Stephen T-B

(Sorry about the interruption, but I couldn't let this pass...)
Going way, way back... “You wouldn't have to ‘know’ anything about god, except for the concept. Just like you wouldn't have to ‘know’ anything about a tree to judge it's existence, except for the concept.”
So says Normal.
This is in direct conflict with our every-day experiences.
If a person has never seen a tree in his life; has never been told about a tree, and finds himself confronted by one, he may think that such a thing is clearly an impossibility and actually not be there at all. So he tries walking through it.
Well, it’s certainly solid. Now he examines its bark, the way it branches, and its needles. He finds out it has roots, that you can cut through a branch and burn it. He still doesn’t know it’s a tree, so he calls it Very Big. There is no difference between Very Big and what we call a tree. The object itself has created a concept. The concept has not created the object.
To confuse the two takes a kind of retreat from rational thought which may, for all I know, be endemic among believers.

Normal expresses surprise that I’d expect him to be able to say much about god, including where he was and what he was doing before he created the universe. Indeed, how can he know? God is a Mystery which we will never ever be able to explain.
Satisfactory? Not for me. The closer you look at this “entity” the less there is to see. It converges relentless into an abstraction.
I know that the origins of the universe are shrouded in ignorance, but I am sure that as time goes on, the degree of ignorance will lessen because the search for answers will continue (unless religious fanatics get control of all our scientific institutions and substitute understanding with dogma.) No doubt, as we find out more, new questions will be thrown up, but at least we are looking. The more we look, the more we shall see.
If god created it, why look? Why not settle back in ignorance, and find out nothing?
Belief in gods leads inexorably to disengagement with the real world - accelerated, in the case of Christianity, by the doctrine of an everlasting life with rewards and punishments which are consequent upon Divine Judgment.
It’s not a question of whether a person WANTS to believe such stuff. It’s a question of whether a person NEEDS to believe it. Free Will doesn’t come into the frame.

Mageth

Originally posted by Billy Graham is cool
What is a theist but a man who believes in God? I believe that my computer exists. That essential thing, existence, is not ambiguous.

I know my computer exists; no belief required. You know your computer exists. You believe god exists. The two things are categorically different.

And I'm sure the female theists in the audience are shocked to learn that they are not theists in your book.

If God is ambiguous to a theist, is that man a theist or perhaps something else? Or perhaps was this other "theist" saying something other than God's existence is ambiguous?

Talk to Normal. Here is what he said:

The only way he could not interfere with your free will is to make the answer ambiguous and let you decide for yourself.

He seems to claim that god made the "answer" ambiguous to protect our free will, but that you decide whether the answer is really ambiguous or unambiguous. That's ambiguous to me.

An essential role of God is that of Creator. Whether or not He is YHWH, Allah, or God is another issue. All three mono-biggies agree that He, if nothing else, is Creator. This is unambiguous. What is more hotly contested is the nature of this Creator, but that is an orange and we were talking apples. We can talk about the Orange another time if you'd like.

First, why are you ruling out all of the other thousands of gods that man has envisioned? There have been countless gods defined, and there are countless creation myths. In doing so, you are guilty of what you're charging me of - considering oranges instead of apples.

Further, there are many different creation scenarios presented among the three Abrahamic religions you listed. YEC, OEC, etc. Theists can't even agree on how, when, why, where, what or who was created, or on who did the creating (Jesus? Allah? YHWH?) Or on which holy books should be consulted. (OT, OT+NT, OT+ Koran, etc.)

And what is being contested here is not whether god is creator, but whether god (any god, IMO), exists. To consider that, one has to have a working definition of its "nature", at least the basics. How would one go about determining the existence of something that one had no definition of, or a thousand different conflicting definitions? How would you know what evidence to look for?

Hmm, that all sounds quite ambiguous to me.

Apple=the existence of God. Orange=the nature of God.

Apple? Are we talking Macintosh, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Gala, Fuji, Braeburn, Jonagold, Pink Lady, or Cameo? Apple jelly, apple butter, apple wine, or apple cider? Dried apples, diced apples, sliced apples? Apple pie, apple cobbler, or apfel struedel?

Beside, you already peeled oranges above, when you narrowed the field to the Abrahamic gods.

I've applied the same methodology yet have come to a different conclusion. Perhaps there is more to this decision than intellect or methodology?

Or perhaps not? Where else is such a decision made but in one's intellect?

Argument by numbers? Argument by authority?

Yes; you've done both here.

More apropos nomenclature would be argument by will (free will...or human will if Calvinist) as main determinant of theological position, not determined by merely intellect or methodology.

Koy dealt handily with the free will issue. I'd add that what I said, "coming to my own rational conclusion", is a more than apt description of what you're terming "free will". What is a better exercise of "free will" if not reaching a conclusion through a thorough examination of the evidence?

Are you saying that one can simply "will" oneself to believe? I'm not sure if you are, but if so, balderdash. I can no more will myself to believe in a mythical god than I can will myself to turn into an apple. Do you think you could will yourself to not believe in god?

And I do apply it to myself. I am the product of my choices within the greater framework of God's sovereignty.

What exactly does the "greater framework of God's sovereignty" entail? Right now, it's merely a catchphrase without substance behind it.

Definitely. Which evidence we seek. How we color such evidence. What we predetermine to be convincing...all a function of choice.

Seek particular evidence; does that mean exclude, discount or ignore other, contrary evidence? Color the evidence? What, to fit your worldview or desires? Predetermine to be convincing? Do you mean decide it'll be convincing before you see it?

And a function of "choice"? When examining an issue, one is better off examining all the evidence objectively and impartially; letting your personal "choice" interfere is likely to lead you to the conclusion that you want, rather than the truth.

Correct me if I'm wrong on those assessments, but the way you phrased them doesn't sound like a particularly rational, and is certainly not a scientific, approach to considering evidence.

There are intelligent men and intelligible arguments on both sides of the aisle. You can rationally choose either.

No, I can't simply "rationally choose" to believe either. I can only rationally choose one that is rational to me.

All "intelligible" means is that one can understand what's being said; it says nothing about the truth or falsehood of the argument.

You can rationally be theist. You can rationally be atheist. It is not a matter of reason.

Huh? So it's a matter of ration, but not reason?

And I can only rationally be atheist, because the theistic position is irrational to me.

What will you be though? What is your will in the matter?

The above is an example of why I consider theism irrational - theists often express such irrational beliefs. I would call this the "tinkerbell" argument.

My "will" has nothing to do with it. I can no more will myself to believe than I can will myself to fly. Could you will yourself to not believe in god? Could you simply will yourself to believe in the IPU, or Allah, or Zeus?

I'll tell you something I've told before on this board, and try to make it brief. I am an atheist in a family of theists. My wife, my parents, my siblings (excepting one), and my relatives are all Christians, "devout" Christians, many even ministers (my father and one of my brothers, for example). Not to mention the society I live in. Being an atheist in this family and society is not easy. It's caused quite a bit of strife between me and my wife, and tension with the rest of my family. Knowing that my wife, parents and siblings all consider me destined for hell if I don't get "saved" isn't an easy thing to deal with.

Bottom line: my life would be much easier if I could "will" myself to believe. I sometimes wish I could believe. But I cannot "choose" to believe or "will" myself to believe, because to me the theistic position is unbelievable.

You cannot be anythig but atheist because the evidence leads you that way?

You might say that, but I would say it differently. It's more due to the lack of evidence, not the evidence. I cannot be a theist because the theistic position is not believable to me as there is no evidence to back the position. The theistic position is irrational, it doesn't fit the evidence, and it's based on a book full of what to me are obviously myths and legends.

Read Plantinga. Read Geisler. Read Craig. Absorb Christian apologetics as you seek to understand as much of the other side as possible.

Umm, if God's existence is as unambiguous as you seem to claim, why the need to trot out various apologists to defend the theistic position (or positions, actually)? Do you know what "unambiguous" means?

And I spent the first 45 years of my life absorbing Christian apologetics. I was a Christian until 3 years ago. I imagine I understand the "other" side at least as well as you, probably better because I've examined the evidence without the bias and the rose-colored glasses you appear to use, as expressed when you said "Which evidence we seek. How we color such evidence. What we predetermine to be convincing...all a function of choice. "

Further, I've been a member here for two years, and as my post count indicates, I've seen just about every theistic argument presented, most multiple times. And I've seen them all thoroughly refuted.

And I would recommend you read Joseph Campbell, Dan Barker, Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, etc.

You are what you read and you choose what you read.

More irrationality. I am not what I read. When I read something, I don't accept it without question; it doesn't automatically become part of me. I determine, and possibly accept, that which is rational to me, and reject that which is irrational or that may be rational but not particular useful or maybe even harmful. And I certainly don't choose to read only what fits my worldview. I read a wide variety of books.

As a man think himself, so is he.

So Don Quitoxe was really a Knight fighting dragons and not windmills? I would restate that "As a man thinks himself, so he thinks he is."

You've reversed my analogy. If he chooses not to walk over the coals he will not get burned. Conversely, if he chooses to walk over the coals he will. He will do as he wills. Choice is paramount.

Handled adeptly by Koy, and perhaps less adeptly by myself above.

But one can walk over coals without getting burned. I've seen it done many times, on the telly at least.

Division By Zero

Well, any perception can be attributed to a god. If I see trees, I can say they're God's leg hairs. What perceptions do you define as God-perceptions?

Quote:

And if "we all" perceive the earth to be flat, there exists no round earth?

Huh? I don't know what you're trying to say here.

Quote:

How do you know it is not "just as ambiguous"? You are deciding what constitutes evidence for what.

Evidence is observed. There are no direct observations of gods, while I directly observe trees every day. How can the existence of something that can be directly observed, and the existence of something that can't, be equally unambiguous?

Quote:

Perhaps for you, tree's are unambiguous (yes), and god is unambiguous (no). The point is it's up to your interpretation.

If we go this route and say that everything is ambiguous, and anyone's interpretation of something is as valid as anyone else's, we have a real mess in science when a batty individual goes around insisting that electrons move about because microscopic invisible purple flying space monkeys are playing soccer with them, and the scientific community is forced to accept that the evidence is ambiguous and could go either way.

DMB

My eye has been off the ball, so I didn't realise that although Normal has not replied to my simple question, BGic has done so thus:

Sorry BGic, you've had the wool pulled over your eyes with regard to this analogy (a bad one anyway, as others have pointed out). Although one needs courage to do firewalking, the determinant of whether or not one gets burnt is physics, not faith. There is la lot of information about firewalking on the web; here are just a couple of sitesfirstand second.But although you and normal don't seem to agree on anything much about your god(s), you do seem to coincide in your poor analogies. Normal's Berkleian tree seems much less ambiguous than his insubstantial god. Remember Dr Johnson "refuting" the Berkleian position by a hefty kick!

Your hot coals are not certain to burn the walker's feet, as I have shown above, and it doesn't depend on faith either, but at least we can see the coals are there and decide accordingly, whereas the creator god is a will o' the wisp. In any case the coals don't have a choice as to whether they will or will not burn someone's feet. Is your god a similarly powerless instrument?

It is quite clear that xians who believe that unbelievers will suffer for their unbelief have a bit of a philosophical problem with the idea. They try to rationalise it either by a lot of hot air about free will or by implying that one chooses what to believe. In times and places where unbelief is punished directly by the believers, unbelievers often pretend to choose belief. But where freedom of thought is allowed in human society, most of us prefer to be honest and admit that we do not believe and cannot believe on the evidence so far presented to us.

Mageth has explained why one cannot separate the question of a god's existence from the question of that god's supposed properties. I think you should explain to us why you think you have chosen not to believe in Allah. After all, if you have chosen wrongly, you face an eternity of fiery torment.

Stephen T-B

Mageth, your situation is really quite similar to mine (father a minister; siblings and most of my cousins Believers.)
The relation I’ve discussed belief/non-belief with most is my venerable uncle, a Franciscan Friar, and what his arguments have in common with those of the Theists we meet here is the certainty that I chose, of my own free will, not to believe in his god.
In fact there is no other conclusion they can reach.
People only believe in things which they believe to be real, and the things they believe to be real are therefore, to them, real.
Belief slides into certainty. My uncle doesn’t actually believe there’s a god. He knows there’s a god. Yet he is faced by the contradiction of my unbelief.
It’s like I’m saying I don’t believe in butter.
For my uncle, god provides us with ample evidence of his existence and of his benevolence, and I don’t admit it because I won’t. It is a wilful refusal to acknowledge an elemental truth. In other words, I have decided I will not believe. I have exercised the Free Will his god gave me, and in such a way as to damn my immortal soul. And that’s no joke.
Can I persuade him that Belief in deities is not something we choose to have or not to have? Of course I can’t; if he were to acknowledge such a thing he’d be sinking a great chunk of his theology.
All theists must believe that you and I are in denial (whether they say it or not.) It is part of the package that comes with their theism. For them, we “know” the truth, just as they “know” the truth, but we won’t admit it.
Can I persuade my Uncle that belief springs from need, and that the reason I don’t believe is because I don’t have that particular need?
Of course I can’t; such an acknowledgement on his behalf would dissolve the structure which supports his belief.
I’m afraid we won’t make any more headway here than I do with my uncle. Our position is incompatible with their certainty of God’s existence.

Cross Examiner

Koyaanisqatsi,

God commands him to walk on the coals? You and Mageth both reversed the analogy. Maybe you came in late. Read it again.

I followed your analogy. The above is the payoff. I would disagree that the choice between A and B is academic, a very important premise. It is hardly academic whether or not you trust that there is truth, that you will find it if you seek, that you purposely seek as much of the other side as possible because you trust that the decision is the most important thing and that your current position may be wrong, and that you can come to love a being you originally doubted entirely. It's a progression, not a simple A or B decision, heaven or hell, which would be rather academic. Riddle: the key is that hell is essentially relational in nature, not phyisically punitive.

Additionally, you do have the choice of "neither." Most atheists take this position by default. The only problem is that if the Bible is true, then "neither" is essentially a vote for B.

Why does three options necessarily equate to freedom of choice while two does not? It seems to me if you have an alternative, you have a choice.

Is it a threat for a mountain climber to tell his partner that if he doesn't grab the rope he'll fall? Or is it a statement of reality?

Really? If I strongly advise you not to touch the hot stove, is it a threat?

If God didn't manifest Himself to man, how would we know Him personally? If God is independent of man, how would man ever learn of salvation from God?

Well, you can choose to look at it that way. I would probably look at it that way also if I was batting for the other team. Don't atheists have apologists? Isn't iidb one big reassurance for atheism? I mean, look at the kind of stuff we see posted all the time:

"help, need help refuting theist argument x!"

Then all the atheist lay-apologists try their best tricks of the trade. I've been around, I know how it goes and I think it cuts both ways.

Regards,
BGiC

Stephen T-B

Just for clarification BGiC: do you believe there's a God or do you know there's a God?

Thanks.

Cross Examiner

Mageth,

How do you know it exists?

Female theists? My book? Rabitt from the hat--presto.

Hair splitting. Walking the fine line between free will and coercion. I consider 90% + of Americans agreeing that there is a Creator a rather unambiguous thing. You can think otherwise if you want to. I'm not going to wrangle over what the definition of is is.

Scope. Time. Limited resources. Because Monotheism is the most serious threat to atheism, particularly the Christian God. You have an entire forum dedicated to Biblical Criticism. Do you have one unto Qur'anic criticism? How about Book of Mormon cirticism--an incredibly easy target? Just call the Smithsonian and ask about Mormon archaeolgy. Lastly, DMB invoked the Monotheistic God when he asked Normal:

"Normal: please answer striaghtforwardly: does the god you believe in punish people for not believing in him?"

To which I responded, in that vane, to which you countered. Does Vishnu warn humanity about hell? No? See why I stick to Monotheism and primarily the J/C God?

Sure, and we can talk about them all another time, when scope of original intent warrants. I intend to stay focused on the question of hell, where I originally entered the fray. I suppose free will (thus the response to Koy) is not too tangential since it is important to the notion of hell as a logical, necessary construct.

Perhaps, but that is not why I entered the fray. If you want to talk on that now, now, now! Then you'll need to find another sparring partner. This has already become too tangential to:

"please answer striaghtforwardly: does the god you believe in punish people for not believing in him"

and my analogy of:

"Do fired coals punish the man who walks across them?"

Processors only process that which is fed to them. So, that which is fed to the processor gets processed. What if an important bit of evidence does not get processed? Bad decisions are made. Ergo, what you choose to process is paramount. Is it really complicated?

Really? How so?

Did he? I responded.

What do you consider a thorough examination? What if it was not thorough?

Nope.

No, but if I read tons of Quentin and Joe and hang around here all day listening to your points of view, without much balance, then I stand to deconvert. So I choose what I take in, don't I?

God is enacting His plan. I have a certain amount of freedom within that plan. My will is tested sufficiently for God to judge my heart justly. There is no higher court.

No.

Impartially? What is the point of jury selection if humans were naturally objective? Hm. That's enough answers for now.

Regards,
BGiC

Cross Examiner

Stephen,

I am confident that there is a God. Say, 95% with 5% doubt. I'm sure there's a follow up question?

Regards,
BGiC

Cross Examiner

Sorry DMB, missed you in the flurry:

Note that I did not say mental or spiritual state prevents one getting burnt, that'd be silly, only that such allows one to "to overcome the heat", which is an entirely different thing. N'est-ce-pas?

Regards,
BGiC