David Mathews

Hello Rainbow walking,

David: Your analysis of the origin of religion has some merit. However, I believe that your correlation between the motives and character of ancient humans and my own self is altogether speculative and therefore extremely doubtful.

David: Facts beyond reality are a philosophical necessity in my way of thinking. I find naturalism and materialism particularly ineffective as ultimate explanations for all things which exist.

David: I examined theism and atheism and found that the theistic explanation more appealing and more effective than its atheistic alternative.

David: The intellectual or rational or reasonable method used was strictly a matter of probing the alternative explanations for their failure points. Naturalism/materialism seemed to fail at the starting gate as it left the Universe which presently exist without any meaning or purpose, and its opinions regarding the origin of the Universe were altogether speculative.

David: Yes, theism seems a plausible explanation for the origin of the Universe and humankind.

David: To be perfectly honest, because theism does not exclude natural explanations for those things which originated naturalistically. God's role in the creation therefore does not exclude the evolution of matter, stars and even life. If that is the case, then strict atheistic naturalism doesn't have any concepts which are denied or forbidden by supernaturalism.

Under those circumstances atheistic naturalism became essentially bankrupt and that is why it has no advantage over the theistic explanation of origins.

David: As I have stated above, "God did it" does not exclude "we don't know yet but we are learning more every day."

David: No. I live with uncertainty all of the time.

David: Not at all.

David: If I feared conflict I couldn't engage atheists in conversations about God, could I?

David: Faith does not bring stability into my mind about anything, that is why I follow the sciences, history, archaeology, and that is also why I have read the religious writings and scriptures of many different religions.

David: I like questions.

David: Reality's incomplete, temporary and transitory nature does not scare me at all; my own incomplete, temporary and transitory existence does not scare me either.

David: It is curious but in the final analysis words are just words.

David: I have no fear of uncertainty, conflict or change. I embrace all three. Why then would I fear anything?

David: As a theist and as a Christian, I and I alone am responsible for my own attitudes and behavior.

David: I do not share your low opinion of the God-idea's lack of contribution to the ongoing search for an explanation. From a historical standpoint, the God idea has inspired many people to pay close attention to the creation in order to discern its form, structure and function. Theism in that sense contributes to scientific investigation as it makes a study of nature meaningful as something more meaningful than merely a diversion from boredom.

[quote]Rw: If it’s so good, since it relates to your beliefs, perhaps YOU should investigate it further. Unless you aren’t really interested in truth… [/quote}

David: I have investigated it: The Bible does not deny the role of doctors and medicine, nor does it promise a miraculous cure for every illness for all believers. Therefore, there is a need for medicine and doctors.

Sincerely,

David Mathews

David Mathews

Hello Nyx,

David: I was raised in the church.

Sincerely,

David Mathews

David Mathews

Hello emphryio,

David: I find it astonishing that you presume to know me better than I know myself. I must inform you that I was self-aware at the age of my conversion and that awareness included the perception of my motives and my desires. Happiness -- present or future happiness -- was not a motive.

David: I can understand why: If you did undertake such an analysis, you would quickly find out that your assumptions regarding the motives of religious people are severely mistaken.

David: My approach really does terrify you, doesn't it?

David: I respond quickly to questions as a sign of respect between myself and those people who ask questions. I also respond quickly because I think the initial response to a question is the most honest and accurate reflection of my internal thoughts, the only reason why such answers would take a long time is if I was attempting to misrepresent myself.

I am exchanging information in an effort of cooperative learning perpetually, not only with atheists but with a great many other people. I listen to all people and pay special attention to all those people whose views are different from mine.

Sincerely,

David Mathews

HRG

Comparing naturalism with supernaturalism: What has the latter explained that the former hasn't ?

Note that "God did X" is not an explanatíon for X, unless you add

1. an explanation for the existence of God,
2. a testable description of his methods and purposes.

Otherwise it is just the replacement of one unknown with another. We might as well say "The regularities of the universe produced X" *). For some reason, you seem to be satisfied with the God (pseudo-)explanation, but not with the universe (equally pseudo-)explanation.

Regards,
HRG.

*) "Why does opium juice produce sleep ? Because it has a vis dormitiva" (sleep-producing power)

HelenM

Originally posted by David Mathews:

Hello Helen

Hi David

And Happy 4th, btw!

David: I became a Christian by obeying the gospel at approximately age 12.

Thanks...

In the circles I move in 'obeying the gospel' is not an especially familiar phrase and I'm also not very familiar with the Church of Christ. Could you be more specific? Do you mean you got baptized (in water)? Do you mean you prayed a prayer giving your life to the Lord? Do you mean both or neither? Are you saying something about your outward behavior?

My family is a Christian family but I always knew that the decision to become a Christian was my own to make. I got to a point at which I realized the importance of becoming a Christian and did so.

Fair enough...I would appreciate if you could spell out a bit more what that entailed.

David: I am far away from retirement. I have got a full time job

Are you in full-time Christian ministry, if I may ask?

and I am also very active. Eighteen hours in a day seems an ideal length of time to accomplish everything that I need to accomplish in a day. I am not devoted to sleeping.

Amount of sleep is a very individual thing.

All I am saying is that I am prepared to respond to posts at any time of the day or night and that I will spend as much time as necessary to respond to all posts directed at me.

That's kind of you. I see that even so, some people are unsatisfied with your responses. It's interesting to me to see them walking away first. That doesn't often happen when theists talk to atheists here. I try not to judge people; that wasn't a comment on who, if either party, has 'fallen short' if your responses are deemed unsatisfactory.

love
Helen

Ted Hoffman

Sandlewood
If you say that God is everything, then you are simply defining God as being exactly equal to the Universe. Then you can throw away the word “God” for it is redundant
My thoughts exactly.
The nexus of Zen are sweet-sounding, pun-laden paralogisms and an obsession with stasis and equanimity.
Zen is good at beautifying illusions and equipping its adherents with a huge capacity to supress or ignore natural human desires like curiosity, fear, pain etc.

That, is my opinion of Zen, maybe Jobar could provide me with some insight.

For example, you could ask a zen master:
"does God exist?"
And he will answer with absolute peace and calmness:
"the Tao does not question existence. Because it is existence. When the tao begins to question itself, it is because the tao is restless.
A good chi has no questions because it is the answer"
OR he may answer:
"what is the sound of one hand clapping?"

David: You do understand the implication of my statements regarding the atoms which compose the human body.

The implications of your pithy statements are too profound for the tao. Why dont you enlighten the tao with your resplendent wisdom o great David.

[edited to remove the black snow]

[ July 04, 2002: Message edited by: IntenSity ]</p>

HelenM

Hi IntenSity

I'm not quite sure what the point of those Zen questions is. Maybe the goal is to break people out of rigid ways of thinking by asking them to contemplate nonsensical questions.

love
Helen

Ted Hoffman

Could be. What I know however is that it affords the one responding an opportunity to avoid answering a tough question and introduce more confusion to the turmoil.

If a question is nonsensical, I believe it behoves the one finding it nonsensical to demonstrate that the question is, indeed, nonsensical.

I realize I am not talking about David Matthews at the moment and its a hijack of the thread etc but what the heck. David is a liberal chap.

madmax2976

Hello David,

<strong> Thats a given as we fully recognize we don't have absolute knowledge and therefore cannot obtain "absolute certainty". But what you seem to be admitting is that there is no evidence to conclude that the deity you believe in created the universe.(at least you haven't presented any if you do think so) This is good.

<strong> Those all appear to be properties of my consciousness, which is influenced by my experiences and knowledge. In turn, my consciousness appears to be a product of my functioning brain. This is essentially all I can conclude from the evidence I have at this time.

You'll have to be more specific if you wish more specific answers.

<strong> My logic is just fine. Your critique on the other hand is quite off.

Of course I have an "incomplete set of facts" regarding the universe - I don't claim absolute knolwedge, so this would be a trivial observation. Neither nor do I require it to determine some facts about the universe. We all appear to do pretty well with limited knowledge, as is evident from the advances we have made.

Of course you are free to believe those advances in our understanding of the universe aren't real because we have an incomplete set of facts or because they might only apply to our little spot in the universe. But somehow I don't think you do that.

<strong> If I am overlooking some evidence, then please enlighten me. I have reviewed many of the arguments for the existence of God and found them flawed. I can only work with what I am exposed to. Do you have any suggestions as to where else I might look for a deity? Something that can be verified in some way?

As I recall you've said to others that God is not real. If so, then apparently there is no place I can look to determine it exists. Thus your point is pointless.

<strong> And the above is why your evalution of my logic is a poor one.

<strong> No. You wanted a list of arguments for naturalism way back towards the beginning of the thread. I provided you a list.

<strong> Same as you do. You've asked this before. Through evidences and logic.

<strong> I've already stated several times we don't have absolute knowledge concerning the universe so this is a trivial observation. I don't comprehend the entire universe, although I fail to see what that's supposed to mean in regard to atheism.

My atheist position in no way mandates I should currently comprehend the entire universe. Neither does my naturalist position. Therefore I am at a complete loss to understand what the point of this question is or why you bring it up as it has nothing to do with my being an atheist or a naturalist.

Please connect the dots for me, because I don't get it. You don't understand the entire universe either and your a theist. Thus it would seem comprehending the enire universe has nothing to do with atheism, naturalism, theism, or supernaturalism. So why do you bring it up?

<strong> Yes.

<strong> True

<strong> Very limited as related to what?

<strong> Actually I have never had this experience, but I agree that it can and does happen.

<strong> What is your evidence that all 6 billion people on earth "routinely" misinterpret what they see?

Would you conclude that we errantly send millions of people to prison each year for crimes? After all, if we "routinely mistinterpret" what we see, we can't be sure of our investigation techniques, our forensics, our prosecutors or defense attorneys, our judges, our police officers, our witnesses - we can't even be sure that crimes have been committed at all, by your reckoning.

Thus, by your reasoning, we should ignore all suspected crimes or at the very least we should dispense with finding anyone guilty of them - we might misinterpret what we see.

I think if you think about this for a while you might discover why your reasoning on this issue is flawed.

<strong> If we fail to perceive it, then how would you know this is true? - we supposedly failed to perceive it!

How would you know it was obvious, since we never perceived it? I'm intrigued as to what you will provide to support these assertions. It seems clear to me that your tying yourself into all kinds of logical knots making your arguments quite flawed.

<strong> Without your perceptions, you could not have faith. You couldn't even understand it or define it. Why do you have confidence in your perceptions that allow you to have faith in the first place? (Hint - ever heard of an axiom?)

<strong> Then any questions in regards to my atheism/naturalism and my finding of facts is irrelevant to the issue of the existence of any deity, so I fail to see why you bring them up. You believe a deity does exist, and yet admit you find out facts the same was as I do.

Thus the question - how did you determine the supposed fact that God exists? You should be able to answer this is in a manner in which I can verify as we find out facts the same way.

<strong> This is not what I meant and you know it. This is at least the 3rd time you've attempted this evasion.

<strong> By all means, as I have asked you on numerous occassions now and as you keep evading the question, plese present these "legitimate reasons" you have for expecting that the questions will still remained unanswered 10,000 years from now or even a million years from now. Given the success of naturalism and the failure of supernaturalism this goes against the evidence we have.

If you can't do so, then please withdraw your claim that naturalism cannot ever explain all that there is. Its obvious that you cannot support this claim in any way.

<strong> I believe that naturalism will explain everything because naturalism has explained everything that we currently have an explanation for. Supernaturalism has never explained anything. Thus it is more than reasonable to conclude that naturalism will be able to explain everything and supernaturalism will continue to be unable to explain anything.

This is the opposite of faith - I am leaning towards where the evidence points rather than leaning against it as you seem inclined to do.

<strong> Then you admit that there is no evidence for your God and/or the supernatural and that even if there were, we couldn't perceive it. This is good. Thank you for acknowledging that atheism is a reasonable and superior position. We go along with the evidence, theists go against it. This is the admission I was looking for.

<strong> But as you admit you have no evidence, your claim that it is a "philosophical necessity" that helps the universe to exist is an empty one. Will you now contradict yourself by attempting to support this claim with evidence?

<strong> I agree, but that is irrelevant in regards to the claim that you did make, that being it could never explain certain things.

<strong> Then why aren't you consistent in forming your opinion of supernaturalism based on what it presently succeeds and fails at doing? It apparently succeeds at explaining nothing and fails at having any explanatory power whatsoever. You even admit you have no evidence for it. This is an inconsistent, illogical position you take.

[ July 04, 2002: Message edited by: madmax2976 ]</p>

emphryio

David's motive for becoming a christian was to be happy. The same as every single living creatures motive for ever doing anything. It is not remotely astonishing that I know this. That he would deny this motive is indeed funny and yet very scary.

On the other hand I don't know David's actual motive for being here. Maybe sharpening his philosophical double speak sword for future confrontations. Maybe he thought he could convert someone. ...?

Yes David, you and your "type" do scare me.