Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
2 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,806 Year: 3,063/9,624 Month: 908/1,588 Week: 91/223 Day: 2/17 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   A Working Definition of God
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 10 of 332 (200181)
04-18-2005 4:10 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Dan Carroll
04-14-2005 9:39 AM


Just to enter a formal definition into the record, this is from Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary:
God - (A.S. and Dutch God; Dan. Gud; Ger. Gott), the name of the Divine Being. It is the rendering (1) of the Hebrew 'El, from a word meaning to be strong; (2) of 'Eloah_, plural _'Elohim. The singular form, Eloah, is used only in poetry. The plural form is more commonly used in all parts of the Bible, The Hebrew word Jehovah (q.v.), the only other word generally employed to denote the Supreme Being, is uniformly rendered in the Authorized Version by "LORD," printed in small capitals. The existence of God is taken for granted in the Bible. There is nowhere any argument to prove it. He who disbelieves this truth is spoken of as one devoid of understanding (Ps. 14:1).
The arguments generally adduced by theologians in proof of the being of God are:
  1. The a priori argument, which is the testimony afforded by reason.
  2. The a posteriori argument, by which we proceed logically from the facts of experience to causes. These arguments are,
    1. The cosmological, by which it is proved that there must be a First Cause of all things, for every effect must have a cause.
    2. The teleological, or the argument from design. We see everywhere the operations of an intelligent Cause in nature.
    3. The moral argument, called also the anthropological argument, based on the moral consciousness and the history of mankind, which exhibits a moral order and purpose which can only be explained on the supposition of the existence of God. Conscience and human history testify that "verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth."
The attributes of God are set forth in order by Moses in Ex. 34:6,7. (see also Deut. 6:4; 10:17; Num. 16:22; Ex. 15:11; 33:19; Isa. 44:6; Hab. 3:6; Ps. 102:26; Job 34:12.) They are also systematically classified in Rev. 5:12 and 7:12.
God's attributes are spoken of by some as absolute, i.e., such as belong to his essence as Jehovah, Jah, etc.; and relative, i.e., such as are ascribed to him with relation to his creatures. Others distinguish them into communicable, i.e., those which can be imparted in degree to his creatures: goodness, holiness, wisdom, etc.; and incommunicable, which cannot be so imparted: independence, immutability, immensity, and eternity. They are by some also divided into natural attributes, eternity, immensity, etc.; and moral, holiness, goodness, etc.
I found this with Google, and at first thought I'd stumbled across a definition not influenced my modern debates, and I guess that's true. but after poking about a bit more I found that this definition seems to be at a number of sites on the web, including ChristianAnswers.net.
My own definition of God? I guess I have to start by saying I have absolutely no supporting evidence whatsoever. This is strictly my opinion. My definition doesn't so much define God as it delineates what we don't know about him.
First, we don't know for sure if God exists, but many believe he does. The rest of my points assume he does.
Second, though they won't admit it, none of the world's religions, institutional or otherwise, have any knowledge of God.
Third, we do not know any of the qualities of God, such as whether he is omniscient or omnipotent.
Fourth, if he is able to leave a visible imprint on the universe, either he does it in ways indistinguishable by humans from natural causes, or he does all his work out of reach of human investigation, or he did all his work "in the beginning" when the laws of the universe were first formulated.
Fifth, we do not know if God is aware of us, or if he interferes in human affairs, or if he interacts with human beings.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Dan Carroll, posted 04-14-2005 9:39 AM Dan Carroll has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 11 by Faith, posted 04-18-2005 5:28 PM Percy has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 18 of 332 (200242)
04-18-2005 9:04 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Faith
04-18-2005 5:28 PM


Faith writes:
quote:
Second, though they won't admit it, none of the world's religions, institutional or otherwise, have any knowledge of God.
Hm. How can you KNOW that these religions have no knowledge of something you yourself know nothing about? Isn't it possible for other people to know things you don't know?
If you read up a few lines in my message you'll find that I did say, "This is strictly my opinion," but to answer your question, most certainly I realize other people know things I don't. The problem comes in telling the difference between those who think they know something, and those who really do know something. Those who really know something can point to objective evidence for what they know.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by Faith, posted 04-18-2005 5:28 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 22 by Faith, posted 04-19-2005 12:13 AM Percy has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 20 of 332 (200244)
04-18-2005 9:13 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by Faith
04-18-2005 7:08 PM


Faith writes:
...but I am simply believing what God Himself has told us in His word...
If I could rephrase this a bit, you are simply choosing to believe the Bible is the Word of God and that it contains accurate information about him.
People who dismiss what He has said to us and make up their own God are the arrogant ones.
But perhaps it is your God that is made up.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 13 by Faith, posted 04-18-2005 7:08 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 21 by Faith, posted 04-19-2005 12:07 AM Percy has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 30 of 332 (200331)
04-19-2005 10:00 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by Faith
04-19-2005 12:07 AM


Faith writes:
Just wondering, would you say that you "choose" to believe in evolution, or that you simply believe in it because you are convinced it is the truth?
You shouldn't mix the terminologies of science and religion in this way. Focusing first on the phrase believe in, when someone says they believe in double-entry bookkeeping, or that they believe in the principle that a good defense defeats a good offense, or that they believe in evolution, these are not statements of religious belief. This is a common confusion of Creationists, and so many evolutionists have gotten into the habit of being more precise in their terminology by saying that they accept the theory of evolution based upon the available evidence, and they believe in God out of faith. This pretty much describes my position.
You also use the word truth, and as has already been explained in the science threads, if truths are defined as eternal then scientific theories are definitely not truths because they are tentative, i.e., subject to change in light of new insights and/or new evidence. The theory of evolution is tentative and I therefore acknowledge that it could be wrong, but currently available evidence supports the theory and so, for now, I accept it as an accurate description of the natural world. I do not believe the theory of evolution, nor any scientific theory, represents truth.
Faith writes:
quote:
People who dismiss what He has said to us and make up their own God are the arrogant ones.
But perhaps it is your God that is made up.
But the point in response to brennakimi was that since I am believing an established body of teaching about God, not an idea about God that I dreamed up on my own, and that since that teaching includes that He is a God who communicates with his followers and desires that His followers may know him, it is not arrogant of me to claim to know him.
If I understand what you're saying, if I make up my own God, then I'm arrogant. If I then convince you to accept my God, you're not arrogant.
If we assume that people have a responsibility to have evidence for what they advocate, and that to do otherwise is to display arrogance, then the lack of evidence for the Christian God, i.e., the lack of evidence that the Christian God is not simply made up, would seem to point to only one conclusion.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by Faith, posted 04-19-2005 12:07 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 48 by Faith, posted 04-19-2005 12:35 PM Percy has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 85 of 332 (200442)
04-19-2005 4:15 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by Faith
04-19-2005 12:28 PM


Re: To Whom are you asking this question?
Hi Faith,
This thread is accumulating messages so fast I'm going to reply to a number of your posts in a single message.
From Message 46:
Faith writes:
quote:
Is it at all a possibility that there really are invisible beings about which there is no way to point to evidence other than witness evidence or testimonies of personal experience?
To whom are you asking this question?
I'm asking Percy specifically I believe. It's a question about what constitutes evidence basically.
Objective evidence is what anyone can see, hear, touch, taste or smell.
From Message 47:
Nothing of what you say is relevant to the point I was making, which was simply that if one follows a well established body of teaching it is not right to accuse the person of arrogance as if she made it up.
And from Message 51:
I think it MIGHT be arrogance if somebody just made up their own God as so many seem to do, but if a person gets the idea from a well established teaching then it's not a personal idiosyncratic belief but something with a history and a social framework.
No one is accusing you of making up the Christian God. But which is more arrogant? Promoting a God of your own making? That's just chutzpah. But believing you couldn't be wrong, now that's arrogance.
From Message 48:
Let me rephrase it then. Do you "CHOOSE" TO BELIEVE THAT EVOLUTION IS THE TRUTH OR DO YOU BELIEVE IT BECAUSE YOU BELIEVE IT *IS* THE TRUTH?
The idea was that saying that I CHOOSE to believe what I believe is tendentious.
I don't choose to believe it any more than you choose to believe evolution is the truth. I believe it IS the truth just as you believe evolution IS the truth.
I believe I have the best of grounds for considering it to be the truth. Same as with your taking evolution as the truth. It's not a matter of mixing terminology.
But I don't think evolution is the truth, and I said precisely that in the paragraph following what you just responded to. Come on, Faith, get a grip. At least read the whole message before putting your fingers in gear. Just to save you the trouble of clicking on links, here's what I said in Message 30:
[text=black]You also use the word truth, and as has already been explained in the science threads, if truths are defined as eternal then scientific theories are definitely not truths because they are tentative, i.e., subject to change in light of new insights and/or new evidence. The theory of evolution is tentative and I therefore acknowledge that it could be wrong, but currently available evidence supports the theory and so, for now, I accept it as an accurate description of the natural world. I do not believe the theory of evolution, nor any scientific theory, represents truth.[/text]
From Message 53:
I don't expect to convince anybody here of course, but I totally disagree. I have a LOT of evidence, and the evidence becomes more apparent to me daily, it's just not physical evidence.
If by "physical evidence" you mean things that are apparent to the five senses, then you have no meaningful evidence. If you're aware of something but you can't make other people aware of it, then it is useless as evidence and cannot be considered evidence.
From Message 58:
Meanwhile what a GREAT place for learning PATIENCE and FORBEARANCE and DYING TO SELF and AGAPE LOVE and all those virtues I don't have!
Pateince, my child. Once you see the light of science these qualities will be yours in abundance.
From Message 73:
God went to great lengths to prove His reality and His character. Miracles, pillars of fire and cloud, parting of the Red Sea, plagues upon Egypt, the passover of the Jewish firstborn, oh so many things God did to prove to us who He is.
There is no evidence that God is the author of the Bible, and much evidence that men wrote it. There is no evidence for any of the stories you mention, or even of Jews in ancient Egypt.
Getting back to the main topic, so far we have God is omniscient and omnipotent, and God is love. Do these definitions really seem adequate to the Christians here?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by Faith, posted 04-19-2005 12:28 PM Faith has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 86 by mike the wiz, posted 04-19-2005 4:51 PM Percy has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 87 of 332 (200463)
04-19-2005 5:41 PM
Reply to: Message 86 by mike the wiz
04-19-2005 4:51 PM


Re: To Whom are you asking this question?
mike the wiz writes:
If by "physical evidence" you mean things that are apparent to the five senses, then you have no meaningful evidence.
That's arrogance! Because everything is evidence of God, which the bible said - well before science.
Your problem is that you think science "owns" evidence and "owns" the universe. You have it wrong my friend God got to both first.
That's a nice statement of your beliefs, but how are you going to support it without evidence or effective argument? If you're going to persuade anyone, at some point you're going to have to get practical. "Everything is evidence of God" is a meaningless statement. "How do I know there's a God?" asks the atheist. "Well, just look at this here pen," says the evangelist. "God made this here pen, there's your evidence!" Unable to conjure any evidence for your God, you're reduced to non sequiturs like "The evidence for God is all around us" and "God is everywhere and everything" and so forth. You'd think something that really exists would be a bit more apparent.
Try to answer this question: How would the world be different if God didn't exist, and explain why in concrete terms.
About evidence of Jews in ancient Egypt, I know you'd like to believe such evidence exists, and I know there are many sites around the Internet claiming that such evidence does exist, but it doesn't exist in any form sufficient to convince historians. The Brooklyn Papyrus mentioned by your link is described on the Internet in some places as a list of snake bite remedies and other places as a list of household slaves with semitic names. Given the consistency with which historians cite the lack of evidence for Jews in ancient Egypt, the possibility that it is a list of semitic saves seems unlikely.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 86 by mike the wiz, posted 04-19-2005 4:51 PM mike the wiz has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 90 by mike the wiz, posted 04-19-2005 6:44 PM Percy has replied
 Message 169 by Phat, posted 04-21-2005 5:00 AM Percy has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 113 of 332 (200655)
04-20-2005 8:13 AM
Reply to: Message 90 by mike the wiz
04-19-2005 6:44 PM


Re: To Whom are you asking this question?
mike the wiz writes:
Your authority is science. My authority is God, the bible God - who has been known of since 4000 odd bc.
Yes, this is an accurate statement. I accept as authoritative the evidence from the natural universe. God made this universe, and I don't believe he would lie to us or try to trick us. You accept as authoritative the Bible. Man wrote the Bible, and unlike God man is fallible.
mike the wiz writes:
Try to answer this question: How would the world be different if God didn't exist, and explain why in concrete terms.
It would be different because it wouldn't exist.
You missed the point of the question. Let me pose it differently. How would the world be different if after creating the universe God went off and found other things to do and left man on his own?
Percy, I know for a fact the Hebrews are mentioned by Egyptian artefact and that they have found the lost city. It was even on discovery channel. Your side just simply ignore evidence when it suits you.
Well, I guess if it was on Discovery Channel it must be true!
I mean, do you want me to believe that you would accept any biblical happenings as true? Pa-lease.
You ask this as if you think I'm following some forumula like, "If the Bible says it, it's not true." I approach the Bible like any other historical source. I take context into account and judge each detail on its merits. You, on the other hand, *do* follow a formula: "If the Bible says it, it's true!"
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 90 by mike the wiz, posted 04-19-2005 6:44 PM mike the wiz has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 126 of 332 (200677)
04-20-2005 10:50 AM
Reply to: Message 51 by Faith
04-19-2005 12:54 PM


Faith writes:
All that is simply another subject. I came to my faith in Christ in midlife by reading a ton of books about all kinds of religions, not by being brought up in a culture. I was an atheist for most of my life in this Christian culture.
This is off-topic, but if I could offer a brief aside, since you read many books before rejecting atheism, in other words, you informed yourself, could I suggest that it would be appropriate to do the same before rejecting so much of science?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 51 by Faith, posted 04-19-2005 12:54 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 130 by Faith, posted 04-20-2005 11:17 AM Percy has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 136 of 332 (200704)
04-20-2005 1:14 PM
Reply to: Message 130 by Faith
04-20-2005 11:17 AM


Faith writes:
What would you recommend I read, Percy?
I wasn't so much recommending that you read, though that is one of the effective approaches you could take, so much as recommending that you inform yourself. The means you choose are up to you.
This is an interesting thread because it inverts the position of the debaters from what was the case in the science threads in which you participated. We would offer evidence and explanations and descriptions of scientific theories only to have them rejected out-of-hand as inadequate. Here in this thread you and MTW are doing the same thing for your definition of God and finding it treated the same way.
The only way to put the discussion on a solid footing and open up the channels of communication is to agree on what constitutes evidence. I tried to answer your question about evidence at the top of Message 85, but you didn't reply. Evidence is anything you can see, hear, touch, taste or smell.
I also addressed yours and MTW's concern about rejecting Biblical evidence out of hand in both the aforementioned Message 85 and in Message 113. I believe God created the universe and that he would not lie to us or try to trick us. Man created the Bible, and man is known to be fallible. I see the Bible as a record of a people's striving to make sense of their world, and I interpret it in historical context with other available evidence.
If, as you and MTW argue, God is defined by deeds, then that contradicts Magisterium Devolver's definition of God as love, given the evils in the world like war, plague, pestilence and tsanamis. When you're source of information for God's deeds is the Bible then you can't chalk all evil up to the devil since the OT contains many incidences of God directing atrocities.
The introduction of the devil and a hierarchy of angels and so forth is indicative of developing ad hoc answers to address questions and contradictions, but the web just grows more and more confused. You say God is good, we then ask what about evil. You say the devil is responsible for evil, we ask how the devil is permitted to do this if God is omnipotent. You say God chooses to allow the devil a place, but that is permitting evil, and we're back where we started, though a debate can go round and round and round on these points forever.
Religion, especially institutionalized religion, is prone to such complicating inventions. To see the true God you need to simplify. Eliminate the hash of Bible stories with their confused and contradictory variety of perspectives and look at the universe around you, for there lies truth.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 130 by Faith, posted 04-20-2005 11:17 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 137 by Faith, posted 04-20-2005 2:20 PM Percy has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 138 of 332 (200723)
04-20-2005 4:28 PM
Reply to: Message 137 by Faith
04-20-2005 2:20 PM


Faith writes:
If there is a reality beyond the senses, you have ruled out all possible evidence for it a priori.
If there were a reality beyond the senses that were objective and not personal then there wouldn't be so many religions, denominations sects and offshoots. You wouldn't have Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and so forth. Within Christianity you wouldn't have Catholocism and Protestantism. Within Protestantism you wouldn't have Baptists and Presbyterians and Congregationalists and Methodists and Lutherans and on and on. And if even after all that you can still claim with a straight face that they all actually think of God in the same way, let's not forget the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Seventh Day Adventists (Hi, Buzsaw!), the Church of Scientology, Christian Scientists, the Quakers, the Mormons, the Unification Church, not to mention the really wacko sects like Koresh's and Jonestown.
If everyone who felt they knew God or felt that God spoke to them in their heart was actually hearing the same God then there would be more uniformity and commonality. This huge variety of belief stems from the lack of any underlying reality. Those of a relgious bent join the religion whose beliefs they feel most comforable with. Desiring a connection to the spirtual is part of the makeup of human beings.
I think even very conservative evangelical theologians would think the mission the Christians have set themselves in this thread very weird and misguided. By answering Dan's challenge you concede his unsaid assumption, that defining God has any meaning. God is what we experience in our hearts, and he can't be explained to others. God is a very personal thing, and religions are only groups of people whose personal experience of God is similar and compatible.
When you try to define God by his deeds you step onto even less firm ground, because deeds take place in the natural world. Deeds are what everyone can perceive and from which objective impressions can be formed. Deeds are things that actually happen. But when we peer about the natural world we find that if God performs deeds, they are indistinguishable from normal natural phenomena.
The deeds that God performs are not physical deeds, for to seek such deeds is to test the Lord thy God. God performs spirtual deeds. He leads us toward the good and the right, and we experience this internally and personally. We can testify to what God has done for us, but we cannot provide natural world evidence of it. Those who know God will know our testimony is true and recognize God working through ourselves.
This would no doubt be a VERY long discussion and unfortunately I don't feel equipped for it at the moment.
This is because you know in your heart it is the wrong path.
You are wrong, the Bible IS God's word. It was written DOWN by men but it did not spring from the mind of men, it came from God Himself.
You may believe this, but you do not know this. Not you or anyone was witness to God's inspiration experienced by the Bible's authors. Like your personal experiences of God, you can only give testimony to them, you cannot provide evidence of them. If you believe the words in the Bible are inspired by God and are therefore God's Word, then this is true for you, but God is a spirtual being, and once again to expect evidence in the natural world of what you know in your heart is true is to test the Lord thy God.
Many of its authors claim specifically to have received their message directly from God; other authors have declared that all scripture is given by God; those who formed the canon formed it on the basis of their determination of each book's having been inspired by God; and that has been the view of it by believers since it was written.
You are again trying to give objective reality to a spirtual belief. Even if you know in your heart that this is true, it is not part of the natural world, and you can't expect other people, especially adherents to other religions, to accept that your book contains the Word of God and theirs do not. You're trying to convince people's minds when you should be trying to convince their hearts. Accepting God as a real presence in your life comes from the inside through the heart, not from the outside through the senses.
The universe is in fact pretty much undecipherable as is.
Someone of your abilities must respect them by considering your words more carefully. The reason your posts attract so much attention is because of your proclivity for casually throwing off howlers like this one, and it's beneath you. The complex electronic instrument you're using now represents so many resolved scientific problems that all by itself without considering any other evidence we know the universe is decipherable.
In fact, Christianity had a big role in inspiring empirical science, on the basis of faith that God is rational and that he made the physical world to operate by rational laws that can be discovered. There is nothing in the physical world as-is that would lead to such an idea.
On the contrary, the very regularity of the universe speaks of rationality. The sun rises and sets every day, cooked food tastes better, clay dries into useful containers, small-stone-small-splash, big-stone-big-splash, and so on. The confusion derives not from any lack of rationality, but from the mixture of rationality and randomness. The days are regular, but one day brings sun and another brings storms. The seasons are regular, but one spring brings rains and plenty, another spring brings floods and doom.
Nothing explains that except Biblical theology, however, which recognizes that human beings and in fact the entire Creation are Fallen, meaning we are NOT what we were originally made to be. Our first parents were created immortal and in communion with our Creator God. They disobeyed and death entered the world, and both sin and death have accumulated down to the present.
It is fine to believe this, but do not forget that this is a matter of faith, not fact. You cannot objectify the spirtual reality of God. The more you explain the contradictions the more obviously contradictory they become to the rational mind. You accepted these stories not because they appealed to your intellect but because they brought joy to your heart. Speak with your heart to other people's hearts and not to their minds, for such is the way of the Lord.
I find it to be exactly the opposite. I find the contradictions to be inherent in the universe, and the resolution of them in God's Word, which He mercifully gave us for the purpose.
But the contradictions are not in the universe but are of your own making. You read your Bible which speaks of a great flood, and you look to the evidence which is silent about a flood, and this must be very confusing. Dealing with all the contradictions you yourself create is why you keep abandoning discussions and saying things like "I don't feel equipped for it at the moment," and "This too would no doubt be a long and probably futile discussion," and so forth. God speaks to you from the wonders of the universe, not from the pages of a book, but you have closed your heart to him.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 137 by Faith, posted 04-20-2005 2:20 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 143 by Faith, posted 04-20-2005 9:20 PM Percy has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 189 of 332 (200970)
04-21-2005 4:42 PM
Reply to: Message 143 by Faith
04-20-2005 9:20 PM


Faith writes:
There is a Biblical understanding of all these confusions although explaining it to you may not get me anywhere as usual.
Yes, there is a Biblical understanding of all these confusions. In fact, there are many. And there are many more across all the non-Christian religions. And since you accept the devil as a reality then you may begin to suspect his involvement where people commit the sin of conceit and deny all but their own of the many ways to know the Lord our God. While God's message is perfect, man's ability to hear and interpret that message is all too fallible, and we must always bear that in mind.
Faith writes:
quote:
This huge variety of belief stems from the lack of any underlying reality. Those of a relgious bent join the religion whose beliefs they feel most comforable with. Desiring a connection to the spirtual is part of the makeup of human beings.
It's always amazing to me how people who know nothing about it speak so dogmatically about something they know nothing about.
Surely you are not claiming Christians have a monopoly on the spirtual. My sense of the spirtual is not so different from your own, differing primarily in acknowledging the many ways of knowing our Lord.
I gave a partial defintion of God that is consistent with 2000 years of Christian Confessions, Creeds and Catechisms. I would be very surprised to find even one conservative evangelical theologian in disagreement. Even Magisterium Devolver, who has to be Catholic judging from his name, has said he agrees with most of what I've said, as well as with Mike the Wiz.
And yet Magisterium Devolver disagrees with you on a fundamental point. This is from Message 139:
Magisterium Devolver writes:
In my opinion, God is omnibenevelent -- but not necessarilly omniscient or omnipresent (at least within the universe). However, I do beleive him to be omniscient and omnipresent to all things good. This is to say, although "slightly limited", he still has an infinite amount of good knowledge and good presence within things that are not contrary to his existence or purpose.
But even if the three of you were in perfect concert, it would be only too easy to find different definitions of God, such as the one from Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary that I offered in Message 10. And yeah, though ye look through this definition and all its Biblical references ye shall not find the words "omniscient" or "omnipotent" nor their synonyms. This is not to deny that many apply these terms to the Christian God, but the point is that many do not, especially those of other religions.
I have certainly agreed that there is no NATURAL WORLD evidence for any of it...God performs all kinds of deeds, both physical and spiritual...I have referred only to WITNESS evidence, NOT physical evidence.
The confusion your predicament is causing you is made clear by these contradictory statements from you. You both exclude evidence of God from the natural world, and claim God performs physical deeds, which by definition can only take place in the corporeal world and would thus leave physical evidence. Once you see that the Bible is just one tiny piece, and not the most significant one, of God's Word then these contradictions begin to melt away.
There is no such thing as something's being true for one person but not for another, and scientists have not been known to accept such relativist nonsense either. I'm rather surprised to hear it from you as a matter of fact.
But we're not talking of science, we're talking of truth. Science doesn't deal with truths, religion and spirtuality does. And the topic of this thread is God, not science.
And NONE OF THIS is "testing God" in any case. I have no idea what that could possibly mean. Testing God is expecting him to save you from dangers you've purposely put yourself in the way of.
Your definition is far too limiting. Asking for evidence of God, any evidence at all, is testing God, for evidence is the opposite of faith. Adding personal danger to the test merely adds drama, nothing else. If you believe because you think you have physical evidence of God then you believe for the wrong reasons. But don't reply to this particular portion yet, because I address issues of evidence further on.
I do not accept your definition of objectivity as being synonymous with what is learnable from the senses at all. Objectivity simply refers to a reality outside oneself and being an accurate witness.
Objectivity is the realm of science, not of faith. Peace and goodness and caring and compassion are the realm of faith.
Faith writes:
quote:
You're trying to convince people's minds when you should be trying to convince their hearts.
Absolutely not. Jeremiah said: "The heart is deceitful above all things, who can know it?" The heart is absolutely NOT trustworthy, NOT the way to know anything about God. God is an objective reality who should inspire the deepest love in the heart, but we cannot know anything with the heart otherwise. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy MIND...
Read the Biblical words you have just quoted, Faith, and see the contradictions for yourself. Once you move beyond the Bible as the only way of coming to the Lord you will no longer have to reconcile the contradictions, such as loving God with all your heart where the heart is deceitful above all things.
Faith writes:
quote:
Accepting God as a real presence in your life comes from the inside through the heart, not from the outside through the senses.
I never said it did, Percy. There is some kind of strange miscommunication going on here. We learn all this in the spirit, yes, but it is ABOUT everything in the world.
There is no miscommunication, Faith, only a contradiction in your understanding that both wants God to perform physical deeds as you expressed above, and denies that there can be physical evidence but only witness evidence.
This last distinction about different types of evidence is an important one to address. When you claim you have evidence of God, the science people here will think of the scientific definition of evidence. It refers to what is perceived through the five senses, and it becomes more and more objective as more and more people perceive the same thing. In a scientific context, evidence is always of the physical world.
Your witness evidence is a different kind of evidence. It is a personal evidence that is perceived by the individual and which must be testified to before others can know of it.
Faith writes:
quote:
Nothing explains that except Biblical theology, however, which recognizes that human beings and in fact the entire Creation are Fallen, meaning we are NOT what we were originally made to be. Our first parents were created immortal and in communion with our Creator God. They disobeyed and death entered the world, and both sin and death have accumulated down to the present.
It is fine to believe this, but do not forget that this is a matter of faith, not fact.
I disagree. It is completely a matter of fact. Just because I cannot prove it with naturalistic evidence, or prove it to your satisfaction by any means whatever, does not mean it is not fact. YOu want evidence but the only evidence is the Bible witness in this case, and, I would add, how this view explains so much that is otherwise unexplainable. What true faith in the true God teaches IS what is really real. You have a false idea of faith.
Our ideas of faith are one and the same, it is your terminology that has misled you. I say evidence and you think of the witness evidence of spirtual experience. You say evidence and I think of scientific evidence.
While your preferred definition of evidence as "witness evidence" is not wrong, it is not the definition that first comes to mind for most people, and I think it is confusing you as well. Confusing "evidence" and "witness evidence" is probably central to your belief that "witness evidence" represents fact. This could only be true if there were such a thing as "witness fact".
Facts of the spirtual have not the same nature as facts of the corporeal. If they did then you and a Hindu would agree about God just as easily as you would agree about the reality of a brick wall. Facts of the real world are apparent to all regardless of faith, while facts of the spirtual world are intensely personal. Because spirtual facts are personal they are not referred to as articles of fact but of faith. You seem to have forgotten this.
Absolutely false. They appealed to my intellect first. They made sense to my mind first. The most satisfying point of my original spiritual explorations was when I understood Original Sin. That was the concept that made everything in this nutty universe make sense -- that we are FALLEN, and are not what we were meant to be. That explains all the misery in this world, all the stupidity, all the confusion, all the clashing opinions, all the harm people do to one another. All that is absolutely inexplicable without understanding our Fall in Eden. Discovering that was a decidedly INTELLECTUAL joy, and the intellectual joys have only multipled since then.
Ah, Faith, you have gone so far astray. What intellect is satisfied and joyful at an omnipotent and loving God who permits misery, stupidity, confusion, clashing and harm? And what joy can there be in the arrogance of intellect? In matters of faith we should heed Jesus's words to be as a child.
Faith writes:
quote:
I find it to be exactly the opposite. I find the contradictions to be inherent in the universe, and the resolution of them in God's Word, which He mercifully gave us for the purpose.
But the contradictions are not in the universe but are of your own making. You read your Bible which speaks of a great flood, and you look to the evidence which is silent about a flood, and this must be very confusing. Dealing with all the contradictions you yourself create is why you keep abandoning discussions and saying things like "I don't feel equipped for it at the moment," and "This too would no doubt be a long and probably futile discussion," and so forth. God speaks to you from the wonders of the universe, not from the pages of a book, but you have closed your heart to him.
This is really a very insulting ad hominem you have written here. All I will say is how very very wrong you are about my motivations, my thoughts, my feelings, my reasons for my actions.
Why do you so frequently take refuge in the cloak of the easily offended? I'm speaking to you from the heart, Faith. There is a universe of truth outside the Bible, and it is calling to you but you do not listen.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 143 by Faith, posted 04-20-2005 9:20 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 190 by Faith, posted 04-21-2005 5:49 PM Percy has replied
 Message 191 by Mr. Ex Nihilo, posted 04-21-2005 6:16 PM Percy has not replied
 Message 199 by Faith, posted 04-22-2005 1:46 PM Percy has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 193 of 332 (201040)
04-21-2005 10:06 PM
Reply to: Message 190 by Faith
04-21-2005 5:49 PM


Faith writes:
There is no such thing as ANYTHING being true for one person and not for another if we're talking about objective claims.
But we're not talking about objective claims, and I think this is where your confusion lies. Your taking terminology more appropriate for science and applying it the spirtual. Everyone's experience of God is very personal. Everyone has their own personal relationship with God. My personal relationship with God is different from yours is different from MTW's is different from Magisterium Devolver's. We can testify to our relationship with God, but it is our relationship, not someone else's. It is a relationship only we can experience - no one else can witness our personal relationship with God firsthand.
The objective is what everyone can see or feel or hear and so forth. This is how we establish facts, by many people seeing or feeling or hearing the same thing. In the corporeal world it is easily established that we are seeing or feeling or hearing the same thing, and we can establish and agree on the nature of that thing.
But there is no such certainty in the spirtual world. You feel your relationship is with God and that those who don't believe as you do are being fooled by the devil into thinking their relationship is with God. But there is no objectivity in the spirtual world, and it could as easily be you who are blinded by the devil. Everyone would object that it isn't them being fooled by the devil, but who is right? This is the confusion and contradiction and alienation of your fellow man that you have brought upon yourself. If the spirtual were truly objective then you could agree about God with people of other religions as easily as about the weather
If God exists then He is something with attributes apart from anything we think or feel about him, no matter who believes or doesn't believe in Him. If Jesus Christ is the Way the Truth and the Life and nobody comes to the Father but by Him, as He said, then believing that Zarathustra is the way to God is simply not true for those who believe it same as for those who don't, it is false because Jesus is the only way to God.
Faith, why do you speak with such intolerance? Were you always this uncaring and rigid?
Faith writes:
quote:
Asking for evidence of God, any evidence at all, is testing God, for evidence is the opposite of faith.
Oh not so. God GIVES evidence, He WANTS us to seek evidence for Him, He INVITES it. He claims there is evidence throughout the creation, but I've never been very sensitive to it myself.
I was actually making a different point about asking God for evidence, but your reply is still worth addressing. Yes, most certainly God gives evidence, and it is impossible to be insensitive to it because it is the entire universe all around us. But you are shutting yourself off from this evidence because a book has closed your mind. God is speaking to you from the earth and the sun and the moon and the stars, but you are not listening. The glory and the majesty of God are so much larger than anything that can be contained in a book, and if you would open your heart the glory of God would pour in.
Faith writes:
I keep saying I DON'T have PHYSICAL evidence, Percy. Why do you keep repeating this idea that I do?
You're not as consistent as you think you are. If you really believe you don't have phsysical evidence, then why do you keep making statements about physical evidence? For example, in Message 143 you said, "God performs all kinds of deeds, both physical and spiritual."
As I said in my previous message, perhaps in a portion you didn't get a chance to read yet, you're confusing objective evidence with witness evidence, and then you're calling the witness evidence facts. But facts are what everyone can see and therefore agree upon. Witness evidence is personal testimony. We can only know what other people tell us of their personal relationship with God. Christians have no monopoly on truth or witness testimony, and I have a feeling the typical Buddhist would be more charitable toward Christian beliefs than the reverse if you are any indicator.
You must free yourself from the prison your Bible has created for you and discover a world far richer than you can imagine. Then you would find the contradictions melt away and that people of all religions are your brothers and sisters in the Lord.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 190 by Faith, posted 04-21-2005 5:49 PM Faith has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 214 of 332 (201277)
04-22-2005 7:20 PM
Reply to: Message 199 by Faith
04-22-2005 1:46 PM


Re: God of the Bible vs God of imagination
Faith writes:
I don't depend on my own ability but trust God based on His word, and trusting in God according to His own instructions is the opposite of arrogance.
And yet when others who believe differently from you profess the same trust in God's word, you accuse them of being tricked by the devil. Then you arrogantly deny your own vulnerability to this possibility, holding yourself above all the weaknesses man is heir to. Your blinders cause you to see only the Bible and to deny the community of mankind beyond the borders of your own blinkered faith community.
The huge variety of beliefs is in fact explained in the Bible and nowhere else.
I'm afraid there is far more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in your Bible.
People's interest in spiritual things and gravitating to what they agree with is of course true, but there is no way to derive from that fact a determination of which views are true and which false.
Why, yes, of course! I must not understand what you're saying, because this appears to contradict your earlier statements that you know your views about God are correct.
Faith writes:
Surely you are not claiming Christians have a monopoly on the spirtual. My sense of the spirtual is not so different from your own, differing primarily in acknowledging the many ways of knowing our Lord.
That idea of "many ways" is in fact the dead giveaway that your views are very very different from mine. Jesus said clearly there is only ONE way. He said it, I didn't.
I can only say that, once again, the Bible is blinding you. It is interesting that all the hardness and coldness and rigidity is coming from the Christian side. God is understanding and forgiveness, not condemning others as possessed by the devil because they hold different beliefs. I suppose the certainty might attract some to this hard Christian position, but there seems little else to recommend it.
I am not in a predicament, Percy, you are projecting that on me.
So you say, but in your very next paragraph you say this:
The only reason I exclude evidence from the natural world is that it's not evident to most people, not that it doesn't exist. Some people see God's hand in every aspect of his Creation, but most of us don't (Fallenness explains this too). God certainly DOES perform physical deeds, every day upholding this entire universe and being the remote cause of every physical occurrence -- traceable effects of his natural laws being the proximal cause. But the kind of evidence that you all demand at this site for such things as Biblical miracles is not in fact "in evidence" but we have the witness evidence of the Bible instead. Miracles do not leave the kind of evidence you demand. We are left with either believing the people who witnessed them or not believing them. I believe them.
This passage clearly reveals that you are deep into a predicament of confusion, because you have God performing physical deeds that leave no physical evidence. Perhaps if you provide an example it would make what you're trying to say more clear, especially to yourself.
Once you see that the Bible is just one tiny piece, and not the most significant one, of God's Word then these contradictions begin to melt away.
After what I worked my way through to arrive at the conclusion that the Bible IS absolutely THE significant and definitive word of God, and after experiencing confirmation of its truths in personal direct ways over and over, there's no way your view holds any conceivable attraction to me. The universe is at best both predictable and unpredictable, coherent and incoherent. For one thing it is not as it was originally created as the Fall brought destruction and death into it. ONLY the Bible gives us this information and without it the universe cannot be fully apprehended.
Yes, I know you worked hard, but the journey is not over and there is far more to learn. You say that without the Bible the universe cannot be fully apprehended (I'm translating that in my mind as "comprehended", but let me know if you were saying something else), but consider that it is the Bible that creates the contradiction between it and God's word written in his true works of the universe. We know the Bible was written by men, and we know the universe was created by God, and it is only because you have the priority backwards that you find so many contradictions.
The world is not the way it is because of anything the Bible says about fallenness, but because it is but the way God created it. The universe came first, the Bible came later - much later. The Bible represents one ancient people's attempt at making sense of this world as they strived to know their God, but it is by no means the only attempt. Many more holy words have been written than are between the Bible's covers, many of them in the Koran, the Bhagavad-Gita and the Tipitaka, many of them elsewhere. What makes words holy is how well they speak to our soul, not a council of men in an eastern Roman Empire outpost centuries ago. Try reading Gifts of the Magi by O. Henry some time for some truly holy words. You don't need other people to tell you what is holy, only yourself.
The advances wrought by science in the modern world have enabled us to make much sense of what formerly made no sense at all and seemed the work of gods and devils. I do not know what chaos in your life led you to conclude the world so harsh a place, but the risks you're exposed to are far less than for past generations. The Bible writers attributed to evil or the devil or sins the many life-affecting disasters of past times that are now known to have material and preventable causes, like many illnesses. You have nowhere near the excuse ancient peoples did for finding the world so harsh a place as you judge it to be. By what logic can you judge the world a harsh place when compared to the world in which ancient peoples lived? Given the hardships they faced the ancient Israelites thought the world a fallen place, but given the wonders of the modern age how can you possibly conclude the same?
There is no such thing as something's being true for one person but not for another, and scientists have not been known to accept such relativist nonsense either. I'm rather surprised to hear it from you as a matter of fact.
quote:
But we're not talking of science, we're talking of truth. Science doesn't deal with truths, religion and spirtuality does. And the topic of this thread is God, not science.
The words "true" and "false" and "truth" versus "error, falsehood" and so on, are everyday English words that apply to science as well as to everything else. You seem to want to use the idea of "truth" in fact to deny truth and relegate it to something subjective and inconclusive. To say that a proposition or belief can be true for one person but not for another is in fact to deny the meaning of the word.
What is truth, Faith? When you can answer that question perhaps you'll be better able to answer the question, What is God? When you can define truth in a way that is generous instead of selfish and exclusive and hateful you might find you are on the right track. That you have a definition of truth as something rigid and absolute and exclusive only makes it apparent how far off you are. Truth is subtle and multifaceted. Truth brings people together. Perhaps God knows a single definition of truth that is not yet known to man, but we must still harken to God's message of love and tolerance and apply it even to those things we do not yet understand.
Objectivity simply means honesty and accuracy in apprehending and describing anything whatever.
I understand the point you're trying to make about witness testimony, and I can now see how we're simply using different definitions of the word objective. But you're misusing the word objective even even by your own definition. Objective, in the sense you're trying to apply it, means leaving aside one's own thoughts and impressions. Yes, people testifying to witness evidence attempt to be honest and accurate about what they've experienced, but they're talking about their own thoughts and impressions, and so they cannot possibly leave them aside. In the sense you're using it, objectivity is the virtual antonym of witness testimony.
I was, of course, using a different definition of objective, the one about reliably establishing what is actually so. This is why I was referring to multiple observers, because the more people who observe the same thing the more confidence we have that that thing exists, and with enough observers we begin to say that it has been objectively verified.
UFOs are a good example. One person sees a UFO and the report gets ignored. A few people see a UFO and it gets dismissed as swamp gas. A whole neighborhood of people see a UFO and it begins to get some serious attention. When a whole neighborhood of people see the same thing, we might not be able to figure out what they saw, but we can be pretty sure they saw it, and the local airbase or airport or university or whatever will investigate, because the reliability of the observation has been established fairly objectively (not rigorously, of course, but that would be rare for random events). That's the sense in which I'm using the term objective - something that we know really happened or really exists because of the number of people who have observed it. Or, when speaking scientifically, because of the care with which the phenomena was observed and measured, and because of replication by other scientists or teams of scientists.
I don't know what to say about your definition of faith except that it's about as far from anything I believe as it can be.
But I didn't define faith, nor was I attempting to. I said, "Peace and goodness and caring and compassion are the realm of faith." I was speaking of spirtual faith or religious faith. The point I was working toward was that objectivity is the realm of the material world, while peace and goodness and caring and compassion are the realm of spirtual faith.
We seem to be having trouble with definitions, because you offer the definition of faith as putting one's trust in something or someone. This is certainly one of the definitions of faith, but as we were in the middle of a discussion about evidence from the material versus spirtual worlds, the definition I of course had in mind was, to quote GuruNet, "Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence."
Wrong idea I'm afraid, as most accusations of Biblical contradictions are. We don't HAVE the ability naturally to obey this command at all, can't even come close, not with heart or with mind or with soul, because of our fallenness. It is something we can only begin to do in the power of God, and that is not possible without BELIEVING in God -- believing in Him according to His word, not according to some sentimental idea we make up about what we want him to be like -- and trusting Him and obeying Him. IF we are doing that then He will gradually change us into people who can more and more love Him as He commands, with heart and soul and mind. But the natural man cannot. There is no point in appealing to anybody's heart.
You provided the quotes containing the contradiction yourself (of loving God with all your heart in one passage, and that the heart is deceitful above all things in another). The labyrinthine exercises used to deny Biblical inconsistencies are unnecessary once you accept that the Bible is man's word, not God's.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 199 by Faith, posted 04-22-2005 1:46 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 215 by Faith, posted 04-22-2005 7:46 PM Percy has replied
 Message 217 by Faith, posted 04-22-2005 8:13 PM Percy has not replied
 Message 219 by Faith, posted 04-22-2005 8:25 PM Percy has not replied
 Message 226 by Faith, posted 04-22-2005 10:46 PM Percy has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 223 of 332 (201303)
04-22-2005 9:08 PM
Reply to: Message 218 by Mr. Ex Nihilo
04-22-2005 8:19 PM


Magisterium Devolver writes:
Ok...I admit I'm as guilty as the others for deviating from the OP of this thread -- but Percy and Faith, could you guys please take this to a new thread?
I apologize if I've been difficult to follow, but my participation in this thread stems from a statement someone made, might even have been you, that God is defined not just by what he is, but by what he does. This leads to considerations of evidence of what God does, which is what Faith and I are discussing.
It's Dan's thread - if he thinks this aspect is off-topic that's okay with me. I'm taking up far too much of Faith's time anyway, time she could be spending on a response in the Deposition and Erosion of Sediments thread.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 218 by Mr. Ex Nihilo, posted 04-22-2005 8:19 PM Mr. Ex Nihilo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 225 by Mr. Ex Nihilo, posted 04-22-2005 9:50 PM Percy has not replied
 Message 227 by Faith, posted 04-22-2005 10:52 PM Percy has replied
 Message 256 by Dan Carroll, posted 04-23-2005 4:48 PM Percy has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 224 of 332 (201307)
04-22-2005 9:26 PM
Reply to: Message 215 by Faith
04-22-2005 7:46 PM


Re: NO physical evidence for the miracles
Faith writes:
I gave examples somewhere back there. Maybe you missed them. I gave the example of the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea, which would have returned to its normal state, leaving no physical evidence of the miracle.
No, I didn't miss these examples, they were all fine. They're all examples of God performing deeds in the physical world that left physical evidence, in some cases copious physical evidence. But the passage of much time has erased this evidence. And this makes perfect sense. It's analogous to lost layers in geology, where sediments were created but time and erosion wore them away and now the evidence doesn't exist anymore. There's nothing difficult to understand about this.
But though the physical evidence no longer exists for the crossing of the Red Sea and pillers of fire and the manna from heaven and so forth, the key point is that the physical evidence *did* once exist. So you *are* saying that God *does* have a physical impact on the corporeal world. You're just further saying that the evidence hasn't survived the passage of time. I know I'm being somewhat repetitious, but I'm just trying to be very clear.
But are you also saying that time has wiped out all physical evidence of all God's deeds in the physical world? I was assuming you weren't saying that because of the obvious contradiction with your position in other threads that you believe the geological layers represent evidence of the great flood of Noah. Another problem with assuming this was your meaning is that it would assume you believed that God stopped performing deeds in the physical world some time ago in order for sufficient time to pass to erase the evidence, and I didn't think you believed God no longer performs physical deeds.
Whatever your answer, consider that once you accept that God performs his chores in a manner not outwardly apparent in the physical world and that the Bible is the story of a people and not the word of God, then all your contradictions and problems are explained and evaporate away.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 215 by Faith, posted 04-22-2005 7:46 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 229 by Faith, posted 04-22-2005 11:46 PM Percy has replied

Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024