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buffalo
Guest
So can our imagination.
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Phixional_Ninja
Guest
Do you mean to imply that our imaginations are what lead us to God? I don’t disagree, but I’m surprised to hear you make that point yourself.
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buffalo
Guest
No - not at all. Reason and Revelation lead us to God.
I was simply pointing out that many theories are founded on imagination.
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Phixional_Ninja
Guest
If you would be so kind, please share the reason part of that, leaving out the revelation as much as possible. I don’t mean that request in any sarcastic sense, you’re the first person I’ve heard cite reason as a path to God, and I’m curious to hear what you mean.
Founded on, certainly. It isn’t a theory without logical reasoning to back it up though. When it is purely imagination, it is simply an idea, or perhaps a hypothesis.
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buffalo
Guest
We can know with certainty God exists.
I will quote the Catechism:
WAYS OF COMING TO KNOW GOD
31 Created in God’s image and called to know and love him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him. These are also called proofs for the existence of God, not in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of “converging and convincing arguments”, which allow us to attain certainty about the truth. These “ways” of approaching God from creation have a twofold point of departure: the physical world, and the human person.
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penWindow(‘cr/32.htm’)
The world: starting from movement, becoming, contingency, and the world’s order and beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe.As St. Paul says of the Gentiles: For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.7 And St. Augustine issues this challenge: Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air distending and diffusing itself, question the beauty of the sky. . . question all these realities. All respond: “See, we are beautiful.” Their beauty is a profession [confessio]. These beauties are subject to change. Who made them if not the Beautiful One [Pulcher] who is not subject to change?8
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**[33](javascript:openWindow('cr/33.htm');)** The *human person*: with his openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for happiness, man questions himself about God's existence. In all this he discerns signs of his spiritual soul. The soul, the "seed of eternity we bear in ourselves, irreducible to the merely material",9 can have its origin only in God.[35](javascript
penWindow(‘cr/35.htm’) Man’s faculties make him capable of coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal God. But for man to be able to enter into real intimacy with him, God willed both to reveal himself to man and to give him the grace of being able to welcome this revelation in faith. The proofs of God’s existence, however, can predispose one to faith and help one to see that faith is not opposed to reason.
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mchale
Guest
But my point is, how do you know that the evidence is not misleading. Indeed the question ultimately comes down to, can we trust our senses to provide an accurate picture of the Universe. How do we know that what we think we see and what we feel, is actually felt and seen by us, and is not all a construct that exists purely inside our minds. Science can’t answer that question.
With respect, science is rooted in observation. Yes we can use our imaginations to develop hypothesis about the existence of alternate universes, but until such a hypothesis makes a single, testable prediction that can’t be made without the existence of such a universe, it remains an hypothesis, not a theory. Remember, logic, without observation can easily lead you to drawing the wrong conclusion. For 2000 years everyone who read Aristotle knew that heavier objects fell faster because it was logical; Galileo was the first one to try and test it.
In other words, science is fundamentally incapable of proving in the absence of observable, reliable evidence. And ultimately there are a whole host of problems that science is unable to speak to.
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Bill
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mchale
Guest
With respect, I think you should reread the start of this thread since ultimately this thread started off with dealing with Aquinas’s proofs for the existence of God; all based on the assumption that reason can lead one to conclude the existence of a creator.
The specifics of such a creator must be left to Revelation and faith.
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Bill
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paarsurrey
Guest
Hi
I agree with you; reason could only imply that there should be a CreatorGod. The **certainty in faith **would accrue from the Revelation from GodAllahYHWH through one of His ProphetMessenger or ChosenOnes amongst the human beings.
Thanks
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Spirithound
Guest
Editted McHale’s post for brevity.
I suppose, in a way, a very complex way, as you said, the universe can be considered a computer. However, I contend that it would be impossible to virtual-create. We haven’t explored all of it, we don’t understand what we have seen, and what we do understand is extremely complex. An effect cannot be greater than its cause, in fact, an effect often cannot even come close to its cause.
The Turing effect, from what I understand, is not really that difficult, and in fact we have already achieved it.
But, I think your whole post comes down to an empirical question. Which is more likely? God, or an infinite regression? Infinite regressions don’t happen. Something needs to start them, and then, we’re left with God again.
It would give a handy explanation for miracles tho
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mchale
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Just before I answer the specific points brought up, I want it understood clearly that I am not arguing against religious faith. In fact, I very much believe in the Christian faith. What I am arguing is the fact that not only is the notion of Intelligent Design and a first cause a rational position to take, but in fact, it might be the most intellectually honest position.
The thing is, that quantum computing does offer the possibility of maybe allowing us to match the complexity of our existing universe in a simulation, but we won’t know until we actually fully get the hang of quantum computing.
Anyway, this is all speculation. But it does suggest that logically, having a ceator is more likely than not.
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Bill
I agree we would not be able to create an accurate model of our Universe, at least not at first, but then again we don’t have to. If we were part of a giant program, the programmers outside of the program would have done that. And our Universe may not much resemble the univser the programmers live in. Nor does it need to be as complex as the original universe (at least not at first), though that does limit the depth of the virtual universe regression.
The thing is, that quantum computing does offer the possibility of maybe allowing us to match the complexity of our existing universe in a simulation, but we won’t know until we actually fully get the hang of quantum computing
.Well the Turing test has not been passed, not meaningfully anyway. And certainly computers don’t thing like we do (though again, we may not think like the programmers of our world, if we do actually exist inside a computer.It would give a handy explanation for miracles tho
Anyway, this is all speculation. But it does suggest that logically, having a ceator is more likely than not.
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Bill
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S_V7
Guest
There are FAR too many coinsidences (sp?) in my life. Just recetly I was having a problem with my pride and I opened up a book that was talking exactly about my issue. And this happened about three times in a week or so, and I’m working on my pounding my vice. I can’t really answer this in a few sentences, there are way too many instances where I knew Someone was in control and answering my prayers in such an obvious way it made me smile just to think of how God heard my prayer and gave me exactly what I needed but not necessarily the way I wanted
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the_phoenix
Guest
May God continue to bless you, S_V7! 
~~ the phoenix
~~ the phoenix
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Chuck_H
Guest
Lets get real for a moment. The quoted proofs are circular since they require the acceptance of quantum theory that only exists as a concept. String theory requires plugging dimensions we can’t measure or test into equations. There is a certain truth in the saying that statistics can prove anything! When you have to go into concept dimensions for proving anything you are on shaky scientific ground.I really need some help in dealing with these articles. They claims to refute many arguments for the existance of God and since I’m just a novice (not even) in my philosophical thinking, these articles really runs circles around my head.
religionislies.com/godnoevidence.html
lhup.edu/~dsimanek/philosop/pudding.htm
They’re rather long, but if anyone can answer only one or more of these arguments I’ll be very grateful. I feel at the moment a disgusting fear of possibly becoming an atheist as a result of these and other like arguments, and I can’t fathom the thought of life as meaningless and existance worthless…‘we’re all going to die anyway so why bother with love, life, compassion, truth, morality, equlity, happiness, education, freedom, power, finding a cure for such disease, contributing to society etc… it all ceases to exist at death so why care’ kind of feeling.
Not to mention the horrific prospect of losing Jesus, whom I’ve recently began to fall so much in love with…that’s a fate infinitely worse than any unspeakable atrocity I can think of.
This was also posted as an answer to the question “Where can I find a formal refutation of Aquinas’ ‘Five proofs of God’, the ‘Quinquae viae’?”
answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071126085634AAmdTKO
Any help *at all *would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks and God bless
Louis Pasteur’s experimentation would have been deemed heretical in the middle ages since he proved that life must come from life and thus denied the providence of God (as perceived by early religious philosophers) to continuously create. In the same way, it can be argued that something must come from something and be scientifically correct. If matter exists, then it came from something, or in this case someone, namely God. Intelligent Design proponents would be correct if they only applied their arguments to the ultimate created matter and defined that particle or wave as the alpha point on which God, the law giver, wrote the first laws. Those laws were the laws of physics and they would control everything in creation up to and including us. Evolution is a process that allows life to meet the changes in the extant nature it is in. It is what allows life to persist in continental drift, ice ages, volcanoes, meteor/comet strikes etc. To provide a fixed creation that could not respond to long term and cataclysmic changes is not the mark of a omniscient God. Go to Kenneth Millers home page and read what this RC biologist has to say about evolution and you begin to understand just how much greater God looks through the evolutionary lens.
Finally, I recently listened to a chemist that stated that we would , one day, know the mathematics of absolutely nothing and how the universe could arise from it. I dare say that though he is an avowed anti-religionist and supposedly a scientist, he seemed ready to jump right into the esoteric world of theoretical mathematics and things that can never be proven.
God is indeed in charge and the system works
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