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@Mopac
Why doubt?
How can I really be sure of anything? Especially when there is no solid proof?
How are you convinced that God is the Ultimate Reality?
I'm not convinced - why are you?
Posts
Total:
165
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@janesix
No problem, you can have a look at these if you wish...
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@janesix
How are you convinced of anything?
Clearly you know how to use language. That is what the concept means. I can show you dictionary definitions. I can quote theologians from over a thousand years ago.
You don't have trouble believing a stone is a rock do you?
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@bsh1
That's what I was hoping you would say, you've scuttled your own argument.
I don't disagree it's about semantics, but not for the reason you think.
You said it yourself...
If you define God as possessing the property of originationSimilarly, if gnomes possessed the property of origination
You see, it's all about how we define those things, whether we define God as possessing certain traits or gnomes, it matters not, they're just labels we've created to define things that have never been shown to exist. So, it's obviously a wash, you can no more consider one over the other as having an more or less relevance beyond ones empty definitions, since they each possess exactly the same properties as the others; invisible, undetectable and indistinguishable from the non-existent.
It's all arbitrary is what I get from the postmodern atheist viewpoint. The shamans who control our language construct our world. Mask the truth in muddled confusion.
Yet what does Ultimate Reality mean?
It means something that is clearly above definition.
The Spirit of what this means is The Truth. Names that may be named may not be eternal, but The Ultimate Reality, what it truly is is eternal.
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@SkepticalOne
hi SkepticalOne,
What a great question.
I think that the existence of something is a complex one. Are we talking about whether they exist as concepts? If that is the case, then each of the above exist to some extent. After all, if the concept of dragons is not a valid existence, then the story of the Hobbit becomes nonsense. What I mean by that is not that the story of the Hobbit is true or in any sense real but that the mystery attached to the novel loses its gravitas. Novels and stories use the imagination to bring these concepts into existence.
Are we talking of abstract things too? Things such as love, or hate? Do these intangible concepts exist or are they simply words to describe something meta-physical? Are they like space?
Personally, I think the existence of God is necessary for the existence of everything else. None of the other concepts mentioned above or indeed that include concrete matters such as humanity is or claims to be the cause of all other things. God does make this claim and it is a significant one.
I have never seen any of these other things - and for that matter I have never seen God either. But like the wind, which I also cannot see but know exists, because of the effects it has on places it has been, so too with God. I have seen lives changed by the reality of God. People who did not believe in one moment and then the next they did without any apparent intervening event that I could appreciate. I have seen many prayers answered in respect of many different matters which would almost seem miraculous otherwise. I think the impact of God in changing lives is extraordinary and powerful evidence of God's existence. I don't really believe in fairies or the other things mentioned above, but nor do I see the impact upon them in our world except by way of movies, stories, and concept.
I am sure this is not enough to persuade someone else, but for me it is quite compelling in its own way.
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@Goldtop
That post is laughable. That math is invisible and undetectable does not mean it does not exist beyond its definition, that it cannot be accurately defined, and that it is irrelevant. What we are talking about here are the concepts of God and gnomes. It matters not whether they exist or not in reality; that they are known concepts is sufficient to question whether they do exist and thus sufficient to ground the relevance of discussing them.You see, it's all about how we define those things, whether we define God as possessing certain traits or gnomes, it matters not, they're just labels we've created to define things that have never been shown to exist. So, it's obviously a wash, you can no more consider one over the other as having an more or less relevance beyond ones empty definitions, since they each possess exactly the same properties as the others; invisible, undetectable and indistinguishable from the non-existent.
But what you're doing here is shifting the goalposts. You are moving the question beyond "why might God's existence be justifiable while not a gnome's" to "why should we even talk about God." Those are very different questions, which require their own threads to really be explored fully. Whether discussing God is merely an academic exercise of definitions or a meaningful investigation of our world, the argument I made endures unrefuted, since neither of those means of discourse actually affect my argument in any way.
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@bsh1
It matters not whether they exist or not in reality; that they are known concepts is sufficient
You're absolutely right, I couldn't possibly have any bearing on a discussion based on navel gazing. My bad. Carry on.
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@Goldtop
I think the question of whether it is even worth talking about God's existence deserves its own thread, as I indicated above. Its a worthwhile question in its own right, but it's not really a genuinely responsive reply to my argument or to the OP.
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@Mopac
You didn't answer my question.
How are you convinced that God is the Ultimate Reality?
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@janesix
Because that is what the concept means.
I figured it out on my own by reading scripture. It was confirmed by theological tradition. It was confirmed by those better educated than me. It's in the dictionary.
And besides that, even if I didn't have a cloud of witnesses backing me up, I simply know that there is absolutely nothing else that isnworthy of even being called God.
But how are you convinced that the Earth is a planet?
It takes just as much faith or even more to believe that then it does for me, who simply has to accept the proper understanding of a concept that is thousands of years old and universal.
But God is bigger than the concept. The concept is The Word. The son to the father. It is by the spirit of truth that I believe and know God through the image of God.
Father, Son, Holy Ghost again
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@Mopac
But how are you convinced that the Earth is a planet?
I'm not.
I'm not convinced of much.
Anyway, than k you for answering my question.
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@janesix
Yet, your epistemological black hole doesn't keep you from using the English language.
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@Mopac
I don't know what that's supposed to mean.
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@janesix
You know how to read and write English.
The word God means
" capitalized : the supreme or ultimate reality"
Thats what Merriam-webster says.
What more evidence do you need? This is the meaning of the word.
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@Mopac
I don't base my beliefs on dictionary entries.
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@janesix
Do you accept that The Ultimate Reality exists, even though you don't acknowledge this as God?
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@Mopac
Sure.
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@janesix
Then you fulfill the scripture which reads...
"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen."
You know what God is, but you won't call it God. That's where we at.
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@Mopac
No, I don't know what God is. I can make guesses, but they are only guesses.
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@bsh1
I'm not too impressed by arguments from definition especially when the definition seems to be arbitrary rather than based on evidence.
Sure, we can define god as the originator of existence, but what evidence validates that definition? By that reasoning, gnomes could be defined in the same way and we are still no closer to establishing they exist. And that is what the OP probes.
Also, I think it should be noted that existence having an origin doesn't demand agency. Assuming an origin, the best we can currently say is we don't know what caused it or that it was supernatural in any way.
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@SkepticalOne
That begs the question. In order to prove that God exists, we must first have an idea of what God is. In order to have an idea of what God is, you're saying, we must first prove that God exists (such that we have evidence about God). This kind of circular logic is irrational. Rather, it makes sense to first define God and then to attempt to find evidence that establishes that such an entity exists or does not exist.I'm not too impressed by arguments from definition especially when the definition seems to be arbitrary rather than based on evidence.
Words are signs which correspond to things. The word "math" is a sign which corresponds to a particular concept, but, the word "math" itself has no intrinsic meaning other than the one we give it. Similarly, the word "God" does not itself have any intrinsic meaning other than the one we give it, and so no evidence is needed in order for it to have meaning. All words and concepts are, to one degree or another, arbitrarily defined based on common usage rather than by any fixed, logical system.
This element of your reply seems more like an attempt to redirect from a plausible solution to your problem to a "definitional debates are unfun" discussion. I'd prefer you address the substance of my post instead.
gnomes could be defined in the same way and we are still no closer to establishing they exist.
Then they would be gods and we would be closer to establishing their existence for the same reason that that definition offers the opportunity to demonstrate God's existence. As I said earlier: "If you define God as possessing the property of origination, then it would be semantically impossible for any being to predate God. Similarly, if gnomes possessed the property of origination, then they would be gods and could be shown to exist via that property."
I think it should be noted that existence having an origin doesn't demand agency
I am not necessarily sure that the idea of God requires agency. Consider, for a moment, Spinoza's interpretation of God. That said, I think the origin of everything implies some degree of agency, for something must have caused everything to exist. Without a will urging things along, nothing could have come to exist, since there would be no materials in non-existence capable of reacting to create existence in the first place.
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@bsh1
That begs the question. In order to prove that God exists, we must first have an idea of what God is. In order to have an idea of what God is, you're saying, we must first prove that God exists (such that we have evidence about God). This kind of circular logic is irrational. Rather, it makes sense to first define God and then to attempt to find evidence that establishes that such an entity exists or does not exist.
Unfortunately, the is the same reverse engineered method cranks and crackpots use when they come up with their far-fetched hypotheses. We can't have an idea of what God is without some form of reference. There are none available. So yes, as I said before and what Skep is saying now is that we need some evidence in order to have some idea about God. So far, no evidence. It's all just navel gazing.
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@Mopac
"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven "
What is heaven? Where is heaven?
It makes sense that we must first define the Jabberwock and then go out and find evidence to support it's existence.
Things just don't work this way.
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@Goldtop
With any unknown potentiality, even Jabberwocks, we must first define it and then go out in search of it. It's not precisely different from, for example, Columbus's assumption that the world was circular and then going out to prove his supposition true. Jabberwocks, just like unicorns, cannot definitively be shown not to exist unless that can be shown analytically (that is, by appeal to definitions).
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@Goldtop
That's only partially true. In some sense we may not be able to genuinely appreciate such an entity as it is, but that does not prevent us from sketching it out. I knew what a lion was before I saw it, just from definitions, but I only truly appreciated its majesty once I saw it.We can't have an idea of what God is without some form of reference. There are none available.
Interestingly, your comment does nothing to refute the circularity of your argument.
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@bsh1
In some sense we may not be able to genuinely appreciate such an entity as it is, but that does not prevent us from sketching it out. I knew what a lion was before I saw it, just from definitions, but I only truly appreciated its majesty once I saw it.
Since you've already provided the analogy of a lion, let's build on that. We didn't define "lion" and then look for a beast to match our definition. The beast existed first and we called it "lion". As we have had more observations of this beast our definition has been refined. I don't seen how the definition for "god" came to be from observations.
It seems lack of observation is primarily responsible for how this word has been defined. We don't know there to be anything not contingent on material and we don't know there to be anything supernatural, yet the definition for god assumes immaterial and supernatural are meaningful descriptions AND responsible for the natural material world. Colloquially, god is understood to be much more than this (a person with specific cognition and emotionality) again, on no observation.
I'm sympathetic to Spinoza's and Einstein's god, but most people are not thinking of this when they utter the word "god". I accept I should have been more clear on this in the OP.
What it really comes down to is that atheists must change what God is in order to satisfy their pride, because recanting their foolish position would be an admission of being wrong.
You can argue what God is and isn't, but arguing about the existence of God is patently foolish.
Atheists want God to be a superstition rather than The Truth. Yet, in doing so, they make it very clear what their position actually means.
Atheism is the denial of reality and truth. It stands to reason that all atheist arguments are deception, and the sinple inability to recognize God as being what God is happens to be a reflection of this.
If you believe that The Ultimate Reality exists, you believe in God whether or not you choose to call this God, because that is what the concept means. To deny this is obnoxious and WRONG. The atheists argument is to redefine language in order to make their position seem right. That is why they argue over the meanings of words.
There is no debate over what God means as far as I'm concerned. To compromise on this is to lose everything. Besides that, this is the God I believe. All the atheist can do is argue over gods I don't believe, because even they know that there is no argument against The Ultimate Reality. All they can do is madly fumble over the meanings of words.
Yet even scripture teaches, the letter killeth but the spirit bringeth life.
Atheists don't really want to talk about God, because they know it makes their position stupid.
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@SkepticalOne
Your post doesn't address my specific reply to you, which I think would better illuminate the subject. That is because you are lifting the lion example out of the specific context in which I used it, and which is, to some extent, intellectually troublesome. In my reply to you, I said:
That begs the question. In order to prove that God exists, we must first have an idea of what God is. In order to have an idea of what God is, you're saying, we must first prove that God exists (such that we have evidence about God). This kind of circular logic is irrational. Rather, it makes sense to first define God and then to attempt to find evidence that establishes that such an entity exists or does not exist.Words are signs which correspond to things. The word "math" is a sign which corresponds to a particular concept, but, the word "math" itself has no intrinsic meaning other than the one we give it. Similarly, the word "God" does not itself have any intrinsic meaning other than the one we give it, and so no evidence is needed in order for it to have meaning. All words and concepts are, to one degree or another, arbitrarily defined based on common usage rather than by any fixed, logical system.
In cases where something is not known to exist (likely from an absence of observations or observations which are indistinct or possibly unrelated) it begs the question to demand that the definitions of those things be based in observations, since no observations exist which are clearly of that thing. Indeed, in some case, no observations may exist at all. That creates the circular fallacy which I identified in the above post.
Thus, using the lion example out of context as you have makes no sense here, because it just isn't analogous. We have observations about lions. We have no observations about God or gnomes. GIMPs and WIMPs--theorized particles which contribute to dark matter--have never been observed. We're not even sure they're real. But that doesn't prevent us from defining them, at least in a broad sense. You're fallacy here is comparing the unlike (the lion) to the like (God) when you should be comparing the like (potential phenomena) to like (God).
That being said, it is possible perhaps to use observation to theorize about god. The KCA is based on the observation that all things have a cause, so why shouldn't existence? Similarly, there are many people who would claim to have had religious experiences through which they have come to know of God's existence. Whether you believe them frauds or not, and I'd personally tend to be skeptical of their claims, I don't think it is fair to say that our observational knowledge does not, perhaps, suggest a God when viewed from a particular lens.