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

Originally Posted by mhailey

Russel,

1) You will never be satisfied.

2) Documents of antiquity do not last. Demanding a copy of a newspaper from 2000 years ago is just not a reasonable request.

Matt

1)

I wouldn't say never. (BTW, I'll let you choose which one of those two I am, for the sake of extending olive branches)

2) Those darn Egyptians are just too clever, what with all their inscriptions in stone and such.

But seriously, whether or not he actually lived really doesn't mean that much to me, it's a well documented discrepancy that I find interesting, nothing more.

Of more importance is the issue of translation. Did you know that the term "son of god" was applied rather freely during those times and usually wasn't intended literally?

Just some more things to think about, that's all.

For Lee and Craig,

I see what you mean, those kinds of experiences are powerful, no doubt. But what about those epiphanies implies the Judeo-Christian god?

Could it be possible that evil forces are providing you with positive experiences to shift your attention away from your "God given" desire to question and discover?

From my perspective it would be more pious (or whatever you want to call being respectful to your deity) to use those innately human qualities to their fullest extent and never cede a scrap of intellectual ground to anything less than that which is irrefutable and entirely in line with our cognitive way of thinking.

Thor's cool. They're making a movie Marvel is, 2011?

A favourite? I don't know there are so many good ones. I guess I'm pretty partial to Osiris. I like the ancient Egyptian sentiment. The land was rich and bountiful and so were the gods. They had a cool calendar too.
Twelve thirty day months, but with three ten day weeks instead. They still used a lunar calendar as well, but with the solar calendar there were five extra days which were holidays named after each of the five Osiris, Set, Isis, Nepthys and Horus. They didn't have leap years even though the empire existed for so long that the solstice moved through the calendar twice!

There are now calls for a similar calendar reform, but the faithful organizers don't want to see their every seventh day rotate annually and twice on leap years don't like the idea. I propose a solution:

Keep Monday through Friday the same. Give people a two day weekend with new names. Call them Lokiday and Gaiaday for all I care. Sunday, or Shabbat, or whatever the JCIG crowd uses for the name of the seventh day of worship is another day off work and it lands on a different day each year. If Sunday falls on a Wednesday at the end of a year you get a free holiday after New Years Eve and before New Years Day. An extra day in there and we're off for another year this year, it'll be a Thursday all next year. That's right. I'd like to see a 20% pay raise for everyone and another day off. A four day work week.

It would be even better if we adopted thirteen, twenty-eight day months and then the moon would follow along pretty well also. The best part about the reform would mean that it actually needs to be only very minor and it'll improve our calendar. You'll always know that January first always falls on Monday. Tax day would always fall on a Thursday or wherever it is for you. Buy a calendar? Why, when children would have it all memorized by the time they're seven. You'll know it like you know the clock.

X

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

For Lee and Craig,

I see what you mean, those kinds of experiences are powerful, no doubt. But what about those epiphanies implies the Judeo-Christian god?

Could it be possible that evil forces are providing you with positive experiences to shift your attention away from your "God given" desire to question and discover?

What is the Judeo-Christian god? Nothing about those epiphanies implies that, I don't even know what that is. To me that sounds like a long list of definitions I'd have to check with Jockeys about by clicking links in Wikipedia or attending a Seminary in order to compare who God is with. There's only one God, and he's it. And since it is through Jesus that he shows himself to me, I have no reason at all to think he isn't the God of the Bible. What evil forces? I question and discover daily both in the natural and in the supernatural. The created is subject to its creator

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

From my perspective it would be more pious (or whatever you want to call being respectful to your deity) to use those innately human qualities to their fullest extent and never cede a scrap of intellectual ground to anything less than that which is irrefutable and entirely in line with our cognitive way of thinking.

What does respect have to do with it? Like I mentioned before, for me to deny God's existence when he clearly exists would be the pinnacle of irrationality. I think you're trying to ask something else but I can't put my finger on what it could be. Are you saying it would be more respectful to God if I would not have faith in him? I don't think I really completely understand what it is you're driving at. Maybe you're suggesting that God does exist but that you don't believe he does in order to respect him

Nothing is irrefutable to someone who doesn't want to see proof. And if you ask them, there is no proof. God may not be who you expect him to be, but he is God just the same. So to suggest that I have to lay aside my natural reasoning capabilities in order to have faith in God is completely incredulous to me. Why should God give me the ability to think critically and then ask me to abandon it? Up is down, black is white I guess

What specifically have been forced to abandon in order to believe that God exists? How have I done myself a disservice? I'm sure I will be fascinated to find out specifically what you suppose a believer might be missing from his intellectual reservoir that no non-believer would

Hang on a second, I wasn't trying to be offensive, I'll try to be more clear and neutral.

What I mean is this:

There is no way of knowing that whatever compelling force that you feel is "the" God. It could very well be any number of spiritual entities one could conceive of, correct? I mean, if one supernatural being can exist and induce feelings in human beings, how can we be sure that there aren't more (indeed deities flourish throughout the various geographic regions of Earth)? And how can we be sure that "the" God will be the one that is doing the influencing?

If we are given the capabilities of analyzing and cognizing, and put so much emphasis on knowing things in concrete terms, then why is it that God would require us to just believe, based on feelings, the one thing that so many humans struggle with. I'm not saying that the religious are lacking a mental capacity, just that the belief in the supernatural requires a momentary suspension of what our senses can perceive, which seems counter productive if God gave us those senses and made them so necessary to the understanding of our existence.

It's like if I train my dog, from an early age, to sit when I whistle, then expect him to shake as well, without any fore-warning. That would be a ridiculous expectation on my part. It just confuses me as to why that would be the case for understanding God.

Put simply:

Try as you might, with your highly developed brain which is the pinnacle, the very apex, of biological complexity in the Universe as we know it, you cannot "know" the entity that gave you that precious gift without, momentarily at least, abandoning it.

Hang on a second, I wasn't trying to be offensive, I'll try to be more clear and neutral.

What I mean is this:

There is no way of knowing that whatever compelling force that you feel is "the" God. It could very well be any number of spiritual entities one could conceive of, correct? I mean, if one supernatural being can exist and induce feelings in human beings, how can we be sure that there aren't more (indeed deities flourish throughout the various geographic regions of Earth)? And how can we be sure that "the" God will be the one that is doing the influencing?

If we are given the capabilities of analyzing and cognizing, and put so much emphasis on knowing things in concrete terms, then why is it that God would require us to just believe, based on feelings, the one thing that so many humans struggle with. I'm not saying that the religious are lacking a mental capacity, just that the belief in the supernatural requires a momentary suspension of what our senses can perceive, which seems counter productive if God gave us those senses and made them so necessary to the understanding of our existence.

It's like if I train my dog, from an early age, to sit when I whistle, then expect him to shake as well, without any fore-warning. That would be a ridiculous expectation on my part. It just confuses me as to why that would be the case for understanding God.

Put simply:

Try as you might, with your highly developed brain which is the pinnacle, the very apex, of biological complexity in the Universe as we know it, you cannot "know" the entity that gave you that precious gift without, momentarily at least, abandoning it.

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

Those darn Egyptians are just too clever, what with all their inscriptions in stone and such.

Not to mention the Sumerians before them, who baked their writing into clay tablets. Their god Enki is pretty cool.

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

What does respect have to do with it? Like I mentioned before, for me to deny God's existence when he clearly exists would be the pinnacle of irrationality. I think you're trying to ask something else but I can't put my finger on what it could be. Are you saying it would be more respectful to God if I would not have faith in him? I don't think I really completely understand what it is you're driving at. Maybe you're suggesting that God does exist but that you don't believe he does in order to respect him

The usual hermanuetical procession goes something like this: (exegetical students usually frown on this)
1. we will assume God exists, a priori
2. based on 1, God has made man special and distinct from the animals by giving him a soul and the ability to reason
3. based on 3, God expects us to use our brains and our ability to reason to their utmost capacity, because not to do so would be a waste and therefore (depending on your denomination) slightly blasphemous
4. since God exists and works outside the realm of conventional reason (cannot be directly observed (apart from Direct Revelation) and cannot be directly communicated with (apart from Special Revelation) and cannot be understood by mortal men (continually defies the laws of nature)) we cannot readily (or perhaps ever) be expected to have a belief in Him that stems from using our reason, and in fact seems to fly in the face of reason.
5. ergo, believing in God is unreasonable and illogical (in that it cannot be justified by reason and logic)

This is greatly simplified to fit the post. Most explanations of this take hundreds of pages.

To sum up: unless you have personally experienced Special or Direct Revelation, then a belief in God isn't faith, it's wholly unreasonable. Now, for those lucky few with Special or Direct Revelation, this doesn't really act as a "stumbling block" (as Peter puts it) but for everyone else it's a real problem.

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

For Lee and Craig,

I see what you mean, those kinds of experiences are powerful, no doubt. But what about those epiphanies implies the Judeo-Christian god?

Could it be possible that evil forces are providing you with positive experiences to shift your attention away from your "God given" desire to question and discover?

From my perspective it would be more pious (or whatever you want to call being respectful to your deity) to use those innately human qualities to their fullest extent and never cede a scrap of intellectual ground to anything less than that which is irrefutable and entirely in line with our cognitive way of thinking.

Interesting questions.

For me, Who was giving the epiphany was quite apparent. I'm not going to go into miracle stories here, but let's just say that, for me, it is quite clear that the Christian God is the true God.

How that relates to other faith's understanding of God, I don't know. And frankly, that's none of my business. They can take that up with God themselves. If there are any Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, they can feel free to chime right in as well. But I cannot speak for them.

Part two of your question is very interesting, as it relates rather closely to the story of Adam & Eve, where their attention was diverted away from God in order to taste of the fruit "of the knowledge of good and evil". i.e-Satan made an appeal to Eve's intellect to get her to disobey God,and thus the Fall.

God gave you a mind and an intellect. He also gave you a heart. Perhaps the mind isn't the best tool for knowing God?

Originally Posted by jockeys

To sum up: unless you have personally experienced Special or Direct Revelation, then a belief in God isn't faith, it's wholly unreasonable. Now, for those lucky few with Special or Direct Revelation, this doesn't really act as a "stumbling block" (as Peter puts it) but for everyone else it's a real problem.

This is absolutely true! I find that many believe in God because they were taught to without any real understanding!

To me God is clearly real! I see evidence where ever I look! I'm not certain that I understand the terms you use but I think you are describing me also!

When I was a kid of about 12 I was selling candy door to door to win a trip to disneyland. there was a lady who invited me into her home to pray for me and pray for Jesus to come into my heart, as I knew nothing of religion. I was so elated after this that I prayed that God would help me sell all my candy (silly huh?). I didn't sell another box all day and swore God to be my enemy!
Years later I met a little old Japanese lady who taught me a meditative process by which you , through your minds eye, could stand outside your own thought process and watch your thoughts go by like a stream instead of being lost in your thoughts! through this process I quickly recognized my selfish nature and my tendency to use everything around me as a justification and a distraction ( "believing" in God can be as powerful a distraction as getting high or drunk! This is also true with many other things that appear harmless on the surface.) Once I was able to step out of the entanglements of thought and just observe them, things slowly but surely became more and more clear!
When I was 5 or 6 God came to me, but I didn't understand any of this until much later in life! My faith in God is now unshakable but for me, I have a long way to go yet!

The story of Jack and the Beanstalk is a fairlytale. The story of Jonah is a prophecy.

How are they different?

In the prophecy of Jonah you have an assortment of thing readily availible in the world around us, but what happens with them is rather hard to fathom (a little pun there...). You have the sea, a boat, a man, and a whale.

The story of Jack and the Beanstalk is based on things that do not exist in this world, other than in the mind of the creator of the story (OK, bear with me here for a moment, before you jump all over me...). You have magic beans that grow up to clouds that not only Jack can walk around on, but they also support the weight of giants, geese that lay metallic eggs,and singing harps.

So is it easy to believe that the things in the prophecy of Jonah truly happened? Certainly not. Yet, it isn't so outlandish a tale that it makes use of "make believe" items. A whale is an air breathing mammal, and so there is some slim chance, that by God's will Jonah was able to survive under water for three days. (That whale was perhaps the original form of a scuba tank!)

The story of Jack and the beanstalk is one of disobedience (he was supposed to sell the family cow for cash, and got beans instead) and greed (Jack steals all he can from the giants in the clouds).

The prophecy of Jonah also is about disobedience, but also redemtion. It also prophetically points to Christ's three days in the tomb, as Jesus Himself references in Matthew 12:39.


So---in one instance is a story that CANNOT take place as it is complete fiction based upon imaginary items.
And on the other hand is a prophesy that would be quite DIFFICULT to take place, but not necessarily impossible.