Tennyson, In Memoriam, A.H.H.

Anonymous wrote:1. The wishful thinking argument was put forth by believers. They contended that a world without absolute justice was intolerable and therefore the atheists must be wrong. It is a bit of wishful thinking on your part to attribute it to the atheists, when they were only rephrasing what the believers said.

2. If God is omnipotent, saying something like "God transcends the universe" is a weak excuse. It is impossible to imagine that God cannot make himself visible. In fact, the Bible has God talking directly to Moses, appearing to the Apostles in the Transfiguration, becoming the Son of Man who rises from the dead, performing miracles, and occasionally showing up to peasants in various places around the world.

Either these things are not true, or your assertion is false.

If it is false, one has to ask why God does not appear in a way that is unambiguously clear in the modern world. But these things really weren't true, then what exactly are you worshipping in the first place?

A child sidetracked me, so my other points will need to wait until tomorrow, but a quick response to these points:

Before skipping ahead a few steps to the claims of Christianity, just think about the idea of God, the Creator, directly addressing His creation.

We are finite, physical beings in time and space, while God is an infinite, immaterial being outside of time and space. (Since we have been stuck at the first step, whether God exists at all, we have not moved on to His attributes, but bear with me a moment.) If we could fully comprehend such a being, we would not be human.

(Then there is the separate issue of honoring free will, but that gets involved, and has been debated earlier in the thread.)

As to unambiguous revelation in the modern world...again, you are demanding evidence of God as a being of your possible complete comprehension, which is impossible. But if you are looking for instances of phenomena that defy scientific explanation, even after being subjected to scientific inquiry, there are several which could be subject to your consideration. As the video-rationalist stated, for the doubting Thomases out there, needing that kind of evidence is part of the human condition for some people. Off the top of my head, I can think of the tilma of Guadalupe, the Miracle of the Sun in Portugal, and medical miracles at Lourdes. Maybe one of them would be your "My Lord and my God" moment. Or maybe you would say miracles are not possible.

In any case, I will have to work on my next point, which is the problem of morality in a materialist universe.

Meant to say "but if these things really weren't true"

1. The wishful thinking argument was put forth by believers. They contended that a world without absolute justice was intolerable and therefore the atheists must be wrong. It is a bit of wishful thinking on your part to attribute it to the atheists, when they were only rephrasing what the believers said.

2. If God is omnipotent, saying something like "God transcends the universe" is a weak excuse. It is impossible to imagine that God cannot make himself visible. In fact, the Bible has God talking directly to Moses, appearing to the Apostles in the Transfiguration, becoming the Son of Man who rises from the dead, performing miracles, and occasionally showing up to peasants in various places around the world.

Either these things are not true, or your assertion is false.

If it is false, one has to ask why God does not appear in a way that is unambiguously clear in the modern world. But these things really weren't true, then what exactly are you worshipping in the first place?

OP here, good evening. With my little ones nestled in their beds, I finally have time to add some thoughts. I have read and caught up on the excitement of the day (the red herrings, the straw men, the reductio ad absurdums, the liberal sprinklings of ad hominems, and the various slams against particular religious texts), and I watched the rationalist/materialist infomercial with keen interest, because information shared with an accent always sounds sublime. I wish there were time to discuss every point in great detail, but one can only long for eternity...oh, nevermind

I think I will need to make my points in separate posts, and they follow from one comment in the YouTube video. The rationalist wittily observed that moral questions, such as nuclear bombs dropped on the innocent and annoying ring tones (?), do not fall under the rationalist category of knowledge. I heartily agree, and that is what my points will address.

First, the "wishful thinking" argument.

Repeatedly, the nonbelievers/materialists/rationalists on this thread have stated that God is the result of wishful thinking, due to this line of thought: I cannot bear the thought that there is no such thing as perfect justice, therefore there must be God, who metes out perfect justice. Or, I cannot bear the thought that this is all that there is, therefore there must be more to us than just our physical bodies in this world, therefore there must be souls, that live forever, and by the way, God must have made them.

The "wishful thinking" dismissal was famously put forth by Freud, who thought of God as a figment of our still-childish imaginations, dreamt up as a perfect father figure to comfort us in our fearful and uncertain world.

The magnanimous atheists repeat the "wishful thinking" dismissal almost wistfully, sort of wishing it were true themselves. How nice it would be if there were perfect justice. How nice it would be if we had eternal souls. How nice it would be if God was holding everything in the metaphorical palm of His hand.

The snarky atheists are a little more blunt, usually accusing believers of mental illness, stupidity, weakness, and gullibility.

While noting that the "wishful thinking" argument is not worthless, I have been willing to put it aside, for the following reason:

PPs have stated repeatedly they do not believe in God because there is "no evidence," no "proof" for His existence. I asked, "What evidence do you need?" And received the answer, "I am a rationalist/materialist. I know things to be true through the scientific method, which can know the material universe, which is all there is."

But God, if He exists, is not found in the material universe, He created the material universe. He transcends the universe. He is no more to be found in the material universe as a builder is to be found in the house he built as a wall or a floor.

(This is where PPs start throwing unicorns and leprechans and Santa Claus around, but these examples show a misunderstanding of what the word "God" signifies.)

So here is the problem: if empiricism is the only way to know the truth, then there is no way to know God. At best, empiricism can investigate traces of God's work, but not God Himself. If empiricism is the only way to know reality, one rules out, a priori, even the possibility of God, because one rules out any means to know God.

(Besides sensory knowledge, we do also acquire information through logic, through argumentation. But, as many PPs have emphasized, that is not material evidence.)

This is the turning point, because this is where the intellect meets the will.

So who is asking for the evidence that God exists? It is someone ruling out the possibility to begin with?

(The Last Battle illustrates this during the scene of the dwarves eating the feast Aslan has prepared for them.)

Clearly, PPs have looked at the same evidence, in the material universe and in logic, and come up with incompatible conclusions. When someone chooses not to believe, there is nothing to be done.

That is why I have set aside the "wishful thinking" stumbling block. I accept the worldview of those who believe that rationalism/materialism is true for now. That leads to my next point.

Anyone participating in this thread should watch this video, as it sums up the rationalist position succinctly and comprehensively:

Anonymous wrote:Well no, God is more likely than leprechuans, as shown supra regarding unicorns. But I see where you're coming from.

Video evidence:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well no, God is more likely than leprechuans, as shown supra regarding unicorns. But I see where you're coming from.

Well, getting back to unicorns, I disagree that God is more likely than either leprechuans or unicorns. Plenty of people have claimed to have seen leprechauns--at least in Ireland--and there's a ton of literature on unicorns throughout history. We know there are horses, why not a horse with a horn. As far as why unicorns and leprechauns haven't been seen by lots of people, they're both extremely shy and have supernatural abililties to hide. As PP put it upthread, both consist of "the ordinary understanding of the thing."

In fact, if we're to believe what we read in various holy books, God is a big show-off: he wants to talk to people. He's always throwing his weight around in the Bible, the Book of Mormon, etc, etc... But suddenly he's all shy in the day-to-day reality we actually inhabit? No, this is evidence against him. Imagine if a key aspect of the "unicorns theory" was that they love people, and spend their days performing feats of kindness for humans. The god of the bible is supposed to be an involved god. Unicorns are shy, retiring creatures who don't want to be found.

Not only that, but God's abilities are quite literally boundless. He's omnipotent. Leprechauns and unicorns have a pretty narrow set of capabilities.

Anonymous wrote:Well no, God is more likely than leprechuans, as shown supra regarding unicorns. But I see where you're coming from.

Well, getting back to unicorns, I disagree that God is more likely than either leprechuans or unicorns. Plenty of people have claimed to have seen leprechauns--at least in Ireland--and there's a ton of literature on unicorns throughout history. We know there are horses, why not a horse with a horn. As far as why unicorns and leprechauns haven't been seen by lots of people, they're both extremely shy and have supernatural abililties to hide. As PP put it upthread, both consist of "the ordinary understanding of the thing."

In fact, if we're to believe what we read in various holy books, God is a big show-off: he wants to talk to people. He's always throwing his weight around in the Bible, the Book of Mormon, etc, etc... But suddenly he's all shy in the day-to-day reality we actually inhabit? No, this is evidence against him. Imagine if a key aspect of the "unicorns theory" was that they love people, and spend their days performing feats of kindness for humans. The god of the bible is supposed to be an involved god. Unicorns are shy, retiring creatures who don't want to be found.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From a random internet guy on a different forum:

"There is no reason to examine the question of whether there's a god or not until there's a reason to postulate one."

Bingo.

Not so sure that helps. While "Universe therefore God" doesn't hold, "Universe; maybe God?" is at least worth thinking about.

It seems as though we all have given the "maybe god" some thought. We just came to a different conclusion than you.

Well no, God is more likely than leprechuans, as shown supra regarding unicorns. But I see where you're coming from.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From a random internet guy on a different forum:

"There is no reason to examine the question of whether there's a god or not until there's a reason to postulate one."

Bingo.

Not so sure that helps. While "Universe therefore God" doesn't hold, "Universe; maybe God?" is at least worth thinking about.

Only in the same sense that "Universe; maybe leprechaun behind every tree?" is worth thinking about. At some point, you have to realize there are only so many hours in the day.

Anonymous wrote:From a random internet guy on a different forum:

"There is no reason to examine the question of whether there's a god or not until there's a reason to postulate one."

Bingo.

Not so sure that helps. While "Universe therefore God" doesn't hold, "Universe; maybe God?" is at least worth thinking about.

From a random internet guy on a different forum:

"There is no reason to examine the question of whether there's a god or not until there's a reason to postulate one."

Bingo.

Bois-Reymond also said :"Though there appears to be something in the phenomena of living beings which cannot be explained by ordinary mechanical, physical or chemical laws, much may be so explained, and we may without fear push these explanations as far as we can, so long as we keep to the solid ground of observation and experiment."

In other words he would not let you dismiss scientific inquiry with a wave of your hand.