Can we know for certain anything about God and what he plans for us?

Can we know with certitude a God exists and his intention for the human race?

  • We can know with certitude that a God exists.

    Votes: 7 77.8%

  • We cannot know with certitude that a God exists.

    Votes: 2 22.2%

  • We can know with certitude God's intention for the human race.

    Votes: 5 55.6%

  • We cannot know with certitude God's intention for the human race.

    Votes: 1 11.1%
  • Total voters
    9
wil said:
Nope, cause the symbol is not biblical.... Look neither high nor low...
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Again, a symbol isn't an explanation of truth. The symbol of something isn't to be taken literally. A symbol is used because we all know what it means. If someone points to the sky doesn't mean that he is pointing to the physical direction of the divine since there is no such thing (EDIT: there is not physical direction to the divine). He is doing the act of pointing.

I know you like dictionaries so I'll throw this in: an act, sound, or object having cultural significance and the capacity to excite or objectify a response.
 
Devils' Advocate said:
Wasn't meant as a simplification. A generalization. Not sure why you have a problem with the comparison. It is a (generic) look at what man is in the world from one standpoint and then from another - and that they each come to very different conclusions.
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Because it's so generalized and to generic to say anything at all. For my perspective your idea of 'religion' and 'science' are neater packages then they are to me, and I'll probably point out why I think that every time you make such generalizations in the hope that we will understand each other better.
 
wil said:
And why pointing up? Why not down? Why not all around, why not within?
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Its just a form of terminology. The meaning is quite clear. imo
:)
 
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Yup, to me the meaning is clear as well.

I just interpret as a vestige of ancient ignorance thinking G!d supports one football team or the other, or helped you score that goal or resides in the sky...

If I wanna see G!d I look at the nature around me, the smiling face next to me, or the sound of a new born crying....

Pointing to the sky brings back that imagimary white privileged geezer from my youth....and all the reasons religion ran me off...
 
wil said:
... Pointing to the sky brings back that imagimary white privileged geezer from my youth....and all the reasons religion ran me off...
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Well, supposed we drop football and the sky out of the debate? How will that work for you, then? Lol
:)
 
RJM Corbet said:
Well, supposed we drop football and the sky out of the debate? How will that work for you, then? Lol
:)
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Toss out scurvy televangelists, religious extremists prone to violence, trillion dollar Pentagon budgets which are ready willing and able when an imbecile thinks G!d told him to invade foreign lands....and you got a good start.
 
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Or would you like to pour it all out on the page? Now's the chance? :)
 
wil said:
Toss out scurvy televangelists, religious extremists prone to violence, trillion dollar Pentagon budgets which are ready willing and able when an imbecile thinks G!d told him to invade foreign lands....and you got a good start.
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Your post landed before mine. But am 100℅ agree so far ...
 
A Cup Of Tea said:
Equals: I'm an enlightened man and people of a different outlook is ignorant in comparison?
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Enlightened? Saw the light? That the old white dude on the ceiling is bull? That those blond blue eyed Jesus are bull? That I don't believe in a passive aggressive off his meds plague throwing, genocidal maniac as a supreme being?

That 2+2 is 4? I guess...maybe?

I don't feel enlightened...of course I don't feel.enlightened when I watch a video of someone blaming Obama for lack of response at 911 or Katrina either... I dont feel enlightened when they ask a college student when the civil war was or to point out north america on a globe and they can't either.
 
Lol, actually prolly exactly opposite, because I can't imagine how G!D's world would not abide by the laws of the universe she created... It confuddles me to think science and religion, nature and spirit do not abide...
 
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wil said:
... nature and spirit do not abide...
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Perhaps it's more like: Spirit contains but is not contained by Nature?

Relativity contains but is not contained by Newtonian physics.
Loose caparison?
 
wil said:
Pointing to the sky brings back that imagimary white privileged geezer from my youth....and all the reasons religion ran me off...
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Well is that not it's the prejudices shaped by your particular experience which has warped the true meaning of the image?
 
Devils' Advocate said:
I would think it is more the case that it is the prejudices of your priests and pastors that has warped the true meaning. Though the social/economic life in which you live certainly also has a powerful influence.
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Priests, community ... I quite agree, but then their interpretation is in error, not the symbolic understanding. Then it's not so much a vestige of ancient ignorance (it is in fact ancient wisdom), its the remains of contemporary prejudice.
 
Yup...and millions of.kids are brought up with warped senses of reality that many maintain and then pass on the same to their children...

Me thinks that applies across the board, with all religions and many religious education teachers and preachers...

It is to the point with those that believe a particularly warped or radical religion...could easily be described as child abuse.
 
wil said:
... It is to the point with those that believe a particularly warped or radical religion...could easily be described as child abuse.
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I'm personally eternally grateful that my wonderful and loving parents made me go to Church before opening my presents on Christmas day, etc.

Religion was part of my education. To have been denied it would have been like denying me education in geography or history, imo.

Then I left home and was required to make the normal adult decisions about what to believe, in the Woodstock generation.

So, was I abused as a child?

I really don't like it when this very sad and sorry argument comes up against a religious education. And from what I've gained of you, am really surprised to hear it from you. Sorry.

Are YOU the product of what you were TOLD believe? Somehow I don't think so?
 
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