Jamie_L

Why is there a double standard among most religious people in which God is necessary to answer all the nagging questions about life and the universe, but God is imperivious to those questions?

Why does this make people feel that their questions have been answered?

Where did the universe come from?
God
Where did God come from.
Oh, he just IS.

Why are we here?
Because it is God's plan?
What is God's plan?
We don't know. But that's okay.

Etc.

I drive by this church sign all the time that says "For all those days that end in 'Why?'" And I just think to myself "what answers does this church offer? None. It just gives a name to those questions: God, and then it tells you not to worry about the questions.

I just don't understand how religious people can seem so desperate for answers to these big, philosophical questions about existence, and then brush those same questions under the rug when it comes to their God.



Jamie

Bible Humper

Magic. If you believe in magic these questions aren't difficult at all.

Where did the universe come from?
God
Where did God come from.
Oh, he just IS.

Magic. God could have just magically caused himself to have always been. How does one resolve the paradox of a being that has to first exist to cause itself to have existed? Magic.

I just don't understand how religious people can seem so desperate for answers to these big, philosophical questions about existence, and then brush those same questions under the rug when it comes to their God.

There is nothing to wonder about if you believe in magic, magic can do anything because....it's magic!

The same wand-waving explains God's methods, it's just so profound that our human minds can't comprehend the genius of His plan, evil is good and the illogical is logical. Magically.

Liquidrage

It's not if you believe in magic or not.
It's if you're easily decieved so as to be mislead into believing that magic is somehow separated from knowledge and that by passing the buck from an unknown to an unknown with a name somehow provides an answer.

If a god can do things we cannot it is not magic. For surely the god knows how to do whatever it is the god can do. Magic is a word left over from the times when mankind had yet to understand that knowledge was a powerfull tool in itself.

The answer to the original question is because people want god to have a free pass.
People want to believe in something. People want to die and see their friends and loved ones again.
Life is painfull.
It is a shame but we live in a world with no direction. Because of religion science is hindered and mankind might never learn to become what we would now consider gods.
Yet without religion would mankind be able to accomplish anything for while I can cope without the promise of enternal life and my morales come from within, many I know would not be so stable without the threat of hellfire.

Perchance

In some ways, I think it's the same kind of illogic that leads to hypocritical actions.

Person A (passing Person B, who is engaged in shoplifting): How disgusting! Stealing is horrible!

(Person A is picked up for shoplifting).

Person A: Oh, COME ON! It was just gum, for crying out loud!

There are quite a few people who not only wouldn't see the contradiction here; they probably wouldn't even remember the first incident. Similarly, most theists are able to apply skepticism to claims of unicorns, gods outside their religion, "truths" they don't want to believe, and so on, but not to their own theistic belief systems. They may just not be comfortable squinting skeptically at their own thoughts and actions.

-Perchance.

Abacus

Giving a name to the mystery and personifying it gives some people that warm, fuzzy feeling. A personal god is more appealing than an impersonal universe.

For many people, if not most, feelings trump the search for truth.

Bible Humper

Hello Liquidrage,

It isn't about God doing what we cannot, even animals have abilities that we lack.

Are you suggesting that God is just a natural being with super powers?

If God decides that fire should spring from the ground, does he have to generate the energy with some kind of gland and point it at the spot? I don't think so, the fire just springs up ex nihilo, magically.

Supernature is magical, BTW, by definition. It doesn't have to just be a word for ignorance if it really existed.

WJ

Jamie!

For whatever it's worth, I do see that more often than not you tend to get caught up in concepts like proof, demonstration, knowability, so on and so forth. You hinted at the inference of a causal agent [God] relative to the theist's cosmological argument. This may provide a sort of starting point...


"It will be observed that neither the Scriptural texts [we have quoted nor the conciliar decrees] say that God's existence can be proved or demonstrated; they merely affirm that it can be known with certainty. Now one may, if one wishes, insist on the distinction between what is knowable and what is demonstrable, but in the present connection this distinction has little real import. It has never been claimed that God's existence can be proved mathematically, as a proposition in geometry is proved, and most Theists reject every form of the ontological or deductive proof. But if the term proof or demonstration may be, as it often is, applied to a posteriori or inductive inference, by means of which knowledge that is not innate or intuitive is acquired by the exercise of reason, then it cannot fairly be denied that [EOG] teaching virtually asserts that God's existence can be proved. Certain knowledge of God is declared to be attainable "by the light of reason", i.e. of the reasoning faculty as such from or through "the things that are made"; and this clearly implies an inferential process such as in other connections men do not hesitate to call proof."

Jamie, once again, either you're talking about logical necessity (concepts of deductive proofs) or some other method to prove the nature of all existence (or all that is).

You said: "I just don't understand how religious people can seem so desperate for answers to these big, philosophical questions about existence, and then brush those same questions under the rug when it comes to their God."


I missed your point about the double standard...?

Walrus

Liquidrage

I do not believe in god.

However, if I did I would not discredit *god* by suggesting *god* was the benfactor of some greater power that is beyond *god*'s understanding.
For example, if *god* wanted fire to spring forth from the ground, *god* could do so in any number of ways. However, *god* would understand how each of these ways worked and why it worked.

If *god* were to exist *god* would be the smartest *thing* in the universe.
Not the little muchkin with a magic wand.

There is no such thing as magic. All processes are understandable even if they are above our understanding.

You say things like,
"God could have just magically caused himself to have always been"
By doing so you place magic above god and turn god into the benefactor of magic.
Now you have to explain where the magic comes from.

*god* gets defined as not needing a first cause because it's, well, defined not to need one.
This is why in reality it is only because people want to give *god* the free past on issues such as *first cause* that god gets a free pass. They want to overlook the circular logic.

Autonemesis

That is, for certain definitions of "know" and "certain" that are incongruous with the usual defintions of these words, and especially as they are used by skeptics talking about these things.

But you "know" that, don't you?

Bible Humper

Hello Liquidrage,

Instead of "you" I should have said "would you", I understand that you are just arguing the point, you don't believe in it.

The "greater power" would be part of God's nature though, and thus an intrinsic part of him. Magic doesn't have to be completely incomprehensible either, according to Xian dogma there are men who can perform sorcery.

"Magic" is anything that violates naturalistic cause and effect, if someone can cause fire to spring forth from their hands with arcane gestures alone, it is still magic even though the fellow has some sort of understanding of how to do this.

Well, supernature is magic whether we are talking about magical munchkins or deities. I realize that there are "fairy tale" connotations to the word "magic", but what else would we call a violation of naturalistic laws?

Perhaps it would be better to call it magick? I know that pagans call their invocations this, is it appropriate for deities? Either way, magick is magical.

Neither of us need to be convinced of this!

The thing with omnipotence is that it doesn't allow Yahweh to be anything except a magical being. True omniscience requires magic also.

From God! God is the author of both nature and supernature according to Christian theology. Since God is eternal, magic is eternal as well.

How is this uncaused being possible without magic? If it is the "uncaused causer" by definition, it must have been responsible for it's uncaused nature. A being so grand that it ripples across the borders of all "time" and "space" to have always been and to always be. Eternally existant both forward and backwards.

I know that this is just an example of christian wand-waving to explain the unexplainable, but it still has it's own implications.


I agree completely. They still have to deal with their circular explanation though, and the only possiblility is magic(k).