Potential Evidence for the Possibility of God
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Faithfulservant
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TheLightWithin
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Depends on what he is talking about. He has expertise in his actual area of study. Although he is kind of a ham. As to what he is being asked here -- his answer is the same value as any non-expert's answer. He's mainly being asked becaue he's famouse IMO. They could have gone further and made it worthwhile by really asking him to seriously apply his evidence driven thinking to how he arrived at his nonbelief, then, they could have asked a couple of religiously observant scientists (from a couple of different religions preferably, say Hindu and Jewish, or Christian and Islamic) to contrast how their data driven thinking is still harmonious with belief, from their perspectives.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru.
I do not believe that imaginary creatures like FSM or unicorns can materialize.
TheLightWithin
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It's a shame that forum is gone. I don't think I ever knew about it though... I like forums but I'm sure there are hundreds that I somehow never came across. I missed this one for years and years
TheLightWithin
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Well, on the other hand, why would he not? He does not want people to be deceived, isn't that right? So, why would he not make things more clear, obvious, and unambiguous for people? To reduce or eliminate the odds that people will be deceived?
Faithfulservant
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He has proven Himself. He didn't have to but He has. People have chosen to disregard it because it didn't fit to what THEY thought God should be. Imo based on this scripture and many more.
Romans 1:19-25
because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. .
..and when He does [make things more clear], some people still deny it..
As I said, it would remove our ultimate freedom.
Actually....things like gravity have been proven... knowing this did not keep us on the ground or stop.me from juggling...I have freedom, not the ultimate freedom to not believe in gravity tho.
If G!d revealed itself to all (and not just a select few) we would still have freedom, eh?
As.to Neal... his point is G!d is either all powerful or all good, but with hurricanes earthquakes and floods....can't be both.
Or are we back to wiping out guys in New Orleans?
Yup...like gravity...or flat earth...lol.
But I await your response on his version of the epicurean paradox.
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From the Perennialist Perspective:
The problem reduces itself to the following dilemma: God is said to be All-Good and All-Powerful. If such is the case, then why is there evil and suffering in the world? Either He created the world as it is, in which case He is not All-Good, or He is incapable of preventing evil and suffering, in which case He is not All-Powerful.
The Biblical narrative in Genesis 1-3 offers a complete metaphysical doctrine, the shortcut to which is chapter one, with reference to the good. God creates, and in reviewing the work of each day, sees that it is good (eg Day 1 v4: "And God saw the light that it was good", and then "God saw that it was good" at Day 2 v10, D3 12, D4, 18, D5, 21, and then we have the 6th Day, when there are two goods – one at the creation of the beasts of the earth (v25) and the second at the creation of man, at which point God surveyed all that He had made, "and they were very good." (v31) – that very is the hermeneutic key which tells us that Scripture is talking about a conditional good.
Paradise – any paradise – cannot be perfect in the absolute sense – because as Jesus said: "there is none good but one, that is, God.“ (Mark 10:18). Were paradise perfect absolutely, then it would be All-Perfect, and equal to God. If effect, God would have to replicate His own being. Therefore, when we speak of paradise – albeit one created good to the divine eye – it is a created good, as good or as perfect so far as it is possible for a created state to be.
Somewhere, compared to the absolute as such, there must be an imperfection – and that is the serpent in the paradisical bosom.
(The same principle applies to hell. No state of hell can be absolute privation of the good, that is the absolute privation of God, for were that so, it could not exist. A hell must contain a trace of the good in some sense. In Tibetan iconography for example, when hells are depicted, there is a Buddha at the heart, a necessary, if latent, witness to the omnipresent truth.)
The essential principle to grasp is that of ‘relative perfection’ or ‘relative good’. A perfection or a goodness within existential limits, perfect (is possibility) in and to itself, imperfect in respect of the absolute and the transcendent. In this world we speak of finitude and contingency, of growth and decay, of becoming and of ceasing to be. One could say entropy.
The question is a paradox inasmuch as it rests on flawed logic.
As Schuon said (words to the effect of) – "One cannot ask of God to will the world and at the same time to will that it be not a world."
A world – any world – is a whirlpool of contrasts (samsâra), it is not a unity in its own right. It is no limitation on the Almighty that He cannot produce another Himself, a second Absolute – to ask Him to do so is fundamentally illogical.
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God is Absolute; God is Infinite.
God’s infinity implies absolute freedom, and where there is no limit, there can be no constraint. Likewise God’s absoluteness implies limitless necessity – it’s not so much God acts because He must, as God acts because He cannot not-act, because God’s very Absoluteness and His infinitude insists upon it – if He can actualise it He will, because there is nothing to stop Him.
While it is nonsense to consider God's actions as arbitrary, when the creative act is described, theologically, it is often spoken of as ‘gratuitous,’ – but this is to affirm God’s a priori absolute freedom, without thereby denying His infinite necessity.
The best we can say, therefore, about this or any world is that the infinite nature of the All-Possible self-evidently includes it and therefore also ‘requires’ it; for if not, then the infinite would not be Infinite, the All-Possible would not be all-possible.
The world, by existing, adds nothing to God; nor will its eventual disappearance result in some proportionate privation of the Divine, for the relative in itself amounts to nothing in the presence of the real, though by its own (conditional) reality manifests as real to itself. As for the question of why do things exist, it is devoid of intrinsic sense; our existence is not something to which the question ‘Why?’ can validly be attached in expectation of a solution conformable to human logic, to do that would require we consider our world from outside of it – and in so doing will have crossed the boundary of logic as we currently, conditionally, understand it.
"The only comment to be offered—and it constitutes a perfectly adequate answer to a question in itself senseless—is that, as long as existence (or creation) is a possibility (as it evidently is), that possibility will in due course be called to manifestation for the reason already given, namely that the divine All-Possibility cannot be limited in any manner whatsoever. This is enough to account for the existence of the relative, the cosmic unfolding in all its indefinitude of becoming, including that apparent opposing of relative to real, of world to God, that constitutes, for beings, their separative dream. Better reply we cannot find, but this one surely is good enough." (Marco Pallis)
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So the all powerful all good cannot or will not protect us.
Ok
Ok
Yes ... @muhammad_isa's response is mine also ...
From the all powerful all good (hurricanes, flood, war, famine, genocide)
So to be clear...since G!d can't stop any of these....zero reason to pray and ask for that right?
TheLightWithin
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Well, presumably, from the context of what was said above, from evil and suffering, of course.
TheLightWithin
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How would clarity remove freedom? I am not convinced of or don't understand the logic behind that.