Is god real?

Author: Theweakeredge

Posts

Total: 136
#91
Mopac
Mopac's avatar
Debates: 4
Posts: 8,050
3
4
7
Mopac's avatar
Mopac
3
4
7
-->
@Theweakeredge
Not for a second do I buy into your pretense that you are being reasonable. After all, I tell you what "God" means in the context of my faith, and you reject it.

My entire faith is built on this foundation. My spiritual discipline is centered on it. Everything comes from this. It is not an arbitrary thing. I am not an idolater. When I love God, I am not loving something cultural or created. I am loving The Truth. Loving The Truth brings about a different effect than simply loving any created thing.

Because your worldview is invalidated by accepting the orthodox God, you refuse to truly address my God. In addition, your worldview is refuted by the simple reality that none of the gods you reject are my God. There is no argument that stands against my God. If it was the case that an argument could stand against my God, God wouldn't be what God Is.

But it could also be the case that you do reject my God, in which case you are a nihilist, and are simply being arbitrary. After all, someone who doesn't believe in ultimate reality cannot with sincerity and any real conviction appeal to truth or reality. Rather, any and all reasoning only serves to make one's own ego their god.

If my God doesn't exist, reason itself is invalidated. That is why I will never find your sophistry convincing. Neither will I take your inability to accept what I am telling you as evidence of deficient reasoning on my part, but the natural consequence of your own free will choice to rebel against The Truth.






#92
Mopac
Mopac's avatar
Debates: 4
Posts: 8,050
3
4
7
Mopac's avatar
Mopac
3
4
7
The ancient heresy of "Gnosticism", or "know it all dipshittism" in modern English refuses to acknowledge that The Word is God. When we use The Word as a medium in creation to refer to The Uncreated, we are acknowledging the incarnation. Because the so called gnostic denies the incarnation, the gap between the Uncreated and created cannot be bridged. The consequence of this is that God cannot in any meaningful way be discussed. That God is not with us, God's grace is nowhere in creation, and there is no salvation. This pernicious heresy naturally finds its ultimate conclusion in nihilism. After all, it trivializes God. It is the spirit of anti-Christ.
Topic's author
#93
Theweakeredge
Theweakeredge's avatar
Debates: 33
Posts: 3,457
4
7
10
Theweakeredge's avatar
Theweakeredge
4
7
10
-->
@Mopac
Not only do you demonstrate exactly none of your positions, but you misunderstand mine once again. I believe in NO gods. Any god which fit the proper definition of god is one I do not believe in. 

The point where we disagree with is how we should define god and how we should apply said god to that demonstration. If you give me valid reasons to accept your god as the ultimate reality, then I will become a theist. 

So please, if you care about my salvation answer this question: Why should I apply "Ultimate Reality" or "Supreme Being" to the concept of god? 
#94
zedvictor4
zedvictor4's avatar
Debates: 22
Posts: 12,078
3
3
6
zedvictor4's avatar
zedvictor4
3
3
6
-->
@Theweakeredge
Who knows?......Mopac definitely doesn't, that's for sure.

They might as well keep saying Rhubarb, as keep saying Ultimate Reality. 
#95
Sum1hugme
Sum1hugme's avatar
Debates: 37
Posts: 1,014
4
4
9
Sum1hugme's avatar
Sum1hugme
4
4
9
-->
@Theweakeredge
I've just never encountered an argument for god that didn't have serious flaws. At this point, it feels like I've heard them all
#96
Mopac
Mopac's avatar
Debates: 4
Posts: 8,050
3
4
7
Mopac's avatar
Mopac
3
4
7
-->
@Theweakeredge
Because you will never be able to understand anythimg else if you don't.

It is stupid to arbitrarily redefine the meanings of words in an area of study simply because you would prefer the words mean something else.

Y
#97
Mopac
Mopac's avatar
Debates: 4
Posts: 8,050
3
4
7
Mopac's avatar
Mopac
3
4
7
-->
@zedvictor4

The stubborm refusal to accept the reality of what a word means is exactly the kind of thing a nihilist would do to justify themselves.

Atheists like to confuse the fact that they are nihilists. I don't debate nihilists. The heretics debate nihilists.

My approach is less confusing, and lays bare what the real issue is.


Topic's author
#98
Theweakeredge
Theweakeredge's avatar
Debates: 33
Posts: 3,457
4
7
10
Theweakeredge's avatar
Theweakeredge
4
7
10
-->
@Mopac
What you don't understand, is that we do not have an example of a god that behaves as an "ultimate reality" all examples of gods we have fall short of this definition, therefore regardless if certain regions (because no, this was not hos every singe religion defined god historically) may have defined it this way, you are redefining the word. And yes you are perfectly capable of understanding if you don't, in fact, you understand better
#99
Mopac
Mopac's avatar
Debates: 4
Posts: 8,050
3
4
7
Mopac's avatar
Mopac
3
4
7
-->
@Theweakeredge
You don't know what to look for because you are superstitious concerning God.

You don't know what we believe at all. All you can see are some of the materials we use to facilitate teaching our doctrine. Even these baffle you, because you don't know how we use them.

But this is beside the point. To say God exists is not the same thing as being a Christian.




#100
zedvictor4
zedvictor4's avatar
Debates: 22
Posts: 12,078
3
3
6
zedvictor4's avatar
zedvictor4
3
3
6
-->
@Mopac
Well "Ultimate Reality" is a TWO word term which as a specific meaning....Though that meaning doesn't  tell us what GOD is specifically.

A GOD may well be the ultimate reality, but there again the ultimate reality may well not be a GOD....It might just be BIG BANGO or a LITTLE PUFF or perhaps a hundred and one other things.
Topic's author
#101
Theweakeredge
Theweakeredge's avatar
Debates: 33
Posts: 3,457
4
7
10
Theweakeredge's avatar
Theweakeredge
4
7
10
-->
@Mopac
None of this actually addresses my point, add in straw man and gish gallop to the list of fallacies you employ
#102
Mopac
Mopac's avatar
Debates: 4
Posts: 8,050
3
4
7
Mopac's avatar
Mopac
3
4
7
-->
@zedvictor4
You want something created to call Uncreated.

If It was possible to say specifically what The Ultimate Reality is, that concept would be a created thing. It wouldn't be it.

Rather, we use a word that acts as an image of The Uncreated. When The Truth takes flesh, it becomes that Word we are using. The Truth. If we do not acknowledge in the hypostasis of this created word we are using that it acts as a witness to The Uncreated, it becomes impossible to talk about God. When God becomes incarnate, that is, takes on the flesh of creation, it has to take the form of an image. The image itself being created, but an image of The Uncreated.

If you deny the incarnation, that is, that the created Word we are using is an imagr of The Uncreated Word, you could simply dismiss every word as a created thing, ignoring The Uncreated that the word acts as a witness to. It makes language itself an arbitrary thing, because rather than seeing an image as a depiction of a prototype, you are mistaking the image for the prototype itself.

Unless you acknowledge that The Word became flesh, you don't have The Truth in you. You are coming from the position of anti-Christ. Thatbis, nihilism. It is self defeating.

#103
Mopac
Mopac's avatar
Debates: 4
Posts: 8,050
3
4
7
Mopac's avatar
Mopac
3
4
7
-->
@Theweakeredge
Believe what you want, but I know you have adopted the position of a fool who has no valid pretense of being reasonable.

Topic's author
#104
Theweakeredge
Theweakeredge's avatar
Debates: 33
Posts: 3,457
4
7
10
Theweakeredge's avatar
Theweakeredge
4
7
10
-->
@Mopac
Fool according to your definition, if I was feeling I could easily deflect it back at you, however, I don't think I'll do that, instead, I'll just end this convo here. You have failed and refused to answer my question, failed to meet my criticisms, failed to counter my rebukes and refutations, and are generally being fallacious. 

If one wants proof for these claims essentially:

READ THE TOPIC

No really, after a while, Mopac just starts dismissing my arguments without valid criticism (sometimes none at all), so.... yeah, I feel like this conversation isn't getting anywhere, and is going in circles and circles. If you have a new argument perhaps that would interesting to bring up, but... right now, it seems like the same repetition of the same fallacious position. 
#105
Mopac
Mopac's avatar
Debates: 4
Posts: 8,050
3
4
7
Mopac's avatar
Mopac
3
4
7
-->
@Theweakeredge
You have no pretense of a ground to stand on. Your many words are a clanging gong. 

You are right, this conversation will go nowhere. Because I am not compromising to your folly. The only way this conversation will go anywhere is if you start believing me when I tell you what we believe instead of arrogantly telling me what I believe.

My God is the Ultimate Reality. Exactly what that means. Without accepting this, you will keeping spinning around in madness.

Topic's author
#106
Theweakeredge
Theweakeredge's avatar
Debates: 33
Posts: 3,457
4
7
10
Theweakeredge's avatar
Theweakeredge
4
7
10
-->
@Mopac
Bunk
#107
Mopac
Mopac's avatar
Debates: 4
Posts: 8,050
3
4
7
Mopac's avatar
Mopac
3
4
7
-->
@Theweakeredge
If you refuse to use the technical language of my theology in the sense of what its intended meaning is, you can not understand anything.


This is common sense.

You don't know anything, so you would get more if you acted like it.
Topic's author
#108
Theweakeredge
Theweakeredge's avatar
Debates: 33
Posts: 3,457
4
7
10
Theweakeredge's avatar
Theweakeredge
4
7
10
-->
@Mopac
Even if I were to accept the definition - you would have to prove any god would actually be the ultimate reality - don't try to shift something to where it's not, as the one making the claim you must demonstrate it with evidence, not the opposite

bunk
#109
Mopac
Mopac's avatar
Debates: 4
Posts: 8,050
3
4
7
Mopac's avatar
Mopac
3
4
7
-->
@Theweakeredge
I am not talking about a god, I am talking about God.

What you are asking besides is unreasonable, because I can't show you anything else until you accept what is meant by God. After that, I can show you how our religion is based on this understanding. I can't do so beforehand. As long as you keep calling a fish a tree, I can't show you anything. You are going to have to stop insisting the tree is a fish, and accept that I am talking about a tree, not a fish.


Topic's author
#110
Theweakeredge
Theweakeredge's avatar
Debates: 33
Posts: 3,457
4
7
10
Theweakeredge's avatar
Theweakeredge
4
7
10
-->
@Mopac
You have to show me that I should accept that definition - which is made not of philosophic grounds, but of usage by a particular theology, and is therefore a claim one must demonstrate.

Bunk
#111
Mopac
Mopac's avatar
Debates: 4
Posts: 8,050
3
4
7
Mopac's avatar
Mopac
3
4
7
-->
@Theweakeredge
It's  very simple.

You can reject this understanding and not understand what I am talking about 

Or

You can accept this understanding and open up the possibility of understanding what I am talking about.



#112
Mopac
Mopac's avatar
Debates: 4
Posts: 8,050
3
4
7
Mopac's avatar
Mopac
3
4
7
-->
@Theweakeredge
The fact that no delusion can override The Truth should be proof enough that God is The Truth.

What is greater than The Truth? Everything is is contingent on The Truth. The Truth has no contingency.

The Ultimate Reality is literally the only fulfillment of what God must be. For the simple reasons I stated. 

The issue here is not whether a conception of God is God. I do not claim a conception of God is God. You want to equate God with a conception, which is not what I believe. Nor is it what the church believes. 

If you believed, even in charity for love of truth, I could show you how our discipline is centered on loving The Truth. All the fruits of the spirit, the spirit of truth, are that because they are the natural consequence of loving The Truth as God rather than mistaking a creature for God.

Idolatry to us is taking anything else other than The Truth as God. From our worldview, someone who says they have no God or gods is not aware of the influences, passions, and forces that have dominion over their life. Whether you acknowledge gods or not, gravity ties you to the earth. Your love of pleasure makes you a servant of it. Your  love of self makes your ego your god.

Everyone has gods. Yet these gods are ultimately unreal, they are illusions. They are partially real, but they are still creatures. Demons even. The One True Godnis reality in the truest sense of the word, and it is this God that gives existence even to illusory things. Without an ultimate reality, nothing could exist. The fsct that you are having an experience at all is proof that there is some form of existence.

There is reality as it appears to be by observation and postulation. Then there is reality as it Truly Is. The God I speak of is Reality as it Truly Is.

Surely belief in The Truth as God is more noble than belief in any god or even the denial of gods.


#113
FLRW
FLRW's avatar
Debates: 0
Posts: 6,611
3
4
8
FLRW's avatar
FLRW
3
4
8
This is the Truth, The average across a large number of historical studies suggests that in the past around one-quarter of infants died in their first year of life and around half of all children died before they reached the end of puberty. Humans couldn't believe we lived in such a poorly designed world so they invented the concept of a loving God that would give their dead children eternal life. Intelligent people now realize this ( Einstein: “The word 'God' is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses. Hawking: — "It's my view that the simplest explanation is that there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate.") It is intelligent man that has made life livable and in a thousand years there will be no organized religions and no Jim Jones's.
#114
Jarrett_Ludolph
Jarrett_Ludolph's avatar
Debates: 4
Posts: 52
0
0
7
Jarrett_Ludolph's avatar
Jarrett_Ludolph
0
0
7
"I do not know if God exists, we do not have enough information  to make any sort of conclusion on the matter" - the agnostic
#115
EtrnlVw
EtrnlVw's avatar
Debates: 0
Posts: 2,869
3
3
5
EtrnlVw's avatar
EtrnlVw
3
3
5
-->
@Jarrett_Ludolph
"I do not know if God exists, we do not have enough information  to make any sort of conclusion on the matter" - the agnostic

Lol very modest of you but we have more than enough information. That is a fact. 
#116
Jarrett_Ludolph
Jarrett_Ludolph's avatar
Debates: 4
Posts: 52
0
0
7
Jarrett_Ludolph's avatar
Jarrett_Ludolph
0
0
7
-->
@EtrnlVw
My statement was more of a summary of my own point of view, it was not a fact that all people have to accept. if you believe the evidence brings you to a specific conclusion, then you should follow it there.
#117
EtrnlVw
EtrnlVw's avatar
Debates: 0
Posts: 2,869
3
3
5
EtrnlVw's avatar
EtrnlVw
3
3
5
-->
@FLRW
This is the Truth, The average across a large number of historical studies suggests that in the past around one-quarter of infants died in their first year of life and around half of all children died before they reached the end of puberty.

This physical world is a cause and effect reality and within the physical world there will never be perfection. On top of that it is completely irrelevant to the soul of any individual which is neither imperfect nor destroyed. Physical bodies come and go, and many times they fall under consequence to the imperfections of cause and effect in this physical experience.

Humans couldn't believe we lived in such a poorly designed world so they invented the concept of a loving God that would give their dead children eternal life.

Lol, not really that is a poorly designed assumption on anyone's part who believes that. Eternal life isn't a concept to produce hope, it is the very implications and reality of God and the soul. It doesn't mater what anyone wants, that's simply the nature of God.

Intelligent people now realize this ( Einstein: “The word 'God' is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses. Hawking: — "It's my view that the simplest explanation is that there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate.")

It isn't intelligence to deny the existence of God, it's an uneducated and misguided opinion. One that usually produces arrogance and the false pretense that they have become intelligent lol.

It is intelligent man that has made life livable and in a thousand years there will be no organized religions and no Jim Jones's.

We don't need organized religion to propose a Creator, religion is the products of mans observations of that reality. God exists independent of that.

#118
EtrnlVw
EtrnlVw's avatar
Debates: 0
Posts: 2,869
3
3
5
EtrnlVw's avatar
EtrnlVw
3
3
5
-->
@Jarrett_Ludolph
My statement was more of a summary of my own point of view, it was not a fact that all people have to accept. if you believe the evidence brings you to a specific conclusion, then you should follow it there.

What I'm getting at is how you come to such a conclusion and believe it. I believe you think that, but why?
#119
EtrnlVw
EtrnlVw's avatar
Debates: 0
Posts: 2,869
3
3
5
EtrnlVw's avatar
EtrnlVw
3
3
5
-->
@Theweakeredge
Present your case for any God's existence 

Without the existence of God you must account for the processes of our universe and why they occur, meaning articulate how inanimate forces begin to produce intelligent productions on their own will. 
Now, I can start by presenting my own premise but before I get to that I'll have you consider your own assumption about our world. That's just to get you thinking about what and why you believe what you do without any real objection to it. And that the alternative might just be a better proposition. 

Next, I can lay out that there really are only two options available in regards to the existence of the universe just to make clear how simplistic this really is. Either God created it, or God didn't. This means that either Theism is true or materialism/atheism is true, and if I can get you to see that materialism is an absurd conclusion I have a shot at getting you to consider the only other option. 

I can do that by correlating the processes of our universe with intelligence, or correlating productions with a producer, that construction is always associated with a constructor. To do that I have to convince you that inanimate materials cannot begin to generate desired outcomes and intelligent beings and I do that simply through commonsense. We know through our own world observations mind and thought (agency) are always associated with processes and productions. To understand the mechanisms involved in the manufacturing of something there first needs to be foreknowledge, and so this would indicate very convincingly that Agency was involved in the production of our universe. 

We know that inanimate materials don't produce things by themselves, materials are gathered and utilized as a means to produce a desired outcome first through a user, by thought and mind (intelligence). Foreknowledge is necessary to understand how a process should begin and unfold, what materials are needed and to achieve a particular product or result. To believe the alternative is to accept an absurdity, something that is not believable. 
I understand that a person becomes accustom to a certain way of thinking and what they believe, which is why I would want to get them really thinking about what they have accepted as true. 
Only one of two options is true, only one fits with reality as we know it. I would argue for Theism obviously as being the superior option. 
#120
zedvictor4
zedvictor4's avatar
Debates: 22
Posts: 12,078
3
3
6
zedvictor4's avatar
zedvictor4
3
3
6
-->
@Mopac
So....... You fully acknowledge that you have no idea what the Ultimate Reality is.

Then we agree.

So what's the point of a specific religion then?.......When you're fully aware that you are likely to be farting in the wind. ( Pardon the expression, but it makes the point succinctly)