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#37
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Re: Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God
Thanks for all the love, everyone!
My thoughts are pretty much in line with all of yours. Inserting God as an answer is easy but not simple. Or maybe it is more like Clausewitz' famous saying about war. Inserting God makes everything simple, but even the simplest things are difficult. I am all in favor of teaching how to think rather than what to think. I think that one of the greatest disservices the Christian institutions have made toward Christianity in America is in NOT teaching the hard questions and exploring the answers. As the pirate said of the ship's wheel hanging from his trousers, "Arrrgh, it's drivin' me nuts!" ~Aldin, glad to finally hear ollie admit he's a theologian He either fears his fate too much or his desserts are small That dares not put it to the touch to gain or lose it all ~James Graham |
#38
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Re: Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God
Oh what an interesting thread! Though as a person who believes in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and yet personal, approachable, affectionate God some of these comments are hard to read because I know how much He has legitimately interacted with me in my life. I know Christians often do a poor job of reflecting God, so I would encourage anyone to ignore the brokenness of those people and openmindedly explore His existence and true nature. He has promised that if anybody truly seeks to get to know Him "you will find Him, if you search after Him with all your heart and with all your soul."
An interesting thought is that it takes just as much faith to deny the existence of God as it does to believe in Him. I have studied a decent amount on both sides of the fence scientifically and the like and have come to realize that both sides use "faith" in something to fill in the things they don't yet understand. Those who deny the existence of God have to believe that some chemicals always existed, collided, and started a chain reaction that accounts for everything: that genetic mutations "miraculously" led to new genetic information, and that morality and logic is somehow connected to far less sopisticaed animal nature. One denying the existence of God must rely on the faith that a lawless orderless accident created an ordered universe that abides by certain laws including human logic, and morality. If you were to step back and think critically, that's putting a lot of faith in something that cannot even be examined in any scientific way. Whereas, there are additional historical acknowledgements of a single Creator God even outside the Bible, and He has been and can be experienced in very real ways even today. Personally, I think a belief in God provides a much better explanation for things we see (more than simply "because God" but too much for this post) and I would encourage anybody to look into some of the information from that perspective. But I also believe that if you can be argued into a belief in God then you can be argued out of it. Not to say that people shouldn't work through these arguments or ask hard questions, but seeking the existence and experience of God firsthand will yield much better results than hypothesizing and postulating. I know this from legitimate first hand experience. The fact is, nobody will ever be "good enough" but God knows that and is more than willing to work with us despite the fact. However He wants people to WANT Him, it is not His desire that anyone die and be separated from Him, but He gave us that choice to choose a life involved with Him or eventual death without Him. I know for me a life WITH God is far better than trying to get by without Him. Anyways that was just my two pennies worth. |
#39
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Re: Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God
As a religious, believe in God person who also really likes science, the whole notion of using science to "prove" God bothers me. By definition there is no way to observe and measure the supernatural. The rationale in the OP is kind of nutty to me.
At the same time, the science only types who say things like "evolution, therefore no god" at least equally bother me. Some of those guys, who almost explicitly state that you have to go through the scientific method for everything, then practically use the creationist/intelligent design playbook to "disprove" God*. And they seem constitutionally incapable of seeing the irony. * I've read at least 3 popular science books recently where in the middle of talking about something like evolution and how we got to some of the understanding we have, they pontificate on how there is no God, and religion is completely irrational. The foundation for their thesis seems to be that there is evolution, so obviously there isn't something we can't observe or measure. Even more ironic when they then talk about dark matter and dark energy. Follow the adventures of Agent Minivann
http://agentminivann.blogspot.com/ http://opensourcevolleyball.blogspot.com/ |
#40
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Re: Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God
I think people that want to, can choose to argue either case. There is no proof either way, mostly faith in their being a God, or faith in science.
I'm not on either side really. I don't claim one way or the other, because I don't know. I am not smart enough or interested enough in science to lean that way, and being raised Catholic until I went into the Marines, has turned me off to religion. Perhaps it was that religion in particular, but it made me wonder if it's purpose was more about controlling people than about teaching about God. I've also seen plenty of hypocrisy to disturb me, as well as violent clashes over the years based on religion. So for me, I am more about a personal relationship than one that is forced through religion. I don't always have the blind faith, but I do sometimes. I know that doesn't make sense, but that's me, kind of wacky Hand of fate is moving and the finger points to you ...Iron Maiden - The Wicker Man TUTORIAL FOR RE-BASING FIGURES 3hrs 43mins 32secs = 1242nd of 8808 overall - 1988 Honolulu Marathon |
#42
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Re: Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God
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Check out my ebay where you can find my custom dice trays and dicetowers: https://www.ebay.com/usr/captainamazing_jerdo |
#43
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Re: Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God
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#44
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Re: Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God
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Think about it, if god knows everything, then he knows exactly what he will do in any given scenario, and since he knows with 100% certainty what he will do, he is unable to act otherwise. In essence, he is more or less predestined to a certain course of action. He has the most finite ability to act in the entire universe. And if he did other than what he had known himself to do, then he was in fact unaware he would do otherwise and thus not omniscient. I would also argue that to lack belief in the existence of god does not imply one must believe in random, chemical chance that we are now alive. For instance, I can argue we are all part of some advanced computer program being run by a some higher intelligence, and the likelihood of that seems on par with the likelihood of a god. I would further dispute that we equally accept events on the ground of faith. A theory is continually tested, observed, and peer reviewed. We research and explore, prod and observe in an effort to verify, or dispute said theory. During this research, no one is claiming to believe that said theory is necessarily and 100% true, as a matter of fact, theories change or get thrown out all together quite often. If we do accept a theory, it is usually on the grounds of some evidence(and of course, that doesn't necessarily make the claim true), and not by blind faith. The same cannot be said for the belief in a deity. Thus, a theist makes a stronger appeal to faith. Quote:
That said, I do believe we possess the reasoning to dismiss certain notions as to who that god may be, supposing said god exists. ~JS Last edited by Joseph Sweeney; June 29th, 2017 at 11:55 AM. Reason: Wrote, "two things" and proceeded to list three |
#45
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Re: Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God
I like this poster! Well met!
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An omniscient, omnipotent God is one which has all power and perfect control of all power. Saying that an all-knowing God always uses power consistently with perfect knowledge, absolute control and a pre-determined outcome in no way subtracts from that power. Taken a step further, assume an all-knowing God created the universe. Clearly the act of creation required something we would normally call power. If we accepted your proposition that an all-knowing being is definitionally powerless, this wouldn't be possible - and yet it is clear in your argument that it is the very exercise of this power in congruence with the desires of God that make God powerless. I see what you are trying to say, that a perfect God, all-knowing and all-powerful, is constrained to make only the choices which are perfectly in line with who He is, what He wants and what He knows and is therefore unable to do anything other than what He will do. I would argue though, that is essentially the perfect version of what we all do every day acting within the power we have and the knowledge we have to make the choices most in line with who we are. The fact that we act in accordance with our own natures, using the knowledge we have and the power we have does not make us powerless or our choices meaningless to the extent that we would not choose any other way to act based on the situation. ~Aldin, who probably used about three times as many words as he needed to He either fears his fate too much or his desserts are small That dares not put it to the touch to gain or lose it all ~James Graham |
#46
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Re: Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God
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Because matter and energy appear to follow various laws/principles/what-have-you. Why do they follow it (which is maybe what you are getting at)? "Dunno", or at least "dunno completely." However, more parts get filled in all the time and may books could and have been written about what we do know that people a few centuries ago had no clue about. Some of those things they used to attribute to God. I'm sure if we will ever have a complete picture, especially because every time we add a new rock to the picture of our understanding, we often turn it over and find new details and complexity that we can then start investigating. Quote:
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Anyway, going all the way back to the OP, I think these difficulties are sometimes why some people love to create and use logic arguments to demonstrate the existence of god. Quote:
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I'll spend zero time defending the notion that it is an RNG because I don't believe it to be the case. Quote:
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Related--one can marvel at how the universe appears to be finely tuned to make our existence a reality. But one can also reflect on how, unless you are willing to write out a lot of decimal places, it can be said that basically 100% of the volume of the universe is completely inhospitable to us. Quote:
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Whatever way you intend it to be used, would you say that "it takes just as much faith to deny the existence of God as it does to believe in Him" applies only to your notion of god or to others too? Does it take just as much faith to deny the existence of Allah? How about Zeus? Why or why not? Quote:
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However, if it helps, I am am comfortable with the general notion of the big bang and what we currently observe being a naturally occurring result. Are there any particular parts you want to talk about? Quote:
There's nothing miraculous about creating genetic information. We (referring to the collective knowledge of humanity, not specifically to atheists) know and understand some things and seek to fill in the gaps of our knowledge. The things surrounding the gaps in no wait suggest a supernatural explanation is likely to be the thing we ultimately discover that fills the gap. Let's build up simple example of a way to create "new genetic information." Let me know which part you find unfounded: 1) We observe that mutations do occur 2) We observe that sometimes mutations are beneficial or of mixed blessing (e.g., sickle cell trait vis-a-vis malaria). 3) We observe that gene duplication occurs Given that, is it unreasonable to think that a beneficial mutation on a duplicated gene could leave the original gene intact while still creating a new gene with a beneficial property? If that's not "new genetic information" then I would again ask about your definitions. ("Genetic information" actually feels like a difficult thing to rigorously define but I think we both have similar intuitions about it). I actually know very little about molecular biology, but the above simple scenario feels like it would be relatively uncontroversial absent certain (minority) religious objection. And don't get me wrong, showing that you can create new genetic "information" is long way from showing that we all have a common ancestor. But that's not what you mentioned in the section quoted. Quote:
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Interactions of the supernatural with the natural world should be measurable, no? (The burning bush is in principle measurable.) For example, again in principle, you would think you can measure if prayer is effective at curing cancer, right? Have two identical populations, one being sincerely prayed for by believers, one not. Are there repeatable differences in the outcomes for these sorts of studies? If not, and you believe this is in the realm of things where such prayers should work, why didn't it? Quote:
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Contrast this to the circumstances where people insert god as an answer to large questions as an explanation and then go on to tell you about all of these other unrelated properties that that god has. Another instance where you can't use that to get from A to B. Quote:
~xorlof, who despite his actions really does understand that more frequent, shorter posts are better than one big long one. Apologies all and I salute anyone who got through the whole thing, especially if you were disagreeing with what I had to say. Hats off to your enthusiasm for exposing yourself to other ideas! There is nothing more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. --MLK |
#47
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Re: Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God
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I am not disputing a perfect use of the power the god would posses, I am disputing the idea that the god is capable of fully utilizing his omniscience and omnipotence. One would have to give as they are both unable to operate simultaneously. I am also not saying god is powerless, by impotent, I am merely asserting he is powerless in the sense that he cannot change his future that he is doomed to act upon. While he would theoretically create the universe, cast angels from heaven, flood the entire world, and send his son to save humanity (if we are going by the Christian definition of god), and all this undoubtedly requires power, he is still powerless to stop himself from committing these actions. He is impotent to his omniscience, or a prisoner of his knowledge, forced into the future that he knows of. So I repeat: he is not powerless, merely powerless to change what he already knows he will do. And since something is outside his power, by definition, he fails to be omnipotent. Regardless of whether or not it aligns with what is perfect or not is entirely irrelevant to the potency of the being. Could a god be omnipotent? I should think yes. Could a god be omniscient? I suppose so. Can he be both at the same time? I would say no; it's paradoxical. And lastly, I don't believe a perfect being needs to be both omnipotent and omniscient, or either or. Since a perfect being is, by definition the greatest being possible, it doesn't necessarily follow that the greatest being would need to possess these qualities. He would simply need to be the best being. And I get what you are saying -- because god is perfect, he knows the best course of action, and so he exercises his omnipotence to follow what he knows to be the best course of action. But it still follows that he is unable to do anything but that which he knows himself to do if he is both omnipotent and omniscient. ~JS |
#48
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Re: Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God
Leave me out of this, Xorlof. I laid out a couple positions as I thought they were relevant, but I didn't personally identify with any of them. I thought Aldin's post, as I said, was an elegant expression of one of those positions, but I did not adopt it as my own, nor do I intend to.
The only position I have actually attached myself to is this one: Quote:
I also believe in science, and evidence, and I believe there is a knowable truth and we should look for it with the means at our disposal, even if we don't have all the answers to everything. Nor are we likely ever to *find* all the answers to everything, but that doesn't mean we should stop looking. |
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