The Tension of Faith

Too funny.Phat, we can only talk about the Gods we create, not about GOD. GOD, if GOD exists simply is whatever GOD is. It is like the universe. The universe if not authoritarian; it simply is.That's why there are so many different portrayals of God in the Bible; why the God of Genesis 1 and the God of Genesis 2&3 are so entirely different in nature and character.When humans try to build caricatures of GOD or try to talk about GOD they are simply creating the God that they are comfortable around.God is whatever a set of humans create.

You are right.We can only talk about the Gods we create. Faith and I have more in common with an interactive God than you do. Your definition is more unknowable. Ours relates to humanity. The issue, at least in my question to Faith, is how He relates. A case can be made for each "God" that we individually define. I'm attempting to address her definition. You likely will see her creation as similar to the God of Calvinism. Perhaps my definition too...I dunno. And I would argue that GOD is Who GOD is. We simply disagree on GODs character.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Not really. I freely admit to being clueless about GOD's character or anything much related to GOD. I do not try to create a God and pretend it reflects GOD.You and Faith and millions of other Christians as well as all of the authors and editors and redactors that wrote the Bible stories though claim to be able to describe GOD's character. Unfortunately you all have different ideas on that and so you create millions of GOD's. It's not new, you can see it in the Bible stories themselves, the God character reflects the needs of that particular story. There is no attempt to create some universal God but rather a tacit unstated assumption that there is some composite but undefined GOD that is made from all the different caricatures.

Because you see no need to do so. I'll give you the idea that the rest of us pretend, although we try and envision God with all the tools we have to work with. Faith will likely argue that God is who she knows he is...I would have used the same argument due to fear of "throwing God away" as you have many times suggested. Nevertheless, for this particular argument i will concede that GOD Is likely unlike our attempts at description or identification. I have not thrown away the Gospel Of John, however, so I will continue to argue that God is embodied in Jesus. Correct. I am not that inclusive. Yes, but Faith points out that you also do this to some extent. The God whom you market is more than just a human. He is complete. He can be She or It. He likely does not favor humans exclusively. Do you disagree?This whole idea of a "universal God" is so much kum ba yah! add by edit: I found a clever link as a postscript:
When Did 'Kumbaya' Become Such A Bad Thing?Edited by Phat, : added postscript

GOD, if GOD actually exists and really is the creator of all that is, seen and unseen, would definitely not be just a human. GOD, if GOD exists and really is the creator of all that is, seen and unseen, and definitely not a human, would be unlikely to show distinctly human traits or attributes.Terms like He, She, It, really can have no meaning when applied to something that is neither human or any other natural life form. Those are all terms humans use to describe the gods they create. They are comfortable terms; familiar terms; understandable terms.Jesus, if Jesus actually existed and is worthy of having any meaning for us though must have been just human; not chimera, not man/god, but just human. If you were one of many children, how would you feel if your father favored the others over you?If GOD actually exists, and really is the creator of all that is, seen and unseen, should GOD favor one creation over the others? Would it be unreasonable for GOD to say "You know, pond scum never gives me any trouble. Pond scum is such a good child."

Perhaps God shows human traits to humans. She may show pond scum traits to pond scum, for all we know. After all, the Bible says even the rocks will cry out! I wonder how God relates to rocks? The exclusivists would be furious, however.Your God is certainly more developed than the God of Calvinism.

Or perhaps humans give human traits to the gods they create.But even there, the Bible is contradictory. The God found in Genesis 1 does not interact with any of creation; that God is aloof and separate, overarching but never contacting or interacting with what is created.

You are ignoring the John Rylands papyrus fragment (p52), a fragment from John’s gospel which dates from the first half of the second century.

It could date as late as 170 A.D.Everybody took the earliest possible date and keeps saying 125 A.D.I think the Gospel probably did exist by 100 AD though I have zero evidence.But Polycarp did not know about it, and neither did Clement of Rome and Ignatius.Polycarp wrote his epistle at the same time as Ignatius (107-108 or 117).It is very doubtful that Papias knew about it (the only argument fundamentalists make is that he had a unique order of Apostles listed that was exactly the same as the order given in John's Gospel)The issue was "which Bible?" if one wants to worship certain works of man titled "The Bible".

That is undoubtedly true. What some would call an internal conscience...the ability to discern right and wrong...is in every human and gives support to your argument that God saves everybody (or that at least we are not foreknowingly damned) even if we dont believe in God.You have to understand how I believe, however. I dont believe that I create the God i worship...at least not entirely. I see your argument, and it does make logical sense, but I believe strongly that God exists and that I can communicate through prayer. To me, that is not something I created to talk to. (or to listen to...although I do listen to my conscience)

And you likely would make the argument that all of the stories and books of the Bible are describing a God whom we created...even Jesus as God. While i cannot argue against your line of reasoning, I stand by my belief that God is more than a human creation.You call what I describe GOD. You would likely again argue that communion with and/or dialogue (or monologue) with GOD is at best imagination. Or am I wrong? Is it possible for an ant to communicate with you?

Actually, all I do is ask how someone can determine they are communicating with a God?When I communicate with someone there are several lines of verification. One is to test prior knowledge, compare the current communication to ones in the past. The more personal the communication, the more often there is a communication, the more possibilities for verification exist. There are other methods; for example here you had to verify who you were through a password system. It's possible someone hacked your account but then they are also replicating both style and content and have access to past communications between us as well.There is additional evidence since other people can read and respond to the posts, the communion between Phat and jar, and in doing so verify the content and style.So what are the methods that someone can employ to verify that the conversation is actually between the individual and a god?Beyond that, what are the tests to see if it is some particular God?Then what are the tests to see if it is not just a god or God but GOD?The Books of the Bible are not describing "a God whom we created" but rather a whole host of different and often contradictory Gods, each created to serve some purpose within a given narrative.Look at the God character found in 2Kings 5. That God is the God of Israel, not the God of Judah or Syria or any place else. It is a God having power over a given area and given people which is why Naaman needs the two donkey loads of dirt. Naaman needs the soil so that it extends the God of Israel's influence into the territory of yet another local God.(there are a bunch of other important lessons in that story as well)

If God is an authoritarian, then free will is out the window, isn't it?

I'm going to completely change tacks and give up on trying to convince anyone that the difference between real world evidence and spoken/written words as evidence is so dramatic that we need different terms for them. The difference still exists, and that's my main point, but I'll no longer argue for a relabeling because that's turning out to be a distraction.When you say John is evidence, it is an evidence far different in character from that produced by real world events. When someone describes the real world using spoken or written words then that means the description has been filtered through the fog of a person's sensory and mental capacities, but that's only one of the possibilities. It's also possibly false or fictional or miraculous and so on. It isn't reliable or accurate the way real world evidence is. Nine questions as an answer, wow! Perhaps you can answer my solitary question first? It's a simple one, and I'll rephrase. If you know what someone says is false (e.g., "I just got back from Mars.") is it really evidence? Oh, you mean I'm writing testimony, too. Well ain't I highfalutin now! Seriously, I don't know what specific definition of testimony you have in mind, but I think applying the label "testimony" to John implies it has qualities that are at best in dispute and at worst simply false. I think what you're really saying, given your examples, is that things have a context in which they can be evidence, which I've said too. My owning a cat may not be evidence that I own a dog, but it is evidence of many things cat-related, so my owning a cat *is* evidence. And so we're again left with "Everything is evidence." And by the way, owning a cat *is* pretty fair evidence that I may own a dog, since half of cat owners also own a dog. I think you're misusing the word testimony. When I look up testimony none of the definitions describe anything I've written here. And I didn't attest to anything. I'm just arguing for my point of view, not testifying or attesting to anything.Spoken or written evidence is still just words. Their degree of truth or falsity derives from evidence from the real world, not from the words themselves. But that criteria hasn't proved useful, because it hasn't enabled me to identify a single example of something you don't consider evidence. I'm still left with the conclusion that for you, "Everything is evidence." Yes, I have, a number of times. Evidence is what results from events in the real world, and it does not include spoken or written outputs from the human perceptual/cognitive system, unless they're corroborated by evidence from the real world. But as I said earlier, in effect I'm giving up on trying to distinguish between real world evidence and spoken/written evidence with a relabeling. If everyone wants to call the whole kit and caboodle evidence then that's okay with me, but the spoken/written word's dramatically lower accuracy and reliability when compared to real world evidence cannot be denied. Are you arguing that evidence is subjective? If so it supports Faith's view that her faith is supported by evidence, though I still don't understand why anyone believes religious faith needs any evidential support. Well, maybe it's just me, but to me that smilie says, "Nya nya." Reminds me of someone's account of when he first started using online chat to converse with his young son, and he mistook LOL to mean Lots of Love. I see there's an updated version of his story on the web: Adam Gopnik: I Didn’t Know What ‘LOL’ Meant. Worth reading if you have the time, kind of heartwarming. If it's evidence from the real world then it can often be insufficient, but it can't be in conflict if properly interpreted. And if it's spoken or written evidence then qualities like insufficiency or conflict (or falsity or fiction and so on) are completely unsurprising. Reminds me of the joke about the too open mind. I'm all for epistemic humility, but even Herodotus made his errors (10 Historical Facts That Herodotus Got Hilariously Wrong). The possibility that the miracles in John were real is spiritual rather than real world thinking.Just barely over a thousand words, not bad. --Percy

There's a lot more information in the Wikipedia article on Rylands Library Papyrus P52.--Percy