Is the question of God's existence the most important question of your life?

[R_C]

What are you saying? Did you mean to give me a better definition of hell than “definitive self-exclusion from God?”

The souls in hell are unlovable. God does not love them, because they are unlovable. They have rendered themselves unlovable by their own choice.

As far as I understand, God loves of infinite love even the souls in hell. This is a consequence of the fact that God loves unconditionally, for in fact God is love. However, He “hates” their corrupted will in such a way that in hell the separation from the sanctifying power of Divine love is complete - not because God ceases to love the damned soul, but because the damned soul has so rejected and despised God, he finds himself locked into his ego forever, blind to all that is beautiful and good and true, incapable to love or to be loved.

All I was trying to say is that God’s love is not “forced”: the souls indeed can chose to not love Him, reject His love, and find themselves self-excluded from Him.

 

[tonyrey]

I am not an inanimate object

Please explain how this statement is related to our previous dialogue:

Purpose can’t be conjured up out of inanimate objects…

Why not? Purposeful activity is based on hindsight, insight and foresight, all of which inanimate objects lack.

Unless you mean you conjure up purpose!

 

[Julia_Mae]

Yes, I did discover that…

I see. Well, if you are going to insist you have done the impossible, then the only logical assumption I can make is either A - you are disconnected from reality to such an extent you are psychotic, which seems unlikely or B- you have some definition of the word “God” which is unknown to me.

So, could you please, so I can understand, write the sentence again not using the word “God” but what you mean by that word. You discovered what, exactly, didn’t exist?

 

[atheistgirl]

Should it be? Why or why not?

No, it’s not the most important question of my life.

So far, the most important question of my life has been when the man I loved from the moment I saw him asked ‘‘will you take me to be your husband if you deem me worthy of you’’

This is a good question.

I feel a little sad somehow that I have to answer no, the existence of God isn’t, hasn’t and most probably won’t ever be the most important question in my life.

Perhaps the sadness comes from not being able to share in the revelation believers have about the existence of God.

Perhaps I thought, reflecting back on two years here, something might have hit home, something that might give me an opening into this faith you all share.

But it wasn’t to be.

So no, whether God exists or not is completely irrelevant to me and the way I live my life.

I do not believe such a being exists, and were I to believe, I don’t think I would fundamentally change anything about my life or any of the opinions I hold that would then be in direct contradiction of the Church.

Sarah x

 

[belorg]

Please explain how this statement is related to our previous dialogue:

Unless you mean you conjure up purpose!

I am not an inanimate object although I consist of inanimate materials. In that way, purpose can be ‘conjured up’ out of inanimate objects.

 

[belorg]

It’s impossible to discover that:

First off have you look in every possible corner of the universe ??? then have you looked into every possible dimension expecially the spiritual realm ??? across all time periods ???

odds are you haven’t even reached beyond your little narrow plane of existence or your own life span… my guess is that you really have not looked at all !!

I’d advise you to read " PRoof of Heaven" by neuro surgeon Dr Eben Alexander and The Boy who Met Jesus" by Immaculee ILBAGAZIA

I don’t need to look in every corner of the universe to discover there is no such thing as a logical impossibility.

 

[belorg]

I see. Well, if you are going to insist you have done the impossible, then the only logical assumption I can make is either A - you are disconnected from reality to such an extent you are psychotic, which seems unlikely or B- you have some definition of the word “God” which is unknown to me.

So, could you please, so I can understand, write the sentence again not using the word “God” but what you mean by that word. You discovered what, exactly, didn’t exist?

My definition of God does not differ from yours, I guess; let’s begin with ‘an omnipotent persoanl being that is timeless and can create all sorts of things from nothing’. I discovered that ‘an omnipotent persoanl being that is timeless and can create all sorts of things from nothing’. is impossible.

 

[belorg]

Hell is defined as self-exclusion from God. So it seems you are saying that Love would never allow anyone to voluntarily exclude themselves. Then, Love is not free, but forced. How, then, can it be Love?

If God is Love, as you believe, then no sane person will reject Love. And it is the duty of God to cure every insanity for Love’s sake.

 

[belorg]

I looked at Him in the Eucharist, and from the moment of that mystical encounter I was able to see Him in the clouds, in the plants, in the eyes of a parent, of a child, of a loved one, of a homeless man, of a hospital patient, in the words of the Scripture, in the words of a poem, in an icon of a man dying on a cross, in the ceiling of my room as I wake up, in a photograph of space, in the reconstruction of a molecule…how can you look at all of that and not recognize the masterpiece of the divine intellect, but instead think that it is the random product of chaos? And, ultimately, do you truly believe that everything comes from nothing?

I guess this last question was addressed to me.
No, I don’t believe that everything comes from nothing, I don’t even belive that anything comes from nothing, and that’s one of the main reasons I do not believe that someone/something can create something from nothing.

 

[aspirant]

(Off-topic warning - this post and next post diverge from original question to respond to wittgenstein.)

That’s because you ignore the meaning behind liturgy, as well as its divine origin.

wittgenstein is self-identified as Unitarian. I’m not sure what the liturgy or order of worship his church observes is like?

 

[Julia_Mae]

My definition of God does not differ from yours, I guess;

Apparently, it does.

let’s begin with 'an omnipotent persoanl being

What’s a “being?” And what would make whatever that is “personal?”

that is timeless and can create all sorts of things from nothing’.

Things being non-temporal and non-local is just physics. And if you study quantum physics, you’ll find there isn’t anything here, anyway.

What you personally believe is impossible constitutes just that: a personal belief. It’s a matter of faith. Yours in your own understanding.

 

[tonyrey]

I am not an inanimate object although I consist of inanimate materials.

You need to prove you consist **solely **of inanimate materials.

In that way, purpose can be ‘conjured up’ out of inanimate objects.

“can be” does not explain “has been”, “is” or even “will be”.

 

[meltzerboy]

As far as I understand, God loves of infinite love even the souls in hell. This is a consequence of the fact that God loves unconditionally, for in fact God is love. However, He “hates” their corrupted will in such a way that in hell the separation from the sanctifying power of Divine love is complete - not because God ceases to love the damned soul, but because the damned soul has so rejected and despised God, he finds himself locked into his ego forever, blind to all that is beautiful and good and true, incapable to love or to be loved.

All I was trying to say is that God’s love is not “forced”: the souls indeed can chose to not love Him, reject His love, and find themselves self-excluded from Him.

And then? What I mean is does the Church by means of Scripture, the Magisterium, Oral Tradition, Church Fathers, state with clarity what happens to the souls in Hell that G-d still loves after they perceive themselves as separated from G-d for a very long time, realizing that time is probably not measured in the same way? IOW, is there at least the remotest possibility that they come to know and love G-d and can then be redeemed? Or is Hell a done deal, absolutely?

 

[R_C]

that’s one of the main reasons I do not believe that someone/something can create something from nothing.

Metaphysics has never been easy to swallow

Consider the following two passages. I assume, based on that statement, that both of them sound unreasonable.

In the beginning was [God]. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

In the beginning was a spacetime singularity, where all curvatures of spacetime where infinite in a way that does not depend on the coordinate system.

In the theoretical Hartle–Hawking state, this singularity was outside of time, because there was no time: time did not exist before the formation of spacetime associated with the singularity, and subsequent expansion of the universe in space and time.

In short, the universe has no origin as we would understand it: the universe was a singularity in both space and time, and it has neither beginning, nor initial boundaries in time or space.

When the event termed Big Bang occurred, approximately one tredecillionth of a second later (10-43) no particles existed or could exist (except perhaps in the most fleeting sense), and the four fundamental forces (electromagnetism, gravitation, weak nuclear interaction, and strong nuclear interaction) were merged into one unified force.

Then something happens to this energy, and, finally, we reach the baryogenesis, in which for reasons unknown to us there was an asymmetry in the production of baryons vs. antibaryons, resulting in a substantial amount of residual matter (that make up the universe today) and barely no significant concentration of antimatter, even though this violates the CPT Symmetry Theorem (a particle and its antiparticle have exactly the same mass and lifetime), and thus the universe did not return again from matter to energy in one big flash.

What I am trying to say is that, beyond the metaphysical, we find that the best model science has developed so far in understanding the origin of the universe is no less puzzling that our belief in God. In fact, science has simply termed that “something” outside of time and space a “singularity”, and is trying to develop theories and models through speculation and massive laboratories to explain how this singularity came to be in first place, and how everything came from it (though we can’t quite say “when”, since, you know, even time came from it), and why did it not symmetrically produce the same amount of matter and antimatter (thus annihilating both and returning to a state of pure energy) even though all mathematical models seem to make this unavoidable.

While we let (and help) science understand how are these things possible, we are somewhat glad to know that ever since time immemorial we have know that all of this happened (without specifically knowing all the details) and we have called “God” what science calls “singularity”, and when science does not understand how some things could have possibly happened and calls them “unsolved problems”, we see that this is the result of a perfect intellect directing Creation in such a way that it will subsist in a most simple yet extraordinarily complex fashion.

 

[R_C]

And then? What I mean is does the Church by means of Scripture, the Magisterium, Oral Tradition, Church Fathers, state with clarity what happens to the souls in Hell that G-d still loves after they perceive themselves as separated from G-d for a very long time, realizing that time is probably not measured in the same way? IOW, is there at least the remotest possibility that they come to know and love G-d and can then be redeemed? Or is Hell a done deal, absolutely?

As you will gather from my other post on spacetime rolleyes the issue is in grasping eternity. The word hints at an infinity of time, but at once it also means no time at all. When the soul steps out of time into eternity, it finds itself in an odd situation, where time simply doesn’t flow, yet isn’t frozen. The choice that was made, was made. If I closed my eyes, they remain closed - metaphorically speaking, of course. G-d made the choice to love His creation, and that choice was made in eternity and is eternal. As we are born in time, in His image and likeness, we can make our own choice but we have time to learn through faith and reason, so that we can make better choices. Ultimately though there is only two things we can choose: good or evil, light or darkness. They come in a variety of shades, some look very enticing, others very despicable. Once we reach the end of this life, whatever choice we made deep in our heart (and it is a great mystery whether the choice is made in one moment or throughout our lifetime) is suddenly marked with the seal of eternity. If we rejected G-d, we will have no way to come to know and love Him, because we lived through that experience and chose to reject it. Nobody - this is what we gather from Tradition and revelation - finds himself surprised to be in the state of Hell - whoever ends there knew that it was coming. This is another major mystery, of course, for some don’t even know that there’s such thing as a hell, yet they are not by this reason shielded from G-d’s justice, which requires (even from the standpoint of reason alone) the existence of the state of hell.

 

[belorg]

You need to prove you consist **solely **of inanimate materials.
“can be” does not explain “has been”, “is” or even “will be”.

I don’t need to prove anything like that. If you think I consist of something else, then you prove it…

 

[belorg]

Metaphysics has never been easy to swallow

Consider the following two passages. I assume, based on that statement, that both of them sound unreasonable.

What I am trying to say is that, beyond the metaphysical, we find that the best model science has developed so far in understanding the origin of the universe is no less puzzling that our belief in God. In fact, science has simply termed that “something” outside of time and space a “singularity”, and is trying to develop theories and models through speculation and massive laboratories to explain how this singularity came to be in first place, and how everything came from it (though we can’t quite say “when”, since, you know, even time came from it), and why did it not symmetrically produce the same amount of matter and antimatter (thus annihilating both and returning to a state of pure energy) even though all mathematical models seem to make this unavoidable.

While we let (and help) science understand how are these things possible, we are somewhat glad to know that ever since time immemorial we have know that all of this happened (without specifically knowing all the details) and we have called “God” what science calls “singularity”, and when science does not understand how some things could have possibly happened and calls them “unsolved problems”, we see that this is the result of a perfect intellect directing Creation in such a way that it will subsist in a most simple yet extraordinarily complex fashion.

The way I see it is that, while “science” has the intellectual honesty to acknowledge that some problems are unsolved, while “theism” does not have a solution either but somehow calls this non-solution “God”.

 

[belorg]

Apparently, it does.

What’s a “being?” And what would make whatever that is “personal?”

Things being non-temporal and non-local is just physics. And if you study quantum physics, you’ll find there isn’t anything here, anyway.

What you personally believe is impossible constitutes just that: a personal belief. It’s a matter of faith. Yours in your own understanding.

When I said I discovered that God does not exist I was talking about what people generally mean by ‘God’, not about some vague undefeined new-age ‘something’ that some people want to call God.

 

[R_C]

The way I see it is that, while “science” has the intellectual honesty to acknowledge that some problems are unsolved, while “theism” does not have a solution either but somehow calls this non-solution “God”.

No. Science calls it singularity, Big Bang, etc, develops theoretical models, has faith on those speculative models and on the science that brought them forth and on their ability to be the producers and the minds behind that science (so ultimately, faith in man), and then tries to find evidence that supports the models. As there are many unresolved questions, science tries not to lose faith in those models (thus come the patches, like the ideas of dark energy and dark matter, the Hartle–Hawking initial state, etc.) or otherwise, through another act of faith (in science, thus in man), hopes that one day we will be able to answer the unsolved problems or otherwise produce a better model.

Theology, philosophy, metaphysics, religion…they do not ask the “how” question at all, because it does not concern them. We simply focus on the reasonableness of the existence of a Creator, and on what this implies. We do not have a solution because, honestly, we don’t quite care about “how” the singularity produced more baryons than antibaryons and thus the universe has matter rather than only energy…all we care about is that it happened that way, a way that hints at an intelligent decision.

I am also acquainted with quite a few events (besides the Big Bang) in which science has worked side by side with philosophy and religion (specifically the Catholic Church) and has simply affirmed that the event or phenomenon is at most an anomaly that science cannot explain at this time and with the current technology. For some of these events, we do provide solutions, and quite verifiable ones, as well. For others, we can only provide models based on a consistent body of knowledge - not unlike science does. But ultimately if a problem is unsolved, religion blames it on man’s limited, finite mind. How you’d think that we define God as a limitation or the result of a limitation puzzles me.

 

[R_C]

When I said I discovered that God does not exist I was talking about what people generally mean by ‘God’, not about some vague undefeined new-age ‘something’ that some people want to call God.

Excellent point. But then, I wonder what you mean by God. The best definition I’ve heard so far is so complex and profound that I neither am able to fully recall it, nor would I ever dare to attempt to post it. I’ll simply say that it is by all accepted standards a reasonable definition. I mean, even Richard Dawkins had the honesty to admit that “a reasonably respectable case could be made for a sort of god of the physicist, god the mathematician”.

I’ll simply add that, with all due respect, you did not *discover *anything, but rather you made a choice, the choice to believe in the nonexistence of God, a choice based on premises you consider sound and reasonable until a sharper mind proves you wrong or you yourself honestly question their validity on the face of new evidence.

God can be found through reason alone, but it’s hard work. Faith is a whole different story. Like falling in love, it is. Perhaps falling in love and loving is unreasonable, but that is irrelevant to the point that we still chose to do so and that no sensible human being refrains from doing so, be it with a creature, be it with a Creator, be it with both.