Is it Rational to Believe God Exists?

[Charlemagne_III]

I think there are several definitions of goodness which allow you to make a compelling case that the Christian God is not good.

So by logical inference would you say that the Christian God is evil?

If so, how would you make that case?

 

[madera]

Are you saying all discussion about God should come to a screeching halt and everyone simply remain silent on the topic?

How would you know, with certainty, that neither one of us has “ANY knowledge” of God without implying that you do? It would be assumed that YOU are claiming to possess knowledge in order to insist that anyone one else has none, no?

There is a difference, by the way, between knowing something ABOUT God and knowing God as he is in himself. Our discussion on this thread has not encroached on the intimate knowledge implied by the second.

I don’t know about God, He knows me.
Now I know how He works in my life.
The Holy Spirit is the giver of insights and intimate knowledge.
I have experienced much intimate knowledge, and it has changed my
life.
Suffering draws us to God, not studying about it.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

When the plague of Egypt kills the children of Egypt, that is for atheists evidence of a cruel God. For Jews and Christians it is evidence of the way by which the Jews are to freed from slavery and the House of David is to be founded from which will spring the Messiah. For the atheist God is cruel to kill the children because the atheist believes that killing the children means taking their lives away. But the souls of children are not annihilated when they die. The children live on. We may believe they do not live in hell, where possibly some of their parents may reside. But the subject of limbo is for another thread.

God had through Moses given the Pharaoh abundant opportunities to let his people free. Pharaoh chose not to and sent his soldiers after the Jews to destroy them. The soldiers were destroyed. The atheist will argue again that God was cruel. But actions have consequences. To disobey God is not smart. It is no smarter than to defy our human God-given nature, which the folks at Sodom and Gomorrah also found out.

And that, it seems to me, is what it always comes down to when people complain of the Old Testament stories as tales about a savage God. These complainers never understand that when God has spoken, he should be obeyed. :

But it is the Catholics who teach that good intentions do not justify evil actions. The ends do not justify the means. A genocide is not justified because it had a good outcome for your community. God didn’t kill Pharaoh, he killed all the firstborn. Is there a good reason for infanticide? God thinks there is.

 

[Peter_Plato]

But it is the Catholics who teach that good intentions do not justify evil actions. The ends do not justify the means. A genocide is not justified because it had a good outcome for your community. God didn’t kill Pharaoh, he killed all the firstborn. Is there a good reason for infanticide? God thinks there is.

There is no good HUMAN reason for infanticide, but who allowed that God is human or subject to a human moral code? It would seem a case of special pleading to claim that humanity is “special” because a moral code that applies to individual human agents must, therefore, apply to every other existent agent including Existence Itself.

God apparently thinks that there is a reason not just for infanticide but for bringing about the death of every human being. Is your position that no deaths ought to occur and that God is morally unjust for bringing about the death of every human person in time?

It would likewise be a case of special pleading to insist that God ordering infants to die is morally wrong, but ordering all innocent human beings to die at all other times and places by all other instrumental means is permissible. Why do we have any reason to think that to be true?

At least state the entirety of your case if you wish to make one.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I don’t know about God, He knows me.
Now I know how He works in my life.
The Holy Spirit is the giver of insights and intimate knowledge.
I have experienced much intimate knowledge, and it has changed my
life.
Suffering draws us to God, not studying about it.

St. Thomas Aquinas - among many others - spent his life “studying about” God and teaching others to study about God. Did he waste his life?

 

[madera]

St. Thomas Aquinas - among many others - spent his life “studying about” God and teaching others to study about God. Did he waste his life?

Thomas Aquinas
had a calling from God.
I am sure he was taught by God and I am sure he suffered and as he read scripture he already recognized that what he read, he already knew.
but those who studied and memorized, without having the HOly SPirit
it goes to the intellectual emotions and there lies the difference.
A few will have in them what he did.
There is a scripture that says few will find it.
It is a secret to the intellectuals.
Most have comfort just from study, The bible is a beautiful book,
but just following the written words they miss the spiritual side of it.
insights, revelations are lacking.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Thomas Aquinas
had a calling from God.
I am sure he was taught by God and I am sure he suffered and as he read scripture he already recognized that what he read, he already knew.
but those who studied and memorized, without having the HOly SPirit
it goes to the intellectual emotions and there lies the difference.
A few will have in them what he did.
There is a scripture that says few will find it.
It is a secret to the intellectuals.
Most have comfort just from study, The bible is a beautiful book,
but just following the written words they miss the spiritual side of it.
insights, revelations are lacking.

The Catholic Church teaches we are to know, love and serve God. It does not say that he hides from the intellect or is a “secret to [from?] the intellectuals.”

Paul and Jesus both say God has kept himself from the “wise” of this world but shows himself to mere children and to those who seek him with a sincere heart regardless of their intelligence. There have been very many intellectual saints and doctors of the Church. It is not the intellect that is the problem, it is pride that is.

 

[madera]

The Catholic Church teaches we are to know, love and serve God. It does not say that he hides from the intellect or is a “secret to [from?] the intellectuals.”

Paul and Jesus both say God has kept himself from the “wise” of this world but shows himself to mere children and to those who seek him with a sincere heart regardless of their intelligence. There have been very many intellectual saints and doctors of the Church. It is not the intellect that is the problem, it is pride that is.

You don’t think intelletualism is pride?

When God kept Himself front the wise, those were the intellects.

The children come to Him before they study.

I could go on but I am afraid you know it all, unlike a child, that is pride .
I may be speaking to a child for all I know.
perhaps you have not hungry yet.
I hope one day you will hunger and thirst one day.
goodbye
.

 

[madera]

The Catholic Church teaches we are to know, love and serve God. It does not say that he hides from the intellect or is a “secret to [from?] the intellectuals.”

Paul and Jesus both say God has kept himself from the “wise” of this world but shows himself to mere children and to those who seek him with a sincere heart regardless of their intelligence. There have been very many intellectual saints and doctors of the Church. It is not the intellect that is the problem, it is pride that is.

Do you the difference between intelligence and intellectualism?

 

[madera]

The Catholic Church teaches we are to know, love and serve God. It does not say that he hides from the intellect or is a “secret to [from?] the intellectuals.”

Paul and Jesus both say God has kept himself from the “wise” of this world but shows himself to mere children and to those who seek him with a sincere heart regardless of their intelligence. There have been very many intellectual saints and doctors of the Church. It is not the intellect that is the problem, it is pride that is.

Do you the difference between intelligence and intellectualism?

 

[Peter_Plato]

Do you the difference between intelligence and intellectualism?

No, but I have a feeling you will explain it to me.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I could go on but I am afraid you know it all, unlike a child, that is pride .

To a casual reader, this appears like you think you have some kind of privileged knowledge about what I know and don’t know, what I think and don’t think, what I feel and don’t feel. How would you know all of that, unlike a child?

Funny, I worked with children for over 30 years before I retired and never did I have one who accused me of thinking that I knew it all. Are you certain you are thinking “like” a child on this?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

But it is the Catholics who teach that good intentions do not justify evil actions. The ends do not justify the means. A genocide is not justified because it had a good outcome for your community. God didn’t kill Pharaoh, he killed all the firstborn. Is there a good reason for infanticide? God thinks there is.

The firstborn could not release the Jews from slavery. God did not kill Pharaoh because he had to be convinced that God meant business when he sent Moses to demand their freedom. Killing the firstborn finally persuaded Pharaoh that the God of Moses was more powerful than all the gods of Egypt put together.

Don’t mess with Texas.

But even far more so, don’t mess with God.

 

[glendab]

Hello JapaneseKappa.

You’re working awfully hard to create a contradictory account. The issue with what you’ve done is pretty obvious: you already have an example of a thinking-bag-of-chemicals in yourself. Therefore, you already have evidence that “thinking” and “chemicals” are not fundamentally incompatible (unless you want to take the position that your own existence is logically impossible.) No doubt you will want to object that you think you are not a thinking bag of chemicals and instead a bag-of-chemicals-plus-a-soul. That’s fine, it’s irrelevant.

I didn’t claim to be able to think (or have a soul), and I don’t feel any particular need to. Instead I will only claim to be a bag of chemicals implementing an algorithm just like a computer. If I felt like defending my ability to think (or have a soul) I would wait until after my existence-as-chemicals had been demonstrated. In the same way, I wouldn’t care if you thought you were a bag-of-chemicals-plus-a-soul. If you proved you existed as a bag of chemicals I’d be satisfied, we could argue about the “plus a soul” part later.

Excuse me, but you are thinking and you are doing so all the time even in your sleep. The brain never stops thinking till death. You had to think to type to reply here. You aren’t just implementing an algorithm to type. It takes thought and you’ve thought yourself out of God, our God and that took an awful lot of thought. It wasn’t just a chemical reaction to stimuli. You had to think to do it.

Sorry for butting in, but that’s what I think.

Glenda

 

[Tomdstone]

Hey, Phil! I have one problem with your statement. I don’t think feelings are a good basis for belief. We should strive to believe what is true. Feelings are fleeting, but truth is in un-changing.

-Phil

But one question is what is the mechanism behind feelings. Certainly, if you look at inanimate objects, there is no indication that they have any feelings. Similarly with cactus plants or an apple tree. Feelings are an indication of a living soul. How would a materialist explain a living soul? There is talk about complex adaptive systems and the interaction between different levels of complexity, but can a purely materialistic outlook explain the evolution of feelings from pure matter alone?

 

[Tomdstone]

The firstborn could not release the Jews from slavery. God did not kill Pharaoh because he had to be convinced that God meant business when he sent Moses to demand their freedom. Killing the firstborn finally persuaded Pharaoh that the God of Moses was more powerful than all the gods of Egypt put together.

Don’t mess with Texas.

But even far more so, don’t mess with God.

Are you so sure that there were not other methods to convince the Pharaoh? It seems lacking in mercy to kill the firstborn child of innocent civilians, and we read that God is a merciful God. If you ask the parents of these killed children, do you think that they would agree that God had been merciful to them?

 

[Tomdstone]

Suffering draws us to God, not studying about it.

I don’t see how suffering would draw an infant to God. Perhaps a mature man, thinking about suffering might be drawn to God, but how would that apply to a child who has not yet reached the age of reason?

 

[Tomdstone]

Here is the “sticky” point: If God is Being Itself, the Creator of all that exists, then bringing things into existence or taking them out of existence is fully within his control. He and he alone would have the moral prerogative to decide what rightfully ought to exist or not exist. That determination cannot be questioned simply because there is no being outside of God who could possibly be in a better position to make a more competent determination. That would be the privilege of omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence.

You are forgetting that the Holy Bible, the infallible word of God, tells us that God is a merciful God.

 

[madera]

I don’t see how suffering would draw an infant to God. Perhaps a mature man, thinking about suffering might be drawn to God, but how would that apply to a child who has not yet reached the age of reason?

a child is under the protection of its parents.

 

[Tomdstone]

a child is under the protection of its parents.

Not always. His parents could have died by a bomb launched from Israel into Gaza, killing the parents and causing terrible suffering to the child. How would this suffering draw a child who has not yet attained the age of reason, to God?