The Key

[Panda Termint]

.... and God hates it when you talk about Him behind His back. Especially so when you're misrepresenting Him.

 

[Purple Rain]

The LORD Continues to Interrogate Purple

The LORD answered Purple from the wind storm and told her: “Stand up like a man! I’ll ask you some questions, and you give me some answers! Indeed would you annul my justice and condemn me, just so you can claim that you’re righteous? Do you have strength like God? Can you create thunder with a sound like he can?”

Can You Save Yourself?

“When you have adorned yourself with exalted majesty, clothed yourself with splendor and dignity, dispensed the fury of your anger, made sure that you have humbled every proud person, stared down and subdued every proud person, trampled the wicked right where they are, buried them in the dust together, and sent them bound to that secret place, then I will applaud you myself! I’ll admit that you can deliver yourself by your own efforts!”

 

[Space_Cowboy]

Please leave Einstein out of this.

Otherwise, I think you are using science as a metaphor while slightly pretending that it isn't just a metaphor.

Also, since there is no experimental evidence that tachyons exist it seems a bit presumptive to declare what they can and cannot do.

Einstein was a Swiss Jew, of course he believed in God. Like many of us, his belief in God matured, evolved, and changed over his lifetime, but make no mistake, it was there. In his later life he considered himself a pantheist, and felt unable to communicate with a personal God, unlike myself. But his belief was there.

"Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly." - Albert Einstein (Time Magazine, 1940)

With regard to the tachyons, it was Einstein himself that stated Special Relativity, while precluding objects traveling at less than the speed of light from ever achieving a speed of C, did not preclude the existence of particles that "always" exist at speeds above the speed of light. Because of their spacelike worldline, they are not able to decelerate to the speed of light or slower, if they do in fact exist. This is well known. (Feinberg, G. (1967). "Possibility of Faster-Than-Light Particles". Physical Review 159 (5): 1089–1105. See also Feinberg's later paper: Phys. Rev. D 17, 1651 (1978).)

And science isn't a metaphor. At least not in my meaning or practice of it. It's skeptical, objective, peer-reviewed, repeatably validated fact.

 

[Space_Cowboy]

Interesting.

Are you familiar with this guy's work? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Peacocke

He, as a scientist turned priest had some pretty interesting theories about god and theology. He was genuinely surprised when he visited Australia to lecture of the popularity of his subject. People packed the lecture halls to hear him, an experience he found quite humbling.

Thank you for this referral! I had never heard of this man, but I'm intrigued by his path of discovery.

I'd love, someday to speak about my own discoveries regarding the union of Physics and Metaphysics, and how that impacts notions of God, the miraculous, and the human condition. If ever invited, I would certainly be glad to do so.

Thus far all my publications have all been purely scientific.

 

[SpecialFrog]

Einstein was a Swiss Jew, of course he believed in God. Like many of us, his belief in God matured, evolved, and changed over his lifetime, but make no mistake, it was there. In his later life he considered himself a pantheist, and felt unable to communicate with a personal God, unlike myself. But his belief was there.

"Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly." - Albert Einstein (Time Magazine, 1940)

Not that Einstein church quote. He never said it.

I am, however, a little embarrassed. The wording of the statement you have quoted is not my own. Shortly after Hitler came to power in Germany I had an oral conversation with a newspaper man about these matters. Since then my remarks have been elaborated and exaggerated nearly beyond recognition. I cannot in good conscience write down the statement you sent me as my own. The matter is all the more embarrassing to me because I, like yourself, I am predominantly critical concerning the activities, and especially the political activities, through history of the official clergy. Thus, my former statement, even if reduced to my actual words (which I do not remember in detail) gives a wrong impression of my general attitude.

He did describe himself at times as a pantheist but otherwise I think you are misrepresenting him.

I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.
...
The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text.

The fact that he was born to irreligious Swiss Jews doesn't actually tell you anything about his religious beliefs.

With regard to the tachyons, it was Einstein himself that stated Special Relativity, while precluding objects traveling at less than the speed of light from ever achieving a speed of C, did not preclude the existence of particles that "always" exist at speeds above the speed of light. Because of their spacelike worldline, they are not able to decelerate to the speed of light or slower, if they do in fact exist. This is well known. (Feinberg, G. (1967). "Possibility of Faster-Than-Light Particles". Physical Review 159 (5): 1089–1105. See also Feinberg's later paper: Phys. Rev. D 17, 1651 (1978).)

And science isn't a metaphor. At least not in my meaning or practice of it. It's skeptical, objective, peer-reviewed, repeatably validated fact.

While tachyons are not precluded by relativity they are not predicted by either relativity or the standard model as far as I am aware. There is no particular reason to assume they actually exist.

Also, you stated the properties of something with mass that was able to accelerate to light speed and noted that it sounded like the properties you would expect God to have. This may be an interesting way to think about God but it doesn't actually tell you that a) something with mass can be accelerated to lightspeed within the universe (which Einstein says it can't), b) god exists or c) god has those properties. This makes it a metaphor rather than a scientific statement.

There is nothing wrong with this. I find mathematics lends itself extremely well to all kinds of religious metaphor.

As an aside, I'm curious as to what your area of science is?

 

[The_Fixer]

Thank you for this referral! I had never heard of this man, but I'm intrigued by his path of discovery.

I'd love, someday to speak about my own discoveries regarding the union of Physics and Metaphysics, and how that impacts notions of God, the miraculous, and the human condition. If ever invited, I would certainly be glad to do so.

Thus far all my publications have all been purely scientific.

You won't be able to speak to him now, he passed away several years ago.

He has written several books and has some items over the net. A little more about him.. http://www.zygonjournal.org/peacocke.html

He was the 2001 Templeton Prize winner. http://www.templetonprize.org/abouttheprize.html

He was an equally gifted scientist and mathematician. He would quip that he would have made more money if he had dropped science and took up the maths field.

 

[Student of Trinity]

I followed along until the portion I've bolded above. Have you an example handy to help me understand, please?

By 'as if we all knew for sure that anything true must also be evident,' I meant to describe what seems to me to be an implicit and unacknowledged assumption behind atheistic arguments along the lines of, "Nobody can demonstrate the existence of God, so everyone should not believe in God."

I'd certainly agree that, since nobody can demonstrate the existence of God, nobody has to believe in God. Anything self-consistent is a tenable position (and anybody who doesn't realize this is going to be badly disappointed in logic). So since atheism has not been disproven, atheism is certainly a tenable position. Some fools may be atheists, just as some fools may be theists, but atheism itself is certainly not just foolish.

Turnabout is fair play, though. The non-existence of God hasn't been proven either, so theism is also a tenable position. Some fools may be theists, but theism itself is not just foolish.

What isn't tenable, in my opinion, is to deny the above, and to claim that absence of proof is compelling grounds for disbelief. That's a distinct axiom of its own, not some kind of ground rule of logic. It's an axiom that collapses in contradictions very quickly as soon as you think about it much.

Of course not every atheist appeals to that bogus axiom. But some militant atheists seem to, and it bugs me when someone takes reason's name in vain like that. I have also argued hard, at least once that I can remember, against someone who thought they could prove the existence of God. (It was the 'ontological proof'; I tried to explain Kant's rebuttal. Man.)

 

[Student of Trinity]

There are obviously differences of opinion here but I think there is a reasonable consensus among atheists that atheism relates to belief and agnosticism relates to knowledge. If you don't believe in any gods but if you aren't 100% sure (and even Dawkins describes himself as 6 on a scale of 1 to 7) you may qualify as agnostic and atheist.

It's clearly inadequate to represent the range of opinions on this question with just two or three categories, like 'theist', 'atheist', or 'agnostic'. I like the idea of a probability estimate. It doesn't seem like a very efficient use of language, however, to define 'atheism' as a term for every case except 100% certainty that God exists. Maybe the 33rd percentile could be a good threshold for 'atheism'? But then there's the independent issue of behavior. Some people are gamblers, and don't mind staking a lot on chances that they know are small; others are highly risk-averse, even when they know the risk is slight. Some people live in ways that only make sense if there is a God, even though they're not so sure there is one; others are fairly sure there is a God, but live as though there were not.

I would express a high degree of certainty that no god described by a human religion exists. Human religions bear all the marks of being created by humans of the era in which they were created. So while I'm not completely certain I don't think I would describe myself as agnostic in this regard any more than I would about the existence of Russell's Teapot.

In one way I'd agree and in one way I wouldn't. It depends on what you think it means to believe in the descriptions offered by human religions. All the religions that I know have major traditions — really big chunks of mainstream thought — that emphasize the impossibility of any human mind really knowing the religion's main object. So for example, when I stand in church and recite that I believe in the 'son of God', I certainly don't mean that I believe God has a biological child in the same way that I have. What I believe is rather, "Something is true, for which this statement was a good metaphor in ancient times." In effect, I believe in the son of God, for some value of 'son'. This is not just watering the Christian doctrine down until it means nothing: when I say I believe this, I also mean that I believe it really means something substantial. But there's an awful lot of leeway in my belief as to exactly what that something is. And in taking this attitude, I am not at all a heretic. What I describe really is the standard, orthodox, mainstream Christian understanding of this basic Christian doctrine.

Human religions aren't really describing Russell's Teapot. They make specific statements, but they make them as conscious metaphors whose precise interpretation is deliberately unclear. Is it too unclear to be worth caring about? Or is it still precise enough that Russell's Teapot is a shoe that fits? These are subjective judgements that I think everyone has to make for themselves. All I'm saying is, it's not an open-and-shut case. Religious doctrines aren't as naive as one might think.

 

[JustSheila]

Human religions aren't really describing Russell's Teapot. They make specific statements, but they make them as conscious metaphors whose precise interpretation is deliberately unclear.

Why do you say human religions? Who or what else has religion besides humans - Aliens? Plants? Animals?

If we call what animals do a religion, no, there are no metaphors. Plants worship the sun. Birds worship the sun, too, in a way - singing or squawking to greet it at daybreak - and sundown signals the time to fly home - and they obey.

Cockatoos attending Sun God prayer service.

 

[Student of Trinity]

I have a Venus Fly Trap, but I've avoided discussing religion with Fang because I'm reluctant to let our relationship become that personal.

 

[JustSheila]

I have a Venus Fly Trap, but I've avoided discussing religion with Fang because I'm reluctant to let our relationship become that personal.

Glad to see your sense of humour!

Srsly though, without metaphors, the concept of religion doesn't work. Thought involves metaphors. Religion is an effort by us as human thinking entities to grasp that which we cannot directly experience but which is the source of life energy for us. We can never fully explain that which makes us grow in our hearts, we cannot fully explain insight, bursts of energy or hundreds of other phenomena due to physical limitations, limited science and whatever other limitations we may or may not know yet.

Turning to the source of energy is as natural as birds worshipping the sun. And if you've seen them at the end of the night or first thing in the morning - it's not dissimilar to what we experience at church services. I'm with Thomas Aquinas - it is inherent in us to believe in a higher power than ourselves.

 

[SpecialFrog]

It's clearly inadequate to represent the range of opinions on this question with just two or three categories, like 'theist', 'atheist', or 'agnostic'. I like the idea of a probability estimate. It doesn't seem like a very efficient use of language, however, to define 'atheism' as a term for every case except 100% certainty that God exists.

100% certainty would also be atheism. Atheism is just the lack of belief in any gods. If you are certain there are no gods that kind of implies a lack of belief.

Some people use the term "anti-theist" though even that is not unambiguous. Some use it to express certainty that there are no gods but some, like Hitchens, used it to delineate the position that he didn't think the existence of god was something that anyone should wish for, which apparently some atheists do.

In one way I'd agree and in one way I wouldn't. It depends on what you think it means to believe in the descriptions offered by human religions. All the religions that I know have major traditions — really big chunks of mainstream thought — that emphasize the impossibility of any human mind really knowing the religion's main object. So for example, when I stand in church and recite that I believe in the 'son of God', I certainly don't mean that I believe God has a biological child in the same way that I have. What I believe is rather, "Something is true, for which this statement was a good metaphor in ancient times." In effect, I believe in the son of God, for some value of 'son'. This is not just watering the Christian doctrine down until it means nothing: when I say I believe this, I also mean that I believe it really means something substantial. But there's an awful lot of leeway in my belief as to exactly what that something is. And in taking this attitude, I am not at all a heretic. What I describe really is the standard, orthodox, mainstream Christian understanding of this basic Christian doctrine.

I agree that fundamentalism has not historically been mainstream in Christianity (though it arguably is in the US today). I'm not simply arguing that Christianity is clearly wrong because the Bible is wrong on factual statements x, y and z.

But even the idea that "omething is true, for which [Jesus is the son of God ] was a good metaphor in ancient times" I find problematic. Is the statement accidentally a metaphor for something true? If not, clearly the author was aware of the underlying truth in some sense. How did he or she know it? Were they taking dictation from God or did God "put [His] Teaching into their inmost being and inscribe it upon their hearts"?

I can think of no reason why we should believe either of those things. Nothing written in the Bible couldn't have been written by people of the time and place in which we know it to have originated.

Additionally, it seems a very strange way for any kind of deity to disseminate information.

Human religions aren't really describing Russell's Teapot. They make specific statements, but they make them as conscious metaphors whose precise interpretation is deliberately unclear. Is it too unclear to be worth caring about? Or is it still precise enough that Russell's Teapot is a shoe that fits? These are subjective judgements that I think everyone has to make for themselves. All I'm saying is, it's not an open-and-shut case. Religious doctrines aren't as naive as one might think.

I think you can argue that the Abrahamic religions all require certain things to be more than just metaphorically true. At a minimum I think this includes, a) God exists, b) God has an interest in what humans do, and probably c) God wants humans to do or not do certain things.

 

[Student of Trinity]

100% certainty would also be atheism. Atheism is just the lack of belief in any gods. If you are certain there are no gods that kind of implies a lack of belief.

You misread my sentence. It agreed that 100% certainty (that there is no God) is atheism. It questioned the reasonableness of also applying the term 'atheism' to every other degree of certainty above zero. I'm just saying it would be unfair to claim that theists had to be 100% certain of their viewpoint. That would be a straw man.

But even the idea that "omething is true, for which [Jesus is the son of God ] was a good metaphor in ancient times" I find problematic. Is the statement accidentally a metaphor for something true? If not, clearly the author was aware of the underlying truth in some sense. How did he or she know it? Were they taking dictation from God or did God "put [His] Teaching into their inmost being and inscribe it upon their hearts"?

I can think of no reason why we should believe either of those things. Nothing written in the Bible couldn't have been written by people of the time and place in which we know it to have originated.

I don't think I understand this point. I'm not sure in what sense an ancient author has to have been aware of the underlying, incomprehensible truth. I'd say they were not necessarily aware of anything more than what they wrote. And on the other hand they may well have been unaware that some of what they wrote was wrong — that is, the original authors may well have taken some of their metaphors more literally than I would today.

To shift away from God, for the sake of analogy: ancient Egyptians had some surprisingly good astronomy. Did they in any sense know about gravity, or nuclear fusion? Nope. But yet there was truth in what they thought. They got a lot of things right.

Back to God, perhaps the ancient writers did get some sort of revelation. I don't see what's so problematic about this; it's an awfully mild form of miracle. If there is a God, then inspiration is the least God could do. I've had insights pop into my head sometimes, about physics; they probably haven't been revelations from God, but for all I know they could have been. I don't see why this couldn't have happened to an ancient person, with an insight about God.

The only reason to think that might actually be the case, of course, is that one thinks that what the ancient text says is true. If one then asks, How the heck did Saul of Tarsus realize this truth, way back then? then Divine Inspiration might be a plausible answer. But I can't imagine how anyone would first decide that the Bible was divinely inspired in whatever it might possibly say, and only then decide to believe the things it actually does say, because the Bible said them. That would be really getting things backwards.

Additionally, it seems a very strange way for any kind of deity to disseminate information.

Maybe. Who am I to tell a deity what to do? If God wanted to communicate less ambiguously, presumably God could arrange for supernovas to spell out tracts in the sky every night. But the way I see it, God created a lot of nature and a lot of history. God must for some reason really like those things. Given that, it doesn't seem strange to me that God would prefer them as a communication medium, over alternatives like orchestrated supernovas. It may also have something to do with the kind of message God actually wants to convey.

I think you can argue that the Abrahamic religions all require certain things to be more than just metaphorically true. At a minimum I think this includes, a) God exists, b) God has an interest in what humans do, and probably c) God wants humans to do or not do certain things.

Sure; by 'metaphorical' I certainly don't mean 'meaningless'. But this irreducible meaning is vague enough that Russell's teapot doesn't seem a fair analogy anymore, at least not to me.

 

[MrNobody]

100% certainty would also be atheism. Atheism is just the lack of belief in any gods. If you are certain there are no gods that kind of implies a lack of belief.

Some people use the term "anti-theist" though even that is not unambiguous. Some use it to express certainty that there are no gods but some, like Hitchens, used it to delineate the position that he didn't think the existence of god was something that anyone should wish for, which apparently some atheists do.


I agree that fundamentalism has not historically been mainstream in Christianity (though it arguably is in the US today). I'm not simply arguing that Christianity is clearly wrong because the Bible is wrong on factual statements x, y and z.

But even the idea that "omething is true, for which [Jesus is the son of God ] was a good metaphor in ancient times" I find problematic. Is the statement accidentally a metaphor for something true? If not, clearly the author was aware of the underlying truth in some sense. How did he or she know it? Were they taking dictation from God or did God "put [His] Teaching into their inmost being and inscribe it upon their hearts"?

I can think of no reason why we should believe either of those things. Nothing written in the Bible couldn't have been written by people of the time and place in which we know it to have originated.

Additionally, it seems a very strange way for any kind of deity to disseminate information.


I think you can argue that the Abrahamic religions all require certain things to be more than just metaphorically true. At a minimum I think this includes, a) God exists, b) God has an interest in what humans do, and probably c) God wants humans to do or not do certain things.

Frankly, I'm sick of this boring discussion. I've had it at least 1000 times - with "devout Christian" friends as well as with many strangers I've met during my extensive journeys on my personal quest of "experiencing the world I live in" and "getting to know the people I share it with". They all wanted to bring me "closer to God" or "God closer to me" and it always ended with these 3 basic assumptions (which I made bold in your quote) which can never be proven or disproven as "Truth". So this whole discussion is absolutely pointless: Either you believe or you don't, and that's all there is to it.

Even going into Space_Cowboy's disgusting intellectual dishonesty is pointless, because he will never accept getting called out for his manipulative pseudo-scientific attempts to make a point.

tl;dr: I'm outta here.

 

[SpecialFrog]

You misread my sentence. It agreed that 100% certainty (that there is no God) is atheism. It questioned the reasonableness of also applying the term 'atheism' to every other degree of certainty above zero. I'm just saying it would be unfair to claim that theists had to be 100% certain of their viewpoint. That would be a straw man.

I don't think "atheist" or "theist" represent all positions on their relative scale.

For the statement "there is some form of god" you can believe it, which makes you a theist, not believe it, which makes you an atheist, or be entirely on the fence. The degree of certainty one requires to pick a side of the fence and the nature of the evidence required to make that choice varies greatly among individuals. If you are only 33% certain God exists you are probably on the fence or even an atheist. If you are 5% certain God doesn't exist you could still be a theist.

To shift away from God, for the sake of analogy: ancient Egyptians had some surprisingly good astronomy. Did they in any sense know about gravity, or nuclear fusion? Nope. But yet there was truth in what they thought. They got a lot of things right.

Yes, but they got things right by making observations not because Ra told them things. And we can verify what is right and wrong about their conclusions.

Of course religious texts say things that are demonstrably true. However, they are true because we can demonstrate they are true not because the book says so. And these true statements don't make unverifiable statements in the same book more likely to be true.

Back to God, perhaps the ancient writers did get some sort of revelation. I don't see what's so problematic about this; it's an awfully mild form of miracle. If there is a God, then inspiration is the least God could do. I've had insights pop into my head sometimes, about physics; they probably haven't been revelations from God, but for all I know they could have been. I don't see why this couldn't have happened to an ancient person, with an insight about God.

An insight about physics can be (probably) shown to be true or false. The biggest insights in physics have probably come from Newton and Einstein. While obviously they could have come from God they happened to come to people who spent their lives thinking about physics and were "standing on the shoulders of giants" in that they built upon what their predecessors had done. Nothing about their work requires God's intervention to be plausible.

Similarly if an ancient person has an insight that we shouldn't murder people I wouldn't inherently see that as having to come from God. If they had an insight that there were eight planets in the solar system and were able to give a fairly accurate description of their sizes, moons, characteristics, etc. I would see that as a good indication that it was more than just insight. Though "god" as a source wouldn't necessarily be more likely than "aliens".

The only reason to think that might actually be the case, of course, is that one thinks that what the ancient text says is true.

But what basis does one use to determine its truth? And does one statement being true make other statements more likely to be true? Newton's physics was brilliant. His alchemy and eschatological writings were nuts.

If one then asks, How the heck did Saul of Tarsus realize this truth, way back then? then Divine Inspiration might be a plausible answer. But I can't imagine how anyone would first decide that the Bible was divinely inspired in whatever it might possibly say, and only then decide to believe the things it actually does say, because the Bible said them. That would be really getting things backwards.

Maybe. Who am I to tell a deity what to do? If God wanted to communicate less ambiguously, presumably God could arrange for supernovas to spell out tracts in the sky every night. But the way I see it, God created a lot of nature and a lot of history. God must for some reason really like those things. Given that, it doesn't seem strange to me that God would prefer them as a communication medium, over alternatives like orchestrated supernovas. It may also have something to do with the kind of message God actually wants to convey.

That's fine for the deist god but I would kind of expect a personal god who cares what we do to make more of an effort to tell us what it wants us to do.

Sure; but this is vague enough that Russell's teapot doesn't seem a fair analogy anymore, at least not to me.

I'll admit that god's existence is (probably) more plausible than Russell's teapot. However, I don't see why god caring what we do is more plausible, given the minimal amount of the universe's span, both physical and temporal, we occupy.

And besides, I don't think you can just sit there on those three statements and have any kind of functional belief system.

If you believe that god exists and wants us to do or not do specific things but you make no specific claims as to what those things are, what difference does that god make to your life?

 

[guanoloco]

And if I'll just shut the hell up and believe without evidence there's a bridge someone can sell me.... Oh, wait! And a sham wow.... Oh, wait! And an ex-husband getting me to sign over the titles to all our property to his name, and.... Oh, wait!

Anyhow, not answering this thread any more. Christianity can really hurt people and Christians take no responsibility for the hurt their religion might cause or the part that may play in the train wreck of the lives of others. But Scientology would love us to be talking about some other religion right now, so fuck them. I'm still going to talk about Scientology on this board, although I could talk about Christianity till the cows came home.

Guess I'm just going to that hot old eternal torture chamber way down below for the rest of eternity to hang out with "the devil" and most of the smart people.

Wouldn't that be Ron?

 

[guanoloco]

George Orwell, in his famed and possibly prophetic work "1984" stated: "Power is not a means, but an end. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power". Today, symptoms of a surveillance society continue to grow, as irrational fears of invisible enemies, coupled with rising economic instability, spread across the globe. Under the guise of "security", we can now foresee a possible future in which someday everyone is tracked, everyone is on camera, and everyone is subordinate. The most incredible aspect of it all is that such totalitarianism will most likely not be forced upon the people, rather, the people will demand it with thunderous applause. For the social manipulation of society, through the generation of fear and division, will have completely inhibited the culture. Xenophobia, racism, sexism, ageism, classism, bigotry over physical differences, and every other form of arbitrary separatist standard of identification, and thus conceit, serve to create a controlled population, utterly malleable in the hands of the powerful few. "Divide and Conquer" is their motto, and as long as people continue to see themselves as separate from everyone and everything else, they volunteer themselves to being completely enslaved. However, if "We The People" ever wake up, free our minds, and realize the truth of our relationship to God, to each other, to nature, and the freedom and unity available in Jesus Christ, then the truth of our personal power to affect change would be revealed to us through the power of the Holy Spirit, and the entire manufactured zeitgeist that has preyed upon us for so long will collapse like a house of cards. The whole system that we live in drills into us that we are powerless, that we're weak, that we are not good enough to equal media standards, that we're not smart enough or rich enough, that God alone can't protect us from danger or prosper our future, that some things will never change, etc... it's all a BIG LIE. In Christ, we are powerful, we are beautiful, and we are extraordinary beyond measure. There is no reason why we should not embrace who we truly are, determine who we want to become, and then become that, without fear or hindrance. There is absolutely no reason why the average individual cannot be fully empowered. We are incredible beings with extraordinary supernatural power when used in agreement with our Father's desires. I think I spent the first thirty years of my life trying to "become" something. I wanted to become "good" at things, and to great extent, I did. I wanted to become good a school, good at sports, have a good job, and everything else I kind of viewed in the perspective of... "I'm not OK how I am, but if I got GOOD at things... well, I would be." But now I realize that I had it all wrong. The game is not to turn yourself into what others expect you to be, but instead, to find out who you really ARE, who GOD has made you, and then to BE that, without fear, without hindrance, without condemnation, without judgment, in a display of effortless grace, just as was intended from the start.


We as a species spend far too much of our precious lives alone and afraid, specifically afraid of each others' differences, whether real or perceived. Overcoming the fear of the unknown and cultivating the ability to reach out to others from the heart, despite perceived notions of conformity or normality, is often the only sure safeguard against possibly missing out on the very thing for which we most hopefully wait and desperately need, but would never have even known existed had we not reached out, against expectation through adversity. And though you may never be able to make another person love you back in kind, you may always choose to still love THEM, truly, deeply, and unconditionally, in every way appropriate at every opportunity given, simply because it makes you happy. Then the day may come, perhaps, when they begin to wonder what, compared to the desert of their reality, they were waiting for and missing out on in YOU all along. Then, through a collection of individual efforts, we may someday realize the universal love and trust that we all secretly crave, as a natural way of life. And then, through the power of Love, we can truly change the world.

Ron says this is a bunch of Marcab PR.

 

[JBWriter]

By 'as if we all knew for sure that anything true must also be evident,' I meant to describe what seems to me to be an implicit and unacknowledged assumption behind atheistic arguments along the lines of, "Nobody can demonstrate the existence of God, so everyone should not believe in God."

I'd certainly agree that, since nobody can demonstrate the existence of God, nobody has to believe in God. Anything self-consistent is a tenable position (and anybody who doesn't realize this is going to be badly disappointed in logic). So since atheism has not been disproven, atheism is certainly a tenable position. Some fools may be atheists, just as some fools may be theists, but atheism itself is certainly not just foolish.

Turnabout is fair play, though. The non-existence of God hasn't been proven either, so theism is also a tenable position. Some fools may be theists, but theism itself is not just foolish.

What isn't tenable, in my opinion, is to deny the above, and to claim that absence of proof is compelling grounds for disbelief. That's a distinct axiom of its own, not some kind of ground rule of logic. It's an axiom that collapses in contradictions very quickly as soon as you think about it much.

Of course not every atheist appeals to that bogus axiom. But some militant atheists seem to, and it bugs me when someone takes reason's name in vain like that. I have also argued hard, at least once that I can remember, against someone who thought they could prove the existence of God. (It was the 'ontological proof'; I tried to explain Kant's rebuttal. Man.)

Thanks, Student of Trinity; now I'm better able to understand your positions/thought process. You're kindness is appreciated.

JB

 

[Queenmab321]

Some of you may find the following passage from Spanish philosopher, Miguel de Unamuno food for thought:

“The wicked man hath said in his heart, There is no God." And this is truth. For in his head the righteous man may say to himself, God does not exist! But only the wicked can say it in his heart. Not to believe that there is a God or to believe that there is not a God, is one thing; to resign oneself to there not being a God is another thing, and it is a terrible and inhuman thing; but not to wish that there be a God exceeds every other moral monstrosity; although, as a matter of fact, those who deny God deny Him because of their despair at not finding Him."

I would hasten to add that I am an agnostic, and I'm not entirely sure that I agree with Unamuno. But, I think what he says may be true whether or not God actually exists. For if by "God" we refer to nothing more than that the universe may possess some human meaning outside ourselves, that our values may possess a sacredness capable of rendering our existence something more than a mere game, then the hope and faith that attends such a belief may be construed as a moral duty. The agnostic, it seems to me, at the very least leaves room for the transcendent. I think this can be an expression of both humility and hope. I find this in the dialogues of Socrates and in Kant's antinomies. Socrates appears to construct a bulwark of ignorance in the face of Sophist nihilism.

 

[Purple Rain]

Some of you may find the following passage from Spanish philosopher, Miguel de Unamuno food for thought:

“The wicked man hath said in his heart, There is no God." And this is truth. For in his head the righteous man may say to himself, God does not exist! But only the wicked can say it in his heart. Not to believe that there is a God or to believe that there is not a God, is one thing; to resign oneself to there not being a God is another thing, and it is a terrible and inhuman thing; but not to wish that there be a God exceeds every other moral monstrosity; although, as a matter of fact, those who deny God deny Him because of their despair at not finding Him."

I would hasten to add that I am an agnostic, and I'm not entirely sure that I agree with Unamuno. But, I think what he says may be true whether or not God actually exists. For if by "God" we refer to nothing more than that the universe may possess some human meaning outside ourselves, that our values may possess a sacredness capable of rendering our existence something more than a mere game, then the hope and faith that attends such a belief may be construed as a moral duty. The agnostic, it seems to me, at the very least leaves room for the transcendent. I think this can be an expression of both humility and hope. I find this in the dialogues of Socrates and in Kant's antinomies. Socrates appears to construct a bulwark of ignorance in the face of Sophist nihilism.

That may be the most offensive thing I've ever heard considering the people that have said in their heart that there is a "god" and then proceeded to hack some eight year old boy to death in Maluku - or burn Joan of Arc at the stake - or whatever else - or even just say that kind of shit about people who don't agree with them. Fuck religion. It is one of the greatest killers amongst humanity. It is a plague not a remedy.