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Source: (consider it) Thread: Purgatory: An introduction
Father Gregory

Orthodoxy
# 310

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"How do I know that this "thing" I have a relationship with is God?"

It's a recognition thing. What are the marks of recognition? The mind of the Church and the countless millions who have gone before me knowing the same person .... and being prepared to die for Him.

That's how I know.

Whether God is falsifiable or not is a matter for your world view and the questions it generates. I propose, (as I have done before), that God is not just another phenomenon; not just another object; not just another observable reality; not just another "being." (If this sounds crazy to you then you need to factor in the Eastern Church's commitment to apophatic theology .... somewhat weak in the west).

So, I suppose, that's the end of our common ground. I don't want it to be, but I can't see where we go from here.

--------------------
Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™


Posts: 15099 | From: Manchester, UK | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
kirsten
Shipmate
# 26

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I'm wondering if much of this discussion may be based on various interpretations of what "God" is...

I have a feeling that Skeptic assumes (and perhaps many of the respondents assume) that we are necessarily defining "God" in terms of Judeo/Christian beliefs (theistically). I'm curious though, if we broaden "God" to the non-theistic beliefs of Buddhists, or the Jewish Kabbalistic concept, that G-d is a verb, that the discussion becomes more interesting.


Posts: 108 | From: Santa Cruz, CA | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Stephen
Shipmate
# 40

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I have followed this thread for a while now and remain absolutely fascinated by it.One thought that came into my mind was this.It's obvious that Sceptical Atheist has posted on sites with shall we say a more militant Christian bias (I'm being polite!!) and is probably surprised by our response,I hope pleasantly.In my time I have peered into atheism but strange to say find it more a leap of faith than to remain a Christian.I can understand people being agnostics but atheism seems to require that little bit more than I can give.It's possible that by posting here SA may be closer to God than somew of us realise or indeed are....and I'm not stirring here!
I can understand the interest in the universe that some of us have.On a clear starry night when I can find the objects I'm looking for without swearing too much(!) the words of Psalm 8 come flooding into my head
"For I will consider the heavens,the works of thy fingers;
the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained
What is Man that thou art mindful of him; or the Son of man that thou visitest him?"
Quite
Yet there is much that is ugly in nature too...the ichneumonid wasp for instance
But in general the universe is fine tuned to an incredible degree eg the resonance in the carbon atom that has to be just so.Of course there may be many other universe (the multiverse theory) nad it just so happens that we're sitting in the one that is not too hostile to life
I'd agree that you can't prove the existence of God from this.But it doesn't seem to be incompatible with God.The problem Christianity has - and it's a big one - is the problem of evil especially if one maintains that God intervenes....and I don't know the answer to this one.
I may be oversimplifying but it seems to me that the problem Christianity has is the problem of evil.The problem atheism has is the problem of goodness.....how to explain the existence of goodness when nature always takes the easy way out (Eg Le Chatelier's Principle)
Again if I'm honest I don't really know the answers.I think on balance goodness will prevail and Christianity does provide some answer to the problem of evil....perhaps not over-convincing to some,but it does at least try.
Anyway keep posting Sceptical Atheist....I can't pretend your posts aren't thought-provoking,and if they're not answered it's not because you're being ignored....some of us have work to do as well!!

--------------------
Best Wishes
Stephen

'Be still,then, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the nations and I will be exalted in the earth' Ps46 v10

Posts: 3954 | From: Alto C Clef Country | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Father Gregory

Orthodoxy
# 310

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Stephen

On the problem of evil, could we say that Christians talk too vaguely about God and don't get down to the Easter specifics of our faith? If the cross is reduced to the status of a cosmic transaction how can God himself participate in the process? It's as external to Him as it isn't to us.

On many occasions at a funeral I have talked in the most realistic terms about the Cross being the place of resolution. I just don't think many Christians think of it in these terms; never mind atheists and agnostics!

The problem of evil is compounded by the loss of the very Christian mind that might address it.

--------------------
Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™


Posts: 15099 | From: Manchester, UK | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Stephen
Shipmate
# 40

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Yes, I suppose so....certainly the only way I can make sense of evil is that the God we worship was a crucified God and only such a God would be able to enter fully into our sufferings...But Good Friday is only "Good" because of the empty tomb,the resurrection.I sometimes feel we're only too willing to gloss over Good Friday and eat our Easter eggs all through Lent....But you can't have one without the other, I suspect;and the Risen Christ is I suppose quite a challenging one
BTW Fr.Gregory thankyou for your post on original sin

--------------------
Best Wishes
Stephen

'Be still,then, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the nations and I will be exalted in the earth' Ps46 v10

Posts: 3954 | From: Alto C Clef Country | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Stowaway

Ship's scavenger
# 139

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quote:
The billions of universes are one possible answer to the problem of Quantum Mechanics and is in principle (in theory at the moment) falsifiable.

Interesting concept! At the moment the universe we are in is the only one we can observe by definition.

To postulate the existence of multiple universes in order to explain the fact that the constants that determine the nature of this universe are exactly those needed to support life is a great leap of faith which is not even theoretically falsifiable.

That is why scientists are forced to use your favourite razor to remove the other universes and are left with a universe "designed" for life. Interestingly, a very old book we all know describes the creation of the heavens and the earth in exactly those terms. A massive creation for the purpose of sustaining life.

--------------------
Warning: Mid-life crisis in progress


Posts: 610 | From: Back down North | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Nightlamp
Shipmate
# 266

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Well I return and our friend the skeptical atheist said
quote:
I do not claim to be objective. I only claim to have a reasonable world-view. All that stuff about Occams razor is showing the justification for my world-view.


Occams razor is not evidence or proof of atheism it is simply a tool to get a to the conclusion that is already predetermined. If memory serves me correctly Bishop Berkeley, it could be argued, used this methododology to show that a simple theory to explain life was that we were all part of the imagination of God it is a simple theory it fulfills occams razor but we would believe it is wrong.

The skeptical atheist says that we are here because some unknown chemicals interreacted in some unknown way to create this wonderful universe.
A theist (really broard now!) would argue that God directed it into the form it is today. neither is simpler than the other both I believe have equal merit on the face of it.
One makes life have a point the other makes it pointless.

--------------------
I don't know what you are talking about so it couldn't have been that important- Nightlamp

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Steve_R
Shipmate
# 61

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quote:
Originally posted by The sceptical Atheist:


The fact that if something exists then it does exist is self-evident. The fact that something cannot both 'be' and 'not be' is self-evident. The fact that something is either true or false is also self-evident.



In fact the "true or false" fails on Russell's Paradox, "'be' and 'not be'" leads us to Schrodinger's Cat. Existence itself I do not believe to be necessarily self-evident in all cases.

Gill and Karl, please add me to the list of those who periodically doubt the existence of God. Like both of you, I prefer to believe.

--------------------
Love and Kisses, Steve_R


Posts: 990 | From: East Sussex | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
SteveWal
Shipmate
# 307

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Actually, Stephen has brought up the one bit of "falsifiable" evidence in this debate with his remarks about the problem of evil. It's something I struggled with when I did my theology degree. It's a problem: a big one. However much we try to explain it away, it's the one thing that might make us wake up in the middle of the night screaming that the whole thing's a sham.

Sure, Fr. Gregory, we can find good theological explanations. I don't think I could be a theist if I didn't also believe that, in some real sense, God suffers with us through the Cross. But that doesn't explain why evil exists. But neither can I explain why goodness exists.

I'm with the "good working hypothesis" brigade here. I think it makes me an optimist rather than a pessimist.

--------------------
If they give you lined paper to write on, write across the lines. (Russian anarchist saying)


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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76

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quote:
The fact that if something exists then it does exist is self-evident.
The fact that something cannot both 'be' and 'not be' is self-evident.
The fact that something is either true or false is also self-evident.

This is true of scientific truth. I wonder if it is true of all truth?

Take the statement 'God is our Father'. Is it true or false? Can it be both?

--------------------
Might as well ask the bloody cat.


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Russ
Old salt
# 120

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Dear SA,

Just a few thoughts:

1) I had always thought that an atheist was committed to the proposition that God does not exist. Whereas you seem to be saying only that you have not yet encountered evidence that He/She does. Which would make you a sceptical agnostic ?

2) Would you consider as evidence the stories of people whose lives have been transformed by a conversion experience ? Genuinely criminal types who have become altruistic overnight, "The Cross & the Switchblade" sort of stuff ? Even if the theology of the converted is sometimes dubious, the existence of a power that changes lives seems pretty much a matter of recorded fact...

3) What's all this nonsense about statements being either true or false ? It's like this; reality is complicated. We humans far too often describe it in very simple language. To demand of reality that it be either perfectly like or perfectly unlike the language we use is ridiculous.

Regards,

Russ

--------------------
Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas


Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

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I go away for a few days, and it takes for ever to catch up on a very interesting thread. Apologies if I go back a few posts to pick up some points (also if this post gets a bit long).

First of all, the questions raised by the Sceptical Atheist have been very important and interesting. I would probably put myself in the "Sceptical Christian" camp as well as others here. I certainly have no "objective falsifiable" evidence for the existance of God; there is however evidence, some of it similar in nature to the evidence for cosmology (for example).

Cosmologists are faced with a body of evidence that requires explanation. This includes things like the red shift of galaxies (the expansion of the universe), the cosmic radiation background, abundances of helium ....

Cosmologists have developed a number of theories to explain the origins of these observations. However, these theories are not subject to experimentation in the way that (for example) other branches of physics are (unless you know a way of creating a universe in the lab). The theories are still somewhat "falsifiable" in that they can be tested against the observations, and may predict how future observations (eg the precise structure of the cosmic background) will look.

However, the evidence that the theories explain or are tested against is by its' nature incomplete (limited by available instruments and time to make observations) and potentially incorrect (was the instrument recording a particular observation working properly?).

Now, to me, there isn't that much difference to the way I came to accept the theory that God (as described in the Bible and Christian tradition) exists. I looked at incomplete and potentially incorrect evidence (the recorded testimony of Jews and Christians in the Bible, the testimony in words and actions of Christians I knew, my own personal experiences etc) and tested them against the possible theories (God exists, He doesn't exist, there is a supernatural impersonal force...). I came to the decision that the Christian understanding of God best fitted the available evidence.

I also found that I could make a certain amount of "predictive observations", albeit subjective. It was clear that the Christian religion was demanding more than just an intellectual acceptance that God exists, there is a call to personal relationship with him. Now, entering a personal relationship changes both people (OK the change in God is probably insignificant), and I could therefore expect that by making the decision (a "step of faith") to enter such a relationship would result in some form of perceptable change in myself and my interactions with others.

Now, I've no idea if that addresses any questions/comments raised on this thread, but it is the best I can give in response to a request for "objective falsifiable" evidence for Gods' existance.

Alan

--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.


Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Ann

Curious
# 94

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Trying to prove God by 'objective falsifiable' could be mathematically impossible.

There was (is?) a mathematician called Godel who has a theorem. My book has gone walkies so I will have to do the best I can from memory, but it deals with the availibility of proof and can be summed up as:

"You cannot prove everything about a system from within the system."

As an example, if you are living in a one-dimensional world, you can only experience the line you live on. You can't imagine a line unless you could see it from above - which is another dimension which you don't have - it's outside your system.

So, there are four kinds of things:

  • Things that you can prove are true.
  • Things that you can prove are false
  • Things that are true, but you (or anyone else) cannot prove it
  • Things that are false, but you (or anyone else) cannot prove otherwise

I'm not sure if those paragraphs hang together there; I know they both went towards explaining the theorem and I think that it could apply here.

--------------------
Ann


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Glenn Oldham
Shipmate
# 47

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(Strewth! Turn your back for a moment and four more pages fill up!)

Gill said

quote:
Personally I believe that God (if there is one!) honours seekers after truth far more than people who manipulate and control others in the name of religion, of whom sadly there are many in the Churches.

Well said, I agree. It is better to honestly doubt than believe because you are told to.

Dear Sceptical Atheist,
I have a great deal of sympathy for your position. I think that the evidence is profoundly ambiguous, and I do sometimes wonder whether I am deceiving myself by continuing to try and live my life as if God exists. On balance, however, I think that such a strategy makes my life more fulfilling (and bearable) and I feel that there are enough grounds for it to satisfy me that I am not being intellectually irresponsible for so believing. (I gave up fundamentalism when I came to the conclusion that I could only remain in it if I compromised on intellectual integrity).

I think that the nature of the universe and its "not quite inscrutability"; some of the religious experience of humankind down the ages (not just Christianity); personal experience of love and kindness; are consonant with there being a God (but one who is rather less anthropomorphic and more supra-personal than the popular christian version).

As has been said the biggest challenge to this is the problem of evil and i find the cross of jesus a partial but not sufficient answer to this. (It is sometimes said that Jesus bore all the world's pain on the cross, if so why do i still have this toothache?)

I have not had an experience of God compelling enough to be indubitable (and would be able to doubt it soon after anyway!) And I prefer to regard experience of God as being found in experience of beauty, truth, kindness,justice, in the day to day than in extaordinary experiences.

Happy searching!
(If you are into Philosophy of Science I would heartily recommend Couvalis, The Philosophy of SCience
Glenn

--------------------
This entire doctrine is worthless except as a subject of dispute. (G. C. Lichtenberg 1742-1799 Aphorism 60 in notebook J of The Waste Books)


Posts: 910 | From: London, England | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
The sceptical Atheist
Shipmate
# 379

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Another quick hit and run post before I answer your points:

I have given you a testable way of showing me that God exists.

Do any of you have a testable way of showing that God doesn't exist?

What could possibly convince you of this?

--------------------
"Faith in God and seventy-five cents will get you a cup of coffee."
[Wayne Aiken]


Posts: 293 | From: Staffordshire | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Father Gregory

Orthodoxy
# 310

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Why do you insist that God is subject to your tests? Knowledge of the divine does not come from abstract reasoning but from love.

From Archimandrite Sophrony (His Life is Mine: Part 2, Chapter 2; SVS Press
pg. 117):

"Knowledge which is imbued with life (as opposed to abstract knowledge)
can in no wise be confined to the intellect: there must be a real union with
the act of Being. This is achieved through love: 'Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart...and with all thy mind' (Matt. 22:37). The
commandment bids us love. Therefore love is not something given to us: it
must be acquired by an effort made of our own free will. The injunction is
addressed first to the heart as the spiritual centre of the individual. Mind
is only one of the energies of the human I. Love begins in the heart, and
the mind is confronted with a new interior event and contemplates Being in
the Light of Divine love."

--------------------
Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™


Posts: 15099 | From: Manchester, UK | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
seasick

...over the edge
# 48

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The problem with the approach would seem to stem from 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test'. However, I would appreciate that this isn't terribly helpful in this situation.

For my part all the evidence I have of the existence of God comes from experience. The problem in convincing anyone else is that generally these experiences require the eyes of faith in order to be accepted as evidence . . . which leads into a bit of a circle.

I have also found that trying to apply logic usually doesn't work very well. The big problem I have found is that God can simultaneously be and not be a given attribute.

For example from a hymn:

Ever old and ever new

Does this mean 'Ever not new and ever new'? It sums up the sort of appraoch I think is necessary.

Some thoughts anyway . . .

--------------------
We believe there is, and always was, in every Christian Church, ... an outward priesthood, ordained by Jesus Christ, and an outward sacrifice offered therein. - John Wesley


Posts: 5769 | From: A world of my own | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Arrietty

Ship's borrower
# 45

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quote:
I have given you a testable way of showing me that God exists

No, you haven't.

Nor have you answered the points that were made about that.

--------------------
i-church

Online Mission and Ministry


Posts: 6634 | From: Coventry, UK | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Arrietty

Ship's borrower
# 45

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Several people have also suggested a way that you might test out if God exists - i.e. ask him to demonstrate that to you in a way that you find acceptable.

Have you tried that yet?

--------------------
i-church

Online Mission and Ministry


Posts: 6634 | From: Coventry, UK | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
frin

Drinking coffee for Jesus
# 9

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quote:
Originally posted by seasick:
The problem with the approach would seem to stem from 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test'. However, I would appreciate that this isn't terribly helpful in this situation.

Actually, that is the crux of this whole thing. The temptations of Christ center on opportunities to test God, to do an unquestionably fantastic supernatural thing which would prove undoubtably that God existed (the angels turning up to catch you temptation). This is something we are told not to do, to test God. So I cannot produce an OF test for you as it is (in a mild way) offensive to my belief system.

The problem of an OF test to prove that God is I believe yours to solve.

Incidentally, were God to take you up on your lottery challenge, would you not merely change philosophical enquiries to why God does not intervene in other specified situations. You'd drop the argument for the existence only to pick up the problem of evil.

'frin

--------------------
"Even the crocodile looks after her young" - Lamentations 4, remembering Erin.


Posts: 4496 | From: a library | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
Moo

Ship's tough old bird
# 107

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I agree with everyone who has said we should not test God.

If Jesus had thrown himself from the pinnacle of the temple, angels would have caught him, because he was God.

If any of us were to jump off anything equally high, we would go splat. We are not God.

The demand that God do something to prove himself has an underlying assumption. That is that we are God's equal or superior. Since that's not the case, those tests never work.

God sometimes does something to show his existence to a person who is sincerely and humbly seeking. Anyone who poses a test does not qualify.

Moo


Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Moo

Ship's tough old bird
# 107

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In an earlier post I said that the God I worship does not jump through hoops because a human being wants him to.

I would like to add that I can't see why any all-powerful being should obey a human individual.

God responds to intercessory prayer, not automatically, but thoughtfully, considering the welfare of the one being prayed for.

Moo


Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
The sceptical Atheist
Shipmate
# 379

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You didn't answer my question. I did not ask you for a test for God, or for you to test God, but I asked you what would ever convince you that there was no God.

I have given you a system of evidence that would show me that your God exists, but you say I should look in a different way.

That means that God does not match my system. That is a question that needs addressing, I know, but please for the moment answer the question I asked.

--------------------
"Faith in God and seventy-five cents will get you a cup of coffee."
[Wayne Aiken]


Posts: 293 | From: Staffordshire | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
The sceptical Atheist
Shipmate
# 379

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quote:

Steve_R
In fact the "true or false" fails on Russell's Paradox, "'be' and 'not be'" leads us to Schrodinger's Cat. Existence itself I do not believe to be necessarily self-evident in all cases.

The law of excluded middle is a fundamental way of how we all decide on the truth. If a statement is made, it cannot both be true and false at the same time. There are the caveats about when is something 'red' and when is it 'orange'. Schrodingers Cat, which is of course an impossible situation highlighting the paradox in sub atomic particles, shows that when we are discussing things such as electrons we cannot know if it is a particle or a wave. It depends on the way we examine it. Any statement about the electron, though can be seen as true or false (within the fundamental limits imposed by Heisenbergs uncertainty). I can say that I measured an electron that had X GeV amount of energy. That is either true or false. It cannot be both.

quote:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The fact that if something exists then it does exist is self-evident.
The fact that something cannot both 'be' and 'not be' is self-evident.
The fact that something is either true or false is also self-evident.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is true of scientific truth. I wonder if it is true of all truth?


This is a statement about Truth. They are called the laws of thought. They are self evident. They come into our consciousness as innate ideas before we start examining the truth of particular circumstances. Science is subservient to these points.

quote:

Take the statement 'God is our Father'. Is it true or false? Can it be both?

Let us consider this.
1) The statement 'God is our Father' is either True or False
If this is True, then we have a True statement. If it is false, we get the secondary point:
2) The statement "'God is our Father' may be true" is either True or False.

If (2) is True then we have a true statement, but we are still unsure in particular circumstances whether God is our Father. The uncertainty does not make the statement made false.
If (2) is False, then we know that the statement 'God is our Father' is totally false.

--------------------
"Faith in God and seventy-five cents will get you a cup of coffee."
[Wayne Aiken]


Posts: 293 | From: Staffordshire | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
The sceptical Atheist
Shipmate
# 379

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quote:

Alan:
Cosmologists are faced with a body of evidence that requires explanation. This includes things like the red shift of galaxies (the expansion of the universe), the cosmic radiation background, abundance of helium ....

Cosmologists have developed a number of theories to explain the origins of these observations. However, these theories are not subject to experimentation in the way that (for example) other branches of physics are (unless you know a way of creating a universe in the lab).



This is wrong. There are ways of testing the Big Bang (BB) theory. The cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation was about to be looked for, because it should have been there according to theory, when it was discovered anyway by accident.

The red shift makes predictions about where the galaxies would have been in the past. Pushing matter together increases the temperature, which is why the CMB should have been there. If it wasn't there, then the BB theory would have been falsified.

By using particle accelerators we can for tiny fractions of a second attain temperatures close to BB temperatures, and from this we can confirm that the particle physics (PP) theories are correct.

Using the PP theories, quantum mechanics (QM) and relativity, we can calculate what the Helium content should be. We can then observe the Helium content and see if that ties in. It does.

quote:

The theories are still somewhat "falsifiable" in that they can be tested against the observations, and may predict how future observations (e.g. the precise structure of the cosmic background) will look.

This is a strange comment. If they can be tested against observation, then they are falsifiable. If they can predict how future observations will look, then they are falsifiable too. The criteria you state here are proper science, so you are confirming the fact that what the scientists are saying is good science. I detect a little confusion here.

quote:

However, the evidence that the theories explain or are tested against is by its' nature incomplete (limited by available instruments and time to make observations) and potentially incorrect (was the instrument recording a particular observation working properly?).

It is remarkably complete. Thousands of tests in particle accelerators at least and many more tests of the CMB all done with a multitude of instruments getting better and more sensitive all the time. This claim is fallacious.

quote:

Now, to me, there isn't that much difference to the way I came to accept the theory that God (as described in the Bible and Christian tradition) exists. I looked at incomplete and potentially incorrect evidence (the recorded testimony of Jews and Christians in the Bible, the testimony in words and actions of Christians I knew, my own personal experiences etc) and tested them against the possible theories (God exists, He doesn't exist, there is a supernatural impersonal force...). I came to the decision that the Christian understanding of God best fitted the available evidence.

But it is not the same on one fundamental point. I hate to sound repetitive, but your claims are non-falsifiable. I am not saying that they are wrong because of this, but you are not comparing like with like. Science and religion may be compatible, but they are not the same as you seem to be implying.

quote:

I also found that I could make a certain amount of "predictive observations", albeit subjective. It was clear that the Christian religion was demanding more than just an intellectual acceptance that God exists, there is a call to personal relationship with him. Now, entering a personal relationship changes both people (OK the change in God is probably insignificant), and I could therefore expect that by making the decision (a "step of faith") to enter such a relationship would result in some form of perceptible change in myself and my interactions with others.

Now, I've no idea if that addresses any questions/comments raised on this thread, but it is the best I can give in response to a request for "objective falsifiable" evidence for Gods' existence.


I am sorry, Alan, this has been quite a negative post back to you, but that is not because I think what you say is not worth considering. You have given a thoughtful repines, but I think your knowledge of these matters is slightly flawed.

--------------------
"Faith in God and seventy-five cents will get you a cup of coffee."
[Wayne Aiken]


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The sceptical Atheist
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quote:

Posted by Ann:

Trying to prove God by 'objective falsifiable' could be mathematically impossible.
There was (is?) a mathematician called Godel who has a theorem. My book has gone walkies so I will have to do the best I can from memory, but it deals with the availability of proof and can be summed up as:

"You cannot prove everything about a system from within the system."


Hmmm. Does that mean we can know nothing about our universe because we are within it?

quote:
As an example, if you are living in a one-dimensional world, you can only experience the line you live on. You can't imagine a line unless you could see it from above - which is another dimension which you don't have - it's outside your system.

We can imagine a four dimensional cube (I am talking about four geometric dimensions, not having time as the fourth). It is called a hypercube. Specifically, a four dimensional cube is a tesseract. A search on the Web will show three dimensional representations of them. In fact, for a rather striking image of a hypercube unfolded into three dimensions, see Salvador Dali's Corpus Hypercubus.

Dali is trying to say in this painting that the resurrection cannot be fully known from our dimension. Notice the checkerboard pattern at the bottom, showing that Christ rises up above the flat world of our geometry into another plane, and that the resurrection is only seen in our eyes as a shadow of its totality. (I am trying to remember what I read in a mathematics book about it, I am not an art expert. Hey, I don't know everything….yet ). In fact, I have just remembered, last year I calculated the internal diagonal of a tesseract It was remarkably simple, the length of one side multiplied by the square root of four. We have the square root, the cube root and now the tesseract root.

A short story written by Robert A Heinlein on the subject is on-line here And he built a crooked house and well worth a read.

Back on the subject, I think we can know things about a system whether we are in it or out of it. Just the fact that we have names for and methods of calculating things in dimensions higher than the ones we live in says something.

quote:

So, there are four kinds of things:


Things that you can prove are true.
Things that you can prove are false
Things that are true, but you (or anyone else) cannot prove it
Things that are false, but you (or anyone else) cannot prove otherwise
I'm not sure if those paragraphs hang together there; I know they both went towards explaining the theorem and I think that it could apply here.


These points are very relevant. In fact I am reading a book at the moment which deals with the issue of falsifiability (Pierre Duhem: "Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science"). He raises some valid points about the use of crucial experiments in science, but whether this invalidates the use of falsification as a criteria is still not clear. I need to do some more thinking on the implications of his claims.

--------------------
"Faith in God and seventy-five cents will get you a cup of coffee."
[Wayne Aiken]


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The sceptical Atheist
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# 379

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quote:

Stephen
I have followed this thread for a while now and remain absolutely fascinated by it. One thought that came into my mind was this. It's obvious that Sceptical Atheist has posted on sites with shall we say a more militant Christian bias (I'm being polite!!) and is probably surprised by our response, I hope pleasantly. In my time I have peered into atheism but strange to say find it more a leap of faith than to remain a Christian. I can understand people being agnostics but atheism seems to require that little bit more than I can give. It's possible that by posting here SA may be closer to God than some of us realise or indeed are....and I'm not stirring here!

I am not surprised by the response I have got (I lurked before I posted) but I am very glad I chose to raise the question. When debating the Fundies, the arguments don't touch me in the slightest. They quote the scripture as if just that will convince me, and when I question what I think it says, they cannot respond effectively IMHO. Here there has been intelligent responses that have challenged my position and made me question where I stand and why. This is totally different to the ways that the Fundies just 'put your back up' and move one into a more hard-line stance.


quote:

But in general the universe is fine tuned to an incredible degree eg the resonance in the carbon atom that has to be just so. Of course there may be many other universe (the multiverse theory) and it just so happens that we're sitting in the one that is not too hostile to life
I'd agree that you can't prove the existence of God from this. But it doesn't seem to be incompatible with God. The problem Christianity has - and it's a big one - is the problem of evil especially if one maintains that God intervenes....and I don't know the answer to this one.

The existence of humans in this universe is only because this universe is fitted to life. The chances of that happening if this is the only universe is immense. If there are as many as the multiverse interpretation of QM says there will be, the chances are almost certain that in at least one will be set up in favour of life. And, of course, if one is then that will mean many more will be because each time a quantum event occurs, another universe is started.

I have only recently taken the multiverse concept more seriously. A good book by a physicist ("The Fabric of Reality" by David Deutsch) explains why it shouldn't be just dismissed.

quote:

Anyway keep posting Sceptical Atheist....I can't pretend your posts aren't thought-provoking, and if they're not answered it's not because you're being ignored....some of us have work to do as well!!

I could never accuse any of you of ignoring posts. I am too busy firefighting as many as I can to see if my points are beeing answered.

quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The billions of universes are one possible answer to the problem of Quantum Mechanics and is in principle (in theory at the moment) falsifiable.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interesting concept! At the moment the universe we are in is the only one we can observe by definition.

To postulate the existence of multiple universes in order to explain the fact that the constants that determine the nature of this universe are exactly those needed to support life is a great leap of faith which is not even theoretically falsifiable.


Actually, if you can explain to me how QM is explainable in simple terms without the use of other universes, then I would like to know. We have mathematical tools, such as the collapsing wave function, for predicting what will happen, but they don't explain it.

Remember, the Nobel prize winning Physicist Richard Feynham said "If you think you understand QM then you don't".

I have mentioned a book in an earlier post, "The Fabric of Reality", and the author discusses in there exactly what the possibilities of the multiverse being there are. The field of quantum computing is one area which could soon be providing us with interesting results on the multiverse idea.

quote:
That is why scientists are forced to use your favourite razor to remove the other universes and are left with a universe "designed" for life. Interestingly, a very old book we all know describes the creation of the heavens and the earth in exactly those terms. A massive creation for the purpose of sustaining life.

On a technical point, Occams razor isn't used to remove all the other universes. They are removed from our theories purely because we only consider the one we live in. The weak anthropic principle comes into play.

--------------------
"Faith in God and seventy-five cents will get you a cup of coffee."
[Wayne Aiken]


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The sceptical Atheist
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# 379

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quote:

Fr Gregory:
"How do I know that this "thing" I have a relationship with is God?"
It's a recognition thing. What are the marks of recognition? The mind of the Church and the countless millions who have gone before me knowing the same person .... and being prepared to die for Him.

That's how I know.


So, you accept the Truth of Allah, because of the mind of the Moslem world and the countless millions who know Allah and are prepared to die for him?

You can't have it both ways. If you accept the Truth of your God on those grounds, then you must, to be consistent, accept the Truth of all those other people who have the same claim to make. Unless there is a way of seperating them.

There is an argument used amongst atheists, where an atheist asks a Christian if they believe in Zeus, Wotan, all the Hindu pantheon etc. They obviously say they don't.
"Aha! Says the atheist, so of all the thousands of Gods that there are, you disbelieve in all but one. I just disbelieve in one more than you. You are nearly an atheist yourself"

I understand the aim of this argument, even if it is a little simplistic. Christainity is only one amongst many, and most religions make the same basic claims about access to God, answered prayers etc. If you accept the conviction of bellievers as evidence of its truthfulness, then you must do that for all beliefs, not just the one you happen to believe in.

quote:

Whether God is falsifiable or not is a matter for your world view and the questions it generates. I propose, (as I have done before), that God is not just another phenomenon; not just another object; not just another observable reality; not just another "being." (If this sounds crazy to you then you need to factor in the Eastern Church's commitment to apophatic theology .... somewhat weak in the west).

No. God is either falsifiable or non-falsifiable. I am not a Post Modernist that says that truth is in the eye of the beholder. I do think that 'the Truth is out there'.
If God has an effect on the world, then why is that effect not measurable? I am not talking about the people who believe in God having an effect, or the Church having an effect, but God Himself.

quote:

So, I suppose, that's the end of our common ground. I don't want it to be, but I can't see where we go from here.

You can start being a little more objective about what you claim and what you experience. Objectivity is the key to common ground.

--------------------
"Faith in God and seventy-five cents will get you a cup of coffee."
[Wayne Aiken]


Posts: 293 | From: Staffordshire | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
frin

Drinking coffee for Jesus
# 9

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[helpful reminder]

You missed answering this:

quote:
Incidentally, were God to take you up on your lottery challenge, would you not merely change philosophical enquiries to why God does not intervene in other specified situations? You'd drop the argument for the existence only to pick up the problem of evil.

Asked as a question because that seems to me how philosophical enquiry progresses.

--------------------
"Even the crocodile looks after her young" - Lamentations 4, remembering Erin.


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The sceptical Atheist
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# 379

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Frin,

If God answered the bonus ball challenge, I would have other questions, but it would not be to doubt the existence of an entity that could do that. It would clearly be something greater than human possibilities.

--------------------
"Faith in God and seventy-five cents will get you a cup of coffee."
[Wayne Aiken]


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frin

Drinking coffee for Jesus
# 9

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quote:
Originally posted by The sceptical Atheist:
You didn't answer my question. I did not ask you for a test for God, or for you to test God, but I asked you what would ever convince you that there was no God.

Reciprocally, I missed this one. I cannot think of an evidence which would show me a non-existence of God. Proof will come at the time of Judgement (I didn't enjoy typing that) but if there isn't a God I won't be around to find that out.

'frin

--------------------
"Even the crocodile looks after her young" - Lamentations 4, remembering Erin.


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Laura
General nuisance
# 10

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Editorial note: I think you must mean Richard Feynmann.

I've never doubted that Christianity fails the acid test of any scientific theory -- that is, it is inherently unfalsifiable. But isn't the point that at the very end of all discussions about how Quantum Mechanics demonstrates that there's more to matter than we can currently know, and whether we can understand the Resurrection or not, the answer is finally a (gosh, I hate to use such a trite phrase) leap of faith. We either are capable of believing something that seems to many absurd, or we are not.

I was raised in the ECUSA, and I find from time to time in my life that I cannot believe, that it is too hard to accept -- I reach deep inside, and sometimes it just isn't there, though all the knowledge of scripture and tradition remains, and a supportive community. So I sympathize deeply with the inability to believe.

But I'm not really sure that there's in the end a way past the faith/reason deadlock. I really wish there was.

--------------------
Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm


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The sceptical Atheist
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# 379

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To all of you that say you shouldn't test God, I am curiuos about te times in the Bible whwn teh shadow oof a stick goes backwards because somebody asked for a test. I am curious about Gideon who asked for and got a test. I am curious about Isaiah 7 where God loses patience with somebody because he won't ask for a test.

Just thinking aloud.

--------------------
"Faith in God and seventy-five cents will get you a cup of coffee."
[Wayne Aiken]


Posts: 293 | From: Staffordshire | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
The sceptical Atheist
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# 379

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A Zen story

A mans wife died and before she did, he promised that he would never live with another woman. He later fell in love again and married somebody else. Then every night his wife appeared to him as a Ghost accusing him of infidelity and betrayal. The Ghost knew all of the intimate details of what had happened and what had been said between the man and his new wife, So, he went to a Zen priest because he was so frightened.

"Next time the Ghost appears, take a handful of beans and ask the Ghost how many you have got. If the Ghost knows the answer, then she is powerful. If she doesn't then you know she is just a figment of your imagination."

The next night the ghost appeared, and the man took a handful of beans and asked her how many he had in his hand. The ghost didn't know, disapeared and never returned.

[fixed code]

[ 08 June 2001: Message edited by: RuthW ]

--------------------
"Faith in God and seventy-five cents will get you a cup of coffee."
[Wayne Aiken]


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Laura
General nuisance
# 10

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Oh, thanks, frin, for bringing the problem of evil up again. That's always my sticking point. And not on a simplistic "why is there pain in the world" level, but that the terrible suffering of innocents really cannot be explained by a faith whose members pray for things for themselves. Or to put it another way, why on earth would God care two figs about your Ethics 201 examination when he allows Rwandan children sheltering in a church to be chopped up with machetes?

The closest answer I've heard that would suffice, (if I could but believe it) is the "this life doesn't matter" explanation, in which nothing much that happens here is relevant, though that doesn't seem to jibe with other teachings regarding the value and purpose of life.

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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm


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Moo

Ship's tough old bird
# 107

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To all of you that say you shouldn't test God, I am curiuos about te times in the Bible
whwn teh shadow oof a stick goes backwards because somebody asked for a test. I
am curious about Gideon who asked for and got a test. I am curious about Isaiah 7
where God loses patience with somebody because he won't ask for a test.
---------------------------------------------

You don't believe in God, and you are asking him to prove that he exists.

In the Bible verses you cite, people who believed in God asked for a sign to make sure they knew what God wanted them to do.

Since God wants people to do his will, he has no problem with people asking to have it made very clear.

The two situations are completely different.

Moo


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The sceptical Atheist
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# 379

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Moo,

I am not looking for proof, I am looking for evidence.

I quoted the scriptures (in that badly spelled post) to point out to those who won't answer my questions because they say "You shall not test the Lord thy God"

So, I just thought I would show them that the Lord they God doesn't mind being tested, so that means they are free to answer my question. I wonder how many will?

--------------------
"Faith in God and seventy-five cents will get you a cup of coffee."
[Wayne Aiken]


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Father Gregory

Orthodoxy
# 310

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We're talking about the existence of God here so I think I am quite justified in laying myself open to charges that this also underwrites Islam and other religions.

Ah! I hear you say. How do you know it isn't the tooth fairy? Because as a believer I share more in common with, say, a Hindu, than an atheist? We present different beliefs in the particular but we are united in our appreciation of the divine. The evidence we submit is never going to satisfy you because we are agree that all realities are not subject to the falsifiable / non-falsifiable criteria. In short, yours is not the only game on the pitch. It doesn't matter to me that you are unimpressed, (this is not intended to be rude ... just honest). We are working from radically different premises.

I suppose you could answer my point about apophaticism .... God is not, not, not, not etc.

--------------------
Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™


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Nightlamp
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# 266

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A quote from the skeptical atheist

quote:
I have given you a testable way of showing me that God exists.

Do any of you have a testable way of showing that God doesn't exist?



Unfortunately you have not given us a a testable way of showing us god exists

what you have done using Occams Razor is pitted God starting it all agianst a pile of unknown chemicals that reacted in an unknown way to start the ball rolling.

there is no objective intellectual way of
testing the existence of God.

What skeptical atheist would you say to the the statement that we are all the simply the dreams of god (Berkeley) you could neither find conclusive evidence against or for it.

But it is a simple view of the universe

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I don't know what you are talking about so it couldn't have been that important- Nightlamp


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Moo

Ship's tough old bird
# 107

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The Lord does not mind being tested under certain circumstances.

He is willing to be tested by a believer who wants to do his will and needs a clear indication of what that will is.

He does not do things to gratify people's curiosity.

Moo


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Gill
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# 102

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Hey, you just write one post agreeing, and he never speaks to you again!

And now I've forgotten what I was going to say... oh, someone on about page 4 said they gave up being a Fundamentalist when they realized it would mean compromising their intellectual integrity. Me too.

And, S.A., if I were ever to feel that the Christian faith per se were to compromise my intellectual integrity, then I suppose I would have to give it up. If 'God' ever stopped being a feasible counter to my many questions, for example (and like many here, I come close to that at times). And that is why I am valuing this discussion so much.

I write for my parish magazine every month and encourage people to face their doubts and examine them. I do that daily. And if ever I find a doubt within me which my faith cannot still, then why would I want to pursue that faith?

Note that I don't use the word 'answer'. my faith doesn't provide me with all the answers, but it gives me grounds to accept the fact that there isn't always an answer.

Before you ask, I can't prove that! Anyway welcome back...


--------------------
Still hanging in there...


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Belisarius
Lord Bountiful of Admin (Emeritus) Delights
# 32

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Slow day at work, so I'm just finishing reading through all six pages (whew!).

I just have one comment on something from way back--

quote:
You have to believe that random chance threw everything together in exactly the right combinations at exactly the right time. From my point of view, the evidence for that is sorely lacking. I am curious how Occam's Razor leads you to this conclusion.

S.A. already mentioned that the steps wouldn't be completely random, but also one could say that if the steps-by-chance hadn't occurred, we simply wouldn't be around to question it.

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Animals may be Evolution's Icing, but Bacteria are the Cake.
Andrew Knoll


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Arrietty

Ship's borrower
# 45

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Sceptical Atheist

I see on your profile you say your religion is 'militant atheist'. Possibly this is a joke, but your website doesn't seem to have much room for doubt about your position either.

Are you really interested in discussing you ideas or are you out to convert us?

I was a sceptical (and occasionally a militant) atheist for years. Therefore it is most unlikely you will persuade me to return to that worldview - 'been there, done that, got the T shirt'

However, I have no interest in persuading anyone to abandon beliefs that work for them. If atheism, sceptical or otherwise, works for you, that's fine by me.

Perhaps you want us all to pile into you and try to forcibly convert you? I don't think it's going to happen here, somehow.

--------------------
i-church

Online Mission and Ministry


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Father Gregory

Orthodoxy
# 310

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I think the main problem with atheism is that it has such an impoverished notion of truth. Now if someone rejects God because s/he is angry with Him, that's fine. But this arguing on a logical tooth pick is pointless scholasticism of the worst order. It doesn't indicate a fine mind to logic chop. It takes a fine mind to have a broad range of understanding of reality ... and that doesn't mean vague or subjective either.

--------------------
Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™

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Glenn Oldham
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# 47

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Just for some light relief I was wondering how many different people had contributed to the 6 pages of this thread so far. I decided to use Occcam's Razor and 'not multiply entities needlessly.' So my conclusion is that there are just twocontributors: i.e. me and the one other person who is impersonating all the other writers.

Glenn

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This entire doctrine is worthless except as a subject of dispute. (G. C. Lichtenberg 1742-1799 Aphorism 60 in notebook J of The Waste Books)


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QLib

Bad Example
# 43

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Well, in a sense the sceptical atheist is right. Since God is infinite and cannot, therefore, be defined, the word ‘God’ is, in a sense, meaningless. So it is just as true to say ‘God is not’ as it is to say ‘God is.’

On the other hand ‘God’ is just a shorthand way of describing the gound of our being – and to say our being has no ground is clearly nonsense. And as Fr.Gregory has pointed out elsewhere the ‘God is not’ formula has been well-used in the mystical tradition, which is based on an encounter with something that does not lend itself to logical analysis. Neither does the God-thing relate to the National Lottery. One way that we encounter God is by finding Him in others – and we know that others exist, don’t we? Is that an elephant under that table over there?

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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.


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Ann

Curious
# 94

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Sorry that I haven't got round to reading this before the answer to my post is getting lost in the mists of time.

SA, I did not say that

quote:
Hmmm. Does that mean we can know nothing about our universe because we are within it?
, but that we cannot know everything about it.

If the on-dimensional being is a bit lame, and I think that with the hypercube, we are just imagining it, we cannot see it, try my hash at this:

Euclid had a system of mathematical/geometrical axioms and proofs which served for centuries, but one of them was always a bit clumsy - the one about parallel lines. Many mathematicians have tried to restate that in a more elegant fasion, and failed. Now, mathematicians have said, 'What's the worst that can happen if this isn't as proved as we thought?' and created the branch of non-Euclidean geometry. Conceptually, it all boils down to living on a sphere, inside a bubble or on a flat surface (the last of which is Euclidean). Or to put it another way, do the angles of your triangle add up to more, less or exactly 180°.

Only if you are outside and can 'see' the curve or not of the surface can you use the last proof, you cannot from inside, but the rest of the axioms and proofs are there for the taking.

(BTW: the book is called 'Godel, Esher and Bach', it's mathematical, but if you are asking for proofs, it may have the reasons you (we) may not be able to find them. At least not in the hard mathematics and physics, quantifiable areas which allow for OF evidence).

--------------------
Ann


Posts: 3271 | From: IO 91 PI | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
David
Complete Bastard
# 3

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Subjectively Falsifying God

I can't objectively falsify God, but I can do it subjectively.

Here's how it works.

1. I know that when I forgive others, God also forgives me. He's always done it before, and it's something that I can rely on. If this were to cease, my worldview would disappear.

But how can this be tested? Quite simply, if I continually am able to maintain my objective relationship with God, it is because of God's acceptance of me via forgiveness.

But to you, that is subjective of course.

2. If my moral decisions are motivated by love and love only, God sees this and makes my actions based on these moral decision consonant with the motivation. Anything else has a tendency to rebound in some way.

Because my moral decisions are closed to anyone else, they are subjective from your perspective. But objective from mine. (And you can't trace back the physical effects to a spiritual causality, since your are not privy to my motivations).

3. And so it goes on - there are many more things that I know I can rely on. It's based on what I know of God, and this knowledge comes from a large number of things - my experience in this regard and others' experience in this regard are of the foremost importance.

Now the fact that God seems to be deliberately consistent in these activities is, to me, solid evidence. To you, it is simply a subjective report with no basis in fact.

The only way for you to objectify it is to experience it yourself. It is not physical, it's spiritual. To test for the spiritual, you need a spiritual test, not a physical one, and that is based on the moral decisions that we make.


Posts: 3815 | From: Redneck Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2001  |  IP: Logged
Will
Shipmate
# 356

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Well now Mr. The sceptical Atheist ,
I think we are back to what would you accept as evidence? Is there anything that would suffice? That could not be passed off as something else?

--------------------
Shalom, Will.

Posts: 60 | From: Tx. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Freehand

The sound of one hand clapping
# 144

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Hey Fr. Gregory,

I love what you said about...

quote:

Knowledge of the divine does not come from abstract reasoning but from love.

This is the essence of God. Not very helpful to a OF search but the essence of it all.

Some questions that should perhaps fill some other strings...

    Why does God make Himself difficult to scrutinize? I am fully convinced that He exists, but what would be his motivation for making Himself difficult to find? It seems that sometimes He likes tests and sometimes He doesn't.
    If God is the source of everything and God is Good, then why doesn't everything express His character? Why is there a devil? Does God have a split personality?

Hey Sceptic, I had long discussions with my Atheistic friends in Highschool and in the end one of them admitted that it takes faith to be an atheist. The other one converted, only to deconvert later on. I thought I was sick of hearing all the arguements, but this has been very thought provoking. I like the Dragon thing. I like the Zen thing. Thanks.

No intelligent answers to anything,

Freehand


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