Nothing is beyond words for TH I rather suspect, however whether they always actually mean anything very much or not, is another matter.
Hmmmmmmmm.
toldailytopic: Do false predictions of end times affect the cause of Christ?
- Thread starter Nathon Detroit
- Start date
- Status
Hmmmmmmmm.
Unfortunately, it ain't that simple. I know that the faithful would love to lower science to the level of "faith" or elevate faith to the level of reason, but it ain't gonna happen any time soon. In our daily lives, when deciding what is true or untrue, we routinely use Occam's Razor. Theists put that on hold arbitrarily for this one particular question. That done, yes, it is a coin toss.
If "universe" and "universe + God" explain the same data, then the first model is more likely.
Correct. But it does great damage to theism because it explains the most obvious problems after origin.
Putting God first doesn't solve the question of origins at all. In fact, it only opens more cans of worms. If nothing can come from nothing, than neither can God. If God has always been here, then I can make the same claim for "the universe". God is more complicated than the universe in either case. See Occam's Razor.
You skipped the part where you clearly articulate where I failed to explain. But we can drop this quibbling. The latter part of this conversation (below) is more interesting.
You said originally that I had the flaw. I was just echoing your assertion. The ball is in your court to explain the problem.
Right - but within those somewhat limited parameters, people experience very different, mutually exclusive gods. Is it pure chance that people experience the gods of their own cultural background or missionary context? Or might we be dealing with something not so supernatural at all?
At the start of this conversation that sounded a bit different to me, but this is a side point.
I have had this conversation before and heard Christians start to excuse all manner of horrific crime because of "context" - the most important context being that God is ordering or condoning the crime. In the next breath, they assert that God is benevolent. The slaughtering of whole societies - or the drowning of all creation! - are "righteous".
Sometimes it's true because that's what the Bible says. Sometimes it is a literary device. Sometimes it is immediately and obviously true. Sometimes we need training. Sometimes it stands alone. Sometimes we need context. The cultural context of the reader and the century we live in determine which, when we read the unchanging word of God. Hell has cooled down significantly over the past few centuries. The divine genocides of the Old Testament are now a literary device.
Okay, but I would say that "serious reflection" requires a much higher degree of doubt and skepticism than is typical in these forums.
"Should" is a normative claim I don't agree with here. I don't think it has been established that there is anything "holy" at all. If society agrees on particular customs and traditions, they should not be violated capriciously. That has something of the "holy" about it. Even though I don't believe in supernatural stuff, I still don't paint mustaches on icons. But that is out of respect for the art and the people, not because there is something "really" holy about it.
The "placeholder" is perfect because it takes the claim being made by the theist and shaves off all the cultural ballast, leaving only the raw claim. Everyone knows that elves or the FSM don't exist. But what does that say about other spooky claims when the latter exhibit the same attributes or ontological status? Dismissing this line of argument because the alleged God is somehow superior in an numinous, inexplicable way, comes across as attempting to bury the issue under the cultural ballast again.
Perhaps you could name a few. If you do, I might say, "Oh, yeah. You're right." Or I might point out an example of possible falsification. Or I might show how the example can reasonably be rejected as not demonstrated as "true."
For clarity - by falsification I do not necessarily mean something that would absolutely prove the opposite. I mean "evidence against." If evidence against something is unimaginable, then it is pointless to talk about evidence at all.
Wow. If I met someone with a similar data set, but with a completely different model to explain the data, I imagine I might go into the conversation with some doubt.
I'll admit that you're not the first theist I have met who claims to be a former atheist, but you're the first in that category to demonstrate any familiarity with the arguments used by atheists. I say that because I have serious doubts when someone claims they were an atheist and then had a complete conversion. Usually, what I think people mean is that they were a "backsliding Christian" or something, at "worst" someone who had lost interest in religion since childhood.
As for a biological malfunction, I don't want to claim to know what happened. But the human mind is capable of a high degree of modularity. There are many cases of people being completely logical about some things and not at all about others - and that is not pathological. Within pathology, there are brain imparements which show that all kinds of things can be "uncoupled" - although the examples I have read about would not appear to apply to complex, cultural convictions (more sensory stuff - like failure to see the right or left side of things, the de-coupling of emotion from the senses, the separation of awareness from actually seeing something consciously, etc. - rather simple brain disorders that I would not apply to this case). I doubt whatever happened in your case is really pathological, although I suppose some atheists could disagree.
...but then conversions to Islam would be evidence of the truth of Islam.
That is indeed a problem. Part of it stems from some claims about God
- being considered objectively impossible (mutually exclusive - like the theodicy issue) by atheists
...which decides the issue for the atheist, but leaves the theist unconvinced...
- being considered un-measurable (omnipotence) by atheists
...meaning that a definitive answer is out of reach.
In my experience, atheists don't demand "proof," but evidence. The resulting conversations/arguments revolve around how robust/logical/applicable, etc. the proposed evidence is.
Well, I've toyed with it again and again and challenged people to propose counter-examples, and so far, nothing's turned up. An obvious exception is the claim that "I exist." I can't imagine a falsification for that. For anything else, though, I do my best.
I guess we atheists have a problem with this "unfathomableness". God would appear to be quite well defined and clear in some contexts. Sometimes, Christians claim to know exactly what "He" is saying or doing or intends. They know what is literal and what is allegory. Some even have all kinds of terminology for subtle points of doctrine. Then, suddenly, in the same conversation, He becomes "unknowable," "undefinable," "not subject to human reason," "unmeasurable," "mysterious in His ways" or some other such qualification. I don't want to say it is an intentional "bait and switch," but it does come off as a nifty way to have it both ways.
Well, I see Camping's error differently. But either way, I find the dismissal of placeholders odd. I'll make a note of the Lewis reference and check it out some time if the "spirit" moves me!
- Lith
Would you consider it to be a true statement that, "so far, we haven't the means to measure all observable phenomena?".
Further, there are observable effects without observable or quantifiable causes? At least, just yet.
alwight
New member
New deadline set for the end of the world
New deadline set for the end of the world
New deadline set for the end of the world! :kookoo:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/new-deadline-set-for-the-end-of-the-world-20110524.html
New deadline set for the end of the world
New deadline set for the end of the world! :kookoo:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/new-deadline-set-for-the-end-of-the-world-20110524.html
Except that it is and in a moment your bias is going to get the better of you...
I have a great deal of respect for science and never confuse it with faith, which I also value as a pursuit of truth, after its fashion. There remains, however, a distinction of some importance between the facts at hand and the inference we draw from them as it relates to origin.
You've made the inference but not the case twice now.
Except to believe that you have to make an assumption. We don't know the universe can or would exist absent God.
Well, no, to match effort and illustration. It really doesn't.
It doesn't explain the mechanism; it explains the source.
Look into the uncaused cause. It's a rational necessity absent an infinite regress or some other mechanism that will turn the trick. Nothing material, nothing that is can come from nothing. That uncaused cause would necessarily be something other and greater than the thing it fashioned. Christians call this the spirit.
No. The universe is material. We understand the material is entangled with cause and effect. That's problematic for a self generated universe.
Math is more complicated than most people. Or, that's not quite on point.
I can hardly advance a thing you didn't proffer. :squint: If you say a thing is a red herring, a straw man, an ad hom, etc. then you should be capable of illustrating the fact. Failing that it's a declaration in search of support.
No. I said you had a flawed understanding of my God, since you appear to believe:
That's a conclusion in search of an argument. You then went on the attempted academic snub and I responded with clarification. What's your background? Before law school I took a number of concentrations.
There's the one and the approach among men is demonstrably different. Even among particular faiths the distinctions and arguments can become fierce. Now I happen to hold, as Lewis and I believe Chesterton did, that those other faiths imperfectly echo the true Christian myth, but that's a thread in its own right and not particularly helpful in short absent familiarity with it on your part.
Read me again. Now I was initially aiming my comments at someone with a greater familiarity of context, but my position was and is unaltered on the point.
It's a rather simple but fundamental problem between the atheist and the Christian. The moment you begin with "horrific crime" you've set yourself in a position that doesn't allow for much discussion. You're self evidently disinterested in what you'll wave away as some attempt to justify what seems to you beyond justification. And to the Christian you'll be hopelessly misapprehending the matter. Nothing fruitful in continuing with it then.
God is omni. That entails any number of things, perfection in love to perfection in justice. The former is immensely appealing; the latter is frequently frightening.
Not to interrupt the list, but yes. The Bible contains metaphor and parable and any number of literary devices. It also contains rather factual narrative. And as with anything worth reading that requires the reader to apply his understanding of those and to reference them within the context of the work.
I think you'll find that the majority of the people who inhabit any sort of forum are the sort who are less looking to find their part and more looking to discuss, share, or advance it. Skepticism is a valuable tool in approaching knowledge, but as with inquiry itself, the point is discovery. The reason for asking a question is finding an answer. If you find yourself asking where your keys are long after you hold them in your hand you've lost the point.
Which makes sense given your perspective. I'm not explaining you to you though. I'm offering my perspective in answer to your statement, which wasn't about what you know, but what you assume about what I do.
By what authority/standard?
Then there's a portion of your faith, tenuous as it must be.
Rather, it's a fearful tactic that wraps a serious discussion in a sneering inference to demean by that practice what it cannot diminish else.
I'm reasonably sure you exist. If I parody you does it impact your being?
You only just (well, a bit ago) recognized that the omni is only approachable but can't be encompassed.
Do you love? How can I know it? How can I know what you really mean by it, how you experience it, how you honestly value it. I could tell you that I love my mother. I could, in fact, love my mother dearly, do for her and act in ways that are entirely and utterly in accord with the claim, but it doesn't follow that I do love her or that you can know it.
That's too weak then. Evidence is useless absent a standard for determining when it becomes a reasonable inference of conclusion. We can't begin to set that out here, as per my earlier on apologetics.
And you should. Ultimately, the question and resolution of the question is an intimate one. I certainly wasn't inclined to give that sort of weight to witness when I lived in shoes similar to yours.
Well, having spent the better part of thirty years in that environment I was rather familiar with the ground. I wasn't an anti theist, mind you, believing in the social value of the institution even as I found no reason to embrace what I found to be mostly well intentioned elevation of human thought and frailty.
I was reared in the Episcopal church, but it didn't take. When I was a wee lad I used my allowance to purchase an encyclopedia of myth that made me all the more sure of my general suspicion and cemented my decision to abstain from investment. And that stuck, even though I found religious writing invaluable as a historical, sociological, psychological window into the human condition...until I had my road to Damascus experience. And here I am.
I understand you. And if you suddenly found yourself in similar circumstances you'd say the same to me. I can only tell you what I believe.
Not my argument. Just clarifying my response on your point.
Now Islam doesn't make the same transformative claims, doesn't approach the nature of man and reconciliation after the Christian fashion. It's one of the unique attributes of our faith, but that's another discussion.
Which then invites the question: what would suffice to settle the question, objectively. So far no one can fashion that standard. And so my note/objection.
Which brings us soundly back to the subjective valuation.
Demonstrably not, given the degree of uncertainty that necessarily accompanies your perspective. I'll leave off answering for any other Christian on the definitional question. I've addressed your retooling of the literary device portion of the conversation.
I think you'll find it entertaining at the least. :e4e:Well, I see Camping's error differently. But either way, I find the dismissal of placeholders odd. I'll make a note of the Lewis reference and check it out some time if the "spirit" moves me!
Only if by "another matter" you mean, of course, sufficient education.Nothing is beyond words for TH I rather suspect, however whether they always actually mean anything very much or not, is another matter.
Squishes
New member
What does that mean, "related factually"?
I think that's wrong. A priori it may be a coin toss, but the existence of evil and the absence of God from everyday life lowers the probability that God exists.
But there is more than that. There is consistency. For example, I think that is immoral to allow an innocent child to die from preventable causes. I suspect you believe the same. But innocent children do die from preventable causes. So you must factor this data into your belief set. A Christian, then, can do more than just have his experiences; he can reflect on them and ask what the best explanation for the events in the world around him is.
No, I don't. I meant that, a priori, the existence of God is a probabilistic wash. The statement "Either 2+2=4 or it does not" is a true either/or, but it is not a wash.
Why would you say that?
I have no experience of 2+2=4 (only physical things making larger set of things, which is different), but I know it's true. It is well-known that you cannot derive all of our beliefs experientially for philosophical and psychological reasons. We need to be able to interpret experience, and I'm appealing to those interpretive abilities which state that we must do our best to have coherent, consistent beliefs. The lowered standards of evidence you have for Christianity is inconsistent with the standards of evidence you have in everyday life.
What choice? I didn't choose to interpret children with Down's syndrome being tortured to death from an intestinal blockage as evil. It happens, and is evil, and anyone who could stop it ought to stop it. I don't know how my ability to choose impacts this data in the least.
Do you believe you've talked to angels?
I agree, with the amendment that this deaf person was once a participant in the opera.
Do you? In what way?
What does it feel like? How do you know when he is influencing your person and circumstance from those times he is not?
In what way did you meet him? Be explicit, and explain how you knew it was God.
The only way in which I am cut off from your experience is if you refuse to introspect and tell me what you experienced.
It's not just an echo; it's a reflection of the worldview. And the more unreasonable things you have to accept counts as mounting evidence against the worldview. Every person who has not come into contact with an angel has a de facto reason to disbelieve Christianity. My claim is not that it alone is enough to discredit the believe, but factored into the equation along with things like evil, the progress of science in explaining where humans came from and why we believe what we believe, we have a comprehensive case against Christianity.
My claim is not that men do not believe the Christian story. My claim is that if they were not unfairly treating this part of their life they would not believe it. It is not an uncommon thing; human's give preferential treatment to what family members say, they protect their values (like tastes in music or art) even if, on the whole, they are being irrational in doing so.
alwight
New member
Only kidding TH. :e4e:Only if by "another matter" you mean, of course, sufficient education.
(I can always shut him up by bringing up the theory of evolution.):wave2:
Lithopaedion
New member
Hmm. So when the question is, "Why is there something instead of nothing?", your answer is, "Because it came from something else!" You'll agree that such an answer won't appeal to everyone. Many people will say, "You haven't answered the question. You just added a level of complexity."
Maybe it was always here. Maybe we just don't know.
If nothing that is can come from nothing, than God can't come from nothing either. If everything has to come from something - something "greater" - then your model must include a meta-God who made God, and a meta-meta-God who made the meta-God. We're back to infinite regress.
Saying one thing is "material" and God is "immaterial" does not solve the issue.
Like I said, I'll look into it sometime. I suspect an issue with chronology, but I'll assume that Lewis knows the Christianity was not the first religion.
You're right that I am not willing to negotiate on whether the things (maybe not all things, but many, many things) that God does, condones or orders in the Bible are "horrific crimes." Perhaps living in Europe sensitizes me to that. But I don't think there are any excuses or contexts that relativize genocide. So yes, I begin by calling them "horrific crimes" and to my mind they remain such, regardless of how many naughty people God was smiting. Even as a "literary device" it is horrific. If that is setting up the conversation in a biased manner, then I plead guilty. I won't concede that hundreds of thousands of disobedient men, women and children might have deserved slaughter.
...and both have little to do with a being that would do the things Yahweh is said to have done. The only alternative is to lock down my own moral compass or bend words until they mean the opposite.
Seen that way, that is all evidence that this is a mortal work.
If someone doesn't believe in Mickey Mouse, but does believe in me, and you can show that I am no different than Mickey Mouse, then the placeholder serves a purpose. Either Mickey Mouse is real, or I'm not. Poof!
Now, we could say "X" instead of Mickey Mouse. Would that be mockery?
You can't know these things for certain. I can offer evidence for and against. The "against" would go toward falsification.
Can you imagine what a manifestation of love would be? Of course. Me doing the opposite is falsification of my love.
No, but sticking a knife in her gut would demonstrate either that the claim is false or that we are not talking about the same concept "love." The claim is falsified if you do so. (But these examples of violence are problematic because when the God of the Bible slaughters people it is considered evidence of goodness and justice, so when arguing with a Christian moral categories may in fact remain objects for arguments about definitions and not appropriate for discussions of falsification.)
That is a non-confrontational approach to dialogue that can be very fruitful much of the time.
Every religion has things that distinguish it from other religions. Unless those differences relate to evidence, however, they do not bear any relevance to whether or not they are true. Muslim or Christian approaches to "reconciliation" are probably an example of something being irrelevant to determining truth content. The very notion of "reconciliation" being an issue is probably based on a theist foundation from the beginning.
...which should not, however, leave anyone in the peanut gallery with the impression that it is all just a personal choice. There is such a thing as a perponderance of evidence, there are such things as contradictions, etc. Such things should matter. The exact weighing in will be subjective, but I maintain that the theism issue becomes more and more clear the more and more rigorous we make our standards of reason and evidence.
There is uncertainty, but it is centered differently. In science, nothing is absolutely knowable for absolute certain, but everything can be known better than we know it now. My impression of Christianity is that it claims God is unknowable in principle and defies discussion in any reasonable terms, but nonetheless, here are several hundred pages of details about Him that are absolutely certain.
- Lith
Lithopaedion
New member
Yes, at least if that is simply a statement that there are things we don't understand.
But that does not mean that I fill in the gaps with traditions that claim to know the causes and measurements. It just means, "Yes, there are things we don't know yet. We might never know them."
- Lith
Rather, that's both our answers in the general sense. As to the particular mechanism, neither of us are barred from investigation and neither of us have more than speculation to offer as to the fact of the matter.
So there are two conversations here. The first one involves the why and the second how.
I'd agree to the first part and suggest an assumptive error noted prior at the heart of the second posit.
Defies causality but who knows?
Again, as with causality, it is a property of the material. The only way to escape the infinite regress/dodge of causality is the uncaused, eternal and non material cause, God.
It not only does, it's logically unavoidable if you find for the creation side of the ledger. That doesn't mean it's true, but it's intellectually of a piece.
Sure. Think foreshadowing, but I'll leave you to it without overlaying my impression more than I have.
I understand. But judging God outside of a Biblical context is pointless and within it, absurd. :idunno:
It doubtless gives you a different impression. I've traveled broadly and spent a bit of time stomping about the Mediterranean, being especially fond of Spain, and I know the attitudes and approaches there are markedly different.
Actually, all you have is relativism. God is only explicable within the context of the absolute. Have you read "Is God a Moral Monster?" by Paul Copan. I might start a thread on it at some point. He mounts an interesting defense.
Again, we differ and perhaps it will make for an interesting thread between us at some point with the tome referenced as a centerpiece. :think:
No. Only that it was written for men.
I've noted the only purpose served by discussing the shadow of a thing instead of the thing itself. When you substitute the absurd for the serious you mean to taint the latter with the former, since it carries no distinction that isn't in some part removed else.
Which turns into a subjective valuation and response and defeats the purpose.
That's not the point. The point is you could do every single thing that one associates with love and offer not one iota of evidence in support of any contrary state and be, despite appearance, a sociopath wearing a finely wrought mask. Only the holder of the truth "I love" understands it to be the truth or can state it as the truth.
I'm sure that's true, though here I'm talking about a distinction that goes to human nature and the methodology for reconciling the perfect and imperfect, which is a foundational distinction between Christendom and any other approach.
Which is by necessity a subjective matter given our previous on the difficulty of objective proofs and God.
Well, it would be peculiar to attempt to reconcile yourself to nothing, I suppose. :chuckle:
Rather, faith is entirely that, given the question cannot be settled objectively nor probability assigned, especially as it involves the essential question.
Again, evidence by what standard? With what arbiter? I think if you consider that sufficiently you come, must come, inevitably, back to the subjective valuation of the individual and the experiential.
That's not just a scientific principle. The Christian walk is predicated upon the idea of men growing closer in their understanding.
Where I'd say that Christendom holds God is ultimately unknowable, but that in relation to man He can be experienced and understood.
Enjoying our conversation by the way, the unlikelihood of it leading to a movement at even the margins understood. :chuckle:
:e4e:
Lithopaedion
New member
"Why" implies intent, which implies a creator. So for me, "why" comes later - once and only if a creator is deemed necessary.
"How" implies that there was a beginning, a first cause - and I'm not there yet either. I think we simply don't know.
Once "stuff" is here, I don't think the God hypothesis is necessary to explain data. Introducing that entity makes the model instantly very, very unwieldy.
It just defies the supposition that there has to be a first cause.
That's just defining our way out of a hole. We simply state that there is such a thing, say the rules don't apply to it because it is numinous in some way ("non material") and voila! God!
I find that very unsatisfying.
I have not read it. If I am around and notice it, I would watch for the thread. I've had the conversation a number of times and never heard what I would consider a good defense.
...but with the intent to confuse if the author was omniscient.
But if something is not representable by a placeholder, it is beyond logical discussion.
I am reminded of a conversation I had with an astrologist. I was proposing tests for her claims. She said my proposed tests for particular planetary effects could not work because it only works as a "whole." Individual planets or constellations would not have measurable effects. A bit later in the conversation she said that I must have a "strong Mars." (As is typical, my skepticism was interpreted as anger or aggression.) I turned that into clear evidence that individual factors in her system can in fact be measured independently. It was obvious. That seemed to hit home.
Now, if God can be talked about an attribute or a few attributes at a time, then we can use placeholders. Giving them silly names can be mocking out of spite or mocking with a clear purpose. Barring those, we can use neutral place holders like X. If God _can't_ be talked about a piece at a time, but only "whole," then I suspect He can't be talked about at all.
The point is that there is imaginable evidence that can be brought to bear on the issue. That makes the issue of whether "I love" or not debatable. We might reach wrong conclusions, but we have something to go on. I submit that religion usually does not work that way. For believers, there is often no bit of evidence even imaginable that would change their mind. I've tested this idea in conversations with Mormons - where there is quite devastating falsification both within a broader Christian context and, more my perspective, from the historical record. There's nothing there, not even imaginable. I try to brainstorm: "Let's say the current Mormon prophet told you from the pulpit that incontrovertable evidence has appeared that Joseph Smith made the whole thing up. We found documents in his handwriting explaining how he pulled off the hoax." That wouldn't change their mind. They fish for an explanation: "That would mean that the prophet was probably being blackmailed" or "Lucifer had seized the prophet" or some such. As a model, the LDS church is unfalsifiable. Thus, it isn't about evidence at all.
I try mightily to not believe things in that way.
But I can point out that people use one standard for their religion and a completely different standard for everything else. Instead of determining first whether religion somehow merits a different standard, it simply gets one. What is more, their own religion gets a different standard than other religions. Put another way, we're both atheists. I just disbelieve one more God than you do. Whatever reasons you have for not believing in Shinto kami or Allah or Nirvana probably match up with some of the reasons I have for rejecting the truth claims of Christianity.
As am I. By the way, this is my first time back at TOL in a few years. I went and looked at a few of my old posts from 2008. Lo and behold - who was I arguing with back then? You!
I look forward to hearing your responses to Squishes about your direct experience with the Almighty, should you find the muse to go there.
- Lith
Not necessarily. Why does it rain?
We know that everything we can demonstrate follows the principle of cause and effect. I think that has to carry weight.
Sure. Once you negate the problem of origin you can pretty much rest in the moment, but it doesn't settle anything really.
And, again, the idea of introducing follows an assumption as to origin that isn't established.
Rather, it follows every known and testable, actual bit of evidence. It's how the observable universe works. The question of moment is how time functions in relation to that observation. Now there we're really becoming less and less settled and it may be the answer to this puts both of us on our heels.
No. It simply follows. It doesn't follow that we can wrap our noggins around what the non material actually is, since the moment we start talking like that we're trying to reduce it to material terms and measurements. Understandable, but futile.
I doubt anyone is completely sated. That's human nature. We always want to know more than we can. Probably one of our better traits.
Re: reading: it's fundamentalist too.
I think you mistake our nature in this, not God's. Ever played at Chinese whispers? Where free will and imperfect reason meet you will always find a variety of understandings. I think that's why the heart of the law is a simple proposition. Matthew 22:36-40 Love God with all you have and your neighbor as yourself.
Now you're just playing at word games, since we've been discussing a placeholder for the actual thing discussed. So if the subject is God the thing discussed should be God and not the FSM, unless one has a different goal, as I noted.
Then you need a better understanding of one of us and/or the argument between us. Or, this would be you doing between us what the FSM attempts in the previous discussion. A waste of time.
The problem occurs when you talk about one attribute of God that has no bearing on the expression you're considering. Like saying, if God is omnipotent how can there be a hell?
That may be your point. Mine was that there is a truth in play that can't be known by observation, can only be absolutely known by the possessor of it.
Re: faith and evidence
I can understand that. I also understand that reason can't answer the most important question in your life and that while you can approach God reasonably, the last step toward the fathomless is faith. You'll eventually take it, or it will take you, or you will continue as you are.
People. Go figure. Of course you'd be, I presume, among the first to say that truth isn't impacted by hypocrisy or error in application any more than it is established by popularity.
No. I hold every man of faith believes in God. The argument on particulars is commentary. Important? Without question. But if I see you in the distance and call you Bob and another man from a greater or lesser vantage names you Dave, neither of us have created you or altered your nature.
I doubt it. I believe in God for a very direct and particular reason that, while reasonable at every point, was not the product of reason, but of experience.
Really? :chuckle: Were we aimiable or combative?
Haven't seen that inquiry. I'm in and out with the new baby, as you can imagine. It's limiting the sort of responses I can muster. This is a bit abbreviated...In the meanwhile, a pleasure.
:e4e:
Cracked
New member
I understand if the world feels that it is necessary to mock Christianity and Christians. What do we expect, really? However, when yahoos like Camping do their thing it does serve to harden hearts that might respond to the prevenient grace of God otherwise. This is what the world has shown me--it does not give a rip about Jesus, and that He makes good fodder for ridicule. Not even some of my own friends have the decency not to giggle and mock.
I have to say that I am saddened by this. However, I take heart in knowing my hope is not in the world of scoffers, but in Christ Jesus.
I have to say that I am saddened by this. However, I take heart in knowing my hope is not in the world of scoffers, but in Christ Jesus.
That the narrative in regard, say, to the miraculous is simply and factually relating occurrence. The other side of that suppositional coin, to coin.
I'd say you assume the absence. I don't experience it. To the contrary, in the midst of infirmity and trial I experience quite the opposite. The existence of evil is no more surprising than the existence of men and the exercise of will. Or so it appears to me.
Agreed. We differ though in conclusion and I suspect that has everything to do with the larger understanding/context. You mean to conform God to your understanding. I mean to conform my understanding to God's.
I got that. I was attempting an inferential denial of your application. Or, try to make that fit the argument in a way that impacts the question. I rather don't believe you can manage it.
Because I find your conclusion mistaken. Either that would be the product of error or intent, assuming I'm correct in my understanding.
What lowered standards? I think you're assuming much and demonstrating little with this. :idunno:
That's no more evil than the rain on a hot day is good.
Ah, the genie god again...there's no end to that. Why should I have high blood pressure or be capable of making a decision that will negatively impact or harm another? It's the nature of will and moral free agency. Remove it and you remove man.
I think it's a lovely thought, but how on earth would I know? Again, I think it's a wonderful way to remind us that we move through more than air and light.
I'd say many people appreciate the opera, but a thing you love you don't abandon. Apostasy isn't a virus.
In prayer, in contemplation, in guidance.
God is always at the shoulder of those who love Him. And while there are moments of the sublime in that relation, more generally it is akin to the feeling you have...shoot.
Have to feed the baby. Later then.
It was in the nature of the experience, which was akin to Saul's road to Damascus conversion, sans blindness or auditory elements--by which I mean a dramatic in utterly clear confrontation with the Holy. I had an intellectual and emotional experience of being present within a point of observation by which I could be aware of both the Observer and myself in relation. I'd compare it to a Zen awakening, a point of clarity that swept my old context away as easily as a wave smashing a sandcastle. That's as close as I can come to describing it.
A reflection is an echo over a different medium...so...
Except you have another subjective hobgoblin, unreasonable, lurking among that perspective and you're right back where we started.
Like suggesting everyone who hasn't met my old man has a de facto reason to disbelieve he exists. A peculiar notion.
Well, no. I don't think you've made the case at all that evil is an argument against Christianity. Science is similarly no more an argument against Christ than taxidermy. And the arguments for why we believe what we believe are much like the ideas of improbability in relation to the existence of life...that is, it's a matter completely reliant on perspective. Someone who believes in God points to the almost ridiculous improbability of necessary elements to permit life on this planet and the atheist says, "bingo!"
I understood you. I just don't find it supportable except in your bias.
You know what else people have a tendency to protect, even to the point of public ridicule? The truth.
:e4e:
Lithopaedion
New member
If you mean, "What is the origin of rain?", then okay. If you mean, "To what end does it rain?" then we have the problem I was referring to.
But we've never observed the absolute beginning of anything. We're talking about that absolute beginning now. If we agree that everything has to have a cause, then so does God, and adding God does not explain the problem. If we agree that there are exceptions - that some things are uncaused or that something has always been - then I see no reason to assume that a conscious entity would be among the exceptions and certainly no reason to assume that a conscious, all-powerful entity would be the only exception.
I am simply pointing out what we both acknowledge, that the problem of origins is not the problem of complexity/development. I have shown why I don't think God answers the problem of origins, but only ads complexity. Models like Darwin explain what happens later. Hence, to my mind, the God hypothesis does not explain any data, at least not without actually adding to the amount of unexplained data.
We can't wrap our brains around it, but we use to explain "everything"? I can't make that leap. It seems like hubris and itself entirely futile. "Since I don't understand how the first things appeared, I'll define the first things to be somehow different in a way I can't figure out or explain (immaterial). That unexplainable difference then accounts for it being an exception to cause and effect, so I can let that be the starting point." That doesn't work for me.
I understand God's nature to purportedly be kind, merciful, just, all-knowing, etc. I would think He could write a book anyone could understand and agree upon. I can write a book that several hundred people will understand, perhaps several million. I imagine God could do better and get everyone on board.
To use your analogy of Chinese whispers - why is God whispering? The game doesn't work nearly as well if the speaker can speak loudly and clearly.
With eternity for billions at stake, an ethically sound being with all the answers should not whisper, but shout. If Camping had been right, God would have been shown up to be a monster and his followers who sold everything to buy billboard space to be saints.
I don't think you read my example or I failed to make it clear. It does apply here, although the case was much more crass and clear with the astrologer. It does not perfectly mirror our discussion, but explains my approach to the numinous by isolating and investigating attributes or variables.
I'll try another analogy. If I insisted that Kevin was a great football player, but you looked at his stats and found that his performance was rather hit and miss, a conversation would result. We would end up talking about aspects of Kevin and aspects of football- what constitutes a good passing record, what constitutes speed, how fast Kevin actually runs, what constitutes an injury, how many injuries he has had, how we relate his scoring record to his playing position, etc. It would not work with you if I insisted that football greatness is defined by Kevin, nor if I alternately talked about Kevin sometimes holistically as something incomperable to the wider matrix of the sport and sometimes as something quite clear-cut and understandable.
Now, God as a one-of-a-kind being cannot be directly compared. But some of his individual attributes can be tested in this way. Only elephants are elephants, but if elephants purportedly have ears, then general knowledge of ears helps to figure elephants out.
Well, I don't think that is the case here or with other exercizes like the FSM, but I suppose reasonable people can differ.
Right - that is the quest for absolute knowledge that a scientifically oriented (at least in theory) mind seeks to avoid. It is not my goal to show or know anything absolutely, only - in this side-arm of the conversation - to establish what can and what cannot be talked about in terms of evidence.
Now, what if you saw several hundred people pointing in my general direction, calling me by different names, and describing me in completely different and often mutually exclusive terms? What if people who claimed to have a personal relationship with me gave completely different accounts of what I am like? What if you looked in that direction and saw nothing? What if all the things that I was purported to have done could just as easily have been done by someone else or were so long ago that the doer can no longer be determined? What if key attributes of how I was described by others were in direct conflict with your everyday experience? What if the general ethical attributes ascribed to me appeared to contradict the deeds I am purported to have done?
Now, before we bring Lewis in here: What if you observed that people tended (not always, but statistically) to ascribe to a version of me based on who they were standing near when they first noticed me?
(This is close to the "Dragon in my garage" analogy used by Carl Sagan in his book "The Demon-Haunted World" and reproduced on the internet.)
And I have no doubt that I would share your beliefs if I had a similar experience. As someone without direct access to the data, I can only go on your verbalization of it and subject that to the usual tests. I can be critical of how you extrapolate conclusions from that experience and draw analogies, but I cannot stand in your shoes. Qualia remain inalienable private property, at least for the time being.
(And that seems, to me, to be a very odd way for a God who wants us all on board to operate.)
I didn't read it closely. We were talking about whether the horrors of the 20th century can be blamed on atheism - a horse that continues to draw lashes, even though the whip only disturbs the maggots.
- Lith
HisServant
New member
All it does is show who the false teachers that should be rejected are... but it's unfortunate that christians don't throw the false prophets out on their kiester when they are proven wrong.
Lithopaedion
New member
Well, he made a falsifiable claim and it was falsified. Barring that rare event in Christian theological history, how do you determine a "false" teacher from a "true" one?
- Lith
All you're saying there is that we don't know about the origin point of everything, which isn't the same thing at all. We've observed cause and effect and the beginning of any number of things beyond that point.
Right. And all we know from observation is that every single thing we note in beginning is inseparable from that principle.
No. I addressed that earlier. In fact, it would be logically impossible unless you relegate God to the material He created.
Not a logical necessity. Only the point of material origin is necessarily other.
Then you believe nothing forms something, which is also outside of human observation and experience.
And I've countered that you've done no such thing, that you've only made an assumption that forms a neat circle in attempting to misapply the razor.
Rather, it explains the reason for the model's existence, which is the point. God isn't meant to "explain" photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is a process that is sufficiently explained by observation and experimentation. How that process and every other came to be is another matter.
No. I'm talking about a definitional problem, not an experiential one, which is where and how God becomes meaningful to the individual.
Which I see as hubris and demonstrably futile. :chuckle: But I can understand the impulse.
Not it at all. Rather, the honest question of how is followed by the possibility of an inexplicable self generation or we have to begin to ask the questions regarding the nature of a willful first cause. From that inquiry comes the inevitable uncaused cause (else you're back in the mechanistic infinite regress and not considering God), etc.
It isn't impossible to explain. I did that. It's impossible to encompass, given we're material beings in a material universe and nothing in that experience gives us a more than conceptual window on it.
You're assuming the problem is with the material.
He isn't and the problem with Chinese whispers isn't the whisper, it's the processing of a clear message through a flawed medium.
How does that remotely follow?
Well, it depends on how you're using the word there. Some refer to all of Christendom after that fashion.
I read it. It didn't strike me as ambiguous in inference.
More crass? I'm feeling better about my uptake.
lain:Right. And we'd have objective criteria with which to judge the subjective impression.
Compared with what and to what purpose? I don't see the value in it.
"...truth in play that can't be known by observation, can only be absolutely known by the possessor of it."
It should, being the wrong tool for the job.
You could do that more directly. Evidence is in my wheelhouse, given my background/profession and training. Of course the problem with a great deal of evidence is that it takes the very form you find problematic in approach.
I'd recognize the commonality of observation and the differing attempts to define it/you.
But do they? I don't think so. There are fundamental areas of agreement. Were I interviewing witnesses I'd begin by noting those and then look to the differences, concentrating on their backgrounds and inclinations to see if I could account for the differences along those lines.
Not helpful, since it assumes the conclusion that there's nothing there to be seen and the seer supplies it. Just another way of illustrating an assumption that wasn't in doubt as one context.
I can answer these individually to no real effect, since all it amounts to is implied arguments I've read and answered or seen set out and answered and don't really advance this conversation. If you want to argue any one of them then you should do that. Else, as relevant as my counter "what if you only thought you understood a thing and then found that you didn't, that your understanding was owed to a bias or vanity, etc."
I'd say we use the filters we have to explain our experience, from language to culture. Of course, not everyone does. And that's even more interesting.
Re: conversions.
I'd hope so. You seem reasonable enough. Now I suspect, as I've said previously, that were Christ to appear in the clouds this moment a great many people would fall to their needs, but a not insignificant portion would run to their analysts or the nearest optometrist.
Sounds reasonable enough. Good luck to you.
Lewis came by gentle contemplation. Saul by violent confrontation. I suspect there are as many variations on the theme as there are adherents.
I don't lay the horrors of some atheists at the feet of atheism, though I will often respond to the dull drum beat of Christian accountability for things like the 30 Years War, Crusades, Inquisition, etc., by noting that we're pikers comparatively in terms of generating that sort of destruction if one is obliged to do it.
oly:
Last edited:
HisServant
New member
All it requires is one false interpretation of prophesy to know he is false.
Lithopaedion
New member
Right. How do you know if someone is a false prophet if they never make a prophecy that can be tested?
- Lith
- Status