Proof of God

[c0de]

Hey Vaj

you placed your god concept outside the remit of logic and reason and then expect to engage in a logical or reasoned discourse? i cannot imagine how or why such a situation would come about. most anybody would protest about the restrictions you've placed here.

if i told you that astronomy was beyond reason i well suspect that you would not conclude astronomical data as reasonable.. since, by the very definition i've used, they are unreasonable. this is the same situation you've created here.. by placing god outside the tools of humans' reasoning and logic no discussion can be had.... well.. i suppose it could be had but it wouldn't be reasonable or logical..

I am not saying that you can understand God, because He is
beyond reason. But there is a difference between understanding
God and knowing that He exists. This argument does not
deal with the nature of God. It deals with His existence.

which understanding of reason are you using?

you'll note, clearly, that reason has nothing to do with encompassing anything it is, in the second definition, simply related to the proper exercise of the mind.

Dude, your the one who used this term in this sense, remember?
These are your words that I was responding to:

what really can be said about something that lies outside the remit of reason?

So whats going on here???

what sort of being are you referring to? i take it one that has never been evidenced since i cannot find any information regarding higher dimensional beings.

reason is, of course, nothing like extra dimensions or beings from those dimensions.

Bad example. Refer below at the response I gave to Paladin.

clearly the Jewish belief held that there were other deities, its mentioned several times that YHWV is the God of the Jews.

I was referring to the Muslim perspective. My mistake,
I should have stated that.

 

[enlightenment]

I am not saying that you can understand God, because He is
beyond reason.

How can you follow that which you do not understand?

Why would a creator whose objective appears to be to try to 'speak with his creation place himself 'beyond reason'?

 

[wil]

How can you follow that which you do not understand?

Why would a creator whose objective appears to be to try to 'speak with his creation place himself 'beyond reason'?

Again you still put human traits on spirit...tis amazing.

And again I ask how can use a cell phone when you don't understand all its intracies?

 

[enlightenment]

Again you still put human traits on spirit...tis amazing.

And again I ask how can use a cell phone when you don't understand all its intracies?

Spirit or otherwise. God is meant to be all powerful. We are meant to be his creation. The objective? To understand him. Isn't that useful?

I noticed your mention of the cell phone before, and let it slide, since, tbh, it is a lame comparison.

Ever read the Blind Watchmaker?

If not, please think about doing so.

 

[Dream]

Why would a creator whose objective appears to be to try to 'speak with his creation place himself 'beyond reason'?

Very good question. In my case the creator seems to have gone out of their way to show complete disinterest in my personal situation. I'm not sure if that is the same thing you are talking about.

 

[enlightenment]

In my case the creator seems to have gone out of their way to show complete disinterest in my personal situation..

In what way?

 

[Dream]

In what way?

I mean I'm just a man, so God does not yell "Hey neighbor!" across the fence. This is actually the way I read "God is no respector of persons" or "God will not give his glory to another." No one has any sway with God, and no one can claim to own another person. No government may take action without justifying it before God and the people. At every step leaders are being held responsible by their populations to revere God, so the degree to which they can humanize God directly corresponds to the increase of their political power. When Jim Jones was building his cult, it was all about trying to claim godlike power; but theism dogged him at every step. Always basic theism comes rushing in from all around to suppress a leader who has taken on godhood. Look at the history of the Magna Carta: The idea therein of rights, are the idea that only God (an inhuman ineffable entity) can take life away or grant it. Nowadays the Uk says "God save the Queen" to show that between the two God is the one who's truly divine, and this represents huge improvements of all kinds of freedom in the UK. When was the last time the Queen confiscated property, for instance? It is also theism which limits the 'religions' from being able to ban atheism.

 

[farhan]

How can you follow that which you do not understand?

The will of God is different from his being. Being isnt understandable, will usually is.

Existence of God, although not exactly understandable, is more rational than other speculative models of universe.

Why would a creator whose objective appears to be to try to 'speak with his creation place himself 'beyond reason'?

I dont think his objective seems to appear. Infact he doesnt appear atall.

Spirit or otherwise. God is meant to be all powerful. We are meant to be his creation. The objective? To understand him. Isn't that useful?

No, the objective is not to understand him. The object is pretty much to be mindfull of him in his apparent absence. The laws he gives are for the benefit of society, just like man-made laws.

I noticed your mention of the cell phone before, and let it slide, since, tbh, it is a lame comparison.

No its not. I watch TV everyday, & am least bothered about its inner electronics.

Ever read the Blind Watchmaker?

Yes, too much blindness there.

 

[c0de]

How can you follow that which you do not understand?

Why would a creator whose objective appears to be to try to 'speak with his creation place himself 'beyond reason'?

Looks like this question has already been answered by everyone above...
and in good style too

 

[Tao_Equus]

Still no proof I see.

I recently saw a tv show about the mental faculties. As part of this there were a group of people discussing their alien abduction stories. Each of them believed aliens were periodically zapping them up to their spaceships to be experimented on. These people when put in a brain scanner had the same bits of their brains light up as when a religiously devout person is scanned. I posit that the sense of a god that leads to faith and belief are biological side-effects of how the brain developed. The reason the biology is there I suggest is that the psychological need for a non-interfering higher power has become normalised as a part of our social behaviour. That it evolved in tandem with language itself. But it remains an effect of mind. Nothing more.

All these analogies regarding man made devices ( Blind watchmaker analogies ) are really just ridiculous and show a complete inability to use rational reasoning. When god gives us a genuine physicaly extant artifact to hold, touch, study and conclude without doubt that it was not made by man, then and only then can you use such an analogy. Probably the most complex things we know of are higher organisms. Their complexity is many, many degrees of complexity higher than our most clever machines. Yet using some of our cleverest machines we are able to turn detective on how these organisms came to be. And we have the ability to prove beyond all reasonable doubt and demonstrate by physical comparison that they all evolved slowly over time from simple to complex. This is fact. No god required. And certainly no god that created for us and placed us on Earth a few milllenia ago. So why would any god let dinosaurs rome the planet for 250 million years? Was that another one of his experiments? Are we just laboratary rats? For that is precisely what the religions say. I for one refuse to feed on agar.

 

[c0de]

Still no proof I see.

I recently saw a tv show about the mental faculties. As part of this there were a group of people discussing their alien abduction stories. Each of them believed aliens were periodically zapping them up to their spaceships to be experimented on. These people when put in a brain scanner had the same bits of their brains light up as when a religiously devout person is scanned. I posit that the sense of a god that leads to faith and belief are biological side-effects of how the brain developed. The reason the biology is there I suggest is that the psychological need for a non-interfering higher power has become normalised as a part of our social behaviour. That it evolved in tandem with language itself. But it remains an effect of mind. Nothing more.

All these analogies regarding man made devices ( Blind watchmaker analogies ) are really just ridiculous and show a complete inability to use rational reasoning. When god gives us a genuine physicaly extant artifact to hold, touch, study and conclude without doubt that it was not made by man, then and only then can you use such an analogy. Probably the most complex things we know of are higher organisms. Their complexity is many, many degrees of complexity higher than our most clever machines. Yet using some of our cleverest machines we are able to turn detective on how these organisms came to be. And we have the ability to prove beyond all reasonable doubt and demonstrate by physical comparison that they all evolved slowly over time from simple to complex. This is fact. No god required. And certainly no god that created for us and placed us on Earth a few milllenia ago. So why would any god let dinosaurs rome the planet for 250 million years? Was that another one of his experiments? Are we just laboratary rats? For that is precisely what the religions say. I for one refuse to feed on agar.

... this is all besides the point to your previous objection.
Are you still pursuing it or have you given it up?

We were not discussing analogies, we were discussing
probabilities. And the impossibility of these complexities
coming about themselves. In fact, we were discussing the
probabilities of the conditions being present for these
complexities to evolve, and how they could not have happened
in finite space and time.

 

[greymare]

newdawn,,,,,,,,,,,,, i know you dont belive what i and others belive...
thats ok.
just dont rubbish those that do ... please???

 

[Tao_Equus]

... this is all besides the point to your previous objection.
Are you still pursuing it or have you given it up?

We were not discussing analogies, we were discussing
probabilities. And the impossibility of these complexities
coming about themselves. In fact, we were discussing the
probabilities of the conditions being present for these
complexities to evolve, and how they could not have happened
in finite space and time.

Tell me what is your experience in statistical analysis and probability? Certainly your relating probability to evolution did not only show a naive ignorance as to the mechanisms of physical evolution but also the common misunderstandings of statistical interpretation that those unschooled in that discipline commonly display.

You may not wish to discuss analogies but Wil, Enlightenment and Farhan were. Am I only to respond to you?

 

[Tao_Equus]

newdawn,,,,,,,,,,,,, i know you dont belive what i and others belive...
thats ok.
just dont rubbish those that do ... please???

I am not rubbishing anything. The sand castles of faith will be carried away in the inexorable tide of change. We are only our thoughts. Brief, transitory and usually only meaningful to ourselves and, if we are lucky, a few others. That is reality. No wonder we build gods. But these books of god that are popular only because of their length of service are plain silly. To base your life on the dubious musings of a handful of individuals living in the desert so long ago can to me only seem like an insane thing to do. These are my thoughts. I have no belief, I can only share my thoughts. There are several people involved in these discussions that appear to come at this from the same direction as me... are we not allowed to discuss too? What I write is not written to rubbish anybody but to be a part of the debate.

 

[c0de]

Tell me what is your experience in statistical analysis and probability?

Tell me, did I just tell you to take my word for it?
Or did I provide you with a link to research the issue?

Here it is again:

Fine-tuned Universe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Dream]

I posit that the sense of a god that leads to faith and belief are biological side-effects of how the brain developed. The reason the biology is there I suggest is that the psychological need for a non-interfering higher power has become normalised as a part of our social behaviour. That it evolved in tandem with language itself. But it remains an effect of mind. Nothing more.
210

I don't think you can simply slice it off as an effect of language. Do not forget humankind's troubles with violence. We are territorial omnivores, and we are happiest in small cliques not in metropolitan closets. We have many dangerous neuroses, and belief is something we individually relish. How many species are there that you know of, that actually would appreciate hallucinations, but humans love talking about dreams and hallucinations. (and aliens)

Tell me what is your experience in statistical analysis and probability?
213

I used to own a copy of Grammatical Man. I wish I had read it. I also took Stat 101 and a couple of Science labs, but I was mentally preoccupied with various things that were going on.

Here it is again:

I am not rubbishing anything.....But these books of god that are popular only because of their length of service are plain silly. To base your life on the dubious musings of a handful of individuals living in the desert so long ago can to me only seem like an insane thing to do. These are my thoughts. I have no belief, I can only share my thoughts.
214

Well that is not the basic idea of God, in my opinion. "God is spirit" refers to our inability to transfer hope to others and our children via language. I could care less how camels fart, but the ideas will always be something buried by language -- not the direct expression of it. I hate that I have to rely upon words, because they cannot transfer ideas well enough. Words cannot reproduce me, cannot remember me. You want to see beneficial concepts created in your children, yet you cannot simply speak those into them. They have to have an epiphany, or its just words. In the words of religion "Conversion is a miracle." Kids just don't listen. These ancient texts are something for the kids to think about.

Fine-tuned Universe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
215

I like the Bubble Theory best, because I heard about it somewhere one time.

 

[enlightenment]

Looks like this question has already been answered by everyone above...
and in good style too

Actually I disagree.

I have read lots of words, yet nothing that convinces me it is rational, or even safe, to commit yourself to that which followers themselves admit they are NOT MEANT TO UNDERSTAND!

 

[Tao_Equus]

Tell me, did I just tell you to take my word for it?
Or did I provide you with a link to research the issue?

Here it is again:

Fine-tuned Universe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This research is working with the whole truth or fragments of it? We really understand precisely what gravity or quantum theory are? Their every effect and counter effect in the physical universe? We really understand the implications of chaos thrown into this pot? You actually build science up as a religion to graft onto your Islam and create a chimera or irrefutable logic! It cannot be done. Science does not have definitive answers, and religion > well that does not even try.

 

[enlightenment]

It cannot be done. Science does not have definitive answers, and religion > well that does not even try.

Very true that.

With one qualifier.

Science doesn't claim to have all the answers, but it goes on trying to find them.

Organised religion already claims it has all the answers it needs to, and feels no desire to examine them.

 

[Nick_A]

New Dawn

Just answer these two questions with a rational answer and it would help me a great deal to appreciate atheism.

Newtons first law of motion:

There exists a set of inertial reference frames relative to which all particles with no net force acting on them will move without change in their velocity. This law is often simplified as "A body persists its state of rest or of uniform motion unless acted upon by an external unbalanced force." Newton's first law is often referred to as the law of inertia.

As a believer it is easy for me to assume that creation was the cosmological vertical process of involution or from unity into diversity. Evolution then is climbing back up the ladder of this involutionary descent into creation. It is a cycle.

However, without the source and the process of involution, what is the force that stimulates universal motion that according to Newton's law could not have begun by itself?

Also, what is the force that inspires earth's biological evolution? Mitosis was a good way for life to continue. There is simply no logical explanation why sexual reproduction should take its place. There is no advantge to it if not considered within the context of the cycle of involution and evolution maintained by the Creator. Tell me the advantage of sexual reproduction over mitosis? What is the logical reason for this evolution if there is no advantage in it?