Originally posted by JimT:
Thank you for your post and my best wishes to you.
![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif)
quote:Here's my argument:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Deism and pantheism are no more rational than orthodox Christianity. I accept deism and pantheism are both more reasonable in RW's mind. However, the existence of God can't be objectively proven. Given that, all speculation about the nature of God is equally subjective. Believing in God means accepting some things by faith and working from there. Objectivity in theology is not possible. All we can hope for is internal consistency.
quote:I would agree. If we can't prove the existence of God, we can't say anything about the nature of God. To me, this makes it impossible to judge which truth claims about God are more rational than others.
originally posted by Radical Whig:
(1) Yes, the existence of God cannot, at the present state of our knowledge, be objectively proven.
quote:To me it does mean all speculation about God is equally subjective. What God claims can be refuted? What do we know about God? Nothing. If we don't know anything about God, then it is impossible to say something is logically inconsistent with what we know.
originally posted by Radical Whig:
(2) However, this does not mean that all speculation about God is equally subjective. There are God-claims which can be refuted, because they logically inconsistent and/or incompatible with what we do know.
quote:Yes, it is possible to do that. I'm OK with that. Nature tells me nothing about God. It doesn't tell even tell me if God exists or not. Your assumption appears to be that the sciences can tell us something about God. I reject that.
originally posted by Radical Whig:
(3) Believing in God is not about "accepting some things by faith and working from there" - because it would be possible, on faith, to start from any assumption, no matter how absurd and unsubstantiated - and we are back to invisible pink unicorns; rather, it is about "accepting nature as we find it, and working from there".
quote:No, it isn't. Nothing that we know is logically inconsistent with Theism. I'm not even sure what you think we know objectively that has any bearing on the nature of God. You think Theism is a bunch of nonsense. I have the same view about Deism and the rest. Usually, the God of such philosophical systems serve as a Kantian placeholder to give weight to the attached ethical system.
originally posted by Radical Whig:
(4) A theistic God, particularly the Christian, trinitarian God, is both logically inconsistent and incompatible with what we do know. (The only way to get around this is to get into all sorts of epicycluar nonsense about, for exaple, "accidents" and "substance" etc.)
quote:If you see a God of the Gaps as a good thing, I guess that is important. However, a Deistic God doesn't function any better as a God of the Gaps than a Theistic God. My beliefs about God don't change with every edition of Science magazine.
originally posted by Radical Whig:
(5) A deistic / pantheistic God is not logically inconsistent or incompatible with what we do know - it fits into the Gaps.
quote:I'm not convinced.
originally posted by Radical Whig:
(6) Therefore, it is reasonable to believe in a deistic or pantheistic God, but not reasonable to believe in a trintiarian theistic God.
To me, this makes perfect sense.
quote:False. I will quote myself from the parent thread to save time:
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
(1) Yes, the existence of God cannot, at the present state of our knowledge, be objectively proven.
quote:It is trivially true that some God-arguments might be worse than others by logic or knowledge. However, it is false that all God-talk is subjective speculation. Furthermore, taking this false position means that one ends up with very little room for in fact showing the falsehood of God-talk. Subjective speculation is difficult to attack at the best of times, but where it talks about something as difficult to talk about as God, it largely is immune to argument.
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
(2) However, this does not mean that all speculation about God is equally subjective. There are God-claims which can be refuted, because they logically inconsistent and/or incompatible with what we do know.
quote:False. The incompatibility of assumptions based on faith with known truths can either be shown or not. It matters not at all whether one believes to have abstracted these from nature first. Invisible pink unicorns are not doing any of the conceptual work that ideas about God are meant to do, metaphysical and otherwise, hence mentioning them in one breath is simply a category error. At any rate, truth cannot contradict truth, so it may be a wise strategy to begin from known truth, but one may also end there and make consistency checks.
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
(3) Believing in God is not about "accepting some things by faith and working from there" - because it would be possible, on faith, to start from any assumption, no matter how absurd and unsubstantiated - and we are back to invisible pink unicorns; rather, it is about "accepting nature as we find it, and working from there".
quote:This is not merely false, it is either arrogant or ignorant, or both. The likelihood that the largest theological system humanity has ever created, under constant development for two millennia both by stringent exploration from the inside and incessant attacks from the outside, will blow over by being found "epicircular nonsense" is nil. It is possible that Christianity is false, but he who thinks that he can here and now show it should take a long look in the mirror and ask himself: Do I really feel genius today?
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
(4) A theistic God, particularly the Christian, trinitarian God, is both logically inconsistent and incompatible with what we do know. (The only way to get around this is to get into all sorts of epicycluar nonsense about, for exaple, "accidents" and "substance" etc.)
quote:A deistic God is likely metaphysically safe, though of course literally hopeless (and therefore deeply unpopular). A pantheon is however possible to disprove intellectually, as was well known in the ancient world. St Augustine spends some time in the City of God attacking the pantheon of the philosophers, which basically used folk religion as arbitrary markers for a more viable, and hence more monotheist, system. (For the dumb "Jupiter" is really the Jupiter of myth, for the smart "Jupiter" is a label for the principle of creation, etc.)
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
(5) A deistic / pantheistic God is not logically inconsistent or incompatible with what we do know - it fits into the Gaps.
quote:Because your reasoning as laid out here is based on falsehoods. Furthermore, I do not believe for a minute that you actually arrived at your belief by this route. This list looks very much like justification after the fact. Now, the deist god is quite interesting and perhaps a good discussion could be had if you were to say something positive about that rather than trying to slam other beliefs as the only motivation why you have yours.
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
(6) Therefore, it is reasonable to believe in a deistic or pantheistic God, but not reasonable to believe in a trintiarian theistic God. To me, this makes perfect sense. Why not?
quote:Hmmmm ...
Originally posted by IngoB:
The likelihood that the largest theological system humanity has ever created, under constant development for two millennia both by stringent exploration from the inside and incessant attacks from the outside, will blow over by being found "epicircular nonsense" is nil.
quote:We are not talking political power here. Great systems of thought and culture may fade away from cultural conscience over long stretches of time. But in order to achieve greatness in the first place they must be strong and resilient systems. You may for example not be particularly familiar with Stoicism. But it would be foolish (ignorant and arrogant, from both a historical and philosophical perspective) to therefore dismiss the Stoics. Likewise, I believe that Buddhism is fundamentally flawed. However, it would be foolish (ignorant and arrogant) for me to just dismiss Buddhism. Buddhism has achieved greatness and therefore simply cannot be a push-over. And this means in practice that if one is interested at all in such past or alien greatness, one necessarily will find something there that is not easily ignored. Dogen's Shobogenzo, for example, is a work I have great respect for.
Originally posted by Boogie:
This kind of safety and certainty were felt by all the past great empires and dynasties, were they not? Could belief systems like Christianity be immune from such sudden change?
quote:The existence of God can be ‘known objectively and with certainty’ if that God is the concept of god, and if that knowledge is fundamentally metaphysical. Well, great. In precisely the same way, the existence of flying pigs can be known objectively and with certainty.
Originally posted by IngoB:
...the existence of God can be known, objectively and with certainty.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
quote:Sure. And no doubt Future Mankind shall similarly admire the art of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the architecture of Chartres Cathedral, as similarly important world heritage sites. So what? Is Ra supposed to be real, then?
Originally posted by IngoB:
One might just as well gaze onto the great pyramids of Egypt and declare them to be heaps of rubble.
quote:False. You are incapable of producing even a single metaphysical proof of the existence of flying pigs. Prove me wrong if you can. However, I can re-produce a dozen metaphysical proofs for the existence of God, and in fact have produced one of my own on SoF recently (not entirely original, but not entirely a copy of previous arguments either). Furthermore, that not all aspects of the Christian God can be proven metaphysically may be of concern if one is in the business of choosing a particular god to believe in. However, if one is rejecting all gods or asserting that we cannot know whether any god exists, then that it entirely irrelevant.
Originally posted by Yorick:
The existence of God can be ‘known objectively and with certainty’ if that God is the concept of god, and if that knowledge is fundamentally metaphysical. Well, great. In precisely the same way, the existence of flying pigs can be known objectively and with certainty.
quote:Firstly, this part was not an argument for or against the truth, reality or existence of anything. It was an argument against the facile dismissal of past or alien human greatness. Humanity is not that easy to sway, actually, and what has held great sway deserves being taken seriously - no matter how good, bad or ugly great it was, and no matter how remote it may seem from where we are now. Secondly, the example of the pyramids was to illustrate the ignorance and arrogance of limiting one's judgement of past achievements to contemporary values and concerns. It was not arguing from the pyramids to Egyptian religion, or whatever. Thirdly, neither is Christianity as a system of thought and culture reducible to merely producing great art (though it does) nor is great art reducible in its effects to aesthetic admiration (though it often induces that). It is particularly absurd to mention Michelangelo's work in the Sistine chapel in this regard, because that art is basically about making a philosophical / theological statement (whether it is actually orthodox Christian is a different matter).
Originally posted by Yorick:
Sure. And no doubt Future Mankind shall similarly admire the art of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the architecture of Chartres Cathedral, as similarly important world heritage sites. So what? Is Ra supposed to be real, then?
quote:Hi IngoB, it has been a long, long time. I've always been interested in your insistence on "objective" in matters that most here describe as "subjective", including me.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Furthermore, the existence of God can be known, objectively and with certainty. Only two caveats apply: Firstly, the God we are talking about there is that which "all men speak of as God", and therefore necessarily stripped of distinguishing marks. It is not the God of Christianity, but of metaphysics.
quote:In other words, we know, objectively that there is a metaphysical God, because atheists say there isn't a real one. How else could they say that there isn't a real one if they don't have a picture of what they understand others to be saying the real one is?
the existence of God can be known, objectively and with certainty.
quote:I agree.
Originally posted by IngoB
Invisible pink unicorns are not doing any of the conceptual work that ideas about God are meant to do, metaphysical and otherwise, hence mentioning them in one breath is simply a category error.
quote:Such as?
Originally posted by Radical Whig
There are God-claims which can be refuted, because they logically inconsistent and/or incompatible with what we do know.
quote:I agree with this, EE, and it is nice to meet you. I'm an infrequent visitor these days...just think of me as hatless with more science and less clarity of speech.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:I agree.
Originally posted by IngoB
Invisible pink unicorns are not doing any of the conceptual work that ideas about God are meant to do, metaphysical and otherwise, hence mentioning them in one breath is simply a category error.
A favourite technique of those who attack Christian theism, as well as theism in general, is what I call 'caricature by association with an accepted absurdity'. Hence we read about 'pink unicorns', 'invisible pink unicorns', 'pigs that fly', 'orbiting teapots', 'flying spaghetti monsters', and on it goes ad nauseam.
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quote:Is your point that we don't see each other as "objects that we know" but as "people that we know" and only if we see each other as "objects that we know" would we then also see God as an "object that we know," to be disposed of like any object?
Originally posted by AberVicar:
God, as understood in the majority of faiths, is known in a way consistent with the way in which we know each other.
...
Only when you have excluded every aspect of interpersonal relationship in your life will you be able convincingly to posit God as an object - and then you can put God into a convenient box and leave him to die, or bring him out on special occasions.
quote:No, though you make a valid and interesting point with regards to atheists needing at least a vague metaphysical conception of what they deny the existence of. Thus in fact atheists are incapable of rejecting metaphysics entirely. ... I like it, I think one can get quite some mileage out of that one. However, it probably just goes to show that the true atheists are not the atheists, but the apathetics.
Originally posted by JimT:
Am I even close?
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
To me it does mean all speculation about God is equally subjective. What God claims can be refuted? What do we know about God? Nothing. If we don't know anything about God, then it is impossible to say something is logically inconsistent with what we know.
quote:Nature tells you lots of useful things about God. Nature tells us things that snakes don't talk, that the first woman wasn't created from a rib, and that people don't just suddenly turn to pillars of salt: and all that tells us something important about God - that the God which exists is not the God of the Old Testament. Of course, it is possible to get out of that one by adopting a more liberal or catholic interpretation of Scripture, but the fact remains that the Old Testament speaks of a God who shows or hides his face, who wrestles, who gets angry, and who generally acts like a tribal patriarch: that the other way in which nature teaches us about God - it teaches us about ourselves, and our need for father-figures which can easily be projected, as a mis-firing of our imaginative, pattern-spotting, and socially-orientated brains, into the invention of personalistic gods. The study of nature, in its broadest sense, indicates, one way or the other, that the God that exists is not Bible-God (and that's before we even get into the virgin birth, resurrection, and other oddities which nature tells us cannot be from God, but are plainly the stories of men). Also, nature tells us that a cracker is still a cracker, even after a man in a dress has done his magical incantations over it.
Nature tells me nothing about God. It doesn't tell even tell me if God exists or not. Your assumption appears to be that the sciences can tell us something about God. I reject that.
quote:
Nothing that we know is logically inconsistent with Theism. I'm not even sure what you think we know objectively that has any bearing on the nature of God. You think Theism is a bunch of nonsense. I have the same view about Deism and the rest.
quote:Isn't that one of the main sociological functions of all gods? I don't see how Bible-God / Wafer-God is immune from that charge.
Usually, the God of such philosophical systems serve as a Kantian placeholder to give weight to the attached ethical system.
quote:Perhaps I had two experiences somwhat along the lines you describe. Once, when I had tried for perfection in selecting and executing a certain task but succeeded only in achieving the opposite of my intended course of action, and another time when I first encountered the Western US Rocky Mountain Wilderness.
Originally posted by IngoB:
What I'm perhaps trying to say here is that the rational mind must chant the Heart Sutra mantra in its own voice: Gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā. ("Gone, Gone, Gone beyond, Gone utterly beyond, Enlightenment, Rejoice.") Or it fails rationality. I don't think that such talk is helpful for many, but I think it might be for you...
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Nothing that we know is logically inconsistent with Theism. I'm not even sure what you think we know objectively that has any bearing on the nature of God. You think Theism is a bunch of nonsense. I have the same view about Deism and the rest.
quote:JimT. Much more stitched up here, I'm afraid, but Ton DIEU sera mon Dieu. Godspeed.
Originally posted by JimT:
Thank you for your post and my best wishes to you.
![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif)
quote:It is possible to adapt a more liberal or catholic interpretation of scripture which I do. However, you haven't even refuted literalism. Of course, snakes don't talk now. Just because they don't talk now doesn't mean they didn't once talk. Genesis doesn't say how God created the woman from the rib of the man so medical science can't entirely refute the idea that the first woman wasn't created from the rib of the first man. Obviously, people don't turn into pillars of salt on a day to day basis that's why it was a miracle recorded in Genesis. Even given the OT paints the picture of God you say it does that in no way means God isn't the God of the OT. Nothing that we can say with certainty directly contradicts that version of God. Looking at nature, I see nothing to suggest God is all sweetness and light and I don't even believe nature tells us anything about God. If we can't prove the existence of God, we can't say anything about the existence of God.
originally posted by RadicalWhig:
Nature tells you lots of useful things about God. Nature tells us things that snakes don't talk, that the first woman wasn't created from a rib, and that people don't just suddenly turn to pillars of salt: and all that tells us something important about God - that the God which exists is not the God of the Old Testament. Of course, it is possible to get out of that one by adopting a more liberal or catholic interpretation of Scripture, but the fact remains that the Old Testament speaks of a God who shows or hides his face, who wrestles, who gets angry, and who generally acts like a tribal patriarch: that the other way in which nature teaches us about God -
quote:Psychology teaches us that. I don't think Psychology is a hard science. Even if I did, the tidbit quoted above proves nothing about the existence or the nature of God. You think it means humans create gods. It could just as easily be a God Shaped Hole that causes us to seek God.
originally posted by RadicalWhig:
- it teaches us about ourselves, and our need for father-figures which can easily be projected, as a mis-firing of our imaginative, pattern-spotting, and socially-orientated brains, into the invention of personalistic gods.
quote:The study of nature indicates nothing of the sort. You are assuming that by studying nature we can learn about God. I see no reason to even assume that much less believe it is objectively true. You are assuming that God wouldn't do something that violates what we call the laws of nature. I really don't see why that is true. Following from that, the study of nature tells us nothing about whether the Virgin Birth, Resurrection, or most other oddities are stories of men or from God. Seriously, you think the authors of the gospels hadn't figured out where babies come from and that when people die they tend to stay dead? Plus, you seem to have a misunderstanding of the doctrine of transubstantiation if you believe the study of nature can tell us if the substance of the bread and wine actually changes during the Mass. Your a fan of Aristotle. Why is it called Metaphysics in the fist place?
originally posted by RadicalWhig:
The study of nature, in its broadest sense, indicates, one way or the other, that the God that exists is not Bible-God (and that's before we even get into the virgin birth, resurrection, and other oddities which nature tells us cannot be from God, but are plainly the stories of men). Also, nature tells us that a cracker is still a cracker, even after a man in a dress has done his magical incantations over it.
quote:I think people hold to whatever religious beliefs they have because of what they believe are good reasons. What a person considers good reason depends on the person. You have a collection of ideas that you call facts. Based on your interpretation of those facts, you've decided that Deism is more rational than Deism. I disagree with you. Even when I accept the same facts as you do, I might interpret them differently. A third person might interpret them in yet a different way. Who is right? When we are talking about God, we don't' really know who is right because we can't say anything for certain about God without accepting certain a priori assumptions. In my opinion, ultimate truth is not discovered through reason alone. Rather, ultimate truth is revealed.
originally posted by RadicalWhig:
But if one cares whether one's beliefs are actually true, and whether the truth-claims one makes are not false, then that approach breaks down. Ultimately, I cannot be a Christian, by any conventional definition, because I cannot believe that the available evidence (taking nature in its broadest sense to include psychology, archeology, and other disciplines) supports the truth, or even the possibility, of central Christian claims. Choice and preference don't come into it.
quote:I'm a non-theistic Unitarian-hiding-in-an-Episcopal-choir. So I'm basically on your side, non-theistically and non-Trinitarianally. But I don't get "Universal Principle in-and-through Nature." I'm not aware of any universal principle in nature, and so am not aware of any Universal Principle in-and-through Nature either. And you think this Universal Principle in-and-through Nature is a logical, rational, empirical fact? Or a basis for testing truth claims or something? I'd like to hear more; it's beyond my imagination and I can't even guess here.
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
My own position is probably closer to "Trans-Deism": God is neither an external non-interventionist Unmoved Mover, as classical Deism suggests, nor synonymous with the Physical Universe, as a simplistic Pantheism might hold - but rather is the Univeral Principle in-and-through Nature.
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quote:This leaves wide open the possibility that you are simply a Christian by any unconventional definition of your choosing, as I am. Back in the day when they called Martin Luther King, Jr. a Negro, they called us "heretics." But don't let that get in your way. Here is the empirical proof that you in fact are a Christian by one unconventional definition.
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
Ultimately, I cannot be a Christian, by any conventional definition, because I cannot believe that the available evidence (taking nature in its broadest sense to include psychology, archeology, and other disciplines) supports the truth, or even the possibility, of central Christian claims.
quote:There you go. Definition: a Christian is anyone who inhabits a Christian narrative and imagery. What's not to like? Why isn't that good enough?
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
...I still inhabit a Christian narrative and imagery...
quote:Again, I find myself reasonably willing to agree with your basic principles of argument about sealed boxes and such, but in no way convinced by the assertions you make about the nature of the observable world being incompatible with the existence of a theistic God.
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
Lots of points here, and I will not be able to respond to all of it at once, so bear with me. If you think I miss a crucially important point, flag it up and remind me.
Ok..
Let's start with this one:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
To me it does mean all speculation about God is equally subjective. What God claims can be refuted? What do we know about God? Nothing. If we don't know anything about God, then it is impossible to say something is logically inconsistent with what we know.
No. There is a sealed box, one metre cubed in size. We do not know what is in the box. Can we refute certain claims about what is in the box? Sure. We don't know whether the box contains a kitten, a candle, or a signed photo of Winston Churchill. We do know that it CANNOT contain an adult male lion, the sun, or a signed photo of Alfred the Great - because these are incompatible with what we do know about the box (i.e. that the lion and the sun won't fit), and, in that last case, with what we know about human cultures and technologies (i.e. there cannot be a signed photo of anyone who died before the second half of the 19th century). It's like that with God. Looking at nature, we can say for sure that some things are just not possible, or are internally inconsistent, and that some god-claims are therefore necessarily false - even if we have no certainty what the true claim would be.
quote:Nature tells you lots of useful things about God. Nature tells us things that snakes don't talk, that the first woman wasn't created from a rib, and that people don't just suddenly turn to pillars of salt: and all that tells us something important about God - that the God which exists is not the God of the Old Testament. Of course, it is possible to get out of that one by adopting a more liberal or catholic interpretation of Scripture, but the fact remains that the Old Testament speaks of a God who shows or hides his face, who wrestles, who gets angry, and who generally acts like a tribal patriarch: that the other way in which nature teaches us about God - it teaches us about ourselves, and our need for father-figures which can easily be projected, as a mis-firing of our imaginative, pattern-spotting, and socially-orientated brains, into the invention of personalistic gods. The study of nature, in its broadest sense, indicates, one way or the other, that the God that exists is not Bible-God (and that's before we even get into the virgin birth, resurrection, and other oddities which nature tells us cannot be from God, but are plainly the stories of men). Also, nature tells us that a cracker is still a cracker, even after a man in a dress has done his magical incantations over it.
Nature tells me nothing about God. It doesn't tell even tell me if God exists or not. Your assumption appears to be that the sciences can tell us something about God. I reject that.
Perhaps most of all, nature tells you that nature itself exists, and that points to an intelligent deistic creator, or perhaps to a pantheistic notion of God as Nature and Existence; either of those views are compatible with the nature we observe.
quote:
Nothing that we know is logically inconsistent with Theism. I'm not even sure what you think we know objectively that has any bearing on the nature of God. You think Theism is a bunch of nonsense. I have the same view about Deism and the rest.
See above. Also, a "theistic" God (an intervening, active, personal, relational, incarnational, magic God, who listens to our thought-bubbles and watches over our actions) is not compatible with how we see nature operating - blindly and of its own relentless, merciless accord. To make such a theistic God compatible with the nature which we observe, the God would have to be merciless too, and held responsible for every death, disease, earthquake and car-crash.
quote:Isn't that one of the main sociological functions of all gods? I don't see how Bible-God / Wafer-God is immune from that charge.
Usually, the God of such philosophical systems serve as a Kantian placeholder to give weight to the attached ethical system.
quote:Because the story and picture of a man are not a man.
Originally posted by JimT:
Definition: a Christian is anyone who inhabits a Christian narrative and imagery. What's not to like? Why isn't that good enough?
quote:And how would you know that? Oh, wait, you are referring to buildings and salaries and such. How ... odd.
Originally posted by JimT:
True, it's an Episcopal church in California, but no one has shut us down under Truth in Advertising.
quote:Exactly!
Originally posted by Yorick:
The existence of God can be ‘known objectively and with certainty’ if that God is the concept of god, and if that knowledge is fundamentally metaphysical. Well, great. In precisely the same way, the existence of flying pigs can be known objectively and with certainty.
quote:Or, what he could try to show is that there have never been any objectively recorded instances of the laws of physics being broken. And hence, ancient literary reports of the laws being broken are not likely to be true.
That doesn't constitute evidence. You have to show WHY snakes can't possibly ever talk (and to even start on that line, you have to assume that the text is referring to a snake as you know it), and WHY people can't possibly ever be turned into pillars of salt. And to do so, you can't restrict yourself to proving that it can't happen within the normal laws of physics because the entire point is that these things are said to occur via SUPERnatural forces. Your proof will need to not only show that such things aren't possible within the laws of physics, but that a breakage of the laws of physics would have unravelled the universe or otherwise made our current world different to how it currently is.
quote:So you are going to provide us with metaphysical proof for the existence of flying pigs then? Because that's what you just claimed you can do, and I'd really like to hear that one.
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Exactly!
quote:Good one. I'd love to have that shown to me as well.
Originally posted by Stetson:
Or, what he could try to show is that there have never been any objectively recorded instances of the laws of physics being broken.
quote:I take it your point is that one-off events, by their very nature, can't be proven or disproven by the scientific method.
Good one. I'd love to have that shown to me as well.
Or did you mean something like this: "Repetition of measurements in tightly controlled conditions designed to determine regular workings of nature by repeat observation fail to provide compelling evidence for irregular and one-off events"? Well, yeah...
quote:Which would work if RadicalWhig aimed for probability or likelihood, rather than outright declarations of incompatibility with the known universe.
Originally posted by Stetson:
[QUOTE] I think this becomes clearer when we situate the anomaly within space, rather than time. Let's say someone alleges that, while hiking through an isolated region of the Himalayas last year, he met a snake who could talk. In order to debunk him, we wouldn't need to show that the breakage of the "Snakes Don't Talk" law would cause the universe to unravel. It would simply be enough to say "Well, as far as we can tell, no snake has ever been able to talk. So there's about a 99% chance that this guy is either lying or delusional, so we needn't worry too much about examining the imlications of his claims."
quote:We crossed sword on a similar issue on a recent thread, so I don't want to labour the point too much.
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
No. There is a sealed box, one metre cubed in size. We do not know what is in the box. Can we refute certain claims about what is in the box? Sure. We don't know whether the box contains a kitten, a candle, or a signed photo of Winston Churchill. We do know that it CANNOT contain an adult male lion, the sun, or a signed photo of Alfred the Great - because these are incompatible with what we do know about the box (i.e. that the lion and the sun won't fit), and, in that last case, with what we know about human cultures and technologies (i.e. there cannot be a signed photo of anyone who died before the second half of the 19th century). It's like that with God. Looking at nature, we can say for sure that some things are just not possible, or are internally inconsistent, and that some god-claims are therefore necessarily false - even if we have no certainty what the true claim would be.
quote:Perhaps you have done so elsewhere, IngoB. But I wonder if you could provide the metaphysical proof for God. I can't imagine what that would look like.
Originally posted by IngoB:
So you are going to provide us with metaphysical proof for the existence of flying pigs then? Because that's what you just claimed you can do, and I'd really like to hear that one.
quote:Unless either the sceptic sees the elf himself or hears about the elf from someone whose judgement and sanity they trust sufficiently even when talking about elves. And that, and nothing else, is what has always been contended to be the veridical value of miracles in Christianity. Furthermore, in the gospel it is acknowledged that the best and most holy people may not be capable of trusting their closest companions in talking about "elves", c.f. St Thomas the Apostle. Finally, the gospel shows that as a matter of course many if not most people will reject drawing any binding conclusions from seeing "elves" themselves. Jesus performs twelve miracles in Capernaum, more than anywhere else, and yet in exasperation He says: "And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day." (Matt 11:23) Christianity simply does not consider miracles to be some sort of parallel science. Christians and atheists claiming anything like that are simply wrong. Miracles are signs and wonders to inspire and strengthen those over the threshold, or at least at the threshold, of faith.
Originally posted by Stetson:
A believer in the elf can tell the skeptic that since the elf defies traditional methods of scientific observation, pointing out that the elf has never been observed is insufficient. But this still doesn't really provide any good reason for the skeptic to believe that there is such a one-off elf in the first place.
quote:Is that addressed to me? There are essential and accidental aspects to religion, as per the judgement of those believing those religions themselves. It is for example not essential to my religion that the pope is elected by the college of cardinals, though I do not reject this mechanism simply because I consider it accidental. We can recognize religion in others by both essential and accidental aspects, by familiarity, as you say. However, if we now compare religions, we find that they do not agree even in what people consider essential aspects of their religion. If we now try to create a sort of intersection of essential aspects of religion of all people at all times and places, then I think this intersection will not be empty. And one significant part of what is left over in the intersection are objective statements about some "superior Being". And these basically sketch the "metaphysical God". In that sense then all people will identify metaphysical talk about God as referring intimately to their own idea of god, because it will match some essential and objective aspects of their own conception (even if it is a match in rejection rather than affirmation: a Buddhist may claim that there is no god, but there will be some metaphysical match between what he rejects and what a Hindu affirms). This is not true for other parts of religion, even if one recognizes them for what they are.
Originally posted by Think²:
Seems to me that your metaphysical definition of God - and folk recognising it - is simply people recognising the definition of a familiar word / cultural concept. Can you explain how its different?
quote:Indirectly, by reference to what can be observed repeatedly, under the assumption of a regular and known chain of causation. As with all extrapolation, this can work and often does, but it can also be catastrophically wrong, and there's no real way of telling. A typical example is big bang cosmology. What really happened at the beginning is guesswork constrained by effects we can observe (repeatedly) now and by what we believe to know about the physics governing all this. It is unlikely that we are totally wrong about the big bang. But we cannot go back in time and check, much less repeat the big bang a few hundred times to get good stats. So we will always be a lot less sure about the big bang than about other things.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Oh, and one-off events CAN be dealt with by the scientific method.
quote:There is not "the" metaphysical proof, there are many. In my first post above, you will find a link to a video of Prof. Kreeft talking through about a dozen well-known ones in a very accessible manner. I also put one forward a while back here (scroll down to "I hope with this lengthy introduction I've set the stage for a very simple proof of the existence of God." to avoid the physics background and jump straight into the metaphysics). The famous five of Aquinas are here, though they are often misunderstood (e.g., No. 2 has absolutely nothing to do with "big bang" like beginnings). I aim to post about a recent very interesting one in a separate thread, but I'm still working on that (trying to obtain copyright permissions, actually).
Originally posted by Squibs:
Perhaps you have done so elsewhere, IngoB. But I wonder if you could provide the metaphysical proof for God. I can't imagine what that would look like.
quote:
Originally posted by Molopata The Rebel:
But what if experience defies what you had hitherto as assumed as a truth? Do you just say "impossible", or do you try to reframe the concept of reality on the basis of new experience? Copernicus and Galileo are modern day's heroes because they were ready to challenge conventional wisdom on the basis of observation. Scientists continue to do so as they forage into ever new areas of physics which never fail to surprise us - indeed challenging our conventional truths and classical logics to the point that you must almost assume that there might be more in that 1m3 box than you think.
quote:How do you know what the disciples saw, or thought, or experienced? What do we have but a handful of very corrupt and partial records, sewn together by those who were already inside the cult.
The disciples of Jesus, who were surprised by lame walking, blind seeing and a dead prophet rising from the dead, were not in denial of what they experienced. Rather they laboured to come to grips with it and revolutionise the God-concept. While being like-spirited with today's scientists, they are labelled as irrational and superstitious. IMO, that is a double standard.
quote:But what is its method for doing that? How does it know when it gets it right, or wrong?
Just as science explores and describes the increasingly mind-boggling reaches of reality, it is the church which labours to experience and understand the mind-boggling nature of God.
quote:A lovely quote. I've heard it before and I like it. I don't disagree with it. I'm not a scientist, and I don't claim to be (political science, at least the sort I do, isn't really science). Nature is weird and wonderful. The gaps get deeper everytime we narrow them. I think that is amazing, and I conclude from it that there is a God - but it is a God so much more wonderful than the pathetic character protrayed in the Old Testment. Pretending that God appears in holy biscuits is rather demeaning to God, because God is in and under and through the biscuit right from the start, because God is Nature and Existence, and God is bigger than any god we can come up with (including the trinitarian god).
As if to make the point, one scientist said "Der erste Trunk aus dem Becher der Naturwissenschaft macht atheistisch, aber auf dem Grund des Bechers wartet Gott." (The first sip from the chalice of science renders one atheistic, but it is God who is waiting at the bottom of the chalice). I assume it's author, no lesser than Werner Heisenberg, knew what he was talking about.
quote:I don't understand.
In these terms, I would challenge you to let God out of that box you are contemplating, ready to appreciate Him in a new and more fluid way which is totally reconcilable with the reality you experience.
quote:I agree, IngoB, if what you are saying is that the narrative/picture of Christ is not exactly the same thing as Christ in himself... I believe there is an eternal reality transcendent to the story as it is portrayed in Scripture and the life of the Church.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:Because the story and picture of a man are not a man.
Originally posted by JimT:
Definition: a Christian is anyone who inhabits a Christian narrative and imagery. What's not to like? Why isn't that good enough?
quote:You do not need to apologize for not being able to do what is entirely impossible to do. You could instead apologize for affirming with "Exactly!" a piece of anti-theist rhetoric that was strictly nonsensical in content. I would appreciate that without in any way or form assuming that therefore you have become a theist.
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
I do not have the philosophical debating skills and language to provide metaphysical proof of pink unicorns etc - for which apologies.
quote:Let's talk about that once you acquire the philosophical debating skills and language to do so...
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
At the base of your argument for God though there seems to be assertion, not proof.
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Again, I find myself reasonably willing to agree with your basic principles of argument about sealed boxes and such, but in no way convinced by the assertions you make about the nature of the observable world being incompatible with the existence of a theistic God.
quote:
Much of your reasoning seems to be along the lines that supernatural or miraculous events cannot happen because they don't happen as a matter of course. Which is merely defining such things out of existence.
That doesn't constitute evidence. You have to show WHY snakes can't possibly ever talk (and to even start on that line, you have to assume that the text is referring to a snake as you know it), and WHY people can't possibly ever be turned into pillars of salt. And to do so, you can't restrict yourself to proving that it can't happen within the normal laws of physics because the entire point is that these things are said to occur via SUPERnatural forces.
quote:
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
I suppose the difference is that folks like Copernicus and Galileo worked from observation. Nature is weird and wonderful. We know that much. Sometimes it surprises us. We think we know it, and then we discover a bit more and find out that our existing models are flawed in some way. I get that. But evidence required to overturn an established model has to be fairly strong: it has to be validated by others, experiments have to be capable to being replicated, and so forth.
quote:
What is the evidence on which you make a claim that overturns what we understand about nature (e.g. that humans can only reproduce sexually, or that resurrected people don't ascend into heaven)?
It seems to me that you are relying on fairly flimpsy evidence, based essentially on middle-eastern myths.
quote:
How do you know what the disciples saw, or thought, or experienced? What do we have but a handful of very corrupt and partial records, sewn together by those who were already inside the cult.
quote:
But what is its method for doing that? How does it know when it gets it right, or wrong?
quote:
A lovely quote. I've heard it before and I like it. I don't disagree with it. I'm not a scientist, and I don't claim to be (political science, at least the sort I do, isn't really science). Nature is weird and wonderful. The gaps get deeper everytime we narrow them. I think that is amazing, and I conclude from it that there is a God - but it is a God so much more wonderful than the pathetic character protrayed in the Old Testment. Pretending that God appears in holy biscuits is rather demeaning to God, because God is in and under and through the biscuit right from the start, because God is Nature and Existence, and God is bigger than any god we can come up with (including the trinitarian god).
quote:No I do not mean this. And yet, I can only say, if you are determined not to be surprised by God, then you probably won't be. (That last sentence will probably drive you nuts!
Surely what you mean is "let your imagination run away with you, and pretend that you have having a personal relationship with God as if God were just a super-human projection?"
I've "been filled with the holy spirit", I've seen "visions from God", I've "had a personal relationship with Jesus" - but, really, it was all in my mind, a working of my own conscience and my imagination - coupled with the power of strong suggestion and group-think. Now I really cannot see the difference between any of that and having a rather childish imaginary friend. I'm sorry. I just don't see how any of that stuff can be real.
![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
)
quote:No. It's not good enough at all. It means that I'm Definitely Not A Christian - even though I thought I was for years, and my position hasn't really changed that much. You must have missed it, but in we've been around this subject several times. The upshot of it all is that inhabiting a Christian narrative and imagery, worshipping God in spirit and truth, following Jesus, and endeavouring to lead a life in accordance with Christian ethics, are not enough to make you a Christian. You also have to believe six impossible things before breakfast - and, if you can't, then it's right out the door.
Originally posted by JimT:
quote:There you go. Definition: a Christian is anyone who inhabits a Christian narrative and imagery. What's not to like? Why isn't that good enough?
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
...I still inhabit a Christian narrative and imagery...
quote:Of course, you have proven entirely incapable of substantiating that claim so far.
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
(5) The Trinitarian God of Creedal Christians. ... and the fifth position is impossible.
quote:Well, since you are presumably referring to miracles rather than the entire supernatural order, let me quote some salient passages from an easily accessible open source:
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
I don't understand the concept of supernatural.
quote:
Catholic Encyclopedia 1917
Miracle (Latin miraculum, from mirari, "to wonder"). In general, a wonderful thing, the word being so used in classical Latin; in a specific sense, the Latin Vulgate designates by miracula wonders of a peculiar kind, expressed more clearly in the Greek text by the terms terata, dynameis, semeia, i.e., wonders performed by supernatural power as signs of some special mission or gift and explicitly ascribed to God. ... The wonder of the miracle is due to the fact that its cause is hidden, and an effect is expected other than what actually takes place. Hence, by comparison with the ordinary course of things, the miracle is called extraordinary. In analyzing the difference between the extraordinary character of the miracle and the ordinary course of nature, the Fathers of the Church and theologians employ the terms above, contrary to, and outside nature. These terms express the manner in which the miracle is extraordinary.
A miracle is said to be above nature when the effect produced is above the native powers and forces in creatures of which the known laws of nature are the expression, as raising a dead man to life, e.g., Lazarus (John 11), the widow's son (1 Kings 17). A miracle is said to be outside, or beside, nature when natural forces may have the power to produce the effect, at least in part, but could not of themselves alone have produced it in the way it was actually brought about. Thus the effect in abundance far exceeds the power of natural forces, or it takes place instantaneously without the means or processes which nature employs. In illustration we have the multiplication of loaves by Jesus (John 6), the changing of water into wine at Cana (John 2) ... A miracle is said to be contrary to nature when the effect produced is contrary to the natural course of things. ... Again, the term contrary to nature does not mean "unnatural" in the sense of producing discord and confusion. ... So, also, at every moment of the day I interfere with and counteract natural forces about me. I study the properties of natural forces with a view to obtain conscious control by intelligent counteractions of one force against another. ... The introduction of human will may bring about a displacement of the physical forces, but no infraction of physical processes.
Now in a miracle God's action relative to its bearing on natural forces is analogous to the action of human personality. Thus, e.g., it is against the nature of iron to float, but the action of Eliseus in raising the axe-head to the surface of the water (2 Kings 6) is no more a violation, or a transgression, or an infraction of natural laws than if he raised it with his hand. Again, it is of the nature of fire to burn, but when, e.g., the Three Children were preserved untouched in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3) there was nothing unnatural in the act, as these writers use the word, any more than there would be in erecting a dwelling absolutely fireproof. In the one case, as in the other, there was no paralysis of natural forces and no consequent disorder.
The extraordinary element in the miracle — i.e. an event apart from the ordinary course of things; enables us to understand the teaching of theologians that events which ordinarily take place in the natural or supernatural course of Divine Providence are not miracles, although they are beyond the efficiency of natural forces. Thus, e.g., the creation of the soul is not a miracle, for it takes place in the ordinary course of nature. Again, the justification of the sinner, the Eucharistic Presence, the sacramental effects, are not miracles for two reasons: they are beyond the grasp of the senses and they have place in the ordinary course of God's supernatural Providence.
quote:I'm not entirely sure about the latter two claims, because I don't fully know what your words mean. But I'm rather certain that if I did, then just as for the first claim I would not reject them because they are impossible, for they are possible. A lot of things are possible, but implausible or disagreeable to my mind. Therefore I reject them. The claims of traditional Christianity are the most plausible and agreeable ones that I have heard, which are possible (possible in the sense both of "thinkable" and "compatible with what I know"). The claims of atheism are for example impossible, since I know that a God with certain metaphysical properties necessarily exists.
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
Why don't you believe that Mohammad was a Prophet (it's TRUE, because the Angel Gabriel appeared to him in a cave; you can read all about it in the Qur'an, and the Qur'an is TRUE because Allah revealed it, etc, etc)? Why don't you believe in body Thetans? Why don't you accept the supernatural claim that we are all going to be breeding like bunnies on Kolob?
quote:That may be true for me and my Church, but it certainly is not true for JimT and his church. It seems to me you have issues here that have very little to do with "the essence of Christianity" as such and a lot to do with your personal history. Fair enough. But stop projecting those sour grapes on people like JimT, who are actually being friendly to you...
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
No. It's not good enough at all. It means that I'm Definitely Not A Christian ... believe six impossible things before breakfast - and, if you can't, then it's right out the door.
quote:Touché!
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:And how would you know that? Oh, wait, you are referring to buildings and salaries and such. How ... odd.
Originally posted by JimT:
True, it's an Episcopal church in California, but no one has shut us down under Truth in Advertising.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
quote:...and I take it we can afford to remove the label, such as Radical Whig has done to his or her self? Baptized, (presumably) living in a world of Christian imagery, etc., (as he or she said) but "not a real Christian?" What then? "Former Christian?" "Lapsed Christian?" "Used to think I was a real Christian but changed my mind and now I see not really but have leftover baggage Christian?"
Originally posted by IngoB:
I'm well aware that being called "not a real German" can have deadly, evil consequences. Likewise for being called "not a real Christian". However, at this point in time in this part of the world, I think we can afford the luxury to apply the label "Christian" more specifically.
quote:I would call him a "Christophile". I've suggested that general label for people attached to Christianity without being fully Christian a few years back on SoF, but I think that was before Oblivion collected old posts. Anyway, that label is not intended to be specific about precisely RadicalWhig's beliefs and was back then obviously addressed to other people with different Christianity-inspired ideas.
Originally posted by JimT:
Here's a specific question: what specific label do you give to Radical Whig relative to Christianity or lack thereof?
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
). I still think though that this is a fitting and even complimentary label.quote:Mudfrog please take note:
Originally posted by Fugue:
But what interests me is why 'inhabiting the narrative' of Christ can't indeed be equated with an encounter with Christ, given that there is no other way of being human that bypasses participation in various overlapping 'forms of life'? And if your guiding form of life is the Christian narrative (understood in its broadest, ecclesial sense) surely you (generic 'you') are as close as you can be in this life... because God is not an object among others in the universe, to speak of or express something 'real' beyond the narrative is to enter the realm of analogy, metaphor, sacrament which itself seems to me to be an act of narrative.
quote:Not bad, but after thinking about it a bit, what came to my mind is Believer in Exile.
Originally posted by IngoB:
I would call him a "Christophile".
quote:I would myself substitute the word "abandoned" for "outgrown."
It refers to Christians "... for whom the God experience is still real, but most of the religious forms used to interpret that reality have lost all meaning." They have outgrown the faith of their childhood and are searching for a new path.
quote:[/QB]Look them up? Clue: search for "Kolob" "Mormon" and "Thetan" "Scientology".
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:Well, since you are presumably referring to miracles rather than the entire supernatural order, let me quote some salient passages from an easily accessible open source:
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
I don't understand the concept of supernatural.
quote:Er, no. Actually, I mean the whole "supernatural order".
..Some pointless bollocks from the Catholic Encyclopedia, as if that would ever help...
I assume we mean something like "knowing, conscious, intelligent entities, having personality and purpose, but without any physical form or manifestation, which are not subject to the laws of nature, but able to act on nature." These might be gods, angels, demons, ghosts, demi-gods, sprites, fairies, or anything else.
Now, I accept that there are more things in "heaven and earth, Horatio, than are deampt of in my philosophy". Nature is a weird and wonderful thing and we don't understand that much of it. But, if invisible beings are eventually shown to exist (and no-one has shown that they do yet) they must be natural phenomena - that is, having some physical manifestation, and being subject to laws of nature which (although more complex than we thought) turn out to be observable, replicable, and predictable.
I think what people mean by supernatural must either be: (i) imaginary; or (ii) natural, but beyond our current range of understanding.
quote:I'm not entirely sure about the latter two claims, because I don't fully know what your words mean.
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
Why don't you believe that Mohammad was a Prophet (it's TRUE, because the Angel Gabriel appeared to him in a cave; you can read all about it in the Qur'an, and the Qur'an is TRUE because Allah revealed it, etc, etc)? Why don't you believe in body Thetans? Why don't you accept the supernatural claim that we are all going to be breeding like bunnies on Kolob?
quote:We cannot go around rejecting things just because we find them disagreeable. Things are either true or not true. Choice and preference do not come into it.
But I'm rather certain that if I did, then just as for the first claim I would not reject them because they are impossible, for they are possible. A lot of things are possible, but implausible or disagreeable to my mind. Therefore I reject them.
quote:
The claims of traditional Christianity are the most plausible and agreeable ones that I have heard, which are possible (possible in the sense both of "thinkable" and "compatible with what I know"). The claims of atheism are for example impossible, since I know that a God with certain metaphysical properties necessarily exists.
quote:Again, we are not looking for "what you like", we are looking for "what actually is".
Your Deist conception may be somewhat plausible (not very, mind you, e.g., complete disengagement from what one creates is implausible per se). But it certainly is not agreeable to my mind, it is actually repugnant.
quote:Whatever.
Blah
quote:I'm not. I know JimT is being friendly, and I appreciate it. I'm just filling in the blanks so we don't have to go over all that ground again.
Originally posted by IngoB:
But stop projecting those sour grapes on people like JimT, who are actually being friendly to you...
quote:Good label. I like it.
Originally posted by IngoB:
I would call him a "Christophile".
quote:That implies the exile is a bad thing - that the "post-Christian" or "Christophile" condition is just a temporary aberation, and that one day all things will be restored, and we'll all be back to chanting creeds and kneeling before priests.
Originally posted by JimT:
Not bad, but after thinking about it a bit, what came to my mind is Believer in Exile.
quote:It might not surprise you that the thread which started all this off, over a year ago, was called, "What would a Spongite Church be like?", and came about because I had just finished reading "A New Christianity for a New World" - a book which spoke magnificently to my situation.
For all his faults and shortcomings, I believe that Spong sincerely had Radical Whig in mind as well as himself when he coined the phrase "Believer in Exile" and launched his attempt to inaugurate a New Reformation.
quote:My mistake, "fleeing in exile" (if you like) from the Baptists, was to assume that Episcopalian meant "liberal - basically, Unitarians in dresses and humanists with candles"; actually, to my surprise, they actually believe in the creedal supernatural stuff, and if you don't believe it too then you won't feel comfortable there at all.
So what say ye? "Believer in Exhile?" Such are still welcomed into The Episcopal Church (earthly of course) of the USA, or I wouldn't be allowed there.
quote:And my question back to you is, what do you mean by 'natural processes'?
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
I'm sorry. I'm at a complete loss to understand your last sentence.
I don't understand the concept of supernatural.
If it cannot happpen in accordance with natural processes then it cannot happen, because natural processes are what makes things happen. You can't just say that it happened magically.
Surely it is more sensible to conclude that it
Just Did Not Happen? I mean really, come on.
Do you just take any claim at face value?
quote:As Jack Nicholson said (under different circumstances) in Terms of Endearment, "I think we're going to have to get drunk."
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
My mistake, "fleeing in exile" (if you like) from the Baptists, was to assume that Episcopalian meant "liberal - basically, Unitarians in dresses and humanists with candles"; actually, to my surprise, they actually believe in the creedal supernatural stuff, and if you don't believe it too then you won't feel comfortable there at all.
Your mileage obviously did vary!
quote:And we are still waiting for you to offer some way of determining absolute truth about God that doesn't require us to accept your presuppositions.
originally posted by RadicalWhig:
We cannot go around rejecting things just because we find them disagreeable. Things are either true or not true. Choice and preference do not come into it.
quote:See above and right back at you.
originally posted by RadicalWhig:
Again, we are not looking for "what you like", we are looking for "what actually is".
What comes across is essentially "make-believe": a failure to distinguish between what is true and what you'd like to be true. "There are no American tanks in Baghdad", he said, as the tanks rolled passed the camera.
quote:Who is we? Certainly not the billion plus people that agree with IngoB. Just use first person singluar instead of plural and "we" can all agree.
originally posted by RadicalWhig:
I'm sorry, IngoB. I'm sure that within your own narrow worldview ("channelling Tertullian" and all that) what you are saying makes perfect sense. It just doesn't connect in any way with the reality of existence as we know it and experience it.
quote:Nah, that's all about poor suffering them being excluded by nasty us etc. Makes me cheer that we got rid of them whingers, that does.
Originally posted by JimT:
Not bad, but after thinking about it a bit, what came to my mind is Believer in Exile.
quote:Do you mean something like "We will ask the angel nicely to move this 1 kg weight as fast as he can over one meter distance. From this we will infer how many Newtons he can exert." Well, I guess you could do that.
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
But, if invisible beings are eventually shown to exist (and no-one has shown that they do yet) they must be natural phenomena - that is, having some physical manifestation, and being subject to laws of nature which (although more complex than we thought) turn out to be observable, replicable, and predictable.
quote:What for? I prefer reading some Rumi.
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
Look them up? Clue: search for "Kolob" "Mormon" and "Thetan" "Scientology".
quote:Well, well. Let's just hope that all you believe is demonstrably true. Otherwise this could become a bit embarrassing.
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
We cannot go around rejecting things just because we find them disagreeable. Things are either true or not true. Choice and preference do not come into it.
quote:Hmm, and how do you know that then? Just asking.
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
You do know (don't you?) that just because the Catholic church teaches something, that doesn't make it true.
quote:See, this stuff is a bit like defusing a bomb. There are a dozen of cables, but you have narrowed it down to a red cable going to this bit, a green cable connecting these two parts and a blue cable looping around the magnet there, respectively. Now, which one are you actually going to cut? 30 seconds left on the bomb timer, and counting.
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
What comes across is essentially "make-believe": a failure to distinguish between what is true and what you'd like to be true.
quote:Dang, I should have thought about that. Well, back to the drawing board...
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
I'm sorry, IngoB. I'm sure that within your own narrow worldview ("channelling Tertullian" and all that) what you are saying makes perfect sense. It just doesn't connect in any way with the reality of existence as we know it and experience it.
quote:Then how is it possible for you to provide such a proof for God?
Originally posted by IngoB:
You do not need to apologize for not being able to do what is entirely impossible to do.
quote:Fair enough! Apology herewith. I still agree with the post in general terms!
... You could instead apologize for affirming with "Exactly!" a piece of anti-theist rhetoric that was strictly nonsensical in content. I would appreciate that without in any way or form assuming that therefore you have become a theist.
quote:'Severely compromised vision' (as the Eye Hospital call it) and old age mean that this is unlikely, I'm afraid. I shall, however, continue to read and admire the skill of others.
Let's talk about that once you acquire the philosophical debating skills and language to do so...
quote:The difference is that many serious thinkers have done exactly that. You can engage with them, maybe disagree with them and attempt a refutation. No such intellectually heavyweight tradition exists for the flying spaghetti monster, though it does for other secular systems such as Marxism, which I think has to be included in the "systems of belief that merit serious attention" category.
Then how is it possible for you to provide such a proof for God?
quote:Since I am pretty certain that there is nothing now that will ever convince me to change from atheism, and that, if evidence of God/god/s existed, it would then be known fact, I would not attempt to take on such arguments with said 'serious thinkers'. (I hope that doesn't make me sound like an air-head, or lightweitht or something!)I do, however, thoroughly enjoy reading the arguments of others on the three or four forums I frequent, and of course joining in! I love the immediacy of it and the fact that one day I can agree with someone and the next disagree.
Originally posted by anteater:
...many serious thinkers have done exactly that. You can engage with them, maybe disagree with them and attempt a refutation.
quote:Give it time...!! Well, okay - no , I think Russell's teapot is more likely to stay the course.
No such intellectually heavyweight tradition exists for the flying spaghetti monster, ...
quote:Yes of course, but as I have seen pointed out clearly by many sceptical posters (other forums), atheism is a lack of belief in God/god/s...... and that's it. No ideologies, no belief systems, no dogmas etc. So although there are systems as you say which are part of history, and therefore must be studied, there is an empty space at the centre of all religious faiths. This is given many names, characteristics, shapes, qualities, attributes, etc but there are also so many different versions of what these are, I cannot see any advantage in spending a lot of my declining years (!!) studying them.
...though it does for other secular systems such as Marxism, which I think has to be included in the "systems of belief that merit serious attention" category.
quote:No, I'm afraid not! It's only in recent years, since acquiring a computer and access to the internet, that I have read more in the way of discussions on the subject.
I expect you are familiar with some of the well touted proposed proofs of God.
quote:Nor can they ever be!
Of course none are scientific proofs, ...
quote:That may be an exercise in logic, but something of a bar to progress if applied in practice, I think!
any more than that there is a scientific proof that only scientific proofs can establish truth.
quote:Delighted to hear it! And yes, I agree. Perhaps something can be arranged at Christmas.
PS Ernesto the Anteater is doing well. Petty the shipmeets appear to be in abeyance.
quote:They follow the rules of spelling and read what's there! If it's not obvious from the context, I can slow down the speed and greatly increase the magnification and have a peer at it! With the sentence you wrote, it was enough to slow the speed.
As a matter of sheer interest, ... ... how fooled are screen readers by spelling bloops?
quote:There is potentially a non sequitur in there, and it's defined by the 'ism'. The moment atheists get collectivised with an 'ism' is the moment that ideologies, belief systems, and dogmas enter the picture.
Yes of course, but as I have seen pointed out clearly by many sceptical posters (other forums), atheism is a lack of belief in God/god/s...... and that's it. No ideologies, no belief systems, no dogmas etc.
quote:Because metaphysics is about the principles of being, and the "God" we are talking about here is posited as the fundamental Principle of Being. Metaphysics is not about invisibility, pinkness, or unicorn-ness, therefore it will not tell you anything about invisible pink unicorns.
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Then how is it possible for you to provide such a proof for God?
quote:Yorick was demonstrably spouting nonsense. Beats me why you are still trying to support that.
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
I still agree with the post in general terms!
quote:Right!
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:Because metaphysics is about the principles of being, and the "God" we are talking about here is posited as the fundamental Principle of Being. Metaphysics is not about invisibility, pinkness, or unicorn-ness, therefore it will not tell you anything about invisible pink unicorns.
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Then how is it possible for you to provide such a proof for God?
quote:That's from Matthew.
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
quote:Insofar as the Christian God is identifiable with the "Principle of Being", metaphysics can prove Him to exist. Insofar as not, not - though this does not mean that metaphysics necessarily rejects other aspects. It merely may not apply to them. So if somebody really wanted to believe that an invisible pink unicorn is the First Cause, or omniscient, etc. - then as far as those claims goes, metaphysics would show that such a Being exists.
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
Right! And it doesn't tell you much about Jahweh, Bible-God or Wafer-God either! The only God to which Metaphysics can point is some sort of Deistic or Panthiestic "fundamental principle of Being", not the trinitarian God of Christianity.
quote:Right!
Originally posted by IngoB:
...God cannot be a species of any genus.
quote:You are probably right! But for me it's very simple - no God/god/s. Full stop.
Originally posted by Alisdair:
@ SusanDorisquote:There is potentially a non sequitur in there, and it's defined by the 'ism'. The moment atheists get collectivised with an 'ism' is the moment that ideologies, belief systems, and dogmas enter the picture.
Yes of course, but as I have seen pointed out clearly by many sceptical posters (other forums), atheism is a lack of belief in God/god/s...... and that's it. No ideologies, no belief systems, no dogmas etc.
quote:How do you know it is 'not the God they have decided not to believe in?! I do not feel that I have to have a reason for not believing in God/god/s !
In my experience the reasons atheists give for not believing in God/gods are often the ones I and other theists share, except that the 'God' I trust is not the 'God' they have decided doesn't 'exist'...
quote:Agreed, and for me that most decidedly includes not indoctrinating children into believing there is. Teach about, i.e. history, yes; indoctrination, no. Otherwise, how will they have the freedom to choose?
To me, the absolute freedom to believe what ever we choose, including not to believe at all is very important.
quote:If I was a computer whizz, I'd have a nice, neat filing system, where I'd have a set of responses to that ... but I haven't!
Not believing in something for which there is no definitive evidence either way is a belief in itself, and a perfectly legitimate one.
quote:As evidenced by the huge number of people who do so believe!
Belief in God, let alone trust in God, is not dependant on 'evidence'.
quote:Are you implying more gullible? More easily persuaded? That would be manipulation, wouldn't it? However, I don't suppose you implied this.
The most uneducated, 'thick as two short planks' person may be freer to recognise God than the sophisticated intellectual,
quote:Why would one need humility? That sounds as if you already assume that whatever you cry out to is a power? As for it remaining a possibility, I'd say that that was so minute that I'd discount it. If I needed to cry out for help, rather than sorting out things in my head, I would go to a fellow human being.
...or to have the humility to cry out into the darkness because it remains a possibility that someone really is listening.
quote:Err, possibly, but you are going to have to clarify, because I'm struggling to see exactly what you meam here.
Originally posted by Molopata The Rebel:
But that brings us closer than I had previously assumed: It appears you would attribute a higher explanatory power of ontology to Christian Scripture than to pink unicorns. Would that be something to establish further debate on?
quote:Actually, this is made perfectly OK by Chalcedon; the second person of the Trinity is both "fully man and fully God" - i.e., not a "species of any genus"!
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
quote:Right!
Originally posted by IngoB:
...God cannot be a species of any genus.
(That includes homo sapiens).
quote:Here's a recording of it.
.. Let it be silent
Let the Luminous stars not shine,
Let the winds (?) and all the noisy rivers die down;
And as we hymn the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,
Let all the powers add "Amen Amen"
Empire, praise always, and glory to God,
The sole giver of good things, Amen Amen.
quote:This always makes me wonder: my example is your indoctrination, and equally so the other way round. No one grows up/lives in a vacuum, but in my experience most of us, of what ever age, are perfectly capable of deciding for ourselves (rightly and wrongly), what is bullshit or mere oppression. Having said that I guess we would stand together against those who wilfully set out to bully others into believing and acting through fear.
To me, the absolute freedom to believe what ever we choose, including not to believe at all is very important.
Agreed, and for me that most decidedly includes not indoctrinating children into believing there is. Teach about, i.e. history, yes; indoctrination, no. Otherwise, how will they have the freedom to choose?
quote:In Christian history one of the reasons the 'Gnostic heresy' was denounced as a heresy was because it required secret knowledge only accessible to the initiated. If 'God' truly is, then why should such a one who is worthy of that name be accessible only to those who we perceive as being 'bright'. Some of the most intelligent people I have met have also been the stupidest when it comes to living loving and constructive lives; whereas some of the least educated and least able in the eyes of society, repeatedly show themselves able to live `good lives' that bring joy and hope to others (belief in God not being a prerequisite for this, just in case you are wondering). Wisdom and intelligence are not the same.
The most uneducated, 'thick as two short planks' person may be freer to recognise God than the sophisticated intellectual,
Are you implying more gullible? More easily persuaded? That would be manipulation, wouldn't it? However, I don't suppose you implied this.
quote:Simply because without humility why would anyone dream of crying out to someone/something for which they have no definitive evidence of their presence and risk making themselves look foolish (at least in their own eyes if no one else's), and/or risk disappointment. Humility pre-supposes a willingness to know that we are not the centre of the universe, and that there may be more going on than we either know or understand. Humility may also imply hope.
Why would one need humility
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
quote:So Jesus wasn't homo sapiens?
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
quote:Actually, this is made perfectly OK by Chalcedon; the second person of the Trinity is both "fully man and fully God" - i.e., not a "species of any genus"!
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
quote:Right!
Originally posted by IngoB:
...God cannot be a species of any genus.
(That includes homo sapiens).
![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
quote:Certainly. If you are referring to the Incarnation, that's about one Person having two unadulterated natures (plural), not about somehow identifying Divine and human nature. The Divine Person of the Son assumed a human nature (which otherwise would have had its own personality). Your nature makes your activities human, your body associates your human activities with a particular individual and your person exercises your human individual acts in the world and to others. If you shake Christ's hands, then you shake God's hands in the sense that this human individual activity is exercised Divinely. It does not follow for example that God as God has hands. Hence no conflict with metaphysical statements about the nature of God ensues due to the Incarnation.
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
Right! (That includes homo sapiens).
quote:What about the analogy to light (or all matter) i.e. wave and particle in one packet?
Originally posted by IngoB:
There is perhaps an analogy to be had with heterogeneous computing, where one program in say OpenCL can have part of its activity run on a CPU and part on a GPU, but integrates these two to achieve its aims. One software running on two hardware architectures...
quote:Don't you think it might be useful and interesting sometimes to be able to separate the two and consider them separately, since one is concrete and the other abstract?
Originally posted by mousethief:
Yes. Both are true. Any analysis that doesn't acknowledge both are true is incomplete. Reductionist scientific views/explanations of human behavior too often (not always of course) can't see the software for the hardware (so to speak)
quote:Perhaps such separation might vastly increase the appreciation of the music?
There was a name for the piggybacking of meaning on signal when I was in grad school but now I can't remember what it was. The point was that you could describe (for instance) an electromagnetic wave pattern thoroughly and completely from a physical point of view, but still miss out the fact that it was a recording of a symphony orchestra. Mere analysis of the physical isn't always enough.
quote:Actually, that's an interesting question; Jesus had to take on human nature fully in the Incarnation, in order to redeem it. But of course, he was also fully God at the same time - so was he in totality homo sapiens, or homo something else? Certainly he must have been different than any other human being in some way - "homo sapiens" refers to specific characteristics, after all, including psychic (if I can use that designation here) ones.
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
So Jesus wasn't homo sapiens?
Now I've heard it all. I'm sorry. You people are certifiably batshit crazy. There's just no other way of looking at it.
quote:That's fine RadicalWhig. If we were just talking to each other, I would have given up a long, long time ago. But in fact, all this is being read by many and responded to by some, not just you. Around here I hence talk with people, but to the crowd. So I'll quite happily continue to take apart your faulty arguments, no matter whether you get it. Anyway, thanks for your concern.
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
IngoB, it's just a babble of white noise. You cannot get through my bullshit filters. Again, I'm sorry; don't take it personally, but nothing you say on this theme makes any sense at all to me. We might as well be on different planets and speaking different languages.
quote:Well, all humans differ from each other, and in that sense certainly Christ differed from all of us. In the sense however that you and me are "the same", Christ was also "the same" as us. The difference was in Divine personhood not in the human nature and body of Christ. You exercise your humanity humanly, Christ exercised His humanity Divinely. I gave an analogy here in terms of a human "taking on" dog nature.
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Certainly he must have been different than any other human being in some way - "homo sapiens" refers to specific characteristics, after all, including psychic (if I can use that designation here) ones.
quote:Actually, I'm trying very hard indeed to understand, and make sense of, what people are saying; but none of it does make sense.
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
P.S.: Misrepresenting what people say - and then declaring them to be "certifiably batshit crazy," or telling them that "nothing gets through my bullshit filters" - well, this is not actually regarded as "debate" or "discussion."
You seem to demand that people speak to you on your own terms only - and you don't seem to have enough respect for others to even attempt to understand what's actually being said.
quote:And that's a nice analogy, too!
Originally posted by IngoB:
Well, all humans differ from each other, and in that sense certainly Christ differed from all of us. In the sense however that you and me are "the same", Christ was also "the same" as us. The difference was in Divine personhood not in the human nature and body of Christ. You exercise your humanity humanly, Christ exercised His humanity Divinely. I gave an analogy here in terms of a human "taking on" dog nature.
quote:Then you have 3 choices.
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
Actually, I'm trying very hard indeed to understand, and make sense of, what people are saying; but none of it does make sense.
That's what I said to IngoB - we might as well be speaking different languages. Either you are all insane, or you are speaking in some sort of code.
Ok, I'll try again, a different way.
"I fimble in rahyts. Sometimes, rahyts, which are iksle varient watti, ectina in my iwwqo. Why? It's all very logical. Therajubs wightwu in Avila. There? Do you understand now? Or is it werstol in yettuville? Why are you being so arrogant and dismissive? You will not get very far with that attitude. It's probably because quattik did a ouila in githana. But you wouldn't care about THAT, would you? Still, if I wouldn't bother at all if it wasn't for the rahyts's watti wightwu. I mean, why bother? There, are you convinced now, or are you going to carry on being an arse about it?"
That's what I hear.
quote:I'd like to pick up on this point in particular. How do we "accept nature as we find it"?
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:(3) Believing in God is not about "accepting some things by faith and working from there" - because it would be possible, on faith, to start from any assumption, no matter how absurd and unsubstantiated - and we are back to invisible pink unicorns; rather, it is about "accepting nature as we find it, and working from there".
quote:Good question.
Originally posted by The Revolutionist:
quote:I'd like to pick up on this point in particular. How do we "accept nature as we find it"?
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:(3) Believing in God is not about "accepting some things by faith and working from there" - because it would be possible, on faith, to start from any assumption, no matter how absurd and unsubstantiated - and we are back to invisible pink unicorns; rather, it is about "accepting nature as we find it, and working from there".
ISTM that we don't have any uninterpreted access to nature. If we just "accept it as we find it", then we're just accepting it without examining the assumptions and presuppositions we bring to it.
In other words, you're "accepting on faith and working from there" that it's even possible to simply "accept nature as we find it".
quote:Not necessarily strictly true, although I admit it depends on what version of deism we are talking about.
Originally posted by orfeo:
The more I thought about it, the more it seemed that Deism basically is the God you have when you decide that you want to believe in a God but define God in such a way that the absence or ambiguity of evidence for God is no longer a problem. You define God in such a way that evidence of God simply is impossible.
quote:Not sure what you mean by "irrelevant" there. But it seems to me that the (pan)deistic god is rightly immune to disproof (because Nature manifestly exists), but not immune to proof (because Nature manifestly exists).
Both atheism and theism can look at evidence and argue about how it should be interpreted.But Deism creates a God who is totally immune to either proof or disproof, and simply ignores the interpretation of events as irrelevant.
quote:Err, try boiling a kettle. You'll see lots of God's action in the world. Or planting a tree. Or stroking a cat. Or eating. Or farting. Or making sparks with a flint. Or observing the clouds. Plenty of real (pan)deist God-action to be seen.
Nothing can be used to demonstrate God's action in the world, and at the same time the lack of God's action cannot be used to disprove God's existence.
quote:No, because there are specific claims made for those gods which are unrelated to, and unsupported by, the natural universe. Show me the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Where is his noodly appendage? Where is the stripper factory and the beer volcano? What evidence - other than the "Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which offers no corroberating evidence - is there that these claims are true? None. But what evidence is there that (pan)deist claims are true? Well, you are reading with it, and thinking with it, and sitting on it, and eating it, and breathing it - NATURE, life itself!
It's well and truly on a level with invisible pink unicorns and flying spaghetti monsters.
quote:True. Or would have, if not disproven.
At least a theistic God has the guts to be capable of disproof.
quote:Except that definition of 'god' turns the word on its head. It has a very Alice-in-Wonderland feel to it.
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
A modern deist position would go further towards abolishing the God-Nature dualism; God is not a "Supreme Being", but "Being-as-such"; not the external, one-time "Creator of Nature", but the on-going eternal "Natural Creator". In this view, God-Nature is creating and adjusting all the time.
quote:Yes, that's why I asked you long ago on the thread where you stood. The explanation you gave has not a shred of rationality that I can see. If you are a rationalist you have to answer this question with a yes or no, not a rambling off-topic analogy like "lilies of the field." If God is everything there is in Nature, then God is evil because evil is in Nature. I asked the same of Marcus Borg in a public forum and he simply refused to answer. He said that "panentheism" says that God is "everything and more." So I said, "that has to include evil." He first said, "you wouldn't say that if you were from the East." I said, "Yes, but I'm from the West, so I ask the question. Are you saying that I have to somehow make myself into an Eastern person at the age of 50? Or that I just have to accept that I am permanently flawed by having come from the West, which has an inherent flaw in its view of Good and Evil and nothing can be done about it?" He said, "Look, did I ever claim that I solved the Problem of Evil? That one will never be solved." I said, "I'm not trying to say you made a false claim that you are the first to ever have solved the Problem of Evil. You've said that your view of God is that God is everything and more, so it seems that you have to be saying that God is Evil as well as Good." He said, "Look, we all just have to realize that bad things happen in life." He pointed to the next person and asked them to state their question and I said, "I didn't ask if bad things happen in life I asked if panentheism implies that God is Evil and God at the same time." He pretended not to hear and took the next question. After the question and answer, I was approached by several very kind people who stroked my back and said that I really ought to read "When Bad Things Happen to Good People."
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
The real problem with the deist position is the problem of evil.
quote:I submit that this as meaningless to anyone who does not already believe it or think in those terms as "God is a unity of a Creating Personage, Human Personage, and Spiritual Personage in one substance." Again, I recall a talk given by Marcus Borg saying to an evangelical professor, "I don't believe in the Trinity because it has no intellectual content. You can't have three persons in one substance; it makes no sense to anyone." The retort was, "And your description of Jesus as a 'spirit person' is equally devoid of intellectual content to anyone else. What does it mean? Aren't we all 'spirit persons?' What is special about his spirit person-ness? Who can even tell what you are talking about?" Borg said, "Can we agree that 'Jesus is Lord?"
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
"God is a Unifying Principal in-and-through Nature"
quote:
God is nameless, for no man can either say or understand aught about Him. If I say, God is good, it is not true; nay more; I am good, God is not good. I may even say, I am better than God; for whatever is good, may become better, and whatever may become better, may become best. Now God is not good, for He cannot become better. And if He cannot become better, He cannot become best, for these three things, good, better, and best, are far from God, since He is above all. If I also say, God is wise, it is not true; I am wiser than He. If I also say, God is a Being, it is not true; He is transcendent Being and superessential Nothingness. Concerning this St Augustine says: the best thing that man can say about God is to be able to be silent about Him, from the wisdom of his inner judgement. Therefore be silent and prate not about God, for whenever thou dost prate about God, thou liest, and committest sin. If thou wilt be without sin, prate not about God. Thou canst understand nought about God, for He is above all understanding. A master saith: If I had a God whom I could understand, I would never hold Him to be God.
quote:I think that the second sentence above is the answer to the first sentence. The first sentence says that the idea of the Trinity is not difficult, yet the second sentence implies that the idea of the Trinity is impossible to grasp rationally. So what you are saying is, "It's not a difficult idea, just impossible to understand rationally. That's a big deal? Get rid of rationality and you'll understand it just fine."
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
I must say that I don't see what's so difficult about the idea of the Trinity.
<snip>
We're not really supposed to grasp it rationally, as far as I can tell; it's God we're talking about here, after all.
quote:Yes, you are right, JimT - that was a badly-written post. I'll try again later to say what it is I'm trying to say - which is something more along the lines of, "Yes, we can talk about God; we can explain why it's reasonable/rational to believe in God; we can discuss what we think our beliefs - or our understanding of revelation - say about God. We can do all that, without a doubt. But at the end of it, we won't have a complete understanding; we can't. We're only human. God is and must be more than we can fully grasp."
Originally posted by JimT:
quote:I think that the second sentence above is the answer to the first sentence. The first sentence says that the idea of the Trinity is not difficult, yet the second sentence implies that the idea of the Trinity is impossible to grasp rationally. So what you are saying is, "It's not a difficult idea, just impossible to understand rationally. That's a big deal? Get rid of rationality and you'll understand it just fine."
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
I must say that I don't see what's so difficult about the idea of the Trinity.
<snip>
We're not really supposed to grasp it rationally, as far as I can tell; it's God we're talking about here, after all.
quote:That's only if you impose an unrealistically limited definition of 'ordinary human rational processes'.
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
What I'm saying, really, is that faith in the Trinity is reasonable - even though at the end it's not possible to grasp it via ordinary human rational processes.
quote:Why? Can you say more about this? I'm not sure what you're getting at....
Originally posted by AberVicar:
quote:That's only if you impose an unrealistically limited definition of 'ordinary human rational processes'.
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
What I'm saying, really, is that faith in the Trinity is reasonable - even though at the end it's not possible to grasp it via ordinary human rational processes.
quote:I would say it is modern scientific orthodoxy to state things like "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." (Richard Feynman) In your field you may consider principles like the "emergence" of novel properties in complex systems. We have - in modern natural science - exceeded our capacity to understand intuitively, but not our capacity to understand in the sense of making rule-based predictions or computational simulations and the like. In theology, that point is reached pretty much from the get go, due to the subject matter. That's all. A failure to grasp something as such in its entirety is not necessarily a failure of rationality, it is not even necessarily an inability to perform rational operations of the practical kind. We can operate with the concept of the Trinity without truly penetrating it. And my scientific training tells me that that is perfectly fine. "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." (Ludwig Wittgenstein) True enough, but speaking of something is not necessarily the same as speaking about something.
Originally posted by JimT:
I'm getting more comfortable with what you're saying, but I'm not sure you know what it is like to be a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology. "Just abandon rationality and it will all make sense" is, well, "scientific blasphemy." It feels so way wrong that it's hard to describe.
quote:What I mean is that you can set up your thought system or your take on logic so that it includes or excludes the things you wish to categorise as irrational.
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
quote:Why? Can you say more about this? I'm not sure what you're getting at....
Originally posted by AberVicar:
quote:That's only if you impose an unrealistically limited definition of 'ordinary human rational processes'.
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
What I'm saying, really, is that faith in the Trinity is reasonable - even though at the end it's not possible to grasp it via ordinary human rational processes.
quote:Well, I think you're generally right about this; it's just that "the scientific method" is the (wait for it) paradigm we're working under now. This is what we are dealing with in real time. One thing is very true: we have lost the ability (and perhaps the desire) to think - ummmm - "mythologically," I guess.
Originally posted by AberVicar:
What I mean is that you can set up your thought system or your take on logic so that it includes or excludes the things you wish to categorise as irrational.
So many people still argue about God from within a system that was partly designed to support scientific discovery and development and partly devised to exclude the relational (and the transcendent) as metaphysical mumbo-jumbo (even though much of it was not strictly metaphysical).
I hold the view that relational realities are just as legitimately a part of normal human rational processes as are empirically-founded truth statements. While some may find the relational unwelcome or uncomfortable because it does not permit subject-object manipulation, I maintain that it is the key to a rational understanding of God and of the nature of the Trinity.
To look at it in a different way: rational thought allows itself to be determined by reality, and does not seek to limit or define that reality within an artificial framework of its own.
quote:You don't - unless you are doing it for a reason. The problem I have with so much of this thread is that it's like a dialogue of the deaf, where opponents have chosen their own separate bits of ground to fight on, while the ground they think is the only reasonable one is in fact just part of a greater whole.
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Although I'm not sure how you separate "relational realities" from "empirically-founded truth statements" in theology (or in anything else).
quote:Well, take us to "square two," then! I get that you don't like what's happening - but I don't know what your point of view actually consists of. I mean, I think several people here have made the very same point you're making: that the "scientific method" isn't really applicable by itself to talking about God - so I'm not sure what your objection actually is.
Originally posted by AberVicar:
quote:You don't - unless you are doing it for a reason. The problem I have with so much of this thread is that it's like a dialogue of the deaf, where opponents have chosen their own separate bits of ground to fight on, while the ground they think is the only reasonable one is in fact just part of a greater whole.
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Although I'm not sure how you separate "relational realities" from "empirically-founded truth statements" in theology (or in anything else).
If the conversation is just using the scientific method, then it's a category mistake of the first order to be expecting a result even on the shadowy divinity of deism, and so it's doomed to be inconclusive and unsatisfying.
You are drawing out in greater detail my point that rationality actually goes way beyond scientific method, so that it is possible to take a rational view of God. (Though if you decide to limit the definition of rational to scientific method, we're back to square one.)
quote:But the question I'm asking is: what do you like? What is a better way to approach this? How can we communicate your idea about "relational realities"? What are, for lack of a better term, some of the "talking points"? I'm not being sarcastic here; I really would like to know. Because as you have maybe seen on this thread (Or was it another? So hard to follow it all these days...), I've already given up talking with RadicalWhig on the topic - and Ingo has admitted he's mainly talking to other people who might be reading. So for us two at least, the discussion with RW is effectively over at this point. So again I'm not sure exactly what the objection is; we agree with you. The last set of posts have precisely argued that we can't "put God into a box" - that we cannot fully grasp the nature of God.
Originally posted by AberVicar:
I don't like an artificially limited definition of rationality.
I don't like seeing the rationality of faith rubbished or sidelined.
I don't like seeing God put into a box, and the implication that this might be OK.
I don't like a stunted view of meaning that comes from defining rational discourse in a way that excludes whatever the writer (or the culture) doesn't feel comfortable with.
I don't like the way in which people who believe in the Trinitarian God all too often give in on the rationality argument.
My response to the argument between RadicalWhig and IngoB is that they are talking at cross-purposes because they do not share a view of rationality.
quote:OK - I thought the point was to address the issues raised in the title of the thread, but here goes, and it's quite simple really.
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
So I'm asking: what is your method? I know what you don't like; what do you like? Some examples, please.
quote:This is an excellent point, well made. Thank you!
Originally posted by IngoB:
We have - in modern natural science - exceeded our capacity to understand intuitively, but not our capacity to understand in the sense of making rule-based predictions or computational simulations and the like. In theology, that point is reached pretty much from the get go, due to the subject matter.
quote:Thanks, yes! I was trying to point out that "I don't like this" could be a personal opinion on the order of "I don't like asparagus." I mean, that's a nice fact, but it doesn't tell us much.
Originally posted by AberVicar:
quote:OK - I thought the point was to address the issues raised in the title of the thread, but here goes, and it's quite simple really.
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
So I'm asking: what is your method? I know what you don't like; what do you like? Some examples, please.
It is no more rational for me to deny the existence of God than to deny your existence. My awareness of you is relational, has interaction with empirical evidence of the effect you have on the physical world, and is supported or corroborated by the witness of others to your existence, identifying you as a human being.
It's the same with God. I have a relational awareness of God's presence through prayer and the experience of the transcendent (as well as the low-key everyday miracles which accompany my life and work); I interact with, and am part of, the evidence of God's effects on the world (not least within the Church); and all this is supported or corroborated by the witness of many others past and present.
It is therefore completely reasonable and normal to believe in God, just as it is completely reasonable and normal to believe in you.
For me, this is a re-expression of Ian Ramsey's sadly curtailed dialogue with the Oxford Philosophers, where he used the reality of disclosure to validate the logic of religious discourse. (There is some Rahnerian/continental influence there too).
Does this help?
quote:Does the existence of psychopaths or sociopaths invalidate the truth of the 'other' with whom we can communicate?
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Anyway, for people who are, let's say, "skeptical by nature" (or even by choice) - will "relational realities" mean anything? Is it a better way to communicate, IOW? I'm not so sure, and that's why I asked the question - because it seemed to me that after a point we were discussing how to have a discussion (i.e., "arguing about arguing"). But this question is rather important anyway; at least, so it seems to me. We do need to be able to explain ourselves to others at the very least, no?
quote:Don't understand the question, sorry. Can you clarify?
Originally posted by AberVicar:
quote:Does the existence of psychopaths or sociopaths invalidate the truth of the 'other' with whom we can communicate?
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Anyway, for people who are, let's say, "skeptical by nature" (or even by choice) - will "relational realities" mean anything? Is it a better way to communicate, IOW? I'm not so sure, and that's why I asked the question - because it seemed to me that after a point we were discussing how to have a discussion (i.e., "arguing about arguing"). But this question is rather important anyway; at least, so it seems to me. We do need to be able to explain ourselves to others at the very least, no?
quote:Does the existence of people who are outside the scope of normal social discourse invalidate that discourse?
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Don't understand the question, sorry. Can you clarify?
quote:Well, there are plenty of people who are skeptics about religion in general and Christianity in particular without being "outside the scope of normal social discourse." Thay may not know anything about it, for instance - I think this is increasingly the case - or they may have been misinformed in some way. Or, they may know about it and simply don't find it convincing. I think these were the conditions during the first century when the church was just getting started, in fact.
Originally posted by AberVicar:
quote:Does the existence of people who are outside the scope of normal social discourse invalidate that discourse?
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Don't understand the question, sorry. Can you clarify?
If people choose to restrict the scope of meaning so that everyting except empirically-based truth claims is disqualified from the realm of meaningful dialogue, does that mean that we need to accept their imposed restrictions?
quote:Greetings, my friend. I agree with your outcome, but I think you have actually jumped ahead of yourself in the reasoning of it. I consider it this way: suppose you walk by a house and smell cookies baking. You may think, "must be someone baking cookies in there." That would be an adequate explanation, and is in fact so adequate of an explanation that virtually every other explanation can instantly be seen to be less probable by comparison.
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
I've decided to bring this out into a separate thread, to avoid derailing the Trinitarian thread even further.
quote:Here's my argument:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Deism and pantheism are no more rational than orthodox Christianity. I accept deism and pantheism are both more reasonable in RW's mind. However, the existence of God can't be objectively proven. Given that, all speculation about the nature of God is equally subjective. Believing in God means accepting some things by faith and working from there. Objectivity in theology is not possible. All we can hope for is internal consistency.
(1) Yes, the existence of God cannot, at the present state of our knowledge, be objectively proven.
(2) However, this does not mean that all speculation about God is equally subjective. There are God-claims which can be refuted, because they logically inconsistent and/or incompatible with what we do know.
(3) Believing in God is not about "accepting some things by faith and working from there" - because it would be possible, on faith, to start from any assumption, no matter how absurd and unsubstantiated - and we are back to invisible pink unicorns; rather, it is about "accepting nature as we find it, and working from there".
(4) A theistic God, particularly the Christian, trinitarian God, is both logically inconsistent and incompatible with what we do know. (The only way to get around this is to get into all sorts of epicycluar nonsense about, for exaple, "accidents" and "substance" etc.)
(5) A deistic / pantheistic God is not logically inconsistent or incompatible with what we do know - it fits into the Gaps.
(6) Therefore, it is reasonable to believe in a deistic or pantheistic God, but not reasonable to believe in a trintiarian theistic God.
To me, this makes perfect sense.
Why not?
Clarification: I know there is a difference between Deism and Pantheism. My own position is probably closer to "Trans-Deism": God is neither an external non-interventionist Unmoved Mover, as classical Deism suggests, nor synonymous with the Physical Universe, as a simplistic Pantheism might hold - but rather is the Univeral Principle in-and-through Nature. However, all these strands of Deism / Pantheism / Trans-Deism / Pandeism / Pan-en-deism are united in that they start from an understanding the natural universe and using our reason and empricial evidence to understand God and to interpret any supernatural or revelatory claims.
quote:You're forgetting that we "three-bakers" people are working from a combination of historical events and a theology that was already in place.
Originally posted by Arcos Plage:
Greetings, my friend. I agree with your outcome, but I think you have actually jumped ahead of yourself in the reasoning of it. I consider it this way: suppose you walk by a house and smell cookies baking. You may think, "must be someone baking cookies in there." That would be an adequate explanation, and is in fact so adequate of an explanation that virtually every other explanation can instantly be seen to be less probable by comparison.
Someone else might think, "must be three people baking cookies in there," but since the baking of cookies does not require three people, this additional assumption is simply not warranted under the facts. It is not unreasonable, it might even turn out to be the case, but it is not necessarily so, and no more or less likely than two people or four people. If the three-bakers believer wishes to press that belief, they bear the burden of demonstrating that it is impossible for their to be but one baker, or any other number of bakers but three.
