. If God is nothing, then does He exist? Or is it just a name you have given to the Nothing?

I used to label myself as an atheist. But I don't see a reason to label myself anything anymore.... God is nothing, and nothing both exists and doesn't exists ( depends how you want to look at it).

[Zealot]

Yes, atheism seems more probable to me and that is why I am an atheist. This decision is based on a lack of any reason to believe in theism. On what evidence do you base your own opinion that the existence of God is probable?

 

Zygi, the reason I ask is that you don't really seem to be a theist in the traditional sense of the word. If God is nothing, then does He exist? Or is it just a name you have given to the Nothing?

 

It's funny, actually. God exists. Rather, I believe that I am justified in believing such to be the case. We could look at various classical forms of argument for God's existance--Ontological or Telliological arguments are a lot of fun. The problem is that such arguments, though logically sound, are pretty much universally unconvincing. (I suspect that quality has to do with the different way theists and atheists view a priori knowledge but I don't really have time to go into that right now; PM me if you are interested in a rather technical explanation of what I mean, but I warn you that like much good philosophy [which I should hope to share] it is going to be very dry). I could also throw in Pascal's Wager... But to be honest I learned of God's existance in a much more humble, much more real way. He spoke to me. Don't get me wrong, if I had just heard a disembodied voice I would have checked myself into the nut house. There is a certain book in the Bible called Ecclisiastes which I read. (I was reading the Bible as an arrogant young atheist who was intent on finding and demonstrating all the real contradictions it contains). After a short introduction, indicating that the author is King Solomon, Ecclesiastes opens up in a rather peculiar way. "'Meaningless! Meaningless!' says the Teacher. 'Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.'" I had to stop and re-read it because it didn't make sense for a book which claims to hold all the important answers to assert such things. In fact, the first section of Ecclesiastes really is a book of human wisdom and perspective. In that section, Solomon could just as easilly have been Nietzche. Ecclesiastes eventually turns to God, and suggests that it is only in Him that we can find purpose. Do you know the uncomfortable feeling of being watched? Or do you remember being a child afraid of something in the darkness--some monster set on destroying you? In some ways my journey to God was like that. At every turn I squirmed, and tried to find a way out. In the back of my head I knew that all I had to do was stop reading that wretched book. Ecclesiastes really spoke to me, but to be honest I was not convinced. Later I read in the book written by the prophet Isaiah about the promised Messiah. "...He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was dispised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was dispised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:2b-6, New International Version)." The pieces really started to fall together. My unease grew more urgent. SOMETHING terrible was hunting me. I remembered Psalm 22, which Jesus is attributed with quoting the first few words from His cross "'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?' -- which means, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' (Matthew 27:46, NIV)." Psalm 22 contains a very vivid picture of what arrest, torture, crucifixion, and finally death must have been like for Jesus, though I will not quote it here.

 

Arrogant though I was I was drawn to the Truth like a moth to the porch light; an awful realization came over me. I would rather see God's face yet be utterly destroyed than live without Him one more day. I was sixteen, and it was February. I finally decided that I would design a test through which God had the ability to offer me (what I then believed to be concrete) evidence of His existance. I had five twenty-sided dice which I used for playing various strategy and roleplaying games with. In the book of Proverbs there is a verse which says basically that dice are cast by men but they are really in God's control, so I decided to test this. Rules were, if God is real then when I roll my dice I will get five 20's on the first roll. Absolutely any other result meant God is not real. Not only was the first roll five 20's, but so were both of the re-rolls I did trying to squirm my way out of that awful, glorious realization. These were not loaded dice. I had played with them many times and this is the first and only time I ever experienced something like this. At that point everything was stripped away and I saw clearly that there is exactly one choice which we really get to make which is entirely free. I could either go with Him, or else I could refuse. C.S. Lewis reports a very simmilar experience in his auto-biography, Surprised by Joy. And as with Lewis, there were no threats or promises attached to either option (if you care to look, his account is held in a chapter entitled "Checkmate"). There was simply a choice to be made whether I would remain my own or give in to Him. I was baptized some time in late March.

 

I have since read Hume, and have to agree with his thesis that it is bad form to reason from instances to absolutes, unless there happens to be an absolute principle guaranteeing that in the end you will always find Truth (monotheism gives you such a principle in positing the existance of a rational Creator, but this is arguing in a circle as I now realize). Honestly I am not sure that I could ever have become anything but an angry old atheist if I had read Hume before the Bible (Not to say that all atheists are angry, but I would have been one). That is who my father was, and his father before him. My father is no longer that man. Shortly after my regeneration, one by one my entire family met HIM, fell in love with HIM. Dad became enraged, and blamed my mom, and divorced her (they were headded that way already, but this was the final straw). I found and read another book called The Case for Christ, by Lee Strobel. I then gave the book to my dad, asking him only to read it, hoping that he could understand that being Christian is reasonable from a historical and scientific perspective, and that he would be willing to become a bigger part of my brothers' and my lives. God intended much bigger things. A year later my father too had encountered his Maker, fell in love with HIM, chosen to follow HIM. Since then my parents have become reconciled to one another.

 

I know that this does not actually constitute good reason for you to stop being an atheist. Honestly nothing other than God revealing HIMSELF to you ever can or will be. It is a very peculliar sensation, both the most emotional and least emotion-driven moment of my twenty-six years. I can't even begin to describe it, that moment when God gave me the only choice which really matters, but even it can not compare to the moment immediately after. HE was there, and I was abjectly terrified. I pleaded for HIM to go, because HIS overwhealming presence hurt and I knew HE should kill me--that I deserved no less. HE would not go. HE just kept coming... and presently, ever so slowly, the terror subsided, though He was still there. Gently, He whispered to me that ANOTHER had already paid what I owed. He told me to follow Him, and at that moment I can not imagine doing otherwise. From that moment I can not imagine doing otherwise. I'm not very good at it yet, but Theos te' agathos. God is good. And by HIS strength and to HIS glory I follow.

 

I will never go farther than saying theism, and specifically Christian Theism is a coherent worldview. If God wanted to compell obedience HE would. He wants people who want to follow Him... people who freely love Him in His entirety. He wants people who believe that though He destroy them, destruction at HIS hands, and having that fleeting glimpse of Him is better than living forever in His absence.

 

As for my compulsion to label and define God, it is nothing other than a desire to offer some glimpse of who HE is. It will never happen, but I do wish that everybody had the opportunity to love and be loved by HIM at least as much as I have.

[Zygimantas]

 

As for my compulsion to label and define God, it is nothing other than a desire to offer some glimpse of who HE is. It will never happen, but I do wish that everybody had the opportunity to love and be loved by HIM at least as much as I have.

That is perfectly fine, just remember that the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. You can point to the direction of god with words and ideas but to actually know and understand it one must go beyond words and feel it himself. ;)

[Zierro]

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

 

That is equating the existence of some intentionally ridiculous concept you just randomly thought of to the existence of god, the thing being debated and the thing that is beyond human comprehension by definition.

 

I had five twenty-sided dice which I used for playing various strategy and roleplaying games with. In the book of Proverbs there is a verse which says basically that dice are cast by men but they are really in God's control, so I decided to test this. Rules were, if God is real then when I roll my dice I will get five 20's on the first roll. Absolutely any other result meant God is not real. Not only was the first roll five 20's, but so were both of the re-rolls I did trying to squirm my way out of that awful, glorious realization.

 

The only thing that test told us was that you beat a bunch of odds. The probability is admittedly phenomenal (about 1/3,000,000), but not impossible. You merely assigned a certain truth to the outcome of your roll: If it rolls X, Y is true. What if someone were to beat even more odds than you (which has been done tons of times) and assigned the fact that god does not exist to the results? How would you feel about their conclusion? Also, I fail to see how that is any more humble than Pascal's Wager.

 

Aside from that faulty method of deciphering truths, I pretty much agree with your depiction of god.

[Zealot]

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

 

That is equating the existence of some intentionally ridiculous concept you just randomly thought of to the existence of god, the thing being debated and the thing that is beyond human comprehension by definition.

 

I had five twenty-sided dice which I used for playing various strategy and roleplaying games with. In the book of Proverbs there is a verse which says basically that dice are cast by men but they are really in God's control, so I decided to test this. Rules were, if God is real then when I roll my dice I will get five 20's on the first roll. Absolutely any other result meant God is not real. Not only was the first roll five 20's, but so were both of the re-rolls I did trying to squirm my way out of that awful, glorious realization.

 

The only thing that test told us was that you beat a bunch of odds. The probability is admittedly phenomenal (about 1/3,000,000), but not impossible. You merely assigned a certain truth to the outcome of your roll: If it rolls X, Y is true. What if someone were to beat even more odds than you (which has been done tons of times) and assigned the fact that god does not exist to the results? How would you feel about their conclusion? Also, I fail to see how that is any more humble than Pascal's Wager.

 

Mostly, at the time it seemed and still does seem curious that the universe, or human psyche, or something would appear to conspire to make me believe in a god which does not exist. I do agree that it was a bad way to reason. If I had the background in philosophy I have now, I probably never would have come to believe theism is possible--or rather I would never have believed in a more real god than Descartes' Demon, or the hollow reflection Berkeley espoused. As is, I am capable of seeing that God is somehow more real than any other fact about reality. I suppose that God uses the foolish and weak things of the world to shame the wise and powerful. Maybe that's why HE used what I now recognize as bad reasoning but can not concieve of disbelieving. *Shrugs*

 

Also, I don't mean humble in a good way... I mean to say that my reasons were bad, my method was bad, yet nonetheless God honored the attempt. I should never believe except that HE showed Himself to me. I agree with Hume that you can't reason from the observed to the unobserved. Or at least there is no ironclad guarantee of truth inherent to such reasoning. It would hardly matter that somebody else rolls twenty 20-sided dice and all of them turn up 20's, that being defined as the only possible result which indicated God does not exist. Litterally though I used to be otherwise it is no possible for me to imagine not believing. Pascal's Wager, on the other had holds the deep elegance of good philosophy. His odds are not nearly so phenomenal, but then he isn't necessarilly interested in proving God's existance, only that it is more rational to worship any god at all than none. Not only do your chances of being right go up in Pascal's assessment, but chances of reward go up as well. I don't like trying to use arguments like Pascal's Wager though. God says that we will find HIM when we seek HIM with all our hearts. HE isn't going to do or allow anything which contradicts that for somebody who doesn't know HIM. Don't ask me why, honestly I have no clue at all, but somehow I know that is who HE is. Further, if HE were not that way, irregardless of being God or not I should oppose HIM as a freedom fighter opposes a tyrant.

 

Aside from that faulty method of deciphering truths, I pretty much agree with your depiction of god.

[Zierro]

I suppose that God uses the foolish and weak things of the world to shame the wise and powerful. Maybe that's why HE used what I now recognize as bad reasoning but can not concieve of disbelieving. *Shrugs*

 

After discovering that it was non-sequitir reasoning that led you to believing god, instead of reevaluating your beliefs you accepted it anyway? Surely there are other reasons for you believing him. And why is your name Zealot if you don't mind me asking?

[Zealot]

I suppose that God uses the foolish and weak things of the world to shame the wise and powerful. Maybe that's why HE used what I now recognize as bad reasoning but can not concieve of disbelieving. *Shrugs*

 

After discovering that it was non-sequitir reasoning that led you to believing god, instead of reevaluating your beliefs you accepted it anyway? Surely there are other reasons for you believing him. And why is your name Zealot if you don't mind me asking?

 

Sorry, some of what I am about to say is going to be cumbersome and difficult. I wish I could write more elligantly, but especially about Him the words don't always come nicely.

 

From the inside, Christianity is coherent, or at least it seems more so than anything else I have studied. What I mean is that it explains what I regard to be the critical questions of being, such as the nature of rational thought (such that it is not always founded in quantum theory and therefore always invalid). It also explains conundrums such as the question of the one and the many (are individual rational beings, or the groups that they make up more important/significant?) We tend to want to say yes, rather than insisting one way or the other, and when a culture slides too far one way or the other the results are destruction. By claiming that God takes a personal form which is as different from ours as line-segments are from triangles we can see how both can be equilly important. There are also arguments such as the Ontological argument, Plato's First Cause, the Teliological argument in it's various forms, and so on which support the notion that God is really real. I'm only going to give you a run-down of one such argument, the Ontological argument for God's existance.

 

The Ontological argument starts with nothing more than a deffinition which you have seen before if you have read all my recent posts: God is the being for which no greater being can be concieved. Presumably most people agree that if God is anything this is probably about the best deffinition of what the concept means which we can hope to come up with. Note that I haven't possited God's existance yet, only defined what I mean by the word, just as if I were to define the word "unicorn" that is not the same as actually insisting that there are unicorns. Contained within this deffinition are a host of implications, but only one is really important: God can do all doable things except becoming in any way less than HE is. We can note that even the least of things which actually exist is more powerful than the highest of things which do not exist. (You have to be careful to accept a very broad deffinition of existance, all that I mean is that the thing really is part of the complete list of everything which is). Consiquentially God has to exist.

 

Before I met God I never would have found this argument compelling. But ironically, now I see that it really is. Yet it probably never has and never will convince anybody. That isn't the job of theology though, but of the work of God's Spirit. This deffinition is actually more important for giving me something of a map of God.

 

From the outside it is not possible to demonstrate the kind of super-personal, all-powerful God that Christianity possits. We can come to the gates and look in as it were (Plato's first cause does just that). But there is simply no way into that country by our power alone. I think that it is the divine humility of God which makes things this way. However I'm not sure how to explain what I mean beyond simply suggesting that God is too intent on thinking about and loving me to feel need for boasting about Himself, and the same can be said of absolutely every one of His creatures. As it were, "it never would occure" to Him to forcefully reveal Himself to those who don't want to know Him. Forced love is rape, not affection.

 

Zealot is actually something of an observation about myself. The zealots were a revolutionary movement in Palestine that existed around Jesus' time. One of His disciples, Simon (who Jesus renamed Peter) was a zealot. That's why when Jesus was arrested Simon drew his sword and attacked the high priest's servant. He thought that Jesus had come to facilitate political transformation, and Simon was part of messiah's army. Jesus scolded Simon, and healed the servant. Last time he came, Jesus came to be God's suffering servant from Isaiah 53, not the returning King of Israel, and all that is. A lot of times I get ahead of myself and act rashly, much as Simon did that night. One of these days it will probably get me killed, much as it did him. The name is a reminder every time I look at it to think before I hit that "add reply" button...

[Vezon Dash]

I don't see much wrong with Zealot's idea of god. I basically agree with him, accept that I don't like to use the term "god". When I think of the word

"god" I tend to think of one higher-being that is somehow separate from others. The way I see it, god is before everything, but it is not something, rather god is nothing. So "everything" came from nothing to me is also synonymous to saying everything came from god. Though true personification of god is not possible, so any religious ideas or beliefs are strictly just ideas and beliefs like everything else and hold no absolute value. God is just aware, and everything we do to try and comprehend it just gives us a deeper illusion of what it might be. God is beyond ideas, beliefs, words,time,space... simply it is there before all of it. It caused all of it, and at the same time is it. There is just god, or there is just nothing. Either way you look at it doesn't matter, the idea by itself is not going to allow you to understand something beyond ideas.

 

Why is it like this? I have no idea, there is one thing we will never be able to truly answer and that is the question "Why?"

 

This just made me question my existence.

 

As for God? You either believe or don't believe. Logic won't get you anywhere because we have never experienced the great beyond. If we could be infinite, we would know.