David Mathews

Hello Splashing,

David: I have examined many religions, both Christian and non-Christian religions. I have a good reason to believe that these other religions contain truth. I've read their scriptures, appreciated their profundity and the brave souls who were willing to explore such thoughts and put them on paper.

David: I could really care less if Douglas Bender considers me an apostate. I am a Christian, I answer to God alone. I don't seek Douglas Bender's approval and never asked for him to validate my religious beliefs.

David: Thanks for clarifying.

David: Empirical explanations are adequate for things which can be explained empirically. There is a realm -- or perhaps I should say, {I] There might be a realm [/I} -- which is not subject to empirical explanations or even of human comprehension.

An analogy: If we transported a laptop computer to Athens, circa the fifth century B.C., and allowed the philosophers of that time to examine it, they would still fail to comprehend it even though among all people they were the most informed and intelligent of that time. The natural explanations which were available to them at that time would all fail.

In the same way, God's nature and God's activities would fall well outside the realm of human comprehensibility and therefore not resolve themselves emprically.

David: Are you a metaphysical naturalists? Would you say that a significant percentage of atheists are also metaphysical naturalists?

David: It is not inertia, it is conscious choice.

David: I don't believe that it serves any purpose to appeal to what babies think at this stage in their life, for the babies don't have any ability to conceptualize anything or communicate anything. By the time a baby does acquire these abilities, the baby has already absorbed a tremendous amount of information, beliefs and opinions from its parents.

Sincerely,

David Mathews

David Mathews

Hello Goliath,

David: If you choose to hate God, you may do so. I don't imagine that the hate of one individual has any impact upon God. God is too busy to notice that you hate him.

God is busy enough with taking care of six billion humans, along with many billions of non-human life forms, and also a hundred billion stars in a hundred billion galaxies.

God is too busy to know that you hate Him. God is also too dignified to return hate for hate.

Hate God, if you choose. You are filling your own life with sorrow by doing so, you are not hurting God in any way.

Sincerely,

David Mathews

Philosoft

<strong> This seems like a tall order. At what point does he become "too busy"? Are two billion humans more manageable? Thirty billion stars?

<strong> Wha? This is the all-knowing guy, correct?

<strong> We don't want him to hate us anyway. We want him to show us why we shouldn't hate him.

<strong> So God really doesn't care if we believe in him or not. Are you making this up as you go?

[ June 27, 2002: Message edited by: Philosoft ]</p>

madmax2976

Hello David,

<strong> I agree that none of these theories is conclusive, but you have not answered my question. Where is the evidence for your hypothesis of how the universe came to be? Or are you uninterested in arguing for your beliefs?

<strong> Actually it would seem that ?atheism? is actually attempting to demonstrate some hypothesis as actually being true. We?re trying to solve the mystery as best as we can with the evidence that is available to us.

<strong> I don't know, is there? So far I haven?t seen any. As I don't believe any God does exist it follows that I don't believe there is any actual evidence to be found either. Of course I could be wrong. Thus I allow others to bring forth arguments for whatever deity they claim exists, in order to evaluate their arguments and determine if I am in fact wrong. So far, my conclusion seems reasonable and more likely to be true as I have determined all such arguments to be significantly flawed. But its usually wise to keep an open mind in any case.

<strong> I was actually not refering to a deity of any kind, but the supernatural in general. The supernatural could exist and it could still be true that no deity exists.

<strong> Interesting. I?m not sure why you changed the context of the exchange from the supernatural to "God", when I was clearly referring to the supernatural, but I suppose it works just the same. If a God cannot be determined to exist, then such an entity is irrelevant to us. If the God doesn't care whether we believe it exists or not, there would be no inconsistency. If it does care and does want us to believe it exists, and yet we cannot verify its existence, then it is inconsistent. The former is pretty much the Deistic view. A deity that simply doesn't matter to us and which doesn't even, can't even, be rationally discussed as far as I can tell.

<strong> Yes, and therefore equating a human starting a fire as a "non-natural" event. I view humans as completely natural, so I don't understand your analogy. Only by viewing humans as unnatural entities does this analogy make any sense.

<strong> And thus you equate the human starting of fires as a non-natural event, just as I thought. I have no idea whats is non-natural about a human being starting a fire. As far as I am aware there are no supernatural forces involved when a human being starts a fire. If you mean "non-natural" in the weak sense of just separating it from the activities humans do, that's fine, but that is not the sense we're talking about when we're talking about natural/supernatural forces and entities. In other words, you are equivocating if I have it straight.

<strong> In the sense of being certain, yes. It would just count as lots more weight in favor of naturalism and against supernaturalism. As supernaturalism continually fails to demonstrate it can explain anything, it continues to show that it is least likely to be true.

<strong> Hence the point. Theists also tend to believe in the supernatural in spite of the continued lack of evidence for it, and the growing success of naturalism.

<strong> Everything is fine except the last statement. Obviously you can't demonstrate that "no natural explanation" will ever be available unless you claim absolute knowledge of all that is natural. Its also obvious that you can't support your claim that no natural explanation can be supported as true or very likely to be true. ("Prove" is a poor word to use in this venue) Thus all you have left is the unknown in order to leave open the door for the supernatural. As long as there are mysteries that have yet to be explained naturally, theists can have hope that the supernatural exists.

<strong> Already asked and answered. I use evidence and logic to determine what is true or false. I expect you use the same, at least with most things.

<strong> Given that you don?t seem interested in defending your own beliefs or attempting to prove they are more likely to be true than the atheist position, I agree it is not necessary. (Its just so weird to see a C of C member hold such a position. )

<strong> This makes no sense. We have to be "dogmatic" in order to have arguments against Christianity?? I think your definition of dogmatic differs greatly from mine. Dogmatic means stubborn and unwilling to change in my book. I can attest that I am most definitely not that.

If by positive you mean 100% certain, that also makes no sense. 100% certainty is not required to view something as false or true. I view most things in probabilities. Some things are highly probable. Some things are highly improbable. Other things are somewhere in between.

<strong> Already asked and answered. The continued success of naturalistic explanations and the continued failure of supernaturalistic explanations is the evidence. At least I haven't seen you present any evidence so far.

<strong> I haven't observed you defend or argue for a single core belief you hold yet, neither for the supernatural in general or for your specific deity. As you apparently aren't interested in doing so, I guess it's a moot point.

[ June 28, 2002: Message edited by: madmax2976 ]</p>

Theli

Yes, I know. i was just being overly pedantic.
But, when you think about it. You can't really say that "life" require god as a creator, or that consciousness's (plural?) require god to create them. Since god himself is reffered to as alive/conscious.
I don't see what issue biology has. It's just one form of life.
God's "life" should not get any special pleading.

madmax2976

Well perhaps so but it does because its defined differently.

Supernatural life is "different" than biological life. Supernatural life need not have any beginning at all - according to the definition. Thus it would be exempt from the considerations of how biological life began. Supernaturalists just have difficulty demonstrating their definitions are actually true.

Theli

I beg the differ, many religions (especially old ones) does have gods that are said to have a time of creation.
I don't see how "supernatural" automaticly equals to "without beginning".

John Page

David:

Greetings, interesting thread. Can you tell me why you believe in god? (I'm not thinking of responses like "Because he/she/it exist" but what do you think makes you believe or choose to believe in god?

Cheers, John

sandlewood

I’ve not had time to respond, being distracted by the court ruling on the Pledge of Allegiance and all.
I couldn’t really find an answer in all that. God shows us he loves us by setting up a torture chamber and threatening to send us there for eternity unless we believe he exists? Am I misunderstanding that?
I guess I’m not clear on this. Will I still be an atheist in heaven or not? Since you say elsewhere that every atheist will be in heaven, I assume that means that Hell will be empty. Then Hell is merely a threat. But really, it no longer works as a threat because you’ve now told me I’m not going there.
To ask whether atheists adhere to a moral standard is like asking if people adhere to a moral standard. I cannot answer for other people, only myself. But I think people have moral standards that come from culture and society. We are social animals. In order for humans to continue to thrive and live together, we build a system of morality. I don’t claim to be an expert on the subject of morality. A better place to discuss more about atheists and morality would be in the Moral Foundations & Principles forum. But personally, I find it a bit odd that a theist will complain about an atheist not having a moral base, when in fact they share most of the same values anyway. So where did the atheist get those values? Why do theists worry so much about where the morals came from instead of what the morals actually are?
When it comes to science, I disagree. It is not a “common custom” (which implies that it is ok and accepted). Let me repost the original paragraph for context:
Even if it is natural for people in general to defend their own theories, that is not tone you take in your web page. You quite clearly mean to instill the notion in the reader that scientists arbitrarily pick this theory or that, with no sound basis for accepting one or the other. Therefore there is no reason to think that any of it is true. Then finally, all this is equated specifically with atheism. Why not with all assertions about anything, theistic or atheistic? In addition, in the last sentence you use the word faith incorrectly.

The David Mathews posting here does not seem like the same one that wrote that web site. I guess I really don’t understand what you believe.
Though by reading you web site one may easily get the impression that you equate the two.
And from the paragraph following the “Big Bang” paragraph quoted above:
----------------------------------
And the laptop is not supernatural or magic. Its function is natural and doesn’t break any known physical laws. It merely takes time to discover how it works. Why would I assume something is unnatural just because I don’t understand it at the current moment?

I’m not really sure the word supernatural is meaningful. Some people will describe ghosts as being supernatural. Yet if you can see one, then it must emit light and can therefore be detected. If we were to learn all about how a ghost works, how it interacts with other parts of nature, would it then not become part of what we call “natural”? Perhaps the properties of the ghost were found to contradict the current natural laws of physics. But then wouldn’t we just realize that our current laws are inadequate to describe all that we have observed—including ghosts—and then we would revise the laws? After all, scientific laws do not dictate how things will work; rather they are no more than the formal descriptions of patterns we have observed in nature.
They are offered by science, not atheism.
You see, someone came up to me and said “there is this thing called a God. Do you believe it or not? Which side of the fence are you on?” Now I was just standing here minding my own business and this person erected a fence near me. I don’t really care about your fence and I haven’t chosen to climb to one side or the other. It’s your fence. It’s the same as if I came up to you and said there is an invisible super-blorb orbiting Sirius and you have to decide whether you are in the group that thinks he exists or the group that thinks he does not. It’s not that atheists have chosen to be atheists. If theism didn’t exist, atheism wouldn’t exist. So saying that we have a positive assertion is kind of silly, I think.

So why do atheists spend so much time actively disputing theism? Because theism intrudes on our lives. This past week is an example. We are not allowed to pledge our patriotism for our country without also agreeing that is it a Christian country.

Bible Humper

Hello David.


I hear ya!

It isn't actually validation of your beliefs, it is a question of whether or not your beliefs are compatible with the word "christian".

I'm not sure of the proper nomenclature, but I believe it would be more accurate to call you a "multi-religionist" or something along those lines:

---------------------------------------------------
David: I do not assert that one religion is true and that all others are false. I make no comparitive judgments of this sort.

Come on now, I'm not talking about permission from society here. If you really feel that there is no need to prove to yourself that Yahweh exists in order to justify belief in him, why not apply this standard of proof to Dionysus and live hedonistically?

David: I could choose to do so, but I have chosen not to do so.

As a Christian, you can look at the taboos and rituals of the other supernaturalists and conclude that they are primitive attempts to explain and influence the unknown. What about your own taboos and rituals?

David: I would make no such conclusion about their taboos and rituals.
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But yet you assert that you are "christian". Even if you see more truth in christianity than any one other religion, Douglas Bender has shown how many(most?) of your beliefs contradict christianity. Since all religions assert that they are the truth, how does one go about deciding what parts of these religions actually are the truth since we have already concluded that they are all at least partly wrong?

There might be a realm?? I have never seen a believer admit that their belief is based on the slimmest of doubts, they always assert that their god is "obvious". We can't know 100% that we aren't the brains in a lab that I mentioned before, but I never see anyone trying to appeal to the administrators of "reality" for aid!

"It might be true, therefore my faith is justified!"

The lack of regular intervention is in fact more consistent with the brains in a lab scenario than theism, if we are living in a simulation for the purpose of exploring what may have happened to the world if Germany lost WW2, for example, it would make sense that the scientists would leave us mostly alone, even to suffer atrocities, to see where it all goes naturally. This is not consistent with a benevolent deity.

Faces of Jesus found on tortillas are more consistent with bored techies who need a good laugh than an omnimax deity who wants to reveal himself.


"Technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic"

This doesn't mean it is magic though. I somehow doubt that all the philosophers of ancient Athens would have gone down on their knees as soon as someone showed them a laptop computer. If we discovered aliens who were so advanced that it was impossible for even the best minds on Earth to begin to understand how they did things, I doubt they would just all say "Wow, sorcerers!"

There is nothing wrong with saying "I don't know".

Remarkable, thus a reality where God exists is indistinguishable from one where he does not.

Just like the "Brains in a lab" scenario, Or the possibility we winked into existence 10 minutes ago with false memories, etc.

Nobody gives all of the other scenarios that can't be proven one way or another the same generous benefit of doubt that they give their religion, despite the fact that they are just as likely.

Religious belief is unfounded.

A whimsical choice, if a choice at all. If you were brought up to be Hindu, you would call yourself a Hindu.

Babies can both communicate and conceptualize, though god-concepts are beyond their abilities at this point. Until a person believes in a deity, that person is an atheist.