Thread: Is it possible for us as men to have a discussion on God

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

The admission that something can exist which you have previously seen absolutely no evidence for, of which no logical argument has ever supported, and is entirely outside of the realm of what can be proven by the means that apply to every other entity which is known to exist is a momentary abandonment of the rational mind. You said it yourself, you had to decide to be convinced of his existence; this is a decision in the absence of convincing proof, a "leap of faith", a lapse in reason.

Craig said it too, at some point he asked God for help, which was, at the time, counter to his logical, empirical, and intellectual experiences.

The results of these lapses have been increased knowledge of that which was presupposed on an invalid basis. Cyclical thinking, if you will.

Wait a second here! Are you saying that at that point in time is when I took leave of my logical, empirical, and intellectual experiences and thus gained increased invalid knowledge?!

Does that mean I'm crazY?!


All I can say is that it's pretty nice in my world...

Until the medications start to wear thin!



OK, wait a second, I re-read a little more. You say a leap of faith is a lapse of reason....perhaps it isn't a lapse, but just another level of reasoning?

As a possible example: Zen archery isn't about cognatively doing an act, but somehow letting go of the act and letting it happen, even though you are a participant in the act.

Originally Posted by jockeys

...neither can it be proven that there IS an unobservable component of emotion. The difference is I do not believe in the unprovable, you do. The belief in the unprovable is not something I understand. I suppose you could call that fascinating.

I don't believe in the unprovable, quite the contrary! That would indeed be fascinating! But I'm not sure if you really believe what you just said: When you feel something, why do you believe you feel it unless you first prove that you are indeed feeling it? Your own brain is unobservable but you believe it is there because you have enough indirect proof to convince you. The difference is not as you suppose, that you require proof and I do not, but that I will go beyond the exclusively materially directly observable in order to allow that something may or may not exist (and I think you will too, given the occasion)

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

I don't believe in the unprovable, quite the contrary! That would indeed be fascinating! But I'm not sure if you really believe what you just said: When you feel something, why do you believe you feel it unless you first prove that you are indeed feeling it? Your own brain is unobservable but you believe it is there because you have enough indirect proof to convince you. The difference is not as you suppose, that you require proof and I do not, but that I will go beyond the exclusively materially directly observable in order to allow that something may or may not exist (and I think you will too, given the occasion)

Er, your brain is observable..... but perhaps the mind, or intellect is not?

Originally Posted by Seraphim

Er, your brain is observable..... but perhaps the mind, or intellect is not?

+1

I have seen xrays of my own head, there is, in fact, a brain in there. That's proof enough for me that I have a brain.

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

1) Electricity has always been around, but it wasn't discovered until the 18th century; it was there but nobody really understood what to look for or why they should look for it. Someone had to look at an effect they perceived and say, "I will admit the possibility that there is more to that than I currently know."

2) Logical argument supports his existence: God has done what he said he would do and continues to do what he says he would.

3) What entities are known to exist? I know God exists, I know love exists, and I know that reason exists. They don't exist as exclusively material entities but yet they exist. To admit the existence of what exists is entirely rational. I have to decide to be convinced of everything I am convinced of. I have that option to either choose to accept or deny every evidence that is ever presented to me about anything. My decision to admit the possibility of proof is what led me to the proof. To ignore the proofs of the existence of the immaterial in order to help support an entirely materialistic way of thinking is to leave reason behind

4) I presupposed that God shouldn't exist because I had never directly seen, heard, felt, or otherwise sensed him with my natural senses. But I learned later on that is no reason by itself to disbelieve anything.

5) reason is not exclusive to the material world as reason itself is immaterial

1) This a fallacious weak analogy between something that is manifest in the natural world (electricity) and that which is not (God). Lightning bolts and static electricity create physical evidence of electricity's pressence, there has yet to be a physical example of God that is not better explained by naturalistic science (except for the singularity of the big bang, which isn't a shortcoming because it's status of "singularity" is more of a contingency, pending more research).

2) That is not a logical argument; you've presupposed that A. God exists, B. he has the capacity to affect the netural world C. that he can enumerate his intended affects, and D. that we can know those enumerations. No Logician has ever been able to show that a deity is more likely to exist than not, nor that we would be capable of knowing his intentions if he were to exist.

3a.) Love and reason are abstract names that we apply to the physical feelings that we encounter and the process of using our abservational skills to deduce truths about our environment, respectively. Those abstract names apply to reality, true, but they do not denote a manifest entity. Look up "Memes" or people who are studying "Memetics"; ideas and the study of them. Ideas are real, but because I can have an idea of a magical lawn gnome doesn't not mean that it is manifest in any realm, natural or otherwise.

3b.) You are perfectly safe applying the name "God" to the feeling or sense of interconnectedness that we all feel at times, this is a perfectly acceptable application of an abstract term to describe a physical occurrence. Where you fall short is the extrapolation from naming such an intuitive sense into a manifest being that is in continued communication with us and affects the past present and future of the natural world. That conclusion does not follow necessarily, thus it is illogical (if you like Kant's thoughts on logic).

4) This is again fallacious thinking; presupposing nothingness is the correct course of action for "percieving the environment", followed by proofs of phenomena that fill the nothingness. In other words, to suppose that something exists requires that the supposer provide proof; if there is no proof, there is nothing. This does not work both ways. To prove a negative requires infinite evidence (i.e. until you've examined every subatomic particle in the Universe, you will never be able to prove that an eleprotoneutromupifermiboson doesn't exist, but we have no reason to believe it does), so the logical thought process is start with nothing, and fill in the rest with what is observable and provable.

5) See 3a.) Reason is an abstract, the fact that one abstract exists does not prove the existance of others. Other's can exist, but do not necessarily exist as a direct result of that possibility (insert Kant again with wagging finger).

Originally Posted by jockeys

+1

I have seen xrays of my own head, there is, in fact, a brain in there. That's proof enough for me that I have a brain.

Thats fine jockeys, but I would like to see you address the spirit of his argument!

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

1) This a fallacious weak analogy between something that is manifest in the natural world (electricity) and that which is not (God). Lightning bolts and static electricity create physical evidence of electricity's pressence, there has yet to be a physical example of God that is not better explained by naturalistic science (except for the singularity of the big bang, which isn't a shortcoming because it's status of "singularity" is more of a contingency, pending more research).

But your missing something Russel. To us who believe in a Grand Designer, the whole universe and everything that happens in our universe is evidence of our belief!

Originally Posted by JMS

Thats fine jockeys, but I would like to see you address the spirit of his argument!

I'll take a shot at this as well...

The mind and the intellect are just abstracts about the operations carried out by the brain.

We see people who's brains have a tendency to find patterns in numbers, from which derive the study of mathematics. The intellect is the operation of the brain making sense out of the incoming data, in this example numerical data, for a writer it's linguistic data, etc. But it still remains that those words are only abstracts that we apply to things which are more complex than we care to expound on in daily speech.

They're not references to a spiritual being, they are memes.

Originally Posted by Seraphim

Er, your brain is observable..... but perhaps the mind, or intellect is not?

My brain is observable, but not directly by me

Originally Posted by jockeys

+1

I have seen xrays of my own head, there is, in fact, a brain in there. That's proof enough for me that I have a brain.

You can see X-rays?

Do you understand my point? What convinces you, what is good enough for proof is part of the matter at hand. When I see an x-ray chart, I can infer that what I am looking at represents my brain because of the similarities between what I am looking at and what I expect to see. I can also infer that my brain is God's creation because of the similarities between what I am looking at and what I expect to see

Originally Posted by JMS

Thats fine jockeys, but I would like to see you address the spirit of his argument!

Actually, quite appropo: Jockeys has done something that everyone who posts to this thread should do:


Go have their head examined!