Okay, this is really crazy. Maybe they are having some checkups on the server at my IP .... I'll try to repost tomorrow, I apologize for the inconvenience. EDIT: I'm afraid the whole domain here is behind a firewall, or something. Am at another computer now, in the library, still troubles ... I'll try to repost, to make some order.
Seems like you know nothing about logical argumentation.... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Let me give you some resources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_argument http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_fallacy Once you study those, you can actually argue with someone in the forums without looking silly. .... Trust me.. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
If there is value (you have also placed value) on one thinking for oneself, you cannot use disagreements among religions to discount them, nor can agreement be used to affirm them. Why not?
Q: I don't think she ever proclaimed she had the word of God. Water: I think that was a server issue. Try now. My PMs aren't filled up. Truthseeker: 12 full sentences in our history. I just had to answer it. I concur. Neither the infinitely small nor infinitely large is more inherent. CrunchyCat: You forgot the purple oliphants. They -obviously- exist. My New Age Guru-Swami Ancient Master told me! Just free your mind, mannn. Scott Myers: Actually, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam (though you may count that as Western), have all had huge religious disagreements. The only religions that don't are too unadvanced to have a dogma. Water: Let me go and check the editted post right now, actually. Ah, I was refering to a different passage. It is often contrasted with James' views. Ah, here they are: Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. James Chapter Two (Excerpts) ... What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? ... Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? ... Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. These were quoted off Wikipedia. Since it is an open source, I assume these are from the KJV, the only public-domain Bible in English I am aware of. I'd rather not "lose everything I cling to". It isn't "funny", but why I'd want to experience "God" out of some psychological-safeguard instinct after losing everything, is beyond me. Unless you're talking about a philosophical "A religion or a philosophy cannot be held accountable for what people do in its name. Usually, there are some people who are good at what they believe, and then there are those who are learning. Things take time, esp. working on one's character!" Didn't Jesus say something to the tune of: By your fruits ye shall know them? There are also aspects of religion that -have- been mandated by it, people follow it, and disaster occurs. See Radical Islam, the Crusades, the Jewish pogrom against the Palestinians, et cetera. Yet most of these religions all ready -have- done that, by putting what can only be considered perverse commands into their scriptures. I do challenge Ethics, also. Mainly because I feel that Ethical Theories, whilst surely beneficial in some ways, have very little objective value and thus lack a true "ought" quality. You're right, I have a very well-developed system of theology. Hopefully you shall give me the useful input you always tend to when I finally get to posting a great deal of it. Then I ask you to assert a logically/philosophically valid notion of meaning aside from subjective value? Water: Whilst security wise this is not a good idea, it might be good to set your firewall to open all ports on IE. TruthSeeker: Again, I -strongly- recommend not discussing a thing with nameless. Your time will be wasted.
How did you get it so quickly!?!? :bugeye: Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Ok. Show me them, then! Oh, don't worry! I have 4 years of useless discussions with many different sciforums members! I'm just chilling out. Yaba Daba :m:
I don't think she ever proclaimed she had the word of God. Have you gone back and read all her posts?
Q: I had read her posts, yes, as I have been actively engaged in converse with her throughout this thread. Perhaps I missed something particular? Might you demonstrate where she said she had God's word, essentially?
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Noooo... no. That's not what I meant! LOL! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! It was a metaphor. Look at the discussion again: Prince_James:Truthseeker: An illusion is certainly real, yes, but due to the fact that the line is but part of the circle to discount its greater reality as this shape is to ignore the "true reality of things". It'd be akin to taking from this sentence simply the letter "a" and thinking it alone. TruthSeeker: Yes, I agree. So... how many full sentences are we able to read at this point in our history? First of all, by "our history" I meant human history. Second, the whole point was to compare your sentence to our capicity to understand the universe. You said that it would be akin to taking from that sentence simply one letter and thinking it alone. So I asked how many real sentences have we actually "read" considering that metaphor. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Yaba Daba :m:
Truthseeker: Extremely hilarious. I had -thought- you didn't mean that, but when you had reposted what we were discussing, I became confused and thought you meant it litterally. Ah, ah, now I understand. My thanks for the clarification.
I was wondering what you were getting to, you seemed to like circles, and I thought you were going to give us some compasses and tell us to draw one just as you were doing. Though I am pleased with this thread. Looks good on people to pray or hope for something better after this for all this effort. Its wish fulfillment at its finest. You do see how you just made Freud correct. Gosh. I better not bring this to School, I'll be hung.
Q: Perhaps you can dig up a few examples of her pronouncing this? I haven't come upon any instance myself.
Prince James; Yes, I made an assumption of 'Q's' word for religion. "Actually, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam (though you may count that as Western), have all had huge religious disagreements. The only religions that don't are too unadvanced to have a dogma." I wish to point out that a religion without dogma, of some sort, fails to be religion. I know that you and I have concluded that there must be at least some element of faith involved. To have faith in a completely fluid idea, is to have no faith at all. Religious faith without some structural claims, or firm answers, regarding some things is fatally flawed. I suppose one could hold to a religion of no religions, but that would be a dogma. Even a religion of all religions would be the dogma.
Q, Lately, I have been coming here just because of you, you know this? There have been some difficulties around my work schedule and some things got delayed, so I had some more time for the forums. But all in all ... there is Q. Q is angry. Q won't say so. Q needs someone to be his punching bag so that he can get rid of his religious frustrations. Q extorts theists with his seemingly objective arguments. Q can afford to be cynical. (Q is likely to respond to this line by line.) I used to be exactly like you. I'm sorry that things about religion are this way for you, that they are frustrating for you (even though you might not admit this, but your posts clearly show this). Although I don't mind listening to you and try to answer your questions, I can't be your punching bag for ever. You will have to learn to deal with your religious frustrations in some more productive and constructive way if you want them resolved. Right now, you are still in the slamming-doors-and-smashing-plates mode. Examine yourself. Instead of asking questions about others, ask questions pertaining to yourself, about things that matter to you. Like, "Why does it bother me so much that theists can't think for themselves?" Or at least ask yourself what is it that bothers you about religion, and why does it bother you. Then examine if your answers are justified or not. But rationalizing and objectifying will only bring you further into denial. Instead of saying rather examine what it is that is really troubling you, or what you truly wish to criticize. Being passive aggressive won't bring you anywhere, and all it looks like that you are doing is that you are merely trying to pick a fight. Learn to make I-statements. Like, "I don't like X. I think X is wrong. I think X is wrong because ..." or "I think Y is cool. I like what Y did ..." Hiding behind objectivity only perpetuates your frustrations. You can only speak for yourself, and denial ain't that river in Egypt. As for this: I'm not hiding anything. I believe humans are, by the virtue of being God's creation, intrinsically connected to God. We are not blank slates. Worldly, human knowledge might make us think that we exist completely separately from God, and that there is no connection between God and us. But this is like saying God created us, and then abandoned us. Surely, many people, in their vanity or despair or both, make the conclusion that there is no living connection between God and His creations. But it is only if we blindly trust our expectations about what this living connection, that we will be disappointed and think there is none. Please read this.
Prince James, I've edited my post, I remembered I forgot to paste in the pertinent scriptures. You can find plenty of Christians who don't see contradictions between Romans and James. Ask Jenyar, for example. This isn't funny. On what in specific? Anyway, this would be too much to go in right now, and I don't think it matters anyway. We don't interact with people's beliefs, but with their actions. A religion or a philosophy cannot be held accountable for what people do in its name. Usually, there are some people who are good at what they believe, and then there are those who are learning. Things take time, esp. working on one's character! The only way to make a religion or philosophy such that most of its adherents will be ideal representatives of this religion or philosophy, is to grossly lower the demands of said religion or philosophy. Something like this has happened in popular culture, via popular science. This philosophy goes by the principle "What is, is normal. What is normal, is desirable." But this lead to complete relativism, with there being no right and no wrong. There is no point in setting up a system of ethics that says "Whatever. Anything can be wrong, anything can be right." Traditionally, religions set up systems of ethics that do define right and wrong. If anything, challenge the concept of a system of right vs. wrong ethics, and not religion per se.
Scott Myers: By dogma I refered to an authorative set of beliefs that are set in stone and espoused by formal schools of thought or the religion as a whole. Compare this to the animism and many polytheistic religions, where the religion is more belief of the people, but with no truly organized structure, nor any creeds to profess to, though they share faith in the same things. But when you have no one authoratively stating "this is the only way things can be" or even "this is the way things are" and can make recourse to various things, you get disagreements. The "advanced" Abrahamic and the major Eastern religions are an example of religions with those with dogmas to varying degrees.
It's an axiom of my faith. Just like it's an axiom of your faith that "to be limited is a flaw". God does not consider it a flaw in us, why should it be a flaw in Him? He has identity - that already means there are some things he isn't, and some things he is. This extends to His will: there are some things within his will, and some things outside his will. But He has power over what isn't part of His will (omnipotent), and he may be present in what isn't part of His nature (omnipresent). There's nothing illogical about asserting that God is existence if you argue from certain premises, for instance pantheism. Argued from another premise - that God is the uncreated creator - it would be illogical, since it would imply God is his own creation. The same goes for "perfection". If the premise is that God is perfection, it logically follows that He is perfect no matter what his nature. If the premise is perfection as a philosophical construct, and God has to comply with your definition, then you have ensured that any assertion would fail to meet your criteria - unless it simply restates your defintion. Then you have a God who has identity, a being able to limit himself. You seem to be trying to make an argument out of "overwhelming". Maybe infinity meets such an expectation, but maybe it's because you overestimate the concept of infinity. You think God has to extend onto it, in other words: it's another construct God must comply to for your satisfaction. What we imagine as infinity might be just a side-effect of creation, like getting hydrogen and oxygen when you boil water. Infinity doesn't have to be God any more than creation needs to be God, and God doesn't have to comply to infinity any more than He would need to comply to his creation. Someone might assert that God is "unimaginable" and therefore anything imaginable would be less than God. The implicit premise is that unimaginable is "above" imaginable, and this hierarchy is not based on any logic except to prove a point. I actually thought about this last night. It still requires a concept of presence. "Presence", to me, is being conscious of my own existence. I am present in my body like I am present in my car or in my house. But I could step out of my house, leave my car behind, or lose a limb, and still be completely present. From the perspective of any of my cells, I am omnipresent, but I'm not immediately present in any of them. I am completely represented in all of them (by DNA and RNA) but I'm not complete in any of them. My cells die off every day, yet I lose nothing of myself. I could go on like this. The point is, my "omnipresence" is not my self - it's just a perpective on me - and my self is not my "omnipresence", since I can cease to be present in any particular place and still exist. It will be an argument from definition, which is my whole point. Omnipresence isn't an empirical concept, it's a philoposphical construct. You can't limit real things to something just because you can limit ideas to a definition. You're trying to define God and failing. That's not a sign of His imperfection. The only way to succeed (apart from taking revelation into account) is to believe in the god of your philosophy, which will always be limited to your imagination. Just to clarify: I'm not saying logic doesn't apply and reason has no place. But to try to find God from first principles, so to speak, automatically excludes the possibilty of a God who is a reality, who exists regardless of our ability to define his existence. So you don't understand eternity as just boundlessness, you attach it to time? Don't you see the oxymoron in "infinite stretch of time"? I would say time and infinity are mutually exclusive concepts: time being a boundary definition, and infinity as the lack of it. Time that goes on forever is not time at all, but eternity. Nevertheless, time would also be a side-effect of creation. There was nothing to measure before God did not measure it off himself. He is not trapped in time any more than He is trapped in infinity. As for God's greatness, I'll quote from the Bible: Phil.2:5-7 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.People like to try defending "God's honour" - like when you asked "would you then say that perfection is not one of God's attributes?", someone might indignantly answer "of course He is perfect!" But the assumption is always that we know best what should be considered as "perfection". I would rather affirm that "the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength", and rely on a history of revelation and not just my own imagination. When it comes down to it, we are both using our reasoning to make certain deductions from observations, axioms and premises - and we both put faith in our reasoning. Even perfectly sound logic would take different directions depending on whether light is wave or particle - the same aplies to the different premises, that God created the universe, God is the universe, or that there is no God. So I do not disagree with you: the logical implications if God did reveal himself are different than if He did not. But there is no fundamental difference between someone who observes a revelation of God (over time), and someone who observes a revelation of nature (also over time). The difference is in the criteria by which we choose to believe them or not. I think it's unreasonable to expect that God would conform to the same methods that were effective for observing something predictable - a natural law, a repeating pattern, a reproducible effect - without keeping in mind that many things do not lend themselves to empiricism this way: history, relationships, consciousness. There is a place for personal observation in all these areas, as there is with God, but it's not our only source of knowledge. If God existed, the only reasonable starting point would be allow Him to exist as He does, in stead of how we think He should.
