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Author Topic:   My Beliefs- GDR
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 1321 of 1324 (708990)
10-18-2013 12:04 PM
Reply to: Message 1312 by onifre
10-16-2013 4:54 PM


Re: Acceptance or Denial
oni writes:
In regards to what we were discussing, as far as god taking part in evolution, there is no evidence for god so there is no question as to what he did or didn't do. First you must establish evidence. And no, saying "I believe he does" is not evidence.
Now, you can keep saying "It's either natural processes or god did it" all you want. It remains a fact however that your logical is fallacious, and that you continue to put the cart before the horse. This makes your reasoning for concluding anything about god, before you have established evidence for god, to be very, very poor.
I agree that there is no objective evidence. You have concluded that because there is no evidence for God then there is no reason to conclude that He exists. Fair enough and if that is sufficient for you then that's fine.
I believe that there is more to life than just what we can can "know" in a materialistic sense. You believe my reasoning to be faulty as I do yours. My reasoning is not scientific although what I can know scientifically does impact my subjective beliefs.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1312 by onifre, posted 10-16-2013 4:54 PM onifre has not replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 1322 of 1324 (708992)
10-18-2013 3:16 PM
Reply to: Message 1317 by Straggler
10-17-2013 6:19 AM


Straggler writes:
Even "Tom's" supposed influence on your own moral decision making is based on nothing more than a subjective feeling. Subjective feelings of the exact sort that we know to be pointlessly unreliable as a means of discerning anything about reality.
The methods of knowledge acquisition on which you are basing your conclusions really don't justify any confidence at all in the conclusions you are reaching.
From your point of view there is no reason to have confidence in any subjective conclusions I come to, but on the other have any confidence in your subjective conclusions that in all likelihood Tom doesn’t exist?
Your argument seems to that only what we know is to not hold a lot of value for what we believe. You say that you believe in the Golden Rule and that it can be demonstrated over time that the principle is positive for mankind. But we also know that the principle isn’t always going to bring about a positive result.
Here is a definition for intuition.
quote:
: a natural ability or power that makes it possible to know something without any proof or evidence : a feeling that guides a person to act a certain way without fully understanding why
: something that is known or understood without proof or evidence
People use intuition all the time and sometimes it is right and sometimes it is wrong. I would say that Einstein had an intuition about relativity and it proved to be right. He had an intuition about QM and he turned out to be wrong, although now the jury is out on that, but you get my point. I assume that by knowledge acquisition you are saying that knowledge is limited to what we know and I would agree, but that does not meant that we can’t hold beliefs that are reasonable. We also know that we aren’t always going to agree on what a reasonable belief is.
I have very little doubt about that God in some manner exists. As a human I can essentially only anthropomorphise Him in order to but it doesn’t really matter if He is a unique individual like you and me, or if He is a unified collective consciousness. Either way He remains from our perspective one God. I don’t know that, but I am very confident of it.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1317 by Straggler, posted 10-17-2013 6:19 AM Straggler has not replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 1323 of 1324 (708997)
10-18-2013 9:47 PM
Reply to: Message 1318 by Straggler
10-17-2013 6:40 AM


Re: Acceptance or Denial
GDR writes:
Which then could be either the result of purely mindless natural evolution, or be the result of an intelligent agency.
Straggler writes:
You keep reciting this as if it is some sort of killer point. But phrasing something as an either/or option doesn't make it some sort of 50:50 choice with either option being equally valid.
Either Satan is imperceptibly influencing me, Tangle and Oni to keep arguing with you in this thread, or he isn't and our respective ongoing contributions are entirely of our own volition.
I keep repeating it because it is true and it is our subjective opinion about which option is more valid.
I have never suggested that Satan is imperceptibly influencing you. At a minimum my contention is that we are imperceptibly influenced by God to choose love, mercy and justice - influences we can freely reject.
Straggler writes:
But the fact that I can phrase the unfalsifiable but evidentially baseless proposition that Satan is influencing participants in this thread in such an either/or manner doesn't mean that the belief he is and the belief he is not are equally reasonable or justified.
Sure if you like. Maybe we are being influenced by the FSM. We subjectively form our own conclusions with the full knowledge that we can't "know" we are right.
Straggler writes:
Why do you think repeatedly phrasing your 'intelligent designer' belief in this either/or manner is any different to any other such baseless proposition put forward in the same format?
The fact is we exist the way do and there is some fundamental reason for it. It is just as baseless to come to the conclusion that we are the result of nothing but an infinite series of natural processes.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1318 by Straggler, posted 10-17-2013 6:40 AM Straggler has not replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


(1)
Message 1324 of 1324 (712241)
11-30-2013 9:59 AM


Things learned
Once this thread died out I took the time to get some reading done that was prompted by the issues raised in this thread. One point was the issue of first causes in the discussion with Straggler. I read Brian Greene's book The Hidden Reality. It was a great read and found a lot in it that was interesting. It was consistent with Straggler's point of when he quoted Cavediver concerning the similarity between cause and effect in considering first causes. I have to agree with Straggler that there is no point in arguing for either an in intelligent first cause or a a materialistic first cause as neither is required. Greene lays out several theories that are supportive of the idea that we are one aspect of an infinite universe in which we perceive a point at which T=0.
Interestingly enough that even though Greene, as near as I can tell, does not hold to any theistic beliefs I found that many of the theories are almost theological when he talks about the multiverse or about parallel universes. The Christian message as I understand it is that our earthly universe/dimension is imperceptibly linked to God's heavenly universe/dimension. Greene talks about the theoretical interconnectedness, particularly as related to string theory, between our perceived universe and other realities be they branes, universes or dimensions. (I really haven't figured out how to clearly distinguish those three things.) It sure appears to me that there is a strong correlation between Christian beliefs and theoretical physics.
In the end though my understanding of first causes and my beliefs concerning creation and origins has been revised to reflect what Straggler wrote and then as it was fleshed out by Greene.
Then as a result of what onifre wrote I read Kenneth Miller's book Finding Darwin's God
It was another great read. At the end I came to the following conclusion. We are unable to know whether or not God intervened in the evolutionary process to bring about a specific result but I do believe that natural selection, on its own, is sufficient to account for physical life as it exists today.
In addition to that I think that onifre is right when he contends that there is a genetic component to our moral and altruistic makeup. There is obviously also a huge social component involved as well. It does remain my belief however that we are also invisibly being influenced by the still small voice of God.
I then re-read John Polkinghorne's book Exploring Reality: The Intertwining of Science and Religion . I find Polkinghorne particularly interesting when he looks at time and his beliefs about how God relates to us within our own understanding of time. He talks about a world of becoming which essentially means that God has no more idea of what I will have for lunch on Feb 19, 2015 than I do, or even as to whether or not I'll still be alive on that date.
In summation though it still boils down to a fairly simple question as to whether or not we believe that we exist as we do as the result of intelligent processes or non-intelligent material processes. We do know objectively that we can perceive matter as being beautiful or ugly - we have a sense of purpose that extends beyond our life time - we have an innate sense of right and wrong - we have a wide range of emotions including love and hate and we have the intelligence to learn what we have about our existence. We will all draw our own conclusions as to why life exists in this way, although I don't see it as a killer point as Straggler suggested.
It is my belief that the Christian faith provides the best explanation and that our relationship with God is found through His Word as embodied in Jesus Christ.
Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread. This forum has been a great place to expand my understanding of things scientifically, philosophically and theologically.
Edited by GDR, : typo

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

  
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