You know God exists. Now thats either true or its not. Your opinion matters.

smacl wrote: »

Your post is based on the statement "that God is self-evident to everyone" which is clearly not the case, particularly in this forum. There is nothing whatsoever that suggests to me that there is even the faintest hint of truth in Christian mythology and more than Norse mythology, Egyptian mythology or any other broadly held supernatural belief. That religion has also been the excuse for acts of barbarity throughout history is also no doubt the case but not really relevant.

Quoting random bits of scripture on this forum does not constitute a valid basis for argument as most of us on this forum consider the bible to be a work of fiction.

It wasn't so much an argument aiming to convince you that you possess evidence of God.

Rather, it was a statement that you do have evidence of God and looks at things from there.

Presumably, if to your great surprise you found yourself standing on front of God one day, you would present an excuse for your position (assuming your current position held until that day).

Presumably that excuse would center on non empirical evidence? Or would center on the existence of conflicting religious claims unto too much choice?. Or the barbarism of Christianity?

Presumably you would say you energetically countered the Christian faith on boards.ie .. and not Hinduism because you objected to Christian influence in a land you felt better secularised and freed from superstition?

There will be no excuse. Not because God issues diktat and your valid excuses are silenced as in a kangeroo court. Rather, your excuses would shrivel in light of it being shown you that you did know. But choose to suppress and write off and attach yourself to explanations which served the purposes of rejection.

Rejecting that you know in your knower, for example, that your wrongdoing is objectively wrong. Wrong against some absolute standard, outside the shifting customs and fads of men. And that no matter how much you wriggle and turn, that objective standard has to have a source. And that wrong has always been and will always be wrong no matter what the fad of the day. Cowardice, selfishess, cruelty. You know it: the invisible of God made manifest to your knower.

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It is interesting that when you look at the mode of salvation, it doesn't involve a choice FOR God. Man cannot make a choice for that which he is born into not believing. You cannot say to a man 'believe' and he chose for believing.

Rather the mode is 'salvation the default for everyman unless choice (or better said, will) against salvation. In which case the obtaining, through granting own will be done, of not-God (a.k.a. damnation)

"They refused to believe the truth and so be saved" is the way it is put.

A denial of objective wrong (objective, as in referencing a standard outside man) is a refusal to believe the truth. The truth that there exists a standard outside man.

A worked example, thus, of what the OP is talking of. An invisible, non empirical, non demonstrable quality of God. That you know. And are able to maintain denial of if you so will. But since you know it (and you do know it) you won't have legitimate excuse on the point.

It's not that one makes an about turn on a single thinf. To overnight accept objective wrong as defined above. That's not the way. Rather it is something that is accepted away from arguing against it. It is something ackowledged privately and which can be asked about in private. Between you who knows it and whatever the objective standard setter is. For those who aren't willing to maintain a refusal in private, that is.

So no argument from me. Just statement. For you to do with as you will.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Having read it twice the only thing that I am getting from the OP is that it says in around 700 words what the writers user name already says in 1. Which is that the wish/agenda is to establish one baseless assertion as "default true" and that the sceptic of this asserted and baseless "truth" is merely to be derided in every way from merely "erroneous" to "mad".

The user is against, in fact "anti" scepticism. And that is all the 700 or so words in the OP appears to be saying. I can literally find no other content or meaning or agenda or interpretation of the text here.

Content containing any actual argument, evidence, data or reasoning that a god entity actually does exist however, is entirely lacking in the OP just like every other post ever written on this forum by that user.

On a linguistic note though I have never before in any dictionary, or any other context I have encountered to date, heard it suggested that "not empirically nor rationally demonstrable or provable" is even tangentially related to the word "invisible" let alone a valid full replacement for it. The move above appears not to much to have been a replacement of a word in scripture.... but a wholesale re-writing of it's content and meaning to suit an agenda.

One wonders what the divine author/inspiration of the text, were it to actually exist, would think of having the meaning of it's text not just mangled or distorted, but entirely changed from one thing to an entirely different thing in this fashion. Were I to believe in that author, and were I to make such a move against it's will, intent, meaning and design, I would find myself somewhat in desperate need of repentance and restitution in fear of the well being of my eternal soul.

Thankfully there is no reason on offer, least of all here on this thread, to think this malicious, malignant, capricious, emotional snowflake entity exists and is out to get us.

You might read my reply to smacl a post or two above.

The issue isn't my finding the bootstrap argument for transcendent morality laughable. Or trying to convince someone who is happy to hold the rather more sustainable position that there are no objective morals that there indeed is.

The question is whether you are convinced. And only you can answer.

Clearly, in the event the verse quoted in the OP is true you can't be convinced yourself. There will be a flaw in your argument and you know it. But can opt to bury that inconvenience. To paper over the crack.

Now, the paper might be thick so that the crack is well hidden. But since you are the paper applicator, you'll know where to look


😉

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

OP, may I ask what your motivation in starting this thread is?

It is to save souls? Win converts? Justify your held views? Or just win an argument on the internet?

Winning souls, as you put it is the motivation generally. And although I like winning arguments, I know I won't. But no matter - since winning souls isn't reliant on my winning arguments. That said, in the main I also know I won't lose arguments either - say in the matter of their being no morals without God. Stalemate is the usual outcome.

I don't so much want to justify my view as develop it (since my view of how it all works isn't by any means complete). For example, in a discussion elsewhere with Arminians (who believe salvation/damnation involves choice for /choice against God) and Calvinists ( who believe God picks who to save and damn aside from any will involvement of man), I test my own view against theirs and find it holds up well.

I could start all sorts of threads in the Christianity forum picking holes in their beliefs, I choose not to for several reasons - among them that the mods over there frown on that sort of thing; I have no motivation to "win souls"; and I respect people's right to belief even if I consider those beliefs rather silly.

To be fair, your view doesn't offer anything of particular note, in comparison. How could you be that motivated? If you held people's worth to be on an eternal scale of significance, rather than something of lifetimes worth then you might be motivated differently. Self-defined meaning of life will always have a hard time elevating itself against another self-defined meaning of life. What has one to commend itself over another when its all for nowt anyway?

Scale matters.

I remember the previous thread that MarkHamill linked to - the only reasonable conclusion I can draw from that, and from the god debate in gerneral, is "I don't know, and you don't know either."

It was a bit more nuanced than that. The possibility of no impartial onlooker had significant consequences. Stalemate was okay .. and like I say, something I'm comfortable with. It removes the certainty with which Mark spesks of his view - since he supposes it undergirded by any impartial onlooker. No impartial onlooker demonstrable, no undergirding to stand on. He's back to own beliefs.

The way he views me.

So all reasonable people are agnostics. Gnosticism is a question of knowledge, not belief, and I've yet to hear of a human with a reasonable claim to have knowledge of a god.

That's patent rubbish. Very smart and reasonable people believe. Indeed, many fathers of science attributed their work to the cause of exploring that which their creator has made. It was their exposure to his atteibutes, logical, reasoned, purposeful, coherent, systematic .. that had them suppose those same tools could be used in exploring and understanding ehat he made.


The problem with your view involves the issue in the OP. The demand for evidence in a particular form. There is nothing whatsoever that rules thatis all there can be. You could as easily be speaking as a blind man to the sighted as speaking any kind of sense.

Where we differ is belief - you are prepared to believe without evidence, I am not.

This is your category mistake (and another place of stalemate). I am not prepared to believe without evidence. It is precisely the evidence which brings about the belief. You are supposing you can see all, and in that all there is no evidence. I'm suggesting (well, the Bible is and I'm merely repeating it here) that you are blind.

The issue is whether you are drawn towards the place where all is revealed (you won't believe on the way bit that doesn't mean you aren't moving towards unbeknownst). Or not.

Along the way, evidences unto being drawn (which you wouldn't connect with anything to do with God, except in retrospect).

Along with the problem of blind vs not blind is the issue of your supposing how a person must come to belief, were God true. You think it has to be the way you think it need be. That it connect with parts of you you think it oughtto connect with. Why on earth you would suppose God (if he existed) is confined to operating the way you think he has to operate is beyond me.

Beyond, were it not for the OP which states precisely why. Each their own little god. Supposing that they know best.

A thought experiment: think what God would be like if he existed. Take the scale of the universe as your cue and use it to concentrate on might and intelligence. And consider the universe spoken into existence (i.e. the scale of the universe is a drop in the ocean compared to the scale of God)

Now pop back out of the thought and consider how feeble the idea that God evidencing himself is limited to what you suppose it should be.

That's just the way I am, the way my brain is wired up for better or for worse. I can no more choose to believe in the christian god than you could choose to believe in Zeus.

If I go to hell then so be it, I will go down proudly knowing that your god made me this way

Unfortunately, pride won't be an option. For it is pride which rules the roost of a man who ends up damned. And it has a limited shelf life. There will be no pride in hell - for there will be nothing to be proud of. You would see all, including the ways in which the attempt to bring you to submit to what you rightfully ought to submit, was rejected by an inappropriate proudness.

Pride says "my will be done". Pride says " I know, I decide". Pride says "I am an independent of God being"

To which God says, if Pride insists to the bitter end, "thy will be done". And the person gets precisely that: on their own, without God. And of course, without all the things they rely on God for. Pretty awful that.

"Every knee will bow, every tongue confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord".

It won't be God's henchmen rapping the back of your knees forcing you to bow. Nor magical powers having you say what you don't believe. You will because bow and speak becuase you will see, with mich regret, that it is true.

It is interesting that you say your 'brain'. The bible says that the law is written on the heart, the conscience sometimes defending your actions, sometimes accusing you for your actions.

The great thing is that you have no choice in the matter of God opting to attempt to draw you in. He doesn't ask your permission to make the attempt. And it doesn't necessarily matter what your brain says. It's but one voice. He will access where and by the means he sees fit. And you will answer because you have no choice but to answer. This is his gig, not yours.

The only matter you have involvement in is the nature of your answer. You might not understand the algorithm. It might be end to end encryption such that you have no brain-idea its happening. But it happens.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

But you said before that God decides who believes what (when he chooses whose "eyes" to open), so you can't win any soul.

His decision is based on criterion. The criterion met is a function of the persons will.

You might see it as a fishing expedition. The person can either be landed on shore (in which case criterion is met, they are landed, and eyes are opened). Or they can will unto breaking the line and never thus being landed and the criterion

I doubt I've said anything else than that (certainly in recent years when that view crystalized)

And yet you can't test your view against no view at all.

Not sure what that means.

This reads as "Atheist doesn't feed my superiority complex over others, therefore I don't like". Am I missing something?

Certainly. The atheist view isn't offering a whole lot. Morals and meaning are an exercise in bootstrap suspension. Morals and meaning are what you decide them to be. If you go with this argument/philosophy then you go with this. If that that. You decide.

And so long as you are satisfied with what you decide then it's okay for you. And so we get a world full of mini-gods who are all correct by own measure.

You only have to decide your measure is correct. Which is hardly something worth evangelising on, given that's the way things operate by default.

Being happy with stalemating kind undermines your previous claim that you want to save souls and develop your own views. You cannot develop my mind or yours by "stalemating" my questions to you.

That supposes that salvation is achieved by winning argumentation. Since it's not, there is no particular problem in stalemate for me.

The positive about stalemating is that until stalemate, the person thinks their argument a winning one (at least in their own mind). If a person with a previously winning (in their own mind) position must move to a stalemated position, then that is a defeat of sorts.

Not that I'm interested in such defeats from a personal perspective. Such defeats represent movement away from the lost position. They move nearer found.

You misread Hotblack, I'm sure. They said "Gnosticism is a question of knowledge, not belief". Very smart and (otherwise) reasonable people do believe. How many claimed to know?

I'm sure if you talked to them they would say they know. But because they deal with empiricists for whom knowing is only empiricially arrived at, they use the term believe.

I'm okay with the term believe, once clarified what it is that means to a believer. That is: knowing of the non empirical kind.

How do you know that you and Hotblack are not both blind to the real god?

The same way as you know anything: the evidence available persuades. You merely try to elevate empirical when there is no particular need for anyone to consider it supreme.

Remember: the idea that empirical evidence is supreme is a belief. And a belief that only holds until such time as you have reason not to believe it anymore.

So God forces us to answer him at some random point,

Not at all random. A hundred times a day? A thousand? Your will is in action all day long. Your thinking is in action all day long. Your conscience guides you all day long.

It's a process. Not a moment. Your answering that is.

we can't choose not to be we can choose, in some way what we answer. But, what we answer is not decided by our brain, but by our heart upon which god wrote our conscience. So we don't actually have any choice at all, everyone in hell is there because specifically decided they should be? I'm really trying to follow you here, but you are all over the place. Is this the first time you have thought of this? Do you need a rubber duck?

Your brain is obviously part of it. How could someone utilise the internet to spread porn unless they used their brains to navigate the technical aspects of same. How could they figure to go industrial with Zyklon B unless they engaged their brains.

But their brain isn't the driver. Their heart is (where ever that be located since it's not the physical heart being spoken of). Now if you want to locate the "heart" in the brain then fine.

Point is: the claim is that man is aware of the law (rather, the spirit of it rather than the limited letter given in the 10 Commandments). And he has a compass which guides, defends and admonishes his actions.

It doesn't matter that he doesn't assign this knowledge to God. Or suppose it knowledge at all. All that matters is that he is communicating with God and God with him, whether he likes it or not, or believes it or not.

For once the communication, then means sufficient to either save, or, if the man insists on damnation, condemn.

Janelle Mammoth Tournament wrote: »

I find your pseudo intellectual posts quite condescending OP.

I'll take the compliment in so far as one is likely to be given on this forum.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

They believe, they do not know however.

I'm sure you believe in the theory of evolution. A theory so well established it is considered as known. Yet we know theories can be overturned. How can what is known not be known in the event of overturning? Well, it being a belief enormously undergirded unto it being known is how you know.

You place too much emphasis on a word. And not the undergirding for the word.

I'm happy to say that God might not indeed exist. That I could be a brain in a jar. And so to be accurate and precise, belief is a better word.

But sometimes, as with ToE, when the belief is so well undergirded, we differentiate from commoner garden, less well undergirded belief. And say we know

I know you won't like that. But that's your problem to solve

Throwing around insults saying people are blind, that their world view doesn't amount to anything etc. isn't going to get you anywhere here.

It wasn't intended as an insult. It's a fair point. If you are blind to something then you will act like a man who cannot see as far as those who can see are concerned

How often are folk said to be deluded when the problem can be with you. You just assume its not. Assume a higher ground. When there is ni particular basis for doing so. Least of all showing so.

You'll bang on about 'what about all the other religions' but it sidesteps the point. They too can be like you: supposing what they see is what can be seen and that all others are deluded.

Not that I think other religions are deluded. There are many paths to the summit and both religionists and non religionists ,(such as atheists) can take it.

You will mock (which isn't an argument) and stutter about the audacity of my ,(and those like me) saying we see so much better than anyone else (in that Jesus and not Zeus is the way). But isn't that what you and those like you say. That empiricism and rationalism is the way?

Rather than call out your audacirty, I would merely stalemate by saying 'What's good for the goose'

smacl wrote: »

Interesting term 'undergirded' when applied to knowledge. You'd think a term like 'evidenced' would be more appropriate when not referring to a physical structure but then these are all arguments without evidence, much like the claim that your god is self evident to us all.

Theory of evolution is our best evidenced understanding of how we arrived at where we are today. It gets revised as new evidence emerges and is fully open to being overturned in the unlikely event that better contradictory evidence becomes available.

Religious belief by comparison is not evidenced, so why do people still believe and try to foist their beliefs on others? Jesus has the answer I'm sure, or maybe Mohammed.

I chose undergirded because the word 'evidence' is so problematic for you.

The issue was blindness vs delusion. Now we've heard of delusion frequently enough on here. It's a possibility. Blindness in you is also a possibility

You can describe what you see about evidence and what it leads to. I, who can see what you see, can partake in that realm of sightedness in the same way and draw conclusions as you do.

But what you say about a realm I say I can see but you can't, is easily sidestepped by me. Of course you would say what you say. You can't see the evidence such as to arrive at conviction. Especially not since you are wedded to the way in which evidence must be approached*

Projecting how convicion arises out of evidence of the empirical kind onto all manners of conviction is a leap. There is no reason all ways of arriving at a conviction through exposure to evidence need track that path.

Me deluded vs you blind. Which is it? I don't see a way to resolve.

Another case of 'Hello stalemate my old friend'?


* which is why salvation must be of God. People are antagonistic and blocking and bent on their own way be done.