Is it Rational to Believe God Exists?

[stewstew03]

Nice try but just to be clear, we’re discussing scripture, and I think I’ve given enough examples to show that for the bible writers, heaven is a location to which Elijah and Jesus traveled. (Actually scripture talks of three heavens, the first is the atmosphere, the second is where the stars are, and beyond them the third (2 Cor 12) is where God dwells).

So all one needs to do to get closer to Heaven is climb Mount Everest?

Arguments can be made that heaven is a state or a metaphor or immaterial or whatever you like, but that’s not how scripture sees it.

I suppose there could literally be a narrow gate leading to heaven (Matt 7:13), where God sits on His Throne (Rev 3:21) in the living room of His mansion (John 14:2). And I suppose there could literally be a city made of pure gold somewhere up in the sky (Rev 21:21). But I tend to think that the authors use “the heavens” to describe Heaven because it’s the best image available. Heaven is not of this world. So, Heaven-as-the-Center-of-the-Earth doesn’t quite do it, does it? If we want to look outside of this world, where else would we look but to the heavens?

We still raise our hands to heaven, we still talk of going to heaven, we still think of having a new body in heaven (and after the resurrection Jesus’ body is definitely physical - John 20:27).

Do we not also bow down and worship the Lord as Ezra did?

Ezra praised the LORD, the great God; and all the people lifted their hands and responded, “Amen! Amen!” Then they bowed down and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground. Neh 8:6

Or do you read this passage and think, “oh, I guess the Lord was under ground at that moment…” ??

 

[RGCheek]

Well not entirely but I wasn’t in an indepth discussion on evolution or abiogenesis I simply used a word because it sounded like it fit. If you would prefer I can monitor my every word from now one so as to not say something you might misinterpret

Lol, that’s a DEAL!

 

[Tomdstone]

I assume you are aware that you exist; how is it that you know this?

Cogito, ergo sum.

 

[Tomdstone]

If you want to continue insisting “come down from Heaven” involves motion in the sense you want us to believe it does, then show the location of Heaven on Google maps so we can all check that motion is required for Jesus to relocate whenever a Mass occurs.

The fact that Heaven is not on Google maps does not prove philosophically or otherwise that Heaven does not exist. Google maps does not even map every place on earth. For example, there is no Google map of Zhong Xuchangun, or Guosho Yingpan or Tuotucun but if you go there, you will see a small village. Alternatively, you can see satellite photos of these areas. So Google maps is not a reliable guide to whether or not Heaven exists. Further, the Nicene Creed, which is said at every Mass, says that Our Lord ascended into Heaven and sits at the right Hand of the Father. Do you deny the Ascension of Our Lord?

 

[Peter_Plato]

Cogito, ergo sum.

Sum, ergo cogito.

 

[Peter_Plato]

The fact that Heaven is not on Google maps does not prove philosophically or otherwise that Heaven does not exist. Google maps does not even map every place on earth. For example, there is no Google map of Zhong Xuchangun, or Guosho Yingpan or Tuotucun but if you go there, you will see a small village. Alternatively, you can see satellite photos of these areas. So Google maps is not a reliable guide to whether or not Heaven exists. Further, the Nicene Creed, which is said at every Mass, says that Our Lord ascended into Heaven and sits at the right Hand of the Father. Do you deny the Ascension of Our Lord?

Are you insisting that he ascended to a location in the existing material universe?

 

[Tomdstone]

Sum, ergo cogito.

Not necessarily true as can be seen from an observation of many of the political leaders of the United States of America.

 

[Tomdstone]

Are you insisting that he ascended to a location in the existing material universe?

We have testimony of the Ascension of Our Lord from the Acts of the Apostles chapter 1:[9] And when he had said these things, while they looked on, he was raised up: and a cloud received him out of their sight. [10] And while they were beholding him going up to heaven, behold two men stood by them in white garments. [11] Who also said: Ye men of Galilee, why stand you looking up to heaven? This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, as you have seen him going into heaven.
Do you then deny both the infallible Nicene Creed, said at every Mass, and the testimony given in the Acts of the Apostles? It appears that you are questioning some of the same things that we have heard atheists question.

 

[davidv]

We have testimony of the Ascension of Our Lord from the Acts of the Apostles chapter 1:[9] And when he had said these things, while they looked on, he was raised up: and a cloud received him out of their sight. [10] And while they were beholding him going up to heaven, behold two men stood by them in white garments. [11] Who also said: Ye men of Galilee, why stand you looking up to heaven? This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, as you have seen him going into heaven.
Do you then deny both the infallible Nicene Creed, said at every Mass, and the testimony given in the Acts of the Apostles? It appears that you are questioning some of the same things that we have heard atheists question.

Where in these words does it say that heaven is a physical place?

 

[Peter_Plato]

Not necessarily true as can be seen from an observation of many of the political leaders of the United States of America.

Thinking poorly is still thinking, of a kind.

On the other hand, the statement is only logically true of the one who makes it. The conclusion does not apply to anyone else.

 

[nojesusnopeace]

Interesting find… hope this helps.

The “Sun” article reported that exciting as the discovery was, scientists were stunned by the way the words were inscribed on the tablets. “Although worn by centuries of erosion,” said Jacob Arens, a physicist from the University of Jerusalem, “the letters are clean with sharp edges. No stonecutter could have done such a perfect job.”

Arens and other scientists from Europe and the United States subjected the tablets to a variety of tests, including x-rays and computer analyses. “The letters were definitely burned into the rock,” said Professor Ludwig Sales from Berlin university. “I’m not ready to say it was a laser beam, but some sort of cutting ray was used – something far beyond the skills of ancient Hebrews” (runaway slaves in the desert).

beforeus.com/commandments_iraq.html

 

[Peter_Plato]

We have testimony of the Ascension of Our Lord from the Acts of the Apostles chapter 1:[9] And when he had said these things, while they looked on, he was raised up: and a cloud received him out of their sight. [10] And while they were beholding him going up to heaven, behold two men stood by them in white garments. [11] Who also said: Ye men of Galilee, why stand you looking up to heaven? This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, as you have seen him going into heaven.
Do you then deny both the infallible Nicene Creed, said at every Mass, and the testimony given in the Acts of the Apostles? It appears that you are questioning some of the same things that we have heard atheists question.

You didn’t answer my question.

Are you insisting that he ascended to a location in the existing material universe?

Do you suppose that is the implication to be drawn from the Nicene Creed, the Mass and Acts? To wit: that Jesus ascended up into space, somewhere?

 

[Aloysium]

Cogito, ergo sum.

This does not answer the question as to how you know you exist.
It merely states that you must exist since you are thinking.
We cannot doubt that we exist.
How do we know this?
Can we derive the fact that you exist empirically?

 

[Tomdstone]

Are you insisting that he ascended to a location in the existing material universe?

Do you suppose that is the implication to be drawn from the Nicene Creed, the Mass and Acts? To wit: that Jesus ascended up into space, somewhere?

I said already that the infallible Nicene Creed says that Jesus ascended into Heaven and sitteth at the right Hand of the Father. Similarly, the Acts of the Apostles gives the eyewitness testimony of the Ascension. It does not specify, neither did I, exactly where Heaven is.
You did not answer my question about the Ascension of Jesus. Do you believe that the Nicene Creed is true and that the eyewitness testimony of the Apostles is true or do you say that their testimony is false. Do you believe or not in the literal and actual Ascension of Our Lord into Heaven, or do you say that it is just a metaphor. And that your position as a philosopher is that the Nicene Creed is to be held metaphorically and what is described in the Nicene Creed is not the literal truth and infallible teaching of the Catholic Church?

 

[Tomdstone]

This does not answer the question as to how you know you exist.
It merely states that you must exist since you are thinking.

I think that is the answer, isn’t it?

 

[inocente]

So all one needs to do to get closer to Heaven is climb Mount Everest?

I suppose there could literally be a narrow gate leading to heaven (Matt 7:13), where God sits on His Throne (Rev 3:21) in the living room of His mansion (John 14:2). And I suppose there could literally be a city made of pure gold somewhere up in the sky (Rev 21:21). But I tend to think that the authors use “the heavens” to describe Heaven because it’s the best image available. Heaven is not of this world. So, Heaven-as-the-Center-of-the-Earth doesn’t quite do it, does it? If we want to look outside of this world, where else would we look but to the heavens?

You would need to explain passages such as 2 Kings 2, which contains the line:

“As they continued walking and talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven.”

In a skeptical scientific age I can understand why you might be embarrassed by chariots of fire and whirlwinds to heaven. But where do you draw the line? Do you say the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection also never happened and are just metaphorically “the best image available”?

Do Catholics get any instruction in reading scripture? Are you told not to impose your own worldview on the writers, but to try to see through the eyes of their original intended audience?

(btw hell is down, heaven is up because the heavens were thought of as perfect. It was Galileo looking through his new telescope who first saw otherwise. Just as, in scripture, white is perfectly pure, and it was Newton with his prisms who showed it’s the opposite. But that’s physics, and the bible is not a physics textbook.)

*Do we not also bow down and worship the Lord as Ezra did?

Or do you read this passage and think, “oh, I guess the Lord was under ground at that moment…” ??*

Yes we still bow out of respect, which is one indication that all people are basically the same throughout the ages and throughout different cultures. Which should give you confidence that you can understand the world the writers were in, and not treat them as if they are 21st century American post-modernists.

 

[tonyrey]

Abiogenesis had a purpose: to start the process of evolution. Built into the first living organism was a directed order to adapt to changes in the environment. Then, of course, the environment was directed to change, and to change specifically in various directions that would usher in higher and more organized forms of life. Interestingly, the final change in the environment (say a million years ago) made possible the formation of the human brain, a computer that seemed programmed to become exponentially more complex and sophisticated until Voila! Man arrives on the scene.

The idea that all these changes in the environment and all these successful adaptations to these changes were purposelessly driven begs proving. It seems for all the world like Somebody has arranged from the start for life to exist in the universe, and that we are at least one manifestation of that plan.

When the computer at which I am typing was invented, that was a purposeful invention. The genius behind the computer was not acting without a purpose. How much less logical is it to believe that the Genius behind the universe did not even exist. That the universe invented itself. Would anyone ever believe that a computer could invent itself, could direct itself to evolve without some genius planting that order into the computer?

In daily life no reasonable person regards chance as the decisive factor!

 

[inocente]

Are you insisting that he ascended to a location in the existing material universe?

We now know the observable universe is so large that even light would take billions of years to get beyond the stars, and so God would be very remote if he dwelled that far off. As a result we might want to find another way to describe heaven.

But the issue is not really what is physically remote but what is psychologically remote, and heaven as a place is far closer psychologically than any alternative. It’s much easier to conceive of heaven as a place were God lives and we will live when we die, than to talk of it as a state or relationship in which we exist in God’s thoughts, or whatever else.

“Brothers - above the starry canopy / A loving father must dwell.” - Schiller, Ode to Joy

It may be intellectually less rigorous, but Christ came for all of us, and His promise of eternal life is for all believers, not just intellectuals. So doctors of theology can describe it however they want, but if God wants the rest of us to understand anything whatsoever about heaven, He must have made it a place, as revealed in scripture. The question of whether it is in the material universe is, I’d suggest, for post-enlightenment intellectual types, most others probably don’t think in those terms.

 

[tonyrey]

The question remains as to how and why it started. To ignore the “why” is to assume that everything is ultimately purposeless - for which, of course, there is no evidence.

The existence of skin presupposes the existence of a purposeful organism. The existence of life does not presuppose the existence of fortuitous circumstances.

Addition:

The existence of life presupposes purposeful co-ordination.

It is not a question of physical necessity but logical certainty. To derive the power of thought from thoughtless objects is self-destructive. A permutation of molecules produced by the blind Goddess is necessarily valueless, purposeless and meaningless whereas thought is necessarily valuable, purposeful and meaningful.

**In a world without insight nothing makes sense.
**

 

[RGCheek]

This does not answer the question as to how you know you exist.
It merely states that you must exist since you are thinking.
We cannot doubt that we exist.
How do we know this?

I think that is the answer, isn’t it?

Isnt it a self referencing fallacy to assert the opposite, that ‘I think that I do not exist’?

So if it is irrational to assert for me to assert that I do not exist, it would seem inherently true that I exist and that I think I exist is in itself the proof of it?