There is no acceptable proof of God for atheists

chozometroid

This is just something I think about now and then, especially considering that people in the OT rejected God as their God after "in your face" evidence of His power and mercy.
I think nothing would be different today.

BEWARE: Straw men ahead!

---

God reveals Himself in the sky for all of the world to see, declaring that He is the God of the universe, and He created all life.

Christian #1: Oh Lord in Heaven! Thank you for revealing your glory!
Atheist #1: Certainly something out of the ordinary has happened, but that doesn't mean it's supernatural, or even, that the claims of said person in the sky are true.
God: Be still and know that I Am God!
God then heals a cancer victim, a paraplegic, and a blind man before thousands of people, then raises a dead man, and creates a forest in a parking lot, while also being videotaped.
Atheist #2: Wow, this is amazing! Surely this person has extraordinary evolved abilities.....or perhaps they are creating a mass illusion using unknown technology?
Christian #2: Don't you see what just happened?! God performed a MIRACLE! It was even videotaped!
Atheist #2: We must conduct thorough testing on these "healing" victims. I'm sure there is a natural explanation for how their bodies underwent this rapid transformation.
Atheist #3: Actually there is all ready a peer-review journal which has detailed numerous theories involving quantum field mechanics and the conditions under which permanent injuries may be reversible when extra-dimensional entities alter the electron orbit of a local sub-dimension at vector coordinates inverse to said entity in parent universe.
Atheist #1: You know I'm a pretty open-minded person. I'm willing to postulate that there is other life in the universe afterall. We must ask this alien where he came from, and what steps must we take to evolve to this level of perfection!
God: Why do you continue to doubt Me?! I laid the foundations of the universe and created all that you admire in the heavens!
Atheist #3: How can you prove to us you created the universe? Or that you are even some sort of "god" creature? Where is the evidence?
Atheist #2: There is no reason to believe the Chrisitan god exists just because we can't yet explain what has happened. That's argumentum ad ignorantiam!
Atheist #3: Prove yourself, strange alien creature!
God sends fire to consume all atheists.
God: Come, my faithful servants. Well done, and welcome to the paradise I have prepared for you!
Christians: Yay!

What is comes down to is this: Atheists just don't like God, or the idea of the Christian God, so it doesn't matter to them if He is real or not. He is not worthy of worship to them. Atheists are their own gods, and as such, are on their own in the grand scheme of things.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

Tar.Aldarion

Well it is different for every person, there is nothing worthy of worship to me, and also, the idea of a god is irrelevent to me, as there is no such being that could exist that I would call a god, just something powerful. If I create life? If I am so powerful compared to another creature that it would consider me a god, am I one? Could we evolve to be a god, if we had similar powers?

Anyway that is just me, I know of many atheists that would be persuaded to believer if they were convinced there was a god. I had an argument before about it, the other atheist saying that a god would be worthy of unwavering worship, me on the other side.
It's like asking, is blue all atheists favourite colour...

desertcircus

Two things:

One - I'm pretty sure if the heavens parted and a two-mile-wide bearded guy appeared, performed massive miracles at will, and demanded atheists accept his godhood, most of them would accept they'd been pretty wrong.

Two - if I was a tooled-up alien with ludicrously advanced technologies, pretending to be God to less advanced societies would probably seem like a whole load of fun. Didn't the Spaniards under Cortes conquer the Aztecs doing that?

Three - none of the stuff described would actually prove his status as creator of the universe. Proving that the Big Bang could only have occurred in such a way as to spell out "RICHARD DAWKINS IS A BIG SPANNER" during its expansion would do the trick, though.

Fanny Cradock

Humm...

We'll see how this thread goes. But I really don't like the implication that all atheists are x, y or z simply because they don't believe. Let's all behave on this thread. OK?

Soul Winner

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Well it is different for every person, there is nothing worthy of worship to me, and also, the idea of a god is irrelevent to me, as there is no such being that could exist that I would call a god, just something powerful. If I create life? If I am so powerful compared to another creature that it would consider me a god, am I one? Could we evolve to be a god, if we had similar powers?

Anyway that is just me, I know of many atheists that would be persuaded to believer if they were convinced there was a god. I had an argument before about it, the other atheist saying that a god would be worthy of unwavering worship, me on the other side.
It's like asking, is blue all atheists favourite colour...

But if there is a God, the giver of all life, including the life blood that flows in your veins, then the fact that you have the capacity to have that opinion is due to His providence, and should you ever come to recognize the fact that there is other than you in the universe and how you came about might just be down to the love of this Other, then that Other is at least worthy of being given the courtesy of a simple thanks from time to time, no?

monosharp

What is comes down to is this: Atheists just don't like God, or the idea of the Christian God, so it doesn't matter to them if He is real or not. He is not worthy of worship to them. Atheists are their own gods, and as such, are on their own in the grand scheme of things.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

Your wrong.

Give me any proof whatsoever and I'll admit I was wrong. Anything, the smallest piece of evidence that there is a supernatural being who created us all. Doesn't even have to be the Christian god, any god at all.

And no I don't like the idea of a god or the idea of the christian god or any god.

We humans have existed as homo sapiens for 500,000 years, as anatomically modern homo sapiens for 150,000 years.

So for 146,000 years (or 496,000 years depending on your definition of human) 'god' left us to our own devices. To gawk at the sun and wonder where it went at night, to wonder what winter was etc.

Then eventually building societies, ships, buildings, pottery, graves, tools etc. (10,000 years ago)

Then god decides to make an appearance about 4000 years ago and whats the sum of his advice to us primitives ?

Cut our penises, don't sleep with the same sex, worship me and follow a varying list of 10 rules (depending on what "10 commandments"your reading) , the majority of which were already shown to be morals in many cultures long before this. (murder/stealing was considered 'wrong' in societies long before 'god'.)

Howabout giving us some useful advice ? Telling us how to prevent the spread of disease or something, anything that would have been useful ?

Give me a speck of evidence and I'll fall down on my knees, mutilate my penis, sacrifice my sheep or whatever else 'god' wants.

studiorat

It's still a bit early for me.

But I'll make one comment, Atheists don't like Religion.

Not liking God is the same as not liking Mickey Mouse, pointless...

God then heals a cancer victim, a paraplegic, and a blind man before thousands of people, then raises a dead man, and creates a forest in a parking lot, while also being videotaped.

Two questions here; why is the cancer victim a victim? And why is Gods PR company still using Tape?

lugha

The OP does raise an interesting question about proof. I wonder if God’s existence is in effect unprovable. He’s too improbable.
Imagine a primitive tribe who declared to the outside world that they once observed objects falling upwards or that one of their number had once died but returned to them a week later. Consider how you might assess the veracity of such a claim, (assuming that you didn’t dismiss it out of hand completely!). No doubt you would postulate all manner of routine explanations, deception, mistaken identity, rumour mill or possibly death misdiagnosis / coma etc. You absolutely would not blindly accept that a gross violation of our understanding of the laws of nature took place. If you had witnessed directly you would most likely opt for deception explanation.

Or possible you would question your senses. And there is the problem. As there is some (small hopefully!) probability that you are senses or capacity for reason might fail and what you think you are seeing is nothing more than an hallucination, it follows that anything which has a lower probability of being true should not be accepted by you, if you evoke Occam’s razor.

As to your assertion that we don’t like the idea of a God, well I absolutely do, or would, and with bells on! But alas.
I would also love the idea of untold riches as promised to be by all of those fine fellows who routine email me if I just make contact with them. But again, alas.

kumate_champ07

desertcircus wrote: »

Two things:

One - I'm pretty sure if the heavens parted and a two-mile-wide bearded guy appeared, performed massive miracles at will, and demanded atheists accept his godhood, most of them would accept they'd been pretty wrong.

Two - if I was a tooled-up alien with ludicrously advanced technologies, pretending to be God to less advanced societies would probably seem like a whole load of fun. Didn't the Spaniards under Cortes conquer the Aztecs doing that?

Three - none of the stuff described would actually prove his status as creator of the universe. Proving that the Big Bang could only have occurred in such a way as to spell out "RICHARD DAWKINS IS A BIG SPANNER" during its expansion would do the trick, though.

the aztecs thought that the spaniards and horses were 'one', like that mythical creature I cant think of right now, he had a bow and arrow

robindch

chozometroid wrote: »

BEWARE: Straw men ahead!

You were right to warn -- there are so many straw men there that they constitute a fire-hazard!

chozometroid wrote: »

What is comes down to is this: Atheists just don't like God, or the idea of the Christian God, so it doesn't matter to them if He is real or not. He is not worthy of worship to them.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

You have it almost completely backwards. I don't think that your deity exists for pretty much the same reasons that you think that the islamic, greek, indian and other deities don't exist -- it's got nothing to do with whether I think he's a nice chap or not.

That said, I can certainly read your religious texts and decide whether I'd like the entity that's in there, and I certainly don't -- the deity, as described, is almost uniformly hideous. And from that, it's clear enough that "worshipping" him is simply silly; again for much the same reasons that you won't worship other deities.

As somebody once said, when you think about your reasons for refusing to believe in other deities, you'll then understand why I don't believe that your particular one exists.

Morbert

Everything the OP said about atheists is wrong, for obvious reasons.

pisslips

Since you have definied 'god' as some un-provable argument, then it is no argument at all. It's not even worth thinking about apart from the social phenomena of organised religion and the collection of moral philosophy we call the bible.

But the argument for a god is not defined, pointless. You defined it as incomprehendable therefore it doesn't exist because I can't percieve it.

Stephentlig

in the last time there should come mockers, walking according to their own desires in ungodlinesses.
These are they who separate themselves, sensual men, having not the Spirit. ( Jude 17-18 )

whats interesting here is that this passage is given just before the book of revelation.

Turtwig

chozometroid wrote: »

What is comes down to is this: Atheists just don't like God, or the idea of the Christian God, so it doesn't matter to them if He is real or not..

Actually there are some Gods that I do like : Just not the Christian-Juedo One. I like Jesus a bit though:P

It matters a whole lot to me if He/She/It is real because I want to understand this world and figure how it was 'created' and who if anything created it.
It's just the more and more I look at the world the less reason I see for a deity, certainly so for your Christian Deity.

One thing, that I would say though is that if most atheists are like me (which I think is doubtful, but it would be cool:)) then we would go '
"Wow,This is awesome there is actually is a God...so ahem, which God are you then??"

How would you react if He said he was actually Thor???

Zombrex

chozometroid wrote: »

God reveals Himself in the sky for all of the world to see, declaring that He is the God of the universe, and He created all life.

This is a common issue we have discussed before.

Can you tell me how you would determine the difference between God and a super powerful being pretending or acting like God?

It is one of the issues with the supernatural and the idea of an omnipotent being. Or as it is commonly put how do you know the devil isn't pretending to be God every time you think you are experiencing him. Almost by definition you cannot determine the difference, though most religious people seem happy with the rather nonsensical answer "I just know"

Of course an atheists doesn't believe the devil exists any more than God, the point is the thought experiment, get people to think about why they think what they know or believe is accurate. You can replace the devil with another god (Loki, the Viking trickster god if you like, one of my favourite versions as Loki would actually have motivation to pretend to be gods of other religions).

So when Christians say to an atheist "When God appears before you would would have to admit he is real and exists" an atheist simply asks "Well how would I know it is your god that has appeared before me." The most so far any Christian has come up with is that he is going to claim to be God and sure who else could he be. Which shows some what of a lack of imagination on their part. He could be anything.

The atheist would probably be happy to admit that some super powerful being has just appeared before him, but almost by definition he/she cannot determine anything about this super powerful being since the super powerful being could be doing what ever it wants. The being may claim to be something, but he could equally be lying. Whether you believe him or not is entirely up to the person but given that there is absolutely no way to test either way I think most atheists would defer to the position of "Haven't a clue what that is"

Religious people seem very happy to accept that their particular version of a god exists and that this version is the only version that can exist. Where as actually by accepting that such a being can exist you are in fact greatly reducing the amount you can know about such a being because the more powerful and omnipotent it's powers are the less you can determine about it.

You have to go on blind faith that the being is what it claims to be. There is obviously strong motivation to do so, as the thing the being is claiming offers people something good, where as a trickster lying god doesn't. You gain more if it is true than if it isn't true, so blindly believing it is true (and before anyone gets annoyed about the use of the word "blindly" it is blindly given that you have absolutely no way to determine anything about a supernatural being either way) would appear to make sense. So they may very well claim what is the harm in accepting that he is what he is, which I suppose is valid on some levels.

Atheists tend to be more realistic about epistemology, and less accepting of one position over another, particularly is they are not particularly fond of the version that the being is claiming to be anyway. I wouldn't worship your god if he appeared before me and told me to, and that is before I get to the issue that I couldn't determine he is actually your god anyway.

chozometroid wrote: »

What is comes down to is this: Atheists just don't like God, or the idea of the Christian God, so it doesn't matter to them if He is real or not....Correct me if I'm wrong.

Yeah that is pretty much it.

Most atheists I know don't particularly like the God described in the Old Testament (the genocidal one), so don't feel any strong need to excuse his actions as "good but we don't know why" or to assume that if he exists he must be good. They are perfectly happy with the idea that if God exists he is just bad.

Because of this they don't feel the need to assume that he is good simply because he says he is. He, if he exists, could just be lying. He could just as easily be a bad god/superpowerful being pretending to be a good god (ever watched Stargate SG1?)

So if he appeared before me (while threatening to annihilate me if I didn't worship him) I wouldn't have any strong desire to blindly accept that he is as good as he claims he is (particularly given what he is done), ie accept that he is the version of god you believe exists.

Of course it would be nice not to be annihilated, but principles have to come first in some instances.

Fremen

If the great lord Brahma manifested himself on earth in the form of a big fiery cow, wouldn't christians behave much like the athiests in the original post?

Zombrex

Soul Winner wrote: »

But if there is a God, the giver of all life, including the life blood that flows in your veins, then the fact that you have the capacity to have that opinion is due to His providence, and should you ever come to recognize the fact that there is other than you in the universe and how you came about might just be down to the love of this Other

Lot of assumptions there Soul Winner.

Given that humans create life forms for pretty bad reasons all the time, I find it curious that you assume that he could have only created us for loving, good reasons. That the fact that we exist must mean he is good.

Do you believe that because you have determined that is the case, or do you believe that simply because the alternative is not beneficial to you?

It is like the chimp thinking these humans are wonderful to me, they housed me, feed me, taught me sign language, keep me warm, provided me a mate. Right before they blast the chimp into space to either run out of air or burn up falling back to Earth.

Turtwig

Wicknight wrote: »

Right before they blast the chimp into space to either run out of air or burn up falling back to Earth.

Heyyyyyyy

It was the dog we killed, the chimp survived

chozometroid

Wicknight wrote: »

This is a common issue we have discussed before.

Can you tell me how you would determine the difference between God and a super powerful being pretending or acting like God?

It is one of the issues with the supernatural and the idea of an omnipotent being. Or as it is commonly put how do you know the devil isn't pretending to be God every time you think you are experiencing him. Almost by definition you cannot determine the difference, though most religious people seem happy with the rather nonsensical answer "I just know"

I agree with much of what you said, and as far as "it could be the devil when you think you are experiencing God" goes, I actually think that is exactly what the devil is constantly trying to do, for those who do believe in God. The devil wants to be in the place of Christ, and will appear to be a good spiritual being, but in the end, it's the intentions that reveal the truth. Satan will always be known by his idea of everyone ascending to the level of God, and denying that Jesus Christ is God and died in the flesh. All the world's religions (and the new age movement)fall under one or both of these two categories.
So I do not believe that my experience is from the devil.

I guess there is no way to know if who we think is God is actually a super-powerful being pretending to be. The problem is that it doesn't make sense(it would mean said being has been watching us from our origin, so what is it's purpose? Did it create us too?), however true it could be, and it doesn't explain the origin of the universe. As far as the possibility that God is evil, well, there is no way to know this, and we have to go on what He has revealed of Himself. If in the end he just tortures everyone and laughs at us for believing his lie, then I guess we are at his mercy. I believe in the God of the Bible though, and have joy in what He has revealed to me.

Stephentlig

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/nature_grace.vi.ii.html

above is a link to St.Thomas acuinas on the existence of God.
its not that long of a read. I hope you enjoy it.

God bless
Stephentlig

Morbert

Stephentlig wrote: »

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/nature_grace.vi.ii.html

above is a link to St.Thomas acuinas on the existence of God.
its not that long of a read. I hope you enjoy it.

God bless
Stephentlig

Bleargh. I respect coming to God through personal experience and whatnot, but philosophical arguments like those are worthless. In fact, most of the Christians I know would agree with me.

Stephentlig

Morbert wrote: »

Bleargh. I respect coming to God through personal experience and whatnot, but philosophical arguments like those are worthless. In fact, most of the Christians I know would agree with me.

fair enough Morbert, but unless you refute his demonstration on the existence of God it remains at present a valid one. Christians who side with you does'nt make conclusions of yours such as the above correct ones.

Morbert

Stephentlig wrote: »

fair enough Morbert, but unless you refute his demonstration on the existence of God it remains at present a valid one. Christians who side with you does'nt make conclusions of yours such as the above correct ones.

I was waiting for an invitation to refute it :pac:. I'll be as concise as possible, but I can elaborate on any point.



1: Aquinas assumes that things that appear "self-evident" are necessarily true. He does not demonstrate this. So if God seems self-evident to many people, we still need an additional argument which demonstrates that, because Damascene says that God's existence is self-evident to some people, it is necessarily true.

2: Arguments revolving around the notion of a "first cause" or "unmoved mover" unfortunately don't take into account observations in cosmology. Why, for example, is God allowed to be defined as an unmoved mover, but the universe isn't?

[edit]-I have deliberately kept this short in the hope that you would like to present points in Aquinas's work that counter my points, to save me the trouble of writing a rambling essay.

irlpic

I cant be bothered reading all the posts in this thread,so id just like to say -

It doesn't matter what or who you believe in.The main thing is that what/whoever it is ,if you completely 100% believe and have faith in it can make miracles happen.

My reason behind this is that the human mind can be used to preform so called 'miracles' and evoke well-being etc. if you trust in something without pretense.


Positive mental thinking is a proven mental researched method which i believe applies to religious beliefs aswell.

Stop giving about about religion and start believing in what is good for each individual.

Ps. I'm a none believer but don't mind what you believe in as long as it doesn't involve a mercury tilt switch.

Zombrex

chozometroid wrote: »

I agree with much of what you said, and as far as "it could be the devil when you think you are experiencing God" goes, I actually think that is exactly what the devil is constantly trying to do, for those who do believe in God. The devil wants to be in the place of Christ, and will appear to be a good spiritual being, but in the end, it's the intentions that reveal the truth.

You can't know or determine any of that.

For all you know Christ was the devil. For all you know Christ was Loki. For all you know God and the devil are actually totally alien beings pretending to be something they aren't, for some unknown reason.

The assumptions you hold about your religion are completely indeterminable. You cannot determine true from fiction, what is true and what is a lie, when you are dealing with all powerful supernatural beings. There are no tests, by virtue of being all powerful they can manipulate the results of any test you make.

There is no requirement that supernatural beings won't lie, and in fact your religion already believes lying supernatural beings such as the devil exist. There is no requirement that they be what they say they are. And there is no way to determine that they are or not.

If your entire religion was a lie perpetrated by another supernatural omnipotent being, for what ever reason, you would have no idea.

chozometroid wrote: »

Satan will always be known by his idea of everyone ascending to the level of God, and denying that Jesus Christ is God and died in the flesh.

He will? And you have worked that out how exactly?

Let me guess, you read it in the Bible. Which is the word of God. And God doesn't lie.

And you have worked that out how exactly?

chozometroid wrote: »

I guess there is no way to know if who we think is God is actually a super-powerful being pretending to be. The problem is that it doesn't make sense(it would mean said being has been watching us from our origin, so what is it's purpose? Did it create us too?)

Well no offence but I don't think any of your religion makes sense even if we believe it is all true and accurate. But that isn't really the point.

Christians are very happy to accept that there are unknown reasons why God does things that he does, and in fact these are not only unknown but unknowable to the human mind.

Why then would anyone happy to believe in a supernatural omnipotent being that can do things for unknowable reason have any trouble with the idea of a trickster god, doing his tricking for unknown reasons?

To say that a trickster god doesn't make sense because we can't think of a reason that he would do this doesn't in itself make sense if you are perfectly happy to imagine a concept like the Christian god doing things when you don't know why he does them.

Surely you must be perfectly ok with the concept of a trickster god who would pretend or invent a religion for a reason none of us knows or possible can even imagine?

Really the issue is not that it doesn't make sense but that it doesn't offer anything.

Believing that God is not what he claims to be offers you nothing, where as believing he is what he claims to be offers you quite a lot. Given that it would seem obvious that a lot of people are going to choose to believe he is what he claims to be and ignore the issue that it is actually impossible to determine this.

chozometroid wrote: »

however true it could be, and it doesn't explain the origin of the universe.

What does that have to do with anything?

Are you saying that God must be God because believing that explains the origin of the universe? How does that work?

What if God didn't create the universe, he just claimed to. How would you tell?

chozometroid wrote: »

As far as the possibility that God is evil, well, there is no way to know this, and we have to go on what He has revealed of Himself.

That is the point. He could be lying. There is absolutely no way to determine or test this.

So again if God appeared before me why would I believe what he says? Even the little things humans use to judge if another human is lying or telling the truth become irrelevant because we are talking about all powerful supernatural beings. If God is lying he is not going to act like he is lying. There isn't going to be a "tell". He would have the ultimate poker face.

Anyone who thinks they can determine God is what he claims to be is just kidding themselves.

chozometroid wrote: »

If in the end he just tortures everyone and laughs at us for believing his lie, then I guess we are at his mercy.

Well I can easily imagine a situation where we all die and come before God and he asks why did you all believe the devil when he appeared as a Jewish carpenter and pretended to be my son? Off to hell with all of you.

It is one of the reasons I find the whole idea of gods, particularly the Abrahamic concept of a god who demands worship, ridiculous.

God expects us to believe in him but ignores all these issues this thread highlights about how the heck we are supposed to determine anything about him?

If a god exists and is good he wouldn't, by virtue of being good, expect that. To be good he would have to have far more respect for logic and the limitations of human knowledge. Otherwise, in my book, he is far from good.

If he does exist and does expect that we worship him despite all these issues well then he is not a god I would feel any need follow. Though I find it far more plausible that he doesn't exist at all and this requirement for worship was created by humans living a long time ago who really didn't think this through very well.

chozometroid wrote: »

I believe in the God of the Bible though, and have joy in what He has revealed to me.

Good for you. Just don't be too surprised if others don't share that view.

But then I would say that, I'm the devil ... wait, ignore that ... d'oh! .... :pac:

Zombrex

Stephentlig wrote: »

fair enough Morbert, but unless you refute his demonstration on the existence of God it remains at present a valid one. Christians who side with you does'nt make conclusions of yours such as the above correct ones.

What is there to refute? The whole article is circular nonsense. Half way through he starts quoting the Bible in support of his arguments for the existence of God for crying out loud. :rolleyes:

Stephentlig

Morbert wrote: »

I was waiting for an invitation to refute it :pac:. I'll be as concise as possible, but I can elaborate on any point.

1: Aquinas assumes that things that appear "self-evident" are necessarily true. He does not demonstrate this. So if God seems self-evident to many people, we still need an additional argument which demonstrates that, because Damascene says that God's existence is self-evident to some people, it is necessarily true.

point taken, but I must admit I need to look into it.

2: Arguments revolving around the notion of a "first cause" or "unmoved mover" unfortunately don't take into account observations in cosmology. Why, for example, is God allowed to be defined as an unmoved mover, but the universe isn't?

because God is the universe he created and controls the universe and everything in it, therefore he is the first cause and unmoved mover.

philologos

Morbert: Thomas Aquinas isn't foolproof and his argumentation is quite early on in the philosophy of religion, however theistic argument in that area of philosophy has been improving ever since people like Avicenna, Moses Maimonides, Aquinas, Anselm and numerous others began their arguments for Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the Middle Ages. It's certainly not something to be merely snubbed at.

Other atheists have made very good counterclaims to most of the theistic arguments if one finds a textbook on the subject especially sceptics such as David Hume, but to merely dismiss them without giving them a seconds thought is the epitome of closed mindedness.

These arguments won't make or break a faith in God, but they give food for the mind, so that the heart can explore what God or what Christ has had to say.

As Stephen said, provide some points on the arguments instead of merely rubbishing them. E.G The infinite regress in cosmological arguments, the fact that a designer does not rule out the possibility of there being more than one designer among many of the points that David Hume brought to the table.

Turtwig

Stephentlig wrote: »

because God is the universe he created and controls the universe and everything in it,

Uhh, that makes absolutely no sense, how does someone/something create themselves into being??

Stephentlig

Malty_T wrote: »

Uhh, that makes absolutely no sense, how does someone/something create themselves into being??

1: he created the universe

2: the universe is a part of him, therefore it is he in his omnipotence.

3: with the above pointers in position God remains the first cause and unmoved mover. he was already a being, but he is within what he created.

chozometroid

Wicknight, there is too much there to address in your post, especially knowing that it will never end with you. You will always say something in argument of the Christian idea of God, no matter what.

I will address a couple things:

You are basically telling me I can't know anything, therefore it's foolish to believe in anything. I may as well go the easy way and be an atheist, huh?

I have no reason to believe any of your imaginings should be even considered a possibility.

Why should God lie? What possible reason would there be for a God to lie to His creation? I'm pretty sure you'll fail to see my reasoning here....no it's guaranteed you will.

As far as God doing things for unknown reasons, there is no issue here. All that is saying is that we accept that we do not know everything, so we cannot possibly know how God is working things out. We actually do have an idea of why He is doing things, because He has revealed His plan to us.

A trickster god is man's invention. It just seems to me that a perfect single God is the source of all things. Otherwise, how can you label the trickster god as being "tricky?" Is being tricky part of perfection? If there is one or more gods, and they are imperfect, where did the imperfection come from? Is there a greater god still? A desire to deceive and humiliate others is a sign of weakness. The trickster god would have "fun" with the idea of 1+1=3, which means he is illogical.
Of course this is all pointless speculation, and all you have done is try to cast a sad picture of how Christian belief is in vain.

What if God didn't create the universe, he just claimed to. How would you tell?

I'll ask Him when I see Him. If at that point, I was to act like you, I will not believe Him when He says how He did it. I would say He's lying or taking credit for the glorious work of the Big Bang. God cannot prove Himself to you, as you reject Him.

If a god exists and is good he wouldn't, by virtue of being good, expect that. To be good he would have to have far more respect for logic and the limitations of human knowledge. Otherwise, in my book, he is far from good.

I'm glad you typed this, as it shows you have some sort of an idea of what a god should be, even though your idea of "good" is formed by flawed atomic arrangements in your head.

philologos

Stephentlig wrote: »

1: he created the universe

2: the universe is a part of him, therefore it is he in his omnipotence.

3: with the above pointers in position God remains the first cause and unmoved mover. he was already a being, but he is within what he created.

Stephen, I hope you don't mind if I question your viewpoint further as a fellow Christian. I personally love the philosophy of religion but I find this reasoning a bit odd.

This is a question I commonly ask people who believe that the universe created itself, but since you believe God is the universe, and the universe created itself, I feel compelled to ask you the same question:

How can the Creator be the Creation at the same time?

In my view, God created the universe and all that is in it, God was external to the universe, but then His influence dwelled within it post-creation, if that makes sense.

I know this is a really trivial question, but I just want to really tackle this point because it's a subject that I really like

Are you basing this on the work of Aquinas or from your own thought?

Morbert

Jakkass wrote: »

Morbert: Thomas Aquinas isn't foolproof and his argumentation is quite early on in the philosophy of religion, however theistic argument in that area of philosophy has been improving ever since people like Avicenna, Moses Maimonides, Aquinas, Anselm and numerous others began their arguments for Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the Middle Ages. It's certainly not something to be merely snubbed at.

Other atheists have made very good counterclaims to most of the theistic arguments if one finds a textbook on the subject especially sceptics such as David Hume, but to merely dismiss them without giving them a seconds thought is the epitome of closed mindedness.

These arguments won't make or break a faith in God, but they give food for the mind, so that the heart can explore what God or what Christ has had to say.

As Stephen said, provide some points on the arguments instead of merely rubbishing them. E.G The infinite regress in cosmological arguments, the fact that a designer does not rule out the possibility of there being more than one designer among many of the points that David Hume brought to the table.

I have not dismissed them without a second thought, or merely rubbished them. And I have given points on such arguments, in this thread and in others What gave you that idea?

Stephentlig

In my view, God created the universe and all that is in it, God was external to the universe, but then His influence dwelled within it post-creation, if that makes sense.

I am in total agreement with what you have just said, so I feel that I am somehow being misinterpretated, allow me to demonstrate my thoughts more concretly.

I am not saying God is the universe in the sense of his divine presence.
but his omnipresence.
allow me to give an example such as the Eucharist, when we go to adore the Lord in the eucharist, it is him in his divine being, his ultimate presence, but when I pick up a spoon ( which he created ) I pick him up in his omnipresence.

Are you basing this on the work of Aquinas or from your own thought?

well St.Thomas explained about the unmoved mover, but I feel that yes this is my own thoughts on the subject, around what St.Thomas speaks about also. my thoughts can also be backed up through scripture.
in the OT we are told that he is within everything he created.
in the NT although I cant find it, one of the apostles talks about God being within everything.

so just to sum things up again
God is what he created ( the universe etc ) in his omnipresence, and the universe can not create itself but needs a knowledgable intelligent divine being to create it, for something that is unknowledgable cannot create itself, but needs something with intelligence to create it.

I hope what I said is clear enough, if not please do not hestitate to pester me some more haha and we shall grind it down until we get some answers.

God bless
Stephen.

philologos

This quote:

Bleargh. I respect coming to God through personal experience and whatnot, but philosophical arguments like those are worthless. In fact, most of the Christians I know would agree with me.

sounds like snubbing off the entire field of Philosophy of Religion.

Morbert

Jakkass wrote: »

This quote:

sounds like snubbing off the entire field of Philosophy of Religion.

What about:

Morbert wrote:

I was waiting for an invitation to refute it . I'll be as concise as possible, but I can elaborate on any point.

Morbert wrote:

I have deliberately kept this short in the hope that you would like to present points in Aquinas's work that counter my points, to save me the trouble of writing a rambling essay.

Morbert (in another thread) wrote:

The short response: Cosmologists do not claim the universe came from nothing.

The tl;dr response:Cosmologists do not claim that energy, space and time came into existence at the Big Bang. Instead, our current cosmological models predict an expansion of space with the progression of time. In other words, the Big Bang is not a theory of creation, but rather a theory of moving outward. A consequence of this model is that, as we look to the past, we should see space, and everything in it, getting smaller - analogous to the way circles of latitude get smaller as we travel toward the north pole - until we get to what can be casually called the "beginning" of time, but at no point is there creation from nothing. Instead, time stops behaving like we expect it to behave, and acts like a north pole for our spacetime manifold.

So claiming that the universe must have a cause because time "begins" at the big bang is like claiming there must be something north of the arctic because lines of longitude "begin" there. The problem essentially lies with a misunderstanding of "beginning" and "cause".

On a more practical note, the assumption that everything must have a cause does not fit into the quantum mechanical regime, where systems can behave in an intrinsically stochastic manner. We know that this regime is essential when describing the big bang, even though we have not yet unified it with general relativity

Your link to Craig didn't work, but I am familiar with his formulation of the argument. As mentioned before, he seems to misunderstand the nature of the big bang, which has lead him to suppose that cosmologists claim the universe was created "ex nihilo".

I think it's safe to say that I did not merely rubbish philosophical arguments, or dismiss them without a second thought.

Zombrex

chozometroid wrote: »

Wicknight, there is too much there to address in your post, especially knowing that it will never end with you. You will always say something in argument of the Christian idea of God, no matter what.

Well don't take it personally. I say something in the argument of most ideas of gods, not just the Christian one :pac:

Seriously though I'm not that interested in arguing with you. I'm merely pointing out to you the logic behind the atheist position so hopefully you will see that it is not that atheists are some how stubbornly refusing to believe your god exists and is what he claims to be against overwhelming evidence that it is all true, merely that we are not happy taking the leap of faith required to believe that is the case and also that there can, by definition, be no overwhelming evidence in support of the Christian god by definition of what the Christian god is define as.

That isn't the fault of the atheists, you are the ones who argue that beings with these properties (such as omnipotence) actually exist.

You can't really blame the atheists take that assertion to its logical conclusion.

chozometroid wrote: »

You are basically telling me I can't know anything, therefore it's foolish to believe in anything.

No I'm not. I'm telling you that you cannot know anything about a being that is considered to be supernatural and omnipotent, because by that very definition there is no requirement that it follows any rules or repeatable standards. It can be anything it wants to be, so how could you possible determine that it actually is.

Fields like science and other areas of human knowledge work under the assumption that the observable universe follows some order or standard. This may not actually be the case, but it appears to be the case. And at the end of the day science can only go on what it observes the world to be, it makes no assumptions about what it may be nor does it pretend to. So gravity appears to work the same way today as it worked yesterday. Atoms appear to behave the same way now as they did 15 minutes ago.

Things become much trickier if we imagine a being that can be anything it wants to be. How do you then determine, in any sensible fashion, what it actually is. By definition you cannot run any tests or make any sort of judgement about it because it may be entirely different 5 minutes from now than what it was 5 minutes ago.

If the universe ran like that science would be at a dead end. A hydrogen atom might have 1 electron today and 2 tomorrow. Gravity might decide today it is going to reverse and go the other way.

You can make no judgements about the true nature of a god because all you see is the fascade that it presents to you at that moment, and it can be anything it wants to be. Now this fascade may actually be its true nature, God may be exactly as he appears to be. But he may not. His true nature may be completely different. You can never determine that either way.

So I would not say it is foolish to believe in anything but I would certainly say it is foolish to believe you know the true nature of a supernatural being that can be anything it wants to be.

chozometroid wrote: »

I may as well go the easy way and be an atheist, huh?

Well I wouldn't go that far. If you believe that you have had experiences that lead you to conclude that a supernatural powerful being exists then by all means believe that such a being exists. But it is illogical to believe you can know anything about the true nature of this being.

You meet someone on the street and they start telling you things about some where far away where you have never been. You have certainly met someone, but can you determine if anything the person is saying is true? No, you can't. So at that moment all he is telling you falls directly into the "unconfirmed" sub set of your information. To move it into the confirmed subset you can try and test what he has told you. You go to the city he was talking about and you see yes there is a church in the square. Or you see a photo of it in a reputable guide book.

The thing with God though is that the information never moves out of the unconfirmed sub set because you, nor anyone else, can ever test it. You cannot test any of the information you have been told about God.

chozometroid wrote: »

Why should God lie? What possible reason would there be for a God to lie to His creation?

No idea, nor does it matter.

Why would a super powerful omnipotent being who exists outside of space and time send one group of middle eastern tribes men to massacre the women and children of another group of middle eastern tribes men?

If we are going to start playing the Why would God do that I can think of plenty of things that make a lot less sense than a God lying to his own creations that you guys are all happy to think must have valid reasons, even if you don't know or understand them.

The list of things I think don't think make any sense but which your religion happily believes in is very long and probably a topic for another thread, but the point is that Christians have never required a reason Why god did all the things he is supposed to have done in order to believe that he did them.

To demand a reason then why a god would do something like lie to his creations is nonsensical and illogical. Because he wanted to seems a valid as any of the reasons I've ever heard for things like the OT genocides.

chozometroid wrote: »

As far as God doing things for unknown reasons, there is no issue here. All that is saying is that we accept that we do not know everything, so we cannot possibly know how God is working things out. We actually do have an idea of why He is doing things, because He has revealed His plan to us.

Ok, Why does God lie to his creations. Because it is part of his plan. There, happy?

chozometroid wrote: »

A trickster god is man's invention.

And let me guess, your god isn't right?

chozometroid wrote: »

If there is one or more gods, and they are imperfect, where did the imperfection come from? Is there a greater god still? A desire to deceive and humiliate others is a sign of weakness.

I would consider a desire to be worshiped and believed in as a sign of weakness.

All you are doing is demonstrating my point, God ends up being what you find comforting and logical, as if that some how shapes reality. A trickster god is not comforting to you, it is chaotic and illogical. Therefore how can the "perfect" god be the trickster god. Well who said god had to be perfect or that perfect was what you think perfect is. Obviously you did, which is why you believe in the Christian God.

Me personally I think the Christian God is quite a bit short of what I would consider a perfect being. Possibly that is a reason why I never really believed that god was the Christian God, even when I still entertained ideas of gods.

chozometroid wrote: »

I'll ask Him when I see Him. If at that point, I was to act like you, I will not believe Him when He says how He did it. I would say He's lying or taking credit for the glorious work of the Big Bang. God cannot prove Himself to you, as you reject Him.

He can't prove himself to you either, which is why I said earlier that I find the idea of the Christian god to be far from the concept of a perfect, good, god that you guys claim he is.

If God does exist and is good and perfect he would know that he cannot demonstrate himself to us because we lack the ability to determine anything about him, and as such he would not expect us to believe in him as this would be unfair and asking us to do something illogical. Given that any perfect being would, based on my idea of perfection, be a perfectly logical, mathematical, being it would make little sense for him to think we should be illogical in how we relate to him.

A god that would expect, and even demand, that we believe in him despite the illogical nature of that belief, well that is not a god I would consider good or perfect.

So in a similar way that you cannot believe that a perfect being would be a trickster I certainly can't believe that the Christian god is a perfect being.

I think it is no more likely that if a perfect being exists he is the Christian god than you believe he is Loki.

chozometroid

Wicknight wrote: »

If God does exist and is good and perfect he would know that he cannot demonstrate himself to us because we lack the ability to determine anything about him, and as such he would not expect us to believe in him as this would be unfair and asking us to do something illogical. Given that any perfect being would, based on my idea of perfection, be a perfectly logical, mathematical, being it would make little sense for him to think we should be illogical in how we relate to him.

Science determines things about nature regardless of its inability to do so accurately. We determine things based on what we observe and the ideas form based on our perception of reality.

God can demonstrate Himself to us, and we can determine things about Him. To say that we cannot determine anything about Him because we cannot observe Him physically would mean we cannot determine anything about people's thoughts or emotions, or any abstract concepts whatsoever. We know these things are real, though, and we all do form ideas about them.
God demonstrates Himself to us through His creation, through the metaphysical nature of our minds, and through Jesus Christ/His Word, which details His interaction with mankind.

Turtwig

chozometroid wrote: »

We determine things based on what we observe and the ideas form based on our perception of reality.

The great so-called 'natural philosophers'* recognised that our perception of reality through our senses can be misleading. For this reason, we invented the must counter intuitive lack of common sense methodology that became science : it allows us to see things we otherwise could not.

God can demonstrate Himself to us, and we can determine things about Him. To say that we cannot determine anything about Him because we cannot observe Him physically would mean we cannot determine anything about people's thoughts or emotions, or any abstract concepts whatsoever. We know these things are real, though, and we all do form ideas about them.
God demonstrates Himself to us through His creation, through the metaphysical nature of our minds, and through Jesus Christ/His Word, which details His interaction with mankind.

There is one issue here, depending on where and what time in the world you were born, God would have demonstrated himself differently.
You may have noticed, that unlike His Excellenancy Wicknight, my posts tend to err on the lazy side:P

*Some ancient Greek dudes, cannot remember the names, (definitely couldn't pronounce them:)) all I remember is that one of them got sentenced to death for proposing that the Sun God was in fact a Ball of Rock on Fire.

Zombrex

chozometroid wrote: »

Science determines things about nature regardless of its inability to do so accurately. We determine things based on what we observe and the ideas form based on our perception of reality.

Yes but it is very important to remember what you do and don't know, and more specifically what you can and can't know.

Observation is only one part of learning and discovery. It is necessary to test our assumptions about the world around us, because an awful lot of the time our initial view of something, the initial idea we form in our heads, turns out to be wrong.

The issue with God is that he is untestable, by definition. Any claims by him or anyone else about him are untestable. You can accept that they are true for what ever reason but you cannot determine they are true. You cannot even determine they are probably true.

chozometroid wrote: »

God can demonstrate Himself to us, and we can determine things about Him. To say that we cannot determine anything about Him because we cannot observe Him physically would mean we cannot determine anything about people's thoughts or emotions, or any abstract concepts whatsoever.

That is not what I claimed. It is not about physically observing him, if that is what you think you are missing the point.

Assuming he exists the only things we can determine about God is what he presents to us. If what he presents to us is not real, a lie, or not a reflection of his true nature, we wouldn't know because we have absolutely no way to test if what he is presenting to us is true.

That doesn't matter if you are observing him or not.

As I said earlier it would be like having a conversation with someone with out any ability to determine if what they are telling you is true or not. God would be in complete control of how we perceive him and if he wishes to deceive us he can do so without any trace of such a deception.

chozometroid wrote: »

God demonstrates Himself to us through His creation, through the metaphysical nature of our minds, and through Jesus Christ/His Word, which details His interaction with mankind.

All that is meaningless dogma, you are just repeating the party line.

The only thing God demonstrates through his creation is that he created something, and even that we cannot determine.

If God didn't create us but wanted to take credit for doing so he could, and you could never determine otherwise. You may ask why would he want to, but that doesn't change the fact that you cannot tell if he is or not.

Detailing his interaction with mankind again only demonstrates that he interacted with man kind. Why he interacted with mankind is a different matter entirely. You can accept what you are told but you have no way to determine that. God works in mysterious ways.

If Jesus was supernatural but not what he claimed to be you couldn't tell. He could have done all the things Christianity claims he has done but for completely different reasons that the reasons he gave. The obvious example, claimed by some Jewish sects as far as a I know, is that he was the devil trying to trick people into believing in a man as God and cause worship of a fail idol.

How would you know? Claiming you could tell is nonsense. You couldn't tell. You can believe and accept but that is not the same thing at all.

chozometroid

Wicknight wrote: »

Yes but it is very important to remember what you do and don't know, and more specifically what you can and can't know.

Observation is only one part of learning and discovery. It is necessary to test our assumptions about the world around us, because an awful lot of the time our initial view of something, the initial idea we form in our heads, turns out to be wrong.

The issue with God is that he is untestable, by definition. Any claims by him or anyone else about him are untestable. You can accept that they are true for what ever reason but you cannot determine they are true. You cannot even determine they are probably true.



That is not what I claimed. It is not about physically observing him, if that is what you think you are missing the point.

Assuming he exists the only things we can determine about God is what he presents to us. If what he presents to us is not real, a lie, or not a reflection of his true nature, we wouldn't know because we have absolutely no way to test if what he is presenting to us is true.

That doesn't matter if you are observing him or not.

As I said earlier it would be like having a conversation with someone with out any ability to determine if what they are telling you is true or not. God would be in complete control of how we perceive him and if he wishes to deceive us he can do so without any trace of such a deception.



All that is meaningless dogma, you are just repeating the party line.

The only thing God demonstrates through his creation is that he created something, and even that we cannot determine.

If God didn't create us but wanted to take credit for doing so he could, and you could never determine otherwise. You may ask why would he want to, but that doesn't change the fact that you cannot tell if he is or not.

Detailing his interaction with mankind again only demonstrates that he interacted with man kind. Why he interacted with mankind is a different matter entirely. You can accept what you are told but you have no way to determine that. God works in mysterious ways.

If Jesus was supernatural but not what he claimed to be you couldn't tell. He could have done all the things Christianity claims he has done but for completely different reasons that the reasons he gave. The obvious example, claimed by some Jewish sects as far as a I know, is that he was the devil trying to trick people into believing in a man as God and cause worship of a fail idol.

How would you know? Claiming you could tell is nonsense. You couldn't tell. You can believe and accept but that is not the same thing at all.

All of what you are saying is pointless speculation (and much of what I'm saying in response). It's easy to come up with "but what if" queries to someone's views all day long.

As for not believing in something someone says, well, that's based on trust/reputation, no? And the idea that God is revealing Himself falsely seems pointless if He is God. What would He have to gain/lose for doing/not doing so? The whole point in His creating things is to have them accept Him for what He is.

God's claims can be tested. What He said in the Bible has come to pass. Do you realize how many prophecies have been fulfilled? Does this mean nothing to the atheist?

Zombrex

chozometroid wrote: »

All of what you are saying is pointless speculation (and much of what I'm saying in response).

That doesn't really matter. I don't actually believe any of those things, I'm not trying to convince you that Jesus was actually the devil pretending to be the son of God.

My point is simply that you cannot tell either way. By virtue of how they are defined to start with you can't actually determine anything about any of these being you believe exist beyond what they (through your religion) tell you. Even if we both accept they are real and are actually telling you these things that is the limit to which you can know about them

This goes back to your original post where you seemed to suggest that atheists were being unreasonable in not accepting what you believe is true. My point is that it is not.

You are taking a large leap of faith, which is fair enough. By all means take that leap if it makes you happy. But it is certainly not unreasonable not to jump with you.

For example you can't actually present me compelling evidence or proof that Jesus was the son of god. That is simply a logical paradox since you would have to be a god yourself to do that.

At the very most you can present me proof that Jesus claimed to be the son of God and that he has supernatural powers. You can believe, again though a leap of faith, that because of this you accept he is who he claimed to be, but I would not be so eager to rush to that conclusion, even if you had Jesus in front of me raising people from the dead.

And I would imagine that if I did have Jesus in front of me he should understand this issue.

chozometroid wrote: »

It's easy to come up with "but what if" queries to someone's views all day long.

Yes, very easy. That is in fact the point.

chozometroid wrote: »

As for not believing in something someone says, well, that's based on trust/reputation, no? And the idea that God is revealing Himself falsely seems pointless if He is God.

Again that is a illogical position. The point may be completely unknown or unknowable to you. It is not a requirement that you know why a supernatural being would be lying to you in order for him to be actually lying to you, any more than you need to know why a human is lying to you in order for him to be able to. And in fact the less you know why the better the lie is.

chozometroid wrote: »

What would He have to gain/lose for doing/not doing so? The whole point in His creating things is to have them accept Him for what He is.

The whole point according to who or what? The Bible?

chozometroid wrote: »

God's claims can be tested. What He said in the Bible has come to pass. Do you realize how many prophecies have been fulfilled? Does this mean nothing to the atheist?

Well leaving aside that it has never actually been demonstrated that any of these prophecies have actually been fulfilled (you simply accept what you are told by your religion), that is not a test of God's claims.

And evil god with omnipotent powers can see the future and make prophecy just as well as a good god with omnipotent powers. That is the whole point, a god with omnipotent powers can do what ever he wants. He can make prophecies. He can raise the dead. He can create worlds. He can do this if he is good and benevolent and he can do this if he is evil and wicked simply trying to convince us that he is good and benevolent.

What you can't do is determine this, determine if the reason he is doing these thing is the reason he has stated he is doing these things.

Húrin

chozometroid wrote: »

What is comes down to is this: Atheists just don't like God, or the idea of the Christian God, so it doesn't matter to them if He is real or not. He is not worthy of worship to them. Atheists are their own gods, and as such, are on their own in the grand scheme of things.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

I think that saying "Atheists are their own gods" is needlessly provocative, but with most of the atheists in the other forum, if you ask them, they think God is a prick anyway. This pretty well gives the game away for them since what came first? The dislike of God, or the disbelief?

Wicknight wrote: »

Of course it would be nice not to be annihilated, but principles have to come first in some instances.

Most humans put their survival over their principles. Why would I think you are any different?

Wicknight wrote: »

God expects us to believe in him but ignores all these issues this thread highlights about how the heck we are supposed to determine anything about him?

If a god exists and is good he wouldn't, by virtue of being good, expect that. To be good he would have to have far more respect for logic and the limitations of human knowledge. Otherwise, in my book, he is far from good.

You think that Christians can't determine who God is but you think that you can determine what good is? What if you're wrong as they are?

Húrin

Jakkass wrote: »

This quote:

sounds like snubbing off the entire field of Philosophy of Religion.

I've seen worse, such as snubbing all fields of human enquiry and endeavour that are not science.

Zombrex

Húrin wrote: »

I think that saying "Atheists are their own gods" is needlessly provocative, but with most of the atheists in the other forum, if you ask them, they think God is a prick anyway. This pretty well gives the game away for them since what came first? The dislike of God, or the disbelief?

I would imagine that in most cases it was the dislike of God.

If you remove the desire to believe that something like God exists you remove a lot of the incentive to accept that it is true. Very few humans believe in wicked monotheistic gods. I think that is telling.

We cling to belief in God because it serves a purpose. Remove that purpose and you often let go of the idea entirely.

Húrin wrote: »

Most humans put their survival over their principles. Why would I think you are any different?

Perhaps I'm not. I would like to think I am. But perhaps if a god threatened me with eternal torture in a lake of fire I would rush to my knees and start kissing his supernatural boots.

Húrin wrote: »

You think that Christians can't determine who God is but you think that you can determine what good is? What if you're wrong as they are?

Well "good" is my own opinion, so yes I do. I can't really be "wrong" as it is just my own judgement. You can think, in your opinion, that I'm wrong by all means.

Zombrex

Húrin wrote: »

I've seen worse, such as snubbing all fields of human enquiry and endeavour that are not science.

Groan ... not this again.

I seem to remember asking you to explain how "fields of human enquiry and endeavour that are not science" had managed to over come all the problems with human learning that science attempts to manage and getting no response.

It is all very well to claim that there are fields that are as good if not better than science at discovering truth about reality, but so far you have never put forward any examples or evidence of this.

chozometroid

Wicknight wrote: »

My point is simply that you cannot tell either way. By virtue of how they are defined to start with you can't actually determine anything about any of these being you believe exist beyond what they (through your religion) tell you. Even if we both accept they are real and are actually telling you these things that is the limit to which you can know about them.

So why believe anything then? You say it's impossible for us or even God to prove Himself. Isn't that eliminating a possible truth?

I could say you can't determine anything about the world beyond what it tells us. How can we trust that the world is giving us the right information? Maybe what it reveals is much different than the truth. Who says we are testing it the right way, or that we are viewing the results of these tests through the right lens (How can our eyes be trusted? Or our brains? Maybe our minds are evil and just having their way with us.)

At the very most you can present me proof that Jesus claimed to be the son of God and that he has supernatural powers. You can believe, again though a leap of faith, that because of this you accept he is who he claimed to be, but I would not be so eager to rush to that conclusion, even if you had Jesus in front of me raising people from the dead.

Exactly as I thought.

It is not a requirement that you know why a supernatural being would be lying to you in order for him to be actually lying to you, any more than you need to know why a human is lying to you in order for him to be able to. And in fact the less you know why the better the lie is.

Saying God is a liar would be attributing Him with a "creaturely" quality. At some point we have to presuppose a basic premise. If I proposed a God who is boundless energy, a mind consisting of pure love and truth, and the possibility for this God is allowed, then it follows that He is not capable of lying. It's not an inability more than it is an impossibility. It would be a contradiction of His character. He speaks what is. It's not just comforting for me to believe in this type of God. It just so happens to be the One True God.

Well leaving aside that it has never actually been demonstrated that any of these prophecies have actually been fulfilled (you simply accept what you are told by your religion), that is not a test of God's claims.

I simply accept what I'm told by my religion? Wow.
Do you know of them? Would you like me to list them? Which ones do you believe to be just "what my religion tells me?" These are historic facts.
The book of Daniel predicts the rise and fall of 4 great nations. History was not interpreted just to fit what the Bible says. It's plain as day.
God gave Daniel the interpretation of the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar as follows:

"This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king."

"Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold."

"And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth."

"And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise."

"And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay."

"And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure." (Daniel 2:36-45 KJV)

The Babylonian empire was the "head of gold."
After it came the Persian empire. The Persians conquered Babylon in 536 B.C. They are the "chest and arms of silver."
The Persian empire was conquered by the Greeks under Alexander the Great. The Greeks became the "belly and thighs of bronze."
Then came the Romans, the "legs of iron."
The feet that are iron mixed with clay represent the divided Roman empire we see in Europe.

It is all in chronological order, with each part of the statue corresponding perfectly to the respective nation. The gold, silver, brass, and iron are all characteristic of their represented nation. This prophecy was given around 600 BC.

And evil god with omnipotent powers can see the future and make prophecy just as well as a good god with omnipotent powers. That is the whole point, a god with omnipotent powers can do what ever he wants. He can make prophecies. He can raise the dead. He can create worlds. He can do this if he is good and benevolent and he can do this if he is evil and wicked simply trying to convince us that he is good and benevolent.

The fact that it's possible God could be evil really amounts to nothing as far as the reality of God's existence or what Christians believe.

You are an interesting fellow.

Zombrex

chozometroid wrote: »

So why believe anything then? You say it's impossible for us or even God to prove Himself. Isn't that eliminating a possible truth?

No, it is recognising what we can and can't know. Again if you want to take the leap of faith and believe what God has told you is true go ahead. But you can't demonstrate that so don't be surprised if others don't.

chozometroid wrote: »

I could say you can't determine anything about the world beyond what it tells us. How can we trust that the world is giving us the right information?

We can't. But for most purposes it doesn't matter. Things fall down. A hydrogen atom has 1 electron. Electricity flows between magnets. If all this is actually an illusion by the universe (which it may well be), it doesn't really matter because we can still use it for doing stuff. Things still operate based on rules, even if the rules are actually illusions.

It is possible, and some recent scientific findings seem to give support to this, that our 3D existence is actually an illusion, that we and the universe itself is a hologram on a 2D plan. That is quite mind expanding, the idea that what we see as the 3D world around us is actually illusionary.

Other work is suggesting that time works both ways and the only reason we view the time in one direction is due to a quantum forgetfulness that means the universe forgets things that flow backwards in time but remembers things that flow forward. This would mean our perception that we are moving forward in time is an illusion.

But we can still operate perfectly fine if all these things turn out to be true. There is a huge area of the philosophy of science and knowledge that thinks about these things and in order for us to realise what we can and can't know.

chozometroid wrote: »

Exactly as I thought.

I would hope so since it is my central point.

chozometroid wrote: »

Saying God is a liar would be attributing Him with a "creaturely" quality.

I think your religion has already attributed plenty of "creaturely" qualities to him already, I don't know why you would object to this?

chozometroid wrote: »

At some point we have to presuppose a basic premise. If I proposed a God who is boundless energy, a mind consisting of pure love and truth, and the possibility for this God is allowed, then it follows that He is not capable of lying.

But that is a baseless first premise to start from. Why would God's mind have to consist of pure love and truth? Is that a requirement of a supernatural deity?

You are just defining the god you want to exist and going from there. Which is pointless, you have no idea what type of omnipotent beings can or cannot exist.

chozometroid wrote: »

It's not just comforting for me to believe in this type of God. It just so happens to be the One True God.

Wow, what a coincidence :P

chozometroid wrote: »

I simply accept what I'm told by my religion? Wow.
Do you know of them? Would you like me to list them?

Yes by all means. Please list the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled that you have independently verified were actually fulfilled (ie you weren't just told they were by your religion)

chozometroid wrote: »

Which ones do you believe to be just "what my religion tells me?" These are historic facts.

I would be very interested in you listing the ones that you believe are "historic facts". Can you do so without sourcing the Bible? Or do you consider the Bible to be a unbiased historical document?

chozometroid wrote: »

It is all in chronological order, with each part of the statue corresponding perfectly to the respective nation. The gold, silver, brass, and iron are all characteristic of their represented nation. This prophecy was given around 600 BC.

Leaving aside that the prophecy is so unspecific as to be worthless (well done Daniel in predicting that some time in the future someone was going to conquer someone else:rolleyes:) the book itself was actually written after 200 BC, 400 years after the claims of the original prophecies and after history had provided plenty of examples for conquering city states for the author to match up against the prophecy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Daniel#Dating_and_content

A prophecy is worthless if it is a) unspecific in detail allowing it to be fitted to what ever the believe wants and b) our source of it only appears in records after it is supposed to have come true and c) the actual prophecy details are unverifiable.

Which covers all the Biblical prophecies we know about.

chozometroid wrote: »

The fact that it's possible God could be evil really amounts to nothing as far as the reality of God's existence or what Christians believe.

Of course not, an evil God won't be sending you to eternal paradise. What is the point in believing that God might be evil.

sold

If Gods existance was proved 100% then there would be no room for Faith.

Zombrex

sold wrote: »

If Gods existance was proved 100% then there would be no room for Faith.

Is that a bad thing?

Anyways, God's existence can't be 100% proven so no need to worry.

Stephentlig

Wicknight wrote: »

Is that a bad thing?

Anyways, God's existence can't be 100% proven so no need to worry.

If God where to give us too much evidence he would compel us against our own free will.