Are all discussions of God speculative nonsense?

[Greatest I am]

Are all discussions of God speculative nonsense?

 

Many quote God’s WORD as coming from God’s own mind somehow yet that same WORD says that God is unknowable, unfathomable and mysterious. That same WORD is full of contradictions which may help demonstrate that God truly does work in mysterious, illogical ways.

 

Those who say they know the mind of God, lie, if the Bible is to be believed. According to it, God is un-knowable.

 

Many claim a personal relationship to their God yet few will admit apotheosis.

 

Are you/they lying if no actual personal contact has occurred?

 

Are all discussions, of any God, just speculative nonsense, or can a man actually know something of God’s thinking?

 

Are we all just spinning our wheels in discussions.

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

[Moontanman]

Are all discussions of God speculative nonsense?

 

Many quote God’s WORD as coming from God’s own mind somehow yet that same WORD says that God is unknowable, unfathomable and mysterious. That same WORD is full of contradictions which may help demonstrate that God truly does work in mysterious, illogical ways.

 

Those who say they know the mind of God, lie, if the Bible is to be believed. According to it, God is un-knowable.

 

Many claim a personal relationship to their God yet few will admit apotheosis.

 

Are you/they lying if no actual personal contact has occurred?

 

Are all discussions, of any God, just speculative nonsense, or can a man actually know something of God’s thinking?

 

Are we all just spinning our wheels in discussions.

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

yes

[A Tripolation]

Are all discussions, of any God, just speculative nonsense, or can a man actually know something of God’s thinking?

 

We were told that the various holy texts are the Words of their respective Gods. This is what discussions are based upon. So, if you consider that a weak foundation, then yes, all discussions are speculative nonsense.

[Greatest I am]

We were told that the various holy texts are the Words of their respective Gods. This is what discussions are based upon. So, if you consider that a weak foundation, then yes, all discussions are speculative nonsense.

 

 

In the Abrahamic cults, can it be said that a book that begins with a talking snake, a God who would demand the sacrifice of Abraham’s son in the middle and ends with a seven headed monster, is a good foundation?

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

[A Tripolation]

In the Abrahamic cults, can it be said that a book that begins with a talking snake, a God who would demand the sacrifice of Abraham’s son in the middle and ends with a seven headed monster, is a good foundation?

 

It's all subjective. I think it's a good foundation because it's pretty much all we've got. And there does seem to be some historicity to Jesus. You obviously don't see it as a good foundation. Which begs the question... Why are you wasting your time only participating in the religion forum of this board if you see it all as speculative nonsense? Do you seek to elevate yourself by calling modern religions "fairy tales" and "cults"?

[pwagen]

Are all discussions of God speculative nonsense?

From a scientific standpoint, I guess so. The absence of evidence of a deity makes it hard to actually discuss it objectively.

From a philosophical standpoint, I'd like to think it's an interesting topic. On the other hand, some people say philosophy is nonsense because it's not related to the real world, or something.

 

Are you/they lying if no actual personal contact has occurred?

Disregarding people lying to make money, or gain power, no. Whether they have spoken to a god or not isn't important when it comes to this question. If they actually believe they have spoken to their deity, them telling you they have isn't lying. They are, at worst, deluded.

 

Are all discussions, of any God, just speculative nonsense, or can a man actually know something of God's thinking?

It seems quite clear, at least when it comes to christianity, that man can never know God's thinking. Maybe being able to understand God's way of thinking would equate us with him/her/it?

 

[Dekan]

The absence of evidence of a deity makes it hard to actually discuss it objectively.

 

That could be the point. Isolated here on Earth, we humans lack the evidence. We're trying to discuss a problem with, at present, insufficient data. But more data could become available in the future - if we eventually succeed in contacting intelligent aliens elsewhere in the Galaxy, and the Universe.

 

These aliens could tell us of their own thoughts, and experiences. Has He, ie God, given them a "Gospel"? How does it compare with the one He's given us?

 

"Doubtless, we shall compare together, hear

A million alien Gospels, in what guise

He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear." - Alice Meynell

Then we might, together, arrive at a conclusion.

 

So pending future contact with ETs - shouldn't we just put the whole issue on hold? If we did, would that have bad results?

[Marat]

Where there is an absence of good evidence for believing in something extraordinary, that is not a good reason for us to keep an open mind with respect to possible future evidence for it, but is instead a good reason for us to dismiss speculation about it entirely. Our absence of good evidence for an extraordinary being like God should prompt the same response in us as our absence of good evidence for the Tooth Fairy. Extraordinary hypotheses require not only extraordinary proof for them to be established, but they also require extremely strong evidence to justify us in adopting a seriously inquisitive attitude toward them. Otherwise we shall fall victim to an infinite regress of demands that we seriously investigate, wonder about, suspend belief about everything from the Sandman to Leprechauns, so that we can never get through all of that to studying ordinary reality.

 

God is an especially strange hypothesis, since the only purported evidence for his existence comes from the same book of magical legends and extraordinary tales that formulates the God-hypothesis itself. So the 'evidence' for this extraordinary thing has to come from an equally extraordinary book of apparent fairy tales whose own authority as evidence would have to be established by extraordinary evidence. But we never get out of this charmed circle of the one extraordinary trying to pull itself up by the support offered to it by another extraodinary, both of which still need -- and lack! -- some external evidence to establish their own bona fides as evidence.

 

God could be a sensible hypothesis if we take it in the sense used by Aristotle and other ancient thinkers, who conceived God as the first uncaused cause of the universe, a kind of focal-point 'big bang' which first got things going. But this is not really what we mean by 'God' today. Formally, we could say that the God hypothesis is amounts to saying that the moral order of the world is made necessarily valid by some omnipotent entity affirming it, though how this could be proved rather than just asserted remains unclear.

 

Even if the God hypothesis is itself ridiculous as an affirmed belief, it is still worth studying and commenting on, given its importance in the intellectual and cultural history of the world, and the entertaining puzzles the idea of God presents to philosophical reflection.

Edited June 22, 2011 by Marat

[Greatest I am]

It's all subjective. I think it's a good foundation because it's pretty much all we've got. And there does seem to be some historicity to Jesus. You obviously don't see it as a good foundation. Which begs the question... Why are you wasting your time only participating in the religion forum of this board if you see it all as speculative nonsense? Do you seek to elevate yourself by calling modern religions "fairy tales" and "cults"?

 

There is historicity to Jesus only if you want to suspend your logic and reason and go to belief in fantasy, miracles and magic and also think it a good idea to punish the innocent instead of the guilty via a blood sacrifice.

 

As to why I am in religious discussion boards.

 

I have a responsibility to correct those who are not thinking right. Why?

 

It is my view that all literalists and fundamentals hurt all of us who are Religionists.

 

They all hurt their parent religions and everyone else who has a belief. They make us all into laughing stocks and should rethink their position. There is a Godhead but not the God of talking animals, genocidal floods and retribution. Belief in fantasy is evil.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HKHaClUCw4&feature=PlayList&p=5123864A5243470E&index=0&playnext=1

 

They also do much harm to their own.

 

African witches and Jesus

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlRG9gXriVI&feature=related

 

Jesus Camp 1of 9

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOqGhcwwE1s

 

Promoting death to Gays.

 

 

For evil to grow my friends, all good people need do is nothing.

Fight them when you can.

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

 

From a scientific standpoint, I guess so. The absence of evidence of a deity makes it hard to actually discuss it objectively.

From a philosophical standpoint, I'd like to think it's an interesting topic. On the other hand, some people say philosophy is nonsense because it's not related to the real world, or something.

 

Rather a reversal of what I see as reality.

 

Disregarding people lying to make money, or gain power, no. Whether they have spoken to a god or not isn't important when it comes to this question. If they actually believe they have spoken to their deity, them telling you they have isn't lying. They are, at worst, deluded.

 

That would excuse them I guess.

Secular law does make exceptions for those who are not quite all there.

 

It seems quite clear, at least when it comes to christianity, that man can never know God's thinking. Maybe being able to understand God's way of thinking would equate us with him/her/it?

 

 

Only to those who see Eden as the fall of man.

Those like myself who read it as man's elevation will think we can think like Gods. At least at the moral level because in Genesis, God himself, in the myth at least, tells us we, like A & E, can become as Gods, knowing good and evil.

 

Regards

DL

 

============================================================================

 

Marat

 

Well and eloquently stated.

 

Regards

 

DL

Edited June 22, 2011 by Greatest I am

[Dekan]

We've been speculating about God for at least 30,000 years and it hasn't got us very far. Not even as far as deciding whether there's such a thing as God in the first place!

 

This startling lack of progress, strongly suggests that the whole issue cannot be resolved without further data. Which evidently isn't yet available on Earth.

 

We might obtain more data, if we could contact other intelligences in the Universe.

 

The only way to contact these intelligences (if they exist), is by using our Science. To build things like radio-telescopes. And perhaps, in the future, we'll develop more advanced communication devices. Using "Q-Rays", or some other yet-to-be discovered technology. Or maybe future Science will give us the data even without the putative ET's.

 

So I think we should concentrate on developing our Science, and put speculation on hold for the present.

[A Tripolation]

There is historicity to Jesus only if you want to suspend your logic and reason and go to belief in fantasy, miracles and magic and also think it a good idea to punish the innocent instead of the guilty via a blood sacrifice.

 

It is my view that all literalists and fundamentals hurt all of us who are Religionists.

 

No. There's a good deal of evidence that suggests that a man named Jesus, and that he was a roaming prophet/magician.

 

How many times do I have to tell you that any belief in a supreme deity is illogical. Your god(s) is(aren't) any better. You are just as illogical and you believe in just as much fantasy.

[Greatest I am]

We've been speculating about God for at least 30,000 years and it hasn't got us very far. Not even as far as deciding whether there's such a thing as God in the first place!

 

This startling lack of progress, strongly suggests that the whole issue cannot be resolved without further data. Which evidently isn't yet available on Earth.

 

We might obtain more data, if we could contact other intelligences in the Universe.

 

The only way to contact these intelligences (if they exist), is by using our Science. To build things like radio-telescopes. And perhaps, in the future, we'll develop more advanced communication devices. Using "Q-Rays", or some other yet-to-be discovered technology. Or maybe future Science will give us the data even without the putative ET's.

 

So I think we should concentrate on developing our Science, and put speculation on hold for the present.

 

It would be nice yes, but while religions are still doing much damage to society, I do not think those who oppose them should relent.

 

For evil to grow, all good men need do is nothing.

 

Regards

DL

 

 

 

 

 

 

No. There's a good deal of evidence that suggests that a man named Jesus, and that he was a roaming prophet/magician.

 

How many times do I have to tell you that any belief in a supreme deity is illogical. Your god(s) is(aren't) any better. You are just as illogical and you believe in just as much fantasy.

 

 

I have agreed that I do not believe in a supreme deity or the supernatural as well, so if you are silly enough to keep repeating yourself to me, that is your problem.

 

There is nothing in my belief system that goes beyond nature.

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

[A Tripolation]

There is nothing in my belief system that goes beyond nature.

 

You repeatedly say you believe in some God. Now you say it's nature. You are aware that nature is an abstract concept that is not sentient in any way, correct?

[Marat]

It's important not to make the inferential leap from the fact that we don't have much information to test the reality of God's purported existence to the assumption that the evidence of the reality of his existence must be very hard to find. It may also be the case that the whole hypothesis has no real-world application, and so there is no evidence for it.

 

Wittgenstein was concerned to rid philosophy of false problems which only seem to state real issues requiring examination because they can be framed in the familiar form of genuine questions. If I ask, "What is the greatest natural number?" my stating the question needn't imply that there is an answer, or that the very idea of there being a possible answer, or possible quest we could set out on to find the answer, makes any sense.

 

In the modern West what people usually mean by 'God' is an omnipotent, omniscient, ubiquitous, sempiternal, infinitely good entity which can act upon the universe but which also stands apart from it as a distinct object, conscious of its surroundings and also of itself. As an extraordinary hypothesis, it requires extraordinary evidence to induce us either to investigate it seriously or eventually to accept its reality, but we have no such evidence. Also, given that there are evils in the world a) which don't appear to be the result of human free will creating evil consequences; b) which could easily be prevented by an infinitely good and powerful God but which are unaccountably permitted to happen; c) which seem easily avoidable or greatly diminishable by simple, non-disruptive re-designings of the world such as a good and omniscient God would have undertaken (e.g., no Progeria cases, no Huntington's gene) but did not, the whole God-hypothesis just seems logically impossible given the nature of what we all know about the world.

[Brainteaserfan]

We've been speculating about God for at least 30,000 years and it hasn't got us very far. Not even as far as deciding whether there's such a thing as God in the first place!

 

This startling lack of progress, strongly suggests that the whole issue cannot be resolved without further data. Which evidently isn't yet available on Earth.

 

We might obtain more data, if we could contact other intelligences in the Universe.

 

The only way to contact these intelligences (if they exist), is by using our Science. To build things like radio-telescopes. And perhaps, in the future, we'll develop more advanced communication devices. Using "Q-Rays", or some other yet-to-be discovered technology. Or maybe future Science will give us the data even without the putative ET's.

 

So I think we should concentrate on developing our Science, and put speculation on hold for the present.

The reason that we don't put religion on hold is because if there is some kind of an afterlife, as promised in many major religions, then we may lose something by not believing/acting in some way now.

 

But, yes, I agree that humans need to have an emphasis on science.

Edited June 23, 2011 by Brainteaserfan

[Greatest I am]

You repeatedly say you believe in some God. Now you say it's nature. You are aware that nature is an abstract concept that is not sentient in any way, correct?

 

I tend to call what I believe in a Godhead, just to show a difference to the word God.

 

I generally indicate that it is a cosmic consciousness and not a miracle working super God.

 

I say it is a part of nature, not nature.

 

You are also a part of nature and are sentient. So is the Godhead.

 

I have admitted to not having proof and do not push for belief by anyone and prefer to speak to morals.

 

Why are you bothering to question what I cannot prove?

 

Without you believing me, we go into the same speculative nonsense that this O P is about.

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

 

It's important not to make the inferential leap from the fact that we don't have much information to test the reality of God's purported existence to the assumption that the evidence of the reality of his existence must be very hard to find. It may also be the case that the whole hypothesis has no real-world application, and so there is no evidence for it.

 

Wittgenstein was concerned to rid philosophy of false problems which only seem to state real issues requiring examination because they can be framed in the familiar form of genuine questions. If I ask, "What is the greatest natural number?" my stating the question needn't imply that there is an answer, or that the very idea of there being a possible answer, or possible quest we could set out on to find the answer, makes any sense.

 

In the modern West what people usually mean by 'God' is an omnipotent, omniscient, ubiquitous, sempiternal, infinitely good entity which can act upon the universe but which also stands apart from it as a distinct object, conscious of its surroundings and also of itself. As an extraordinary hypothesis, it requires extraordinary evidence to induce us either to investigate it seriously or eventually to accept its reality, but we have no such evidence. Also, given that there are evils in the world a) which don't appear to be the result of human free will creating evil consequences; b) which could easily be prevented by an infinitely good and powerful God but which are unaccountably permitted to happen; c) which seem easily avoidable or greatly diminishable by simple, non-disruptive re-designings of the world such as a good and omniscient God would have undertaken (e.g., no Progeria cases, no Huntington's gene) but did not, the whole God-hypothesis just seems logically impossible given the nature of what we all know about the world.

 

Yes. All thoughs will flow from how we see reality. Not just of the world but of the whole of our universe.

 

The anthopic principle indicates that all things are the only way it can be and thus can be called perfect.

Not the finished type of perfect but an evolving perfection as all things evolve.

 

Observation of any life here on earth, I think makes this quote true.

 

Candide

 

"It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end.”

 

Not created by design but only by the happenstance of evolution.

 

This condition , I think in part, is what gave rise to I D.

Unfortunately, those who saw this perfection in creation took a leap of faith and put their sentient God in the gap instead of just plain old nature.

 

What do you see when you look about?

A perfectly evolving system, or a system that is somehow defective?

Remember that things are the only way they can be.

 

Regards

DL

 

The reason that we don't put religion on hold is because if there is some kind of an afterlife, as promised in many major religions, then we may lose something by not believing/acting in some way now.

 

 

 

Then the question becomes, by whose standard and the answer is some absentee God whose instructions are unclear and contradictory. We still end up without a guide except for man.

 

Since all we know of God is what man has said, then the obvious conclusion is that man is supreme here and the only God we have to please.

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

[A Tripolation]

I tend to call what I believe in a Godhead, just to show a difference to the word God.

 

I generally indicate that it is a cosmic consciousness and not a miracle working super God.

 

I say it is a part of nature, not nature.

 

You are also a part of nature and are sentient. So is the Godhead.

 

I have admitted to not having proof and do not push for belief by anyone and prefer to speak to morals.

 

There is no evidence for a cosmic consciousness. It is also highly unlikely that any cosmic conscious exists, as you have admitted by saying you have no proof. My question to you is what makes you think that your Godhead is any more logical than the Judeo-Christian God? Because it isn't.

 

Why are you bothering to question what I cannot prove?

 

In an attempt to show you that you are just as much an illogical person as the people in the "Abrahamic Cults".

[mississippichem]

Greatest I am: The Christians and Jews have absolutely no proof of the existence of Yahweh and the Muslims have no proof of Allah. How is your belief in a "Godhead" any more rational than their belief in an anthropomorphic deity.

 

The "religious" claim that God exists and has a role to play in our lives. You claim that a godhead exists and basically does nothing and has no interaction with us. How is that any more reasonable?

 

I have a pet fairy, you can't see her, she doesn't violate any natural laws, and you can in no way experience her. All discussions of her are speculative nonsense, however, I assure you that she exists.

Edited June 23, 2011 by mississippichem

[zapatos]

As to why I am in religious discussion boards.

 

I have a responsibility to correct those who are not thinking right. Why?

 

It is my view that all literalists and fundamentals hurt all of us who are Religionists.

 

They all hurt their parent religions and everyone else who has a belief. They make us all into laughing stocks and should rethink their position. There is a Godhead but not the God of talking animals, genocidal floods and retribution. Belief in fantasy is evil.

 

You are wasting your time. Since you are after literalists and fundamentalists, picking a science forum to meet your responsibility of correcting those who are not thinking right couldn't have been a worse selection. What next, picketing outside the ACLU to convince them to support the Bill of Rights?

 

You yourself are a fundamentalist, standing on the corner trying to convince any passersby of your position, confident in the knowledge that you are the sole source of objective truth.

Edited June 23, 2011 by zapatos

[Marat]

'Pascal's Wager' famously states that everyone should believe in God, since if we believe in him and he doesn't exist, we lose nothing, while if we refuse to believe in him and he does exist, then we lose our ability to enter into Heaven. But the premise is false, since believing in a fantasy whose purported rules for life limit your ability to act according to your own rational, ethical judgment is in itself a great misfortune, since you abandon the dignity of human rationality and your claim to be an ethically significant being, given that you act according to imaginary orders of an imaginary being, rather than on your own courageous judgment. On the other hand, losing the promise of Heaven by refusing to believe in God's existence costs you nothing if you decline to believe in fairy tales.

 

I wouldn't cite Voltaire to support belief in God, given that Voltaire himself was an atheist! He may have a character in 'Candide' state that this is the best of all possible worlds, but he doesn't believe it himself. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz felt he had to prove that this was the best of all possible worlds before he could assert that God exists, but his proof got him tangled up in a ridiculous notion of 'universal compossibility' such that Lee Harvey Oswald's bullets striking Kennedy in Dallas would have to be seen as an absolutely necessary event, without which the entire universe would fall apart. But since we would simply have to have irrational faith to believe in that connection, we don't make any headway with it in proving the existence of God, belief in whom also requires irrational faith.

 

The anthropic principle is stated in various ways, but it usually means that unless human beings had the type of perceptual and intellectual apparatus that they actually do have, they would not be able to perceive and interact with the world at all. This then presents an apparent paradox that the world is designed perfectly to match our capacity to perceive it, but in fact there is no great coincidence here at all, since evolutionary processes obviously have to design organic entities to be able to perceive their environment in order to survive, so the physical world simply shaped us to be able to see and comprehend it, and the coincidence disappears.

 

Also, given that there is a discussion now going on about how the world looks and what it means, and that discussion could only occur among those whose perceptual and cognitive appartus 'fit' the world so that they could perceive and describe it, there is no real coincidence that we are having this discussion. There may have been a trillion other cases where beings came into existence who could not perceive their world, or worlds existed which their resident beings could not perceive, but they all drop out of the picture since the only world in which this issue can be discussed is the one in a trillion where the beings turned out to be able to perceive the world around them.

[Moontanman]

My first post to this thread was a simple "yes" That was the most simple and accurate response I could give. I understand that many people believe in God, some believe strongly enough in god to kill in his or her or their name, this in it's self is is disturbing. Belief does not equal truth no matter how strong your belief it does not equal fact. In the middle ages one of the prominent discussions of religion involved how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, like most discussions of religion it might as well have been how many fairies can fit up the ass of a unicorn. Now I will admit i cannot disprove God or most of the religious beliefs surrounding the concept of God or Gods, I do not know that a female deity gave birth to the earth and all of the creatures inhabiting nor do i know that a male deity called everything into existence out of nothing simply by uttering the correct incantations, nor can i disprove any of these things but not being able to disprove it doesn't make it any more probable.

 

I struggle not to insult believers, not because i fear they may be right but because I like some of the people who believe in God, some of them are quite intelligent and contribute much to other discussions but i have to be honest and say that their belief in superstitions and fairy tales bothers me, it's difficult to understand how otherwise intelligent people can assert any religion is the truth when it is obviously just belief backed up by nothing but belief. I see that some of the people who post in the religious forum are actually proselytizing as though they hope to convert me and others to their belief system, some actually equate religion and science as though they are the same thing and seem to believe that both are on equal footing when it comes to evidence.

 

More disturbing is the lies told by believers to try and convert those who are less than knowledgeable about the facts and use this lack of knowledge to convince others that science is not only lying but actually actively trying to mislead them away from god. I have never seen a believer who was both knowledgeable and honest when it comes to any interaction concerning religion and science. Literalists, fundamentalists or creationists are either ignorant of the truth or dishonest about the truth, no other possibility exists. This forum "religion" was supposed to be for discussing religion and it's effects on society but it has degenerated into at best nothing more than arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin or open proselytizing. Discussing the effects of religion on society or individuals is reasonable and I have no problems with it.

 

I don't think that open discussion about the whether God or gods are real can be discussed in a forum that demands evidence, there is no evidence of the existence or non existence of god so any discussion about this is by definition speculative nonsense.

[A Tripolation]

but i have to be honest and say that their belief in superstitions and fairy tales bothers me, it's difficult to understand how otherwise intelligent people can assert any religion is the truth when it is obviously just belief backed up by nothing but belief.

 

I don't see how this bothers you. I think having a diverse field of beliefs and convictions improves this forum as a whole, so long as the members are polite and do not try to shove beliefs down one anothers' throats.

 

I have never seen a believer who was both knowledgeable and honest when it comes to any interaction concerning religion and science.

 

I find this to be grossly inaccurate. Myself and many other theists acknowledge our deity to be highly illogical, and completely incompatible with a being that could exist in this reality.

 

As someone studying physics, I can quite clearly see the interaction between science and religion. There isn't one. There is nothing that we observe that couldn't be the result of natural, cumulative processes. And for the phenomena we observe that we haven't found a mechanism for, that doesn't necessitate God. God would only add complexity. How is this thought process dishonest in any way? I know many people who believe like this.

Edited June 24, 2011 by A Tripolation

[Moontanman]

I don't see how this bothers you. I think having a diverse field of beliefs and convictions improves this forum as a whole, so long as the members are polite and do not try to shove beliefs down one anothers' throats.

 

So as not to be misunderstood this is exactly what I said

 

I struggle not to insult believers, not because i fear they may be right but because I like some of the people who believe in God, some of them are quite intelligent and contribute much to other discussions but i have to be honest and say that their belief in superstitions and fairy tales bothers me, it's difficult to understand how otherwise intelligent people can assert any religion is the truth when it is obviously just belief backed up by nothing but belief. I see that some of the people who post in the religious forum are actually proselytizing as though they hope to convert me and others to their belief system, some actually equate religion and science as though they are the same thing and seem to believe that both are on equal footing when it comes to evidence.

 

I stand by what I said, if you assert your belief is the truth then it bothers me, it should bother any rational human being.

 

I find this to be grossly inaccurate. Myself and many other theists acknowledge our deity to be highly illogical, and completely incompatible with a being that could exist in this reality.

 

Again, this is exactly what i said

 

More disturbing is the lies told by believers to try and convert those who are less than knowledgeable about the facts and use this lack of knowledge to convince others that science is not only lying but actually actively trying to mislead them away from god. I have never seen a believer who was both knowledgeable and honest when it comes to any interaction concerning religion and science. Literalists, fundamentalists or creationists are either ignorant of the truth or dishonest about the truth, no other possibility exists. This forum "religion" was supposed to be for discussing religion and it's effects on society but it has degenerated into at best nothing more than arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin or open proselytizing. Discussing the effects of religion on society or individuals is reasonable and I have no problems with it.

 

I stand by what I said, discussing the effects of religion on society or individuals is what this forum is for, not proselytizing or for that matter bashing religion either, far to many threads are only here to evoke emotional responses not discussions.

 

As someone studying physics, I can quite clearly see the interaction between science and religion. There isn't one. There is nothing that we observe that couldn't be the result of natural, cumulative processes. And for the phenomena we observe that we haven't found a mechanism for, that doesn't necessitate God. God would only add complexity. How is this thought process dishonest in any way? I know many people who believe like this.

 

 

I know of very few religious individuals who would say the same but for those who do i apologize. But as i specified people who take the bible literally then what i said didn't apply to you did it?

[Greatest I am]

Greatest I am: The Christians and Jews have absolutely no proof of the existence of Yahweh and the Muslims have no proof of Allah. How is your belief in a "Godhead" any more rational than their belief in an anthropomorphic deity.

 

The "religious" claim that God exists and has a role to play in our lives. You claim that a godhead exists and basically does nothing and has no interaction with us. How is that any more reasonable?

 

I have a pet fairy, you can't see her, she doesn't violate any natural laws, and you can in no way experience her. All discussions of her are speculative nonsense, however, I assure you that she exists.

 

For both you and A Tripolation.

 

The cosmic consciousness is accessed through telepathy. Another un-proven concept.

 

Why do I believe my personal experience to have a basis in reality?

 

Because I did it twice. The first time with my wife and the second time with the cosmic consciousness.

 

Without my wife as a witness to the reality of telepathy, I would not give any veracity to my second experience.

 

If either of you think you can somehow make me disbelieve my own senses, and my wife, you are both wrong and spinning your wheels.

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

A Tripolation

 

 

 

 

'Pascal's Wager' famously states that everyone should believe in God, since if we believe in him and he doesn't exist, we lose nothing, while if we refuse to believe in him and he does exist, then we lose our ability to enter into Heaven. But the premise is false, since believing in a fantasy whose purported rules for life limit your ability to act according to your own rational, ethical judgment is in itself a great misfortune, since you abandon the dignity of human rationality and your claim to be an ethically significant being, given that you act according to imaginary orders of an imaginary being, rather than on your own courageous judgment. On the other hand, losing the promise of Heaven by refusing to believe in God's existence costs you nothing if you decline to believe in fairy tales.

 

I wouldn't cite Voltaire to support belief in God, given that Voltaire himself was an atheist! He may have a character in 'Candide' state that this is the best of all possible worlds, but he doesn't believe it himself. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz felt he had to prove that this was the best of all possible worlds before he could assert that God exists, but his proof got him tangled up in a ridiculous notion of 'universal compossibility' such that Lee Harvey Oswald's bullets striking Kennedy in Dallas would have to be seen as an absolutely necessary event, without which the entire universe would fall apart. But since we would simply have to have irrational faith to believe in that connection, we don't make any headway with it in proving the existence of God, belief in whom also requires irrational faith.

 

The anthropic principle is stated in various ways, but it usually means that unless human beings had the type of perceptual and intellectual apparatus that they actually do have, they would not be able to perceive and interact with the world at all. This then presents an apparent paradox that the world is designed perfectly to match our capacity to perceive it, but in fact there is no great coincidence here at all, since evolutionary processes obviously have to design organic entities to be able to perceive their environment in order to survive, so the physical world simply shaped us to be able to see and comprehend it, and the coincidence disappears.

 

Also, given that there is a discussion now going on about how the world looks and what it means, and that discussion could only occur among those whose perceptual and cognitive appartus 'fit' the world so that they could perceive and describe it, there is no real coincidence that we are having this discussion. There may have been a trillion other cases where beings came into existence who could not perceive their world, or worlds existed which their resident beings could not perceive, but they all drop out of the picture since the only world in which this issue can be discussed is the one in a trillion where the beings turned out to be able to perceive the world around them.

 

Well thought out but it still does nopt refute---

 

"It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end.”

 

 

 

This same sentence or sentiment could just as easily and accurately have been made by Darwin when he found and studied the Galapagos Islands.

He found an environment that was evolving as perfectly as it could given the conditions at hand.

This can be said of all life that exists everywhere.

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

 

I don't see how this bothers you. I think having a diverse field of beliefs and convictions improves this forum as a whole, so long as the members are polite and do not try to shove beliefs down one anothers' throats.

 

You say this after saying this---

"In an attempt to show you that you are just as much an illogical person as the people in the "Abrahamic Cults".

 

Once would be informative of your stance.

 

You are hounding me on it and showing you trying to force it down my throat.

 

Regards

DL

[A Tripolation]

For both you and A Tripolation.

 

The cosmic consciousness is accessed through telepathy. Another un-proven concept.

 

Why do I believe my personal experience to have a basis in reality?

 

Because I did it twice. The first time with my wife and the second time with the cosmic consciousness.

 

Without my wife as a witness to the reality of telepathy, I would not give any veracity to my second experience.

 

If either of you think you can somehow make me disbelieve my own senses, and my wife, you are both wrong and spinning your wheels.

 

...really? Telepathy? And you criticize the Judeo-Christian God? I would hope someone would hospitialize me if I convinced myself that telepathy existed.

 

Your own senses were lying to you. There has been no documented event of telepathy, nor is telepathy reproducible in a controlled, monitored environment. But if you think you are different, there's a million dollars in it for you if you can prove it.

 

 

You are hounding me on it and showing you trying to force it down my throat.

 

"Hounding" you on your beliefs is not shoving anything down your throat. It is part of intellectual discourse. Like when you criticize the Bible and/or God. I defend them to the best of my ability, using logic and the little theology I know. I do not consider it you trying to shove your beliefs down my throat. It's simply you asking questions to vagaries and weak chinks in the Christian ideology.

 

So, no. I'm not shoving anything down your throat. I'm not telling you you're a blasphemous heathen that will burn in Hell if you do not repent of your evil ways. I'm simply holding you to the same standards you hold everyone else in the religion forum. If you can't take challenges to your own faith, then why do you challenge others? Why hold such a blatant double-standard?

 

Again, this is exactly what i said

I have never seen a believer who was both knowledgeable and honest when it comes to any interaction concerning religion and science

 

Yes. You used a blanket statement regarding all theists. This what I was responding to. Surely you know some theists who are intellectually honest about their religion?

 

I know of very few religious individuals who would say the same but for those who do i apologize. But as i specified people who take the bible literally then what i said didn't apply to you did it?

 

You specified just the fundies, and then you specified believers in general. Apologies if you only meant to address the literalists and such.

 

I stand by what I said, if you assert your belief is the truth then it bothers me, it should bother any rational human being.

 

Ah. Yes. Explain that. I assert that my belief is the truth. To me, anyways. Why does that bother you?

Edited June 24, 2011 by A Tripolation