Experimenting on God (or religion) -- silly, concur first on the concept of God

[KingCoil]

discovermagazine.com/2006/dec/god-experiments/#.UyO_wM7rSza

• My comment on that article came out but then on reload does not appear anymore, and there is the “0 Comments” sign again; so, I guess no comments accepted anymore because the article was published on November 20, 2006, while I am now too late reacting today, March 15, 2014 Saturday, local date and time eight hours in advance of Greenwich. So, I decided I might as well start a new thread here to engage in exchange of thoughts with posters here. My comment as follows.* ]*

KingCoil aka Marius de Jess:

Religion is not God, God is not religion, but in that article God and religion are nonsensically mixed up – that is my impression; and I see it also to be the fact with atheists who write against God and against religions.

My focus here however is on God, not really on religion.

First, we must agree on the concept of God.

I invite people who can think intelligently grounded on logic and facts to accept the concept of God as the creator cause and operator of the universe, the universe is that concluded to by scientists to have a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago,

Since scientists tell us that the universe has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago, then we infer on intelligent thinking grounded on logic and facts – with certainty, that the universe has a cause outside itself, and this cause let us concur calling it God.

Now, having concurred that the universe is brought about by a creator cause and we call Him God, here is where as from a starting point we can talk about how we should relate to the creator God of the universe.

And that is the role of religion, the discipline on how we should relate to God.

We can study religion as an invention of man, or as revealed by God Himself.

If religion was invented by man to guide himself in relating to God, then there are in fact as many religions as there are humans who are great with inventing religions.

If religion was revealed by God to man, then we have to determine by intelligent thinking grounding ourselves on logic and facts: which religion is the one revealed to man by God.

Let us be clear about religion and God: religion is not God, God is not religion; we can and do come to the existence of God with the universe as the evidence, by thinking intelligently grounding ourselves on logic and facts, in the case of religion we can get emotional and poetic whatever.

My purpose in writing this comment is to invite people to first concur on the concept of God as the creator cause of the universe, it is not my purpose here to talk about religion – except to say that it could have been all invented by man, or and also that there could be at least one religion revealed to man by God, or even several but not contradictory ones.

Let us go to God.

People who talk about the experiencing by man of God or experimenting on God, please let us all first concur then focus our attention on God the creator cause of the universe; otherwise we are not thinking and not talking intelligently grounding ourselves on logic and facts as we talk about the experiencing by man of God or experimenting on God, but never concurring on what is God and most important in relation to man and the universe of which man is a part.

All discourse about the experiencing of God or experimenting on God by man but without stating first what is God, in particular in His relationship to man and the universe, that is all silly nonsensical thinking and talking.

Please email me if you care to exchange thoughts with me.

Marius de Jess
mdejess(@)gmail.com

No need to email me, just post your reactions in this thread.

What do you say, isn’t it nonsensical thinking and talking with other humans without first having a concurred on concept of God?

From my own part, I invite people to work toward our concurrence that God is the creator cause of the universe, which scientists tell us has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago.

KingCoil

*Actually the text of the comment on the article has been as reproduced above a little expanded, but the substance of the original is preserved.

 

[Nelka]

From my own part, I invite people to work toward our concurrence that God is the creator cause of the universe, which scientists tell us has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago.

Scientists are wrong.

God would not need that length of time to create the world, what would be the point in that? If I created the world that would be a good guess although still too long.

 

[z_0101]

Let us keep in mind, that for the most part, when it comes to the rational truth of the universe, as shown by science, The Church usually will have no position provided the “scientific evidence” passes scientific peer review, and the evidence is not in contradiction to the teachings of the magisterium.

God would not need that length of time to create the world, what would be the point in that? If I created the world that would be a good guess although still too long.

Given…

• What I believe is that God the Father is outside of the constraint of time and space.
• What I do not believe is that the Universe was created in 7 actual 24 hour days as stated in Genesis – the scientific evidence just doesn’t support this concept.
• I also do not believe that the 7 days as given in Genesis are necessarily of equal duration, instead I believe that, the 7 days really are 7 actions taken by God for the creation of the universe, and that these may have, in God’s mind, occurred at the same instant; however, in our perception, within the constraint of time/space, these actions took time to complete.
• What I do believe, is that, for human perception of the age of the universe, it took a considerable amount of time for the events to pass.

If I might quote from St. Albert the Great – Universal Doctor of the Church

In studying nature, we have no to inquire how God the Creator may, as He freely wills, use His creatures to work miracles and therby show forth His power; we have rather to inquire what nature with its immanent causes can naturally bring to pass – The Heavens and the Earth

Although this passage, St. Albert was writing against the common middle age practice of multiplying miracles to explain the universe; it is applicable to all science does within its scope – which is to examine the reality of the universe as it exists for Mankind.

Another quote:

Galileo Galilei

• I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.

• I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree: “The intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes.”

So what am I getting at… if science in its best guess states that the universe is X-Years old and such is verified by peer-review, then it is that age as far as man is concerned and as the affects of the age of the universe will have effect upon man.

 

[kantus12]

To the OP -

Your basic point is correct - it’s foolish to try and “test” God, especially if the people on the team mean different things by “God”. And besides, trying to apply the study of the natural world to that which is not part of said world is rather silly. Only in a culture where science is lionized so much, and religion looked upon with such suspicion, could someone come to think that God’s existence could be “tested” like, say, the effects of movement on a falling object. The point I’m making is that there’s a conceptual confusion about what God is, or even what the Catholic Tradition has held him to be in the modern world, the likes of which hasn’t been seen before.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Religion is not God, God is not religion, but in that article God and religion are nonsensically mixed up – that is my impression; and I see it also to be the fact with atheists who write against God and against religions.

I think in may conversations there is conflation of “God” and a “God-concept.” A God-concept is usually associated with a religion or denomination. I think often times you can interpret the use of the word “God” to mean “God concept” especially if it is coming from some one that is not convinced that there are any gods.

What do you say, isn’t it nonsensical thinking and talking with other humans without first having a concurred on concept of God?

Ignostics around the world would agree!
wiki:

Ignosticism is the view that any religious term or theological concept presented must be accompanied by a coherent definition. Without a clear definition such terms cannot be meaningfully discussed. Such terms or concepts must also be falsifiable. Lacking this an ignostic takes the theological noncognitivist position that the existence or nature of the terms presented (and all matters of debate) is meaningless. For example, if the term “God” does not refer to anything reasonably defined then there is no conceivable method to test against the existence of god. Therefore the term “God” has no literal significance and need not be debated or discussed.

But we may have talked about this before.

From my own part, I invite people to work toward our concurrence that God is the creator cause of the universe, which scientists tell us has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago.

I’m not sure that those that don’t already have that conviction will be motivated to work towards concurrence on a position that is not aligned to their conviction. Those that already have the conviction are probably already in agreement about this and have no need to work to concurrence on the God as creator proposition.

 

[oldcelt]

God is the creator cause of the universe, which scientists tell us has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago.

I can wholeheartedly agree with that.

 

[agnes_therese]

Scientists are wrong.

God would not need that length of time to create the world, what would be the point in that? If I created the world that would be a good guess although still too long.

We are so privileged to have someone here on CAF who not only knows more than every trained scientist around, but also knows the mind of God better than the Church does.

We are not worthy. :bowdown:

 

[Charlemagne_III]

The truths of science cannot contradict the truths of religion. That is from Thomas Aquinas.

That the universe began nearly 14 billions of years of years ago is at least consistent with the teaching of Genesis that the universe did not always exist, and that its Creator is God.

The 7 days of creation in Genesis needn’t be taken literally. Genesis was written for a fairly scientifically illiterate culture (the nomadic Jews) who can barely be expected to have a concept of such an age for the universe. There is a great book titled The Science of God by Jewish scholar and physicist Gerald Schroeder which analyzes and break down the hisotry of the universe into roughly seven ages. Chapters 3 & 4 of that book are particularly interesting.

Anyway, I found it both enlightening and convincing.

 

[KingCoil]

Originally Posted by KingCoil
From my own part, I invite people to work toward our concurrence that God is the creator cause of the universe, which scientists tell us has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago.

Dear Nelka, thank you for your reaction.

But I like for you to tell me how you can state those three categorical sentences without explaining, how you come to them on the basis of your intelligent thinking grounding yourself on logic and facts.

Don’t go away, please do intelligent thinking grounding yourself on logic and facts, to reconsider your three categorical sentences above.

I await your explanation, and we will have a good and profitable time, working to come to concurrence on the concept of God as creator of the universe, and also on scientists telling us that the universe has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago.

Learn not to make categorical statements unless you are ready to explain, how they are founded on intelligent thinking grounded on logic and facts.

KingCoil

 

[KingCoil]

…]

Originally Posted by KingCoil
From my own part, I invite people to work toward our concurrence that God is the creator cause of the universe, which scientists tell us has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago.

Let us not talk about convictions, but about conclusions from intelligent thinking grounded on logic and facts.

That has always been my contention.

Next, when people think and talk – and I have said this in my posts here in this forum time and again – they must always bear in mind when they are thinking and talking purely in the realm of concepts in their mind, or also in the realm of objective actual reality of existing things and events outside their mind.

And when we are talking in the realm of concepts in our mind, we have to also be aware whether we are dealing with fictions only, and not at all interested in searching for the things and events we are occupied with in our mind, or we are also going to search for them in the objective actual realm of existing things and events outside our mind.

When we are dealing with fictions which we are just entertaining in our minds, then there is no intention whatsoever to look for whatever objects and events to which these fictions correspond to in the objective actual realm of existing things and events outside our mind: fictions are fictional, and we resort to them for pure amusement, like as I said in another message in an earlier thread of mine in this board, in the stories of Harry Potter, or what about The Walking Dead or zombies stories in movies and on television.

God is a concept we occupy about in our minds, but with intelligent thinking people who ground themselves on logic and facts, we are going to set forth in the objective actual realm of reality, of things and events outside our mind, to look for God, and that is where we have to hold to a concurred concept of God, otherwise it is nonsense behavior to look for God without a definitely agreed on concept of God.

In my own case, I have found God as in the concept of creator cause of the universe, in the realm of actual existence, in the universe: He is everywhere inside and outside the universe, and also in every particle, field, force, law in the universe – because He is the creator cause and operator of the universe, the one scientists tell us has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago.

KingCoil

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Let us not talk about convictions, but about conclusions from intelligent thinking grounded on logic and facts.

Okay, what are the facts involved (and optionally what forms of logic are involved?).

Next, when people think and talk – …] they must always bear in mind when they are thinking and talking purely in the realm of concepts in their mind, or also in the realm of objective actual reality of existing things and events outside their mind.

At best people can speak about their perceptions and experiences of reality. Our ability to sense the state of the universe or what’s going on around us is limited.

In my own case, I have found God as in the concept of creator cause of the universe, in the realm of actual existence, in the universe: He is everywhere inside and outside the universe, and also in every particle, field, force, law in the universe – because He is the creator cause and operator of the universe, the one scientists tell us has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago.

Okay…

 

[KingCoil]

Thanks, ThinkingS, for your reaction.

Originally Posted by KingCoil

I expect to have a long exchange of thoughts with you, so don’t go away when the exchange gets to be very productive and enlightening for us both.

You ask:

Okay, (i) what are the facts involved (and optionally (ii) what forms of logic are involved?

To (i), the fact involved is that scientists tell us the universe has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago.

To (ii), the logic involved is that everything with a beginning has a cause.

So, the conclusion is that the universe has a cause outside itself.

KingCoil

 

[ThinkingSapien]

To (i), the fact involved is that scientists tell us the universe has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago.

More specifically a creatio ex materia of the universe appears to have occurred at that time. The origins of the material are to the best of my knowledge unknown. There are those that hypothesize a type of creatio ex nihilo to explain the origins of this material but I can’t say I am one of them.

To (ii), the logic involved is that everything with a beginning has a cause.

So, the conclusion is that the universe has a cause outside itself.

And there you’ve lost me. I can’t make a link between the unknown material origins and anything else including “outside itself”.

 

[oldcelt]

More specifically a creatio ex materia of the universe appears to have occurred at that time. The origins of the material are to the best of my knowledge unknown. There are those that hypothesize a type of creatio ex nihilo to explain the origins of this material but I can’t say I am one of them.

And there you’ve lost me. I can’t make a link between the unknown material origins and anything else including “outside itself”.

There are also scientists who have proposed that this is not the first universe. According to their thought there were predecessors that collapsed after they reached a certain size and the process started again.

Can you imagine what a universal collapse would look like? Until it got to you that is.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

There are also scientists who have proposed that this is not the first universe. According to their thought there were predecessors that collapsed after they reached a certain size and the process started again.

As you know, scientists are proud of owning scientific proof for their speculations. But there is only proof of one universe, the one we inhabit. Those who speculate concerning other universes are looking for a way to escape the Creator God. As altogether too many scientists are atheists or agnostics, and also victims of scientism, this is to be expected. When they find another universe, I will get interested. But I’m not holding my breath until then.

Scientism is a kind of inbred intellectual vanity that should be condemned by scientists rather than upheld as their ideal epistemology.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

As you know, scientists are proud of owning scientific proof for their speculations. But there is only proof of one universe, the one we inhabit…

I happen to be reading your post as I heard the TV say “Coming up next on Cosmos: Is there Life in other worlds.” (The Neil deGrasse Tyson version, not the Carl Sagan version). If you haven’t been watching the series I encourage you to do so. I’m sure you’ll have interesting comments on it.

 

[KingCoil]

• Enlarged size of text by KingCoil ]*

Originally Posted by KingCoil
To (i), the fact involved is that scientists tell us the universe has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago.

Dear ThinkingS:

I see you to be no longer into intelligent thinking on logic and facts.

Who ask you to talk about the material or no material from which the universe was created by God, when the issue is that the universe has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago according to scientists?

Just answer yes or no to my question:

*Do you accept the fact that
*

Originally Posted by KingCoil
To (i), the fact involved is that scientists tell us the universe has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago.

Please, do not introduce an alien matter to the issue at hand, no wonder you can now proclaim yourself to be lost, since you have gone into a territory that is not that dealt with by scientists, and is not the issue here.

The issue here is that the universe has a beginning according to scientists some 13.8 billion years ago, therefore it has a cause outside itself, because anything with a beginning has a cause outside itself.

Just keep to intelligent thinking founded on logic and facts.

Logic dictates that you keep to the issue at hand and abstain totally from introducing any alien matters, even though you don’t see it in yourself, you are now into digressing from the issue.

Intelligent thinking is honest thinking, digression from the issue at hand is dishonest thinking which is not intelligent thinking.

You might be exuding a feeling of being clever, I see it as a perversity.

KingCoil

ANNEX

Yesterday, 1:09 pm #12
​

Thanks, ThinkingS, for your reaction.

Originally Posted by ThinkingSapien

Okay, (i) what are the facts involved (and optionally (ii) what forms of logic are involved?

…]

I expect to have a long exchange of thoughts with you, so don’t go away when the exchange gets to be very productive and enlightening for us both.

You ask:

Okay, (i) what are the facts involved (and optionally (ii) what forms of logic are involved)?

To (i), the fact involved is that scientists tell us the universe has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago.

To (ii), the logic involved is that everything with a beginning has a cause.

So, the conclusion is that the universe has a cause outside itself.

[/QUOTE]

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

http://i57.tinypic.com/117h3ea.jpg
discovermagazine.com/2006/dec/god-experiments/#.UyO_wM7rSza

• My comment on that article came out but then on reload does not appear anymore, and there is the “0 Comments” sign again; so, I guess no comments accepted anymore because the article was published on November 20, 2006, while I am now too late reacting today, March 15, 2014 Saturday, local date and time eight hours in advance of Greenwich. So, I decided I might as well start a new thread here to engage in exchange of thoughts with posters here. My comment as follows.* ]*

No need to email me, just post your reactions in this thread.

What do you say, isn’t it nonsensical thinking and talking with other humans without first having a concurred on concept of God?

From my own part, I invite people to work toward our concurrence that God is the creator cause of the universe, which scientists tell us has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago.

KingCoil

*Actually the text of the comment on the article has been as reproduced above a little expanded, but the substance of the original is preserved.

I can agree with some qualifications in the definition.

God is the infinite and immaterial personal creator/cause of the universe, which scientists tell us has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago.

And some clarifications . . .

I take your second clause simply to affirm: “It is the case that scientists tell us the universe has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago.”
*

We could also DEFINE (not thereby prove the existence of) God as the being than which none greater can be conceived.

All discourse about the experiencing of God or experimenting on God by man but without stating first what is God, in particular in His relationship to man and the universe, that is all silly nonsensical thinking and talking. . . .
What do you say, isn’t it nonsensical thinking and talking with other humans without first having a concurred on concept of God?

This is true in formal, philosophical thinking.

In informal, pre-philosophical thinking and reasoning involved in daily life it is not the case. The experiential data of life, including religious experience, strike and impact us whether we can define them ahead of time or not. Our existing linguistic and cultural world does, however, help us to interpret them and occasionally prepare for them. Rooted in this we then engage in formal, philosophical thinking which should in turn have a bearing on our daily life.

grounding ourselves on logic and facts.

If by this you mean grounding ourselves in facts and correct reasoning based on them with logic as a test of correct reasoning, I’m with you.

Logic is the second intention science of correct reasoning which has a bearing on the reasoning process itself. Logic is not, however, identical with the reasoning and thinking process itself which is as creative and unique as the individuals who engage in it to arrive at truth (dreams, sudden flashes, intuition, etc.). Nonetheless once the truth is arrived at (by the process of discovery/invention), the arguments for it (process of exposition/proof) must meet the standards of logic. Correct reasoning existed first before reason could analyze it and discover its forms. And as language existed before grammar, so logic is, as it were, the grammar of correct reasoning.*

 

[ThinkingSapien]

I see you to be no longer into intelligent thinking on logic and facts.

I don’t agree with you here. Though there’s not a criteria or agreed upon method for distinguishing “intelligent thinking” from thinking that is outside of this. If you’ve think I’ve violated a rule of logic naming the specific rule or the type of logic might bring about agreement.

Who ask you to talk about the material or no material from which the universe was created by God, when the issue is that the universe has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago according to scientists?

I’m pointing out a potential ambiguity in the hopes of illiminating it before a lot more has been invested in this conversation…

Just answer yes or no to my question:

*Do you accept the fact that: To (i), the fact involved is that scientists tell us the universe has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago.
*

If by “create” you mean “form” than yes only insofar as the wall of our ignorance is 13.798 billion years back. In other words 13.798 billion years back might not be an absolute beginning . With the qualifier:

More specifically a creatio ex materia of the universe appears to have occurred at that time.

. The material that composes the universe may have had previous states of existence in which case the 13.798 billion year boundary is only as far back as we can infer, but not as far back as the material that composes the universe goes. An analogous situation could be some one determining that the earth was form 4.54 billion years ago but having no knowledge about supernova nucliosynthesis and has no idea of the forming of the elements that compose the earth. In this case “beginning” is a label for the start of the narrative that we have on some object but not necessarily the initial state of said object.

Please, do not introduce an alien matter to the issue at hand,

I don’t think the matter that composes the universe is alien to a discussion of the formation of the universe.

no wonder you can now proclaim yourself to be lost, since you have gone into a territory that is not that dealt with by scientists, and is not the issue here.

My statement on having been lost is a statement of lack of agreement with the section that I had quoted:

To (ii), the logic involved is that everything with a beginning has a cause.

So, the conclusion is that the universe has a cause outside itself.

From your application of the recursive modus poens rule it looks that the direction that I think you may go with this (and I may be wrong) is progressing to talking about an infinite regress and terminating it with “God” and saying that that “God has no beginning.” If that is the direction in which you are going then my confidence in our ability to achieve agreement is low (we can talk about why if that’s the path you are going down). If that is the argument being presented this isn’t my first time encountering it.

You may need to elaborate more of this “outside itself” concept. I see things here is more being an interaction of elements within a system. All interacting elements are a part of the system and things outside the system can’t interact with it.

Logic dictates that you keep to the issue at hand and abstain totally from introducing any alien matters, even though you don’t see it in yourself, you are now into digressing from the issue.

I think we are not in agreement of whether the information that I’ve mentioned is alien to the discussion.

Intelligent thinking is honest thinking, digression from the issue at hand is dishonest thinking which is not intelligent thinking.

You might be exuding a feeling of being clever, I see it as a perversity.

No, I’m not being dishonest nor am I making an attempt at being clever. What I have shared here are my thoughts. Honest expressions of thought in a discussion don’t necessarily result in all parties in the discussion agreeing.

 

[KingCoil]

Thanks for your reaction, Fr of Jazz.

…]

We could also DEFINE (not thereby prove the existence of) God as the being than which none greater can be conceived.

…]

I like to ask you whether in your concept of “God as the being than which none greater can be conceived,” you have thought of the idea of going into the universe, the one which scientists tell us has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago, to look for a being greater than anything you can conceive?

You have obviously never thought of such an idea of going forth into the universe to look for a being greater than which nothing can be conceived.

Suppose we two go forth and look for such a being, what do you say about my proposal?

My point is that you are talking and talking and talking in the realm of concepts in your mind, and hopefully also doing really intelligent thinking on logic and facts in your mind, but you never ever think of going forth into the universe to look for the things or events you think about and talk and talk and talk about in the realm of concepts in your mind.

Time to always when you are not talking fictions, to as you think and talk on concepts in your mind, you also get into the universe of objective actual existence of things and events outside your mind, to look for the things and events you think about and talk about only in your mind in a world of concepts only.

So, what do you say, will you accept my proposal that we two go into the universe, the one scientists tell us has a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago, to look for a being greater than which nothing you and I can conceive?

Don’t write so many words, just answer that proposal from yours truly.

KingCoil