Angrillori

I've been thinking a lot.

One thing that bothers me is the question of how whatever god might be out there wants us to actually come to belief in it.
Here's the thing: we can come in faith, reason, or by evidence, or a mixture of the three, but none seem to be valid.

Consider this:
Faith, alone, without reason or evidence, amounts to nothing more than a guess. Without reason or evidence, there is nothing by which to judge one claim against another.

Reason, alone, also fails. To date, no reasonable, and fallacy-free proof of any god's existence has been tendered. Reason alone is obviously unable to bring us to any god.

Evidence also fails, simply by its lack.

When you start mixing, nothing gets cleared up. You can't mix faith and evidence, for the two are mutually exclusive. (faith+evidence isn't faith anymore!)

So you're left with combinations of:
Faith+Reason and Reason+Evidence.
BUT the weakneses complement each other more than the strengths. If we're to come to belief in god by faith and reason, the lack of a reasonable proof of some divinity destroys the combination. The same goes for reason and evidence, in which case, the lack of BOTH evidence and a reasonable proof make the combination even weaker than either individual piece.

Is there something I'm missing?

Jinto

Yes. The possibility that God might NOT want us to know he exists. Or God just doesn't care. Or God just doesn't exist. Or God wants us to come to believe in him by faith and is simply too stupid to realize how utterly illogical his position is. There are many possibilities.

BioBeing

If he doesn't want us to know, why perform ANY miracles? Why send Jesus at all?

If he does want us to know, then why not send MORE evidence? Clear up some of the confusion.

Angrillori

True, and fair enough.

I can't believe I left those out since
"doesn't care" is a personal favorite of mine.

On the other hand, it still seems worth discussion to assume the two (JUST for the sake of discussion.)
1) Some God exists
2) It wants us to believe in it.

If these two lead us to contradictions, then it is just one more reason to assume one or the other is false.

It certainly seems that the two don't jive, which would lead to:
Either doesn't care, doesn't exist, or can't provide evidence. But I'm wondering what I've missed.

Angrillori

Yeah, for Joe Shmoe today, we don't have miracles, or any evidence that the miracles even actually happened.

Which means that for Joe Shmoe, there's no evidence. This then leaves us still lacking in a route for him.

Or are we supposed to take the miracles 'on faith' and belief in god should be based on the evidence we have taken 'on faith'? This still seems to fail, since if we're supposed to take the miracles 'on faith' then we're still in the trick bag of having no standard by which to confirm one faith guess versus another. Might as well skip the whole miracle bit entirely, right?


Yeah again. If he wants us to believe based on evidence, why ain't there any?

Darth Dane

What if God just wants us to think for ourselves, and make this planet a heavenly place?
If God designed us in such a way that no objective proof can be acquired, maybe it is because we are "sent" here to do the manual work.

"Ye are Gods, of the most high" Psalms 82

"The kingdom of heaven is spread upon earth but people do not see it" Jesus

Dare to think on your own as Jesus did. Dare to think that your contribution is of teh highest value. What would you do with such a value attached to your every thought, word and action? No matter what you do, it is always valued by God. Maybe?
It is not preaching, I am just asking if this could be a possible interpretation.

It has been said that you can get subjective proof.
But I know now that, naturalists say it is my brain causing glitches, teh religious and spiritual say it is the divine forces, which I got tapped into.
However I cannot see if it was divine or merely my brain, so I am left with a choice, if I believe one or teh other.

This choice is an individual choice, that no religion can coerce you into, or at least it shouldn't. "Religion" here includes science.




DD - Love Spliff

lpetrich

Darth Dane:
What if God just wants us to think for ourselves, and make this planet a heavenly place?

"If you want something done, then do it yourself", goes the old saying.

If God designed us in such a way that no objective proof can be acquired, maybe it is because we are "sent" here to do the manual work.

An omnipotent being would not need such assistance.

GeoTheo

God closely resembles other things that don't exist. But he is the only thing that looks like nothing but is really somthing.
I am being humorous here, but seriously, Either God doesn't exist or he purposely makes himself rather inscrutible. Some reasons for him being so hard to detect( well nigh impossible) through empirical evidence have been given. One would be that an obvious God would change our motivation for serving him.
The only thing about God that seems really noticeable to most people is how he affects people who believe in Him. He somtimes has an affect on people that is hard to account for by natural explanations. If there are things that are really positive and noble about people, and you have no naturalistic way of explaining it, then it stands a good chance of being caused by God.
God is very paradoxical. To atheists he is nothing, to Christians he is everything.
I think that is very interesting. Few seem to think the question of the existence of God is an insignifigant one.

emotional

Don't count on it, GeoTheo. Atheists will give a naturalistic explanation, no matter how strained, for everything.

mike_decock

Yes. It's called experience. Most devoted Christians I know have had some kind of religious experience.

-Mike...