Gemma Therese

Ion,

If I make up an untruth about my mother, and spread the story to everyone I know, that does not change whether or not my mother exists, does it?

Gemma Therese

brighid

It seems you are still confused… oh and by the way … I am familiar with Saint Therese. Faith and belief, in the sense I believe DRFSeven is conveying is different then the analogy you presented – but I will let her speak for herself. If I do not believe in something, I cannot have faith in it. Do you have faith that pink dragons love you, or that they exist? St. Therese’s faith wavered, but she still believed in the existence of a God, specifically Christ and because of this belief she emoted love in time of pain and desperation. This proves nothing, nor does it answer the question posed to you.

You don’t believe in pink dragons and we don’t believe in your God, there is no difference between the two even if your feelings tell you different. However, there are people who derive comfort from and love these beasts and imbue them with supernatural powers. Do dragons have supernatural powers because people believe they do? Your feeling is not evidence for the ACTUAL existence of any God, nor is it reliable evidence for the existence of your VERY specific God.

Can you believe in pink dragons? I would say NO. Why can’t and don’t you believe in pink dragons? What intellectual tools did you use to come to this specific determination?
Brighid

Typhon

Gemma,

I admit I'm puzzled. While we have previously locked horns on this board with some vigor and even a degree of acrimony, I've always assumed you were both reasonably articulate and intelligent.

While I have not found your background knowledge necessarily of either science or history to be deep, you have indicated that you were well read in your religion, especially the monastic/contemplative tradition, some comparative religion (specially Buddhism), and RC church history.

You have also indicated you were well experienced in life, and moving into a career as an English teacher (so I'll assume your command and understanding of the language is at least on par with my own if not superior).

Thus I am surprised you would say this:

I must assume that I have failed as a communicator, as while the questions may indeed be hard to answer, if your world view and basis of your belief system is potentially flawed, they should not be hard, to understand.

Either this, or (no personal offense intended, just offering up a possibility) you are not being honest with me, and/or simply wish to avoid the questions I have posed.

Let me try again, on the assumption of the former, by rephrasing my questions:

1. You make a claim that religion and belief in god is an objective truth, that is neither dependent upon feelings, nor based on an appeal to emotions. You have also remarked on how man was given logic by god, and that god is visible/detectable in the supposed creation.

[I've taken this from your own statements, so to see where this comes from if you doubt or disagree that you have indeed said this, look at my previous post in this thread.]

2. You have made the claim that the reason you believe in god, is "logic and reality" aside in some cases, that you feel strongly that god exists, and that your feelings have led you to your beliefs, and thus you seem to me, to be making an appeal to emotions to support your claim that god exists.

(Again, this is taken from what you yourself have said, and may be referenced in my former post on this subject.)

So, my questions are:

A. How do you reconcile these two conflicting viewpoints ?

(Do you see the contradiction or at least problems, with these two stances?)

B. If god's existence is an objective truth, why is not logic and observation the key means to discovering it, and/or supporting belief ?

(What would you use to discover/show some other "objective truth" say that 5 x 5 is 25, or that John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath?)

C. Why did you say "In this instance, I refuse to believe in logic / realism. I have no doubt whatsoever that someday my friend will be reunited with her son. Therefore, there must be a God."

(Do you know why do we not rely on our feelings and emotion, for determining other, objective truths about the world?)

D. How can you show your claim that "god does not exist because of feelings" is correct or even likely, when you openly state that you believe in god's existence, because of your feelings?

(How do you know that your feelings have led you to the right belief, and not a belief in something that is not an objective truth?)

I've simplified my questions, and my opening remarks. I've tried to add explanatory text. I've reduced the size and scope of my post. Does this help? Is there a point you do not understand? I'll ask more questions, if you can answer these. If you need more help understanding my questions, please ask.

.T.

Ion

Not for one untruth, no.

Too many untruths, that's different: is the mother real or a fiction?

The Bible's God falls into this last category: all describtions of Him in Exodus for example, are archaeologically proven untruths.

Gemma Therese

Typhon,

I will be out tonight, but I'll try to answer your questions tomorrow.

Gemma Therese

Typhon

Gemma,

While I still want to have you answer my questions, as well as those from other posters like brighid, here's a version of her "pink dragon" question that might be easier (or not) for you to answer.

You've previously stated that you have read Siddhartha and are very interested in Buddhism.

Now, why do you not believe that Buddhism, is not an objective truth, regarding the reality of the world, and the state of man?

In other words, why do you not believe in Buddhism?

* * *

From your conversations here on the II board, you have said that you were raised with Christian beliefs (exposure), were an atheist for a while (which I'd love to hear you explain more about some time), and then after reading about the lives of saints and a handful of church theologians, you entered into Roman Catholicism. Later discussions have affirmed that you believe in the supposed objective truth of your god, and Jesus, based on your feelings about these figures.

Now, if you had been raised with Buddhist beliefs, read from the lives and teachings of the Bodhisattvas, learned the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold path, and the doctrines of Karma and Reincarnation, might not you have become a Buddhist instead of a Christian? Buddhism has an even more ancient pedigree than Christianity. It is a large scale, world religion like Roman Catholicism. There is at least as much support for Siddhartha Gautama having been a historical person, as for there is for Jesus.

I hold that you believe in Roman Catholicism, not because it is demonstratively an objective truth about the world, nor even a more likely one than many other religions and belief systems. I hold that you believe in Roman Catholicism because you want to believe, need to believe based upon your emotions and typical human wants and fears, and because Roman Catholicism is what you where indoctrinated in and what you know. Had you been born somewhere else, you may well have been a Buddhist, or a Muslim, or a Jew, or a Hindu, or even, a Secular Humanist (grin).

This is purely a question of indoctrination, and the tradition of determining objective truths about the world, based on faulty emotion, feelings, and yes, superstitions. Superstition in this context is not intended as an insult, but rather an observation, that in the past, we, the human race, knew much less about the objective facts of the world than we do now, however incomplete our current understanding might be.

In the past, this has lead to guesswork, imaginative thought-play, flawed systems, and the creation of beliefs that later on, do not preach verifiable truths about the world. The battles of the Titans and the Greek gods, did not re-make the world. The sun does not circle the earth. The dead do not return to cast evil curses upon the living. Disease is not the product of devils invading our body. There was no mythical fall from a bucolic, perfect state, to our current more difficult surroundings, replete with suffering, death, disease, and predatory animals. There was no god who gave himself or his son, to atone for an ancient, hereditary sin.

Returning to the issue of Buddhism, many worshipers could match you feeling for feeling. On the basis of feeling, how could you hope to say anything about why one should follow Christian beliefs over Buddhist ones?

You would thus, need, to determine why you, your mere feelings aside, chose to believe in the Roman Catholic / Christian worldview /dogma over that of the Buddhist one.

How would you go about doing this, Gemma, if feelings were not the basis for your decision?

.T.

[ June 06, 2002: Message edited by: Typhon ]</p>

Typhon

Gemma asked:

Ah, but if you are a naturally conceived human being, and not some kind of AI program in a box, or a clone grown entirely from your own egg (in which case, you would be I suppose, your own "mother"), then we know it is an objective truth that you had a mother, even if only a biological one.

We don't know this because YOU tell us you have a mother, we know this because this is a verifiable, objective truth about the world. We all had mothers. Some of us are mothers. There have been mothers in the past. There will likely be mothers in the present. It is a reasonable and logical expectation that your mother exists or did exist at some point in the past. You yourself are in part, a proof that this statement is reasonable.

This is not the case with either god or a pink dragon. Whether or not such a being exists, we do not in our day to day lives, or in hundreds of years of science and exploration of the world, been able to show that such a being either exists or is even probable. This is not a proof that such a being does not exist, but is a far cry from the evidence we have that all current humans must have or have had a mother.

I can make up a story about a pink dragon, and spread the story to everyone I know, that does not change the question of whether or not my pink dragon exists, does it?

Indeed not, for that is an entirely separate question, requiring its own test for veracity or falsehood.

.T.

[ June 06, 2002: Message edited by: Typhon ]</p>

Vibr8gKiwi

That's a poor example since all humans obviously have a mother but a god does not obviously exist. An aunt might be a better example.

Also if all that you knew of this supposed aunt came only from those stories, then if those stories were shown false it would raise questions about even the existence of you having an aunt. You might or might not have an aunt, but you can't tell. All you do know is the stories have errors and cannot be trusted. Even if it turned out you did have an aunt, she might be completely different those made up stories suggest.

ishalon

most sadly, i do not have time to read through gemma's posts, even when i skip all replies in the thread, but what i did read made me laugh enough for one day


and, from last post: Have you ever looked back on love/a crush and realized how stupid it was?

AJ113

ishalon:
Have you ever looked back on love/a crush and realised how stupid you were to let him/her go?