Wyrdsmyth

I've given a lot of thought to the idea of how we only get people talking about god, but we never actually get the god. Does anyone else have an opinion on this? We get old men in dresses, talking in Italian; we get Benny Hinn and Jack Van Impe and other televangelists; we get down-home country preachers thumping their bibles on wooden pulpits. We get all these guys talking about god... but we never actually get the god.

What's going on here? To make it even more confusing, some of these guys call each other heretics and frauds, claiming that they have the real interpretation of god. But they each say that.

What I want to know is... how come I can't talk to the Burning Bush? How come I can't walk up Mount Sinai and see the clouds split open and talk to god? Why can't I see him walk on water, or spruce up some wedding with some Insta-Miracle brand wine?

How come all I get are the Robert Schulers and Pat Robertsons? What's the freakin' deal?

Samhain

Well, there is the obvious reason...

Ron Singh

Sometimes it occurs to me, how all these people think they know God better than all of the rest. As I go to sleep listening to the blissful preaching of good preachers like Arnold Murray on the TV, I think of how how they personify God. They speak of God as a person, of God as an egotistical maniac, and it's rather refreshing to hear them try to justify that. I like Christianity, I really do, I just don't like fundamentalists that think that they have all the answers.

So you want God to just reveal himself to you? That's a little absurd, no? How about you reveal yourself to God and "accept Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior and repent you sins"? You used to be a Christian? In that case you really didn't fully open up to God, although you may have thought that you did.

Ah yes, they claim to know God better than everyone else. Although they suscribe to a God of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, and of uncountable infinite abilities, they claim to know the only path to salvation and that there way is the "best" way.

Easy, you don't believe in God. You want God to reveal himself to you? Feel free to open the possibility of belief in something that you seek.
Moreover, what would the point of all of these be anyways?

Satan's trying to eat your soul. <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

~Your friendly neighborhood 15yr old Sikh.

Technos

Do what sikh said, open up to allah and reveal yourself to him, believe in allah and you will find allah.

Oh, but you could also reveal yourself to Diana if you like, or even Shiva. Let's not forget the western gods Yahweh and Jesus. Of course no matter how much faith you have you'll still get tv preachers, but you'll have simple chemical reactions and thoughts in your head that you can call a god as sikh seems to do. remember, gods never interact with you, but you can always interact with yourself.

Ron Singh

Uh Technos, I hope you noted my sarcasm?

~Your friendly neighborhood 15yr old Sikh.

Wyrdsmyth

Well, I did, if it's any consolation.

Kind of reminds of me, when I was fifteen. I made most of my points with sarcasm, too.

But I was hoping to get some theists answers, not just faux answers from precocious teenage skeptics. No doubt, sikh has pre-empted at least one line of reasoning, which is the rather lame "It's not that God won't reveal himself to me, it's that I won't reveal myself to God." But even if such an answer were given straight-faced, I have to point out how cagey it is. What does that mean "reveal myself to God" -- especially a conception of God that is omniscient and omnipresent? Surely, to such a God, I am wholly revealed in all my parts and parcels, whether I will it or not. Surely, he needs no one alerting him to their existence -- he already knows what exists, and what doesn't. So, if you're talking about "revealing existence," which is what I'm talking about, there is no need or sense to me "revealing myself to God," since the hypothetical God, possessing the qualities I've articulated, needs no such revelation.

But I suspect the intent of such answers is different than this, and that they address something other than God's epistemological capacities. The answers our precocious friendly neighborhood fifteen year old has fronted, are, as I usually see them presented, about a condition where first I have to "open myself up to God" before he will reveal himself to me. But I have always seen this as a sort of veiled assertion that first you must believe in God, before he will reveal himself to you; a double-bind. I am asking about why I ought to believe in any god in the first place. And the point I was addressing was, if faith is the suspension of reason, then how is that different from being a sucker? In that case, what good is faith? If I am given good enough reasons to believe in something, then I may take it on faith something exists. For example, I think I have pretty good reasons to believe in black holes, but there is an element of faith there; I concede that astrophysicists may be wrong, and I don't understand all the physics involved personally, yet I provisionally accept that they're not lying to me. But what I am asking is, why should I extend that same trust to people who have claimed to have spoken to, or interacted with a God? Those who claim to have "heard his words" and experienced him, on some level, and they claim to have the "truth"?

Some people may claim I am extending a trust-factor to science that I am negatively prejudiced in regards to religion. But, let's look at why I extend trust to certain sciences, and not religion. Science is testable. If an electrical engineer tells me something about electricity, presumably he can run demonstrations and show me some results. Presumably, an astrophysicist can do likewise, but with more arcane results, with black holes (which, admittedly, I may not completely grasp). So, they're talking about practical applications in the natural world, and experiments I can examine for myself, if I am so inclined. But with priests and prophets and mouth-pieces of God, I can never examine their findings for myself. It just isn't there, beyond talk. It's talktalktalk, and no results for me to examine. Scriptures, too, are talktalktalk. I can't go see the burning bush myself, or walk up Mount Sinai and talk to God. God is always kept behind the curtain.

Foxhole Atheist

From sikh: “Uh Technos, I hope you noted my sarcasm?”

Whew!! I thought I had forgotten how to relate the specific post and the poster’s profile.

Sorry, I, for one, did miss the sarcasm.

Ron Singh

WyrdSmyth, I feel as if my previous response was not adequate enough, and I apologize for my sarcasm.

We never "get" God? I say some of us do. Some people do have their ideas and their philosophies constructed in a coherant manner. They are convinced that God exists. Consider is a fountain of youth that these people want to share with others, but the others are just skeptics. Some of these people that DO know that God exists are just good people that would rather have a profession that would help spread their view on life, which is obviously true and obviously benefical (according to them).
But then you have a byproduct. Falwells and Robertsons make the good ones look bad. With all do respect, atheists (as far as I know) are a VERY bias bunch. They have the conviction that there is no God so infixed in their minds, that any plausible evidence for a God MUST be fallible by default. I am a theist, and if there were evidence against God, I would question. I can not say the same for the atheists (that I know). Yet still, for theists, a knowledge of such magnitude should not and could not be conceiled. Speak of the knowledge one has of God, I propose, but do not impose it on others.
And I agree, a lot of it gets watered-down and empty rituals arise. But these rituals may remind one of God. With no faith, one may regard these rituals of ignorance, but a theist may regard religious rituals as something entirely different.
And some may call each other frauds and such, but if you are certain that you have the only way to true salvation, and ofcourse your way is obvious and coherant, it may make sense for you to dislodge other similar belief systems to further help others.
Why would you even want to talk to God, or walk on water, via the power of God?
Why we have Falwell and Robertson? as I have said... SATAN WANTS TO EAT YOUR SOUL! <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

~your friendly 15yr old neighborhood Sikh.

Wyrdsmyth

No need to apologize; I love sarcasm. Many days, I live in the Land of Sarcasm, myself.

You say? SAY? Really, now, this is just more... Talktalktalk. What do you have to back this up. This is exactly what I'm talking about... We don't actually get access to God, we just have access to people who "say some of us do," or in some vague way claim they can "know God," without being able to articulate just how we ALL can do it. It's a vague, nebulous, ungrounded belief.

Ah, I feel like you haven't truly understood what I've been saying. I know many people are convinced God exists, and many theists have what they would call "coherent" philosophies. But what I'm trying to draw attention to is what I call Curtainism. Did you ever see The Wizard of Oz?

[ May 16, 2002: Message edited by: Wyrdsmyth ]</p>

Wyrdsmyth

Preacher: God is right here, behind this curtain!

Me: Can I see him?

Preacher: You have to be one of the devout, before you are allowed back here behind the curtain.

Me: What do you mean by 'devout'?

Preacher: You have to be a believer, my dear boy! One of the faithful! You have to convert.

Me: You're kidding. You're saying, before I can look behind the curtain to see God for myself, I have to believe he exists?

Preacher: That's right. 'Blessed are those who have not seen, yet believe.' That's in the Bible, you know.

Me: Yes, I've heard that passage, before. But... let's try to look at this in a different way. Don't you think this whole set-up is, well, a bit odd? Let's reverse the situation. If I claimed to have something behind a curtain, and said you ought to believe in it, wouldn't you want to see behind the curtain for yourself? Rather than just take my word for it?

Preacher: My dear boy, I'm afraid you just don't understand.

Me: Don't understand!?! What is it I don't understand?

Preacher: You just don't understand the way God works.

Me: Evidently not.

Preacher: You have to believe in God first, in order to have knowledge of him.

Me: Cut the crap. Let me see what's behind that curtain.

[Struggle ensues. I shove past the preacher, and tear aside the curtain]

Me: There's nothing here.

Preacher [gasping for breath, red-faced]: That wasn't very polite.

Me: All of that talk about God, that was all hogwash and hooey. There's nothing behind the curtain.

Preacher [recovering and wiping brow with a kerchief]: Ah, but there is! God is indeed there -- you just can't see him, because you're not a believer!

Me: I've had enough of this. You're all talk, and you've been wasting my time. Goodbye.

Preacher [calling after me]: You're one of those impossible-to-please skeptics! You know that? No evidence or explanation is good enough for you!!! You already ruled out God before you even looked behind the curtain -- that's why you couldn't see him there!