Please help me make sense of this

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Presurmksdimnds

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I said something along the lines of," just because you don’t know a person doesnt mean they don’t exist, and likewise just because you can no longer see a baseball doesn’t mean it ceased to exist…"

And a person responded with:

"The baseball is can be quantitatively proven, you’re not presupposing the existence of something in said environment due to some personal experience, belief, or anything else except for the fact that the baseball is of a known quantity. That being said, philosophically speaking, the baseball as we know it, doesn’t exist anywhere except for in our minds via our means of communication.

Applied to the field of religion, it’s trivial to assert the existence of God for such and such reasons and this or that event, simply for the same reason we can’t assert that the baseball as we know it exists–Communication itself is an illusion that filters our experiences through the scope of human consciousness."

What in the world… As a side note in the previous comment he said the universe always “just was” and our limited human minds just can’t fathom something existing without a maker - and there are other dimensions etc.

Please help me understand his point, because my thoughts are…
Have other dimensions been proven to exist? Or isn’t that also just a ‘belief’? Can they be ‘quantified’, and meet all these other standards you say God can’t meet?

If a baseball doesn’t really exist except for means of communication (whatever in the wold that means) is the same true for a tree? Or you and I? If nothing is real than isn’t everything permissible??
 
Dude it’s like a rabbit hole… Deeper and deeper… O_o

A baseball doesn’t exist except for communication.
Communication is an illusion.
A baseball is therefore an illusion…

Is reality an illusion? I would agree if one were to say "we are spiritual creatures living in a temporary (illusion) of reality…but if this person doesn’t believe in a “spiritual world” then where does that leave him?

Mah brain :confused:
 
Presurmksdimnds said:
I said something along the lines of," just because you don’t know a person doesnt mean they don’t exist, and likewise just because you can no longer see a baseball doesn’t mean it ceased to exist…"

And a person responded with:

"The baseball is can be quantitatively proven, you’re not presupposing the existence of something in said environment due to some personal experience, belief, or anything else except for the fact that the baseball is of a known quantity. That being said, philosophically speaking, the baseball as we know it, doesn’t exist anywhere except for in our minds via our means of communication.

Applied to the field of religion, it’s trivial to assert the existence of God for such and such reasons and this or that event, simply for the same reason we can’t assert that the baseball as we know it exists–Communication itself is an illusion that filters our experiences through the scope of human consciousness."

What in the world… As a side note in the previous comment he said the universe always “just was” and our limited human minds just can’t fathom something existing without a maker - and there are other dimensions etc.

Please help me understand his point, because my thoughts are…
Have other dimensions been proven to exist? Or isn’t that also just a ‘belief’? Can they be ‘quantified’, and meet all these other standards you say God can’t meet?

If a baseball doesn’t really exist except for means of communication (whatever in the wold that means) is the same true for a tree? Or you and I? If nothing is real than isn’t everything permissible??
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You cannot make sense of something that makes no sense. You are approaching the topic from the perspective of the baseball being a tangible entity, not just because it occupies space and time, but also because it functions in a way that dictates the noun baseball be applied to it, then likening that observation to the proof of the existence of God. Your friend is using the reverse tactic, and taking his perception of the non-existence of God and applying that to the baseball, effectively making the baseball a figment of imagination. The driver behind that philosophy is that the baseball is considered a hypothetical object.

At this point I want a refund, because I can just as well imagine an imaginary hypothetical baseball game.
 
Presurmksdimnds said:
That being said, philosophically speaking, the baseball as we know it, doesn’t exist anywhere except for in our minds via our means of communication
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The person its trying to tell you that your ideas of God is perhaps just a construct in your mind.

The underlying premise that you most likely don’t agree on is that “The universe is only the things we can measure” - in the previous part, he’s basically saying that.

Christians understand that we exist in a time and place created by God, and that God is outside of that time and place.
 
Darryl_B said:
You cannot make sense of something that makes no sense. You are approaching the topic from the perspective of the baseball being a tangible entity, not just because it occupies space and time, but also because it functions in a way that dictates the noun baseball be applied to it, then likening that observation to the proof of the existence of God. Your friend is using the reverse tactic, and taking his perception of the non-existence of God and applying that to the baseball, effectively making the baseball a figment of imagination. The driver behind that philosophy is that the baseball is considered a hypothetical object.

At this point I want a refund, because I can just as well imagine an imaginary hypothetical baseball game.
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LOL ok sooo…

Doesn’t it seem he’s fitting reality to what he wants? Like he says the baseball should be considered real because it can be quantified whereas God can not - but then later he says it isn’t real??

My minds just a little blown :confused: when he says “philosophically” speaking, what philosophy is he referring to?? <>
 
benjohnson said:
The person its trying to tell you that your ideas of God is perhaps just a construct in your mind.

The underlying premise that you most likely don’t agree on is that “The universe is only the things we can measure” - in the previous part, he’s basically saying that.

Christians understand that we exist in a time and place created by God, and that God is outside of that time and place.
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And couldn’t that ‘outside time and space’ be another dimension? How can someone say they believe in other dimensions but then say the idea of a God outside of time and space crazy? It’s soo weird to me :confused:
 
Ask your friend to see if natures law of gravity does not exist? And go jump off the roof of a building.

Creation is subject to change, whereby the source from which creation came from is not subject to change.

Creation follows the perfect created laws that orders creation to reproduce after its own seed. These laws do not change just as God who ordered them over His creation to follow’ see Genesis 1 and 2 and 3.

God also gave humans 10 moral (spiritual) laws to keep to live in peace and in communion with our created. Man cannot keep the moral law thus we are ordered to return to the dust from which we came.

Thanks be to God , we have a mediator between God and the human race… who makes it possible for man to live eternally from which God originally created man to live eternally. What is corruptible is made incorruptible through our Savior.
 
Everything that we perceive is processed in our mind and only in our mind. Therefore the objects which you consider only have a reality within your mind in the sense that the baseball which you are considering only has, to you, the values which you ascribe to it. A different person, looking at the same object, will perceive it in a different way and the baseball which they consider will not be the same one that you are considering. That is neither of you are considering it as it is outside your mind because you can only know it when it is inside and then it is unique to you.

The question is, what is the absolute truth about the baseball independently of any person considering it? The answer is that we cannot know because as soon as we try considering it then it is the baseball in our mind we regard because that is the only way we can ever regard it. Philosophically we can never arrive at certain truth about it or about anything. Christianity accepts this but says that we can know the certain truth about it through Revelation. God has Revealed absolute truth to us and if we accept it then we experience at as being true because Revelation matches up with what we recognise with our hearts as well as our minds as being the real reality of our inmost selves and of the universe we inhabit.
 
catholicscot said:
Everything that we perceive is processed in our mind and only in our mind. Therefore the objects which you consider only have a reality within your mind in the sense that the baseball which you are considering only has, to you, the values which you ascribe to it. A different person, looking at the same object, will perceive it in a different way and the baseball which they consider will not be the same one that you are considering. That is neither of you are considering it as it is outside your mind because you can only know it when it is inside and then it is unique to you.

The question is, what is the absolute truth about the baseball independently of any person considering it? The answer is that we cannot know because as soon as we try considering it then it is the baseball in our mind we regard because that is the only way we can ever regard it. Philosophically we can never arrive at certain truth about it or about anything. Christianity accepts this but says that we can know the certain truth about it through Revelation. God has Revealed absolute truth to us and if we accept it then we experience at as being true because Revelation matches up with what we recognise with our hearts as well as our minds as being the real reality of our inmost selves and of the universe we inhabit.
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Hmmm… I see what your seeing about only being able to perceive it through your own mind - but wouldn’t science (measurements/facts) be the independent verdict of truth?

But even then - at one point they couldn’t measure germs… That doesn’t mean they didn’t always exist…
 
Presurmksdimnds said:
Hmmm… I see what your seeing about only being able to perceive it through your own mind - but wouldn’t science (measurements/facts) be the independent verdict of truth?
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It’s true, we can use tools to measure, but those measurements only gain meaning with an observer.

Catholicscot’s answer above about God’s revelation is spot on.

If I could only add that with the grace of the Holy Spirit we also accept and understand that revelation all the better.

To the OP: The trouble is that it will be almost impossible to communicate this Christian framework to your argumentative friend - as they reject the premise of God to begin with.
 
benjohnson said:
It’s true, we can use tools to measure, but those measurements only gain meaning with an observer.

Catholicscot’s answer above about God’s revelation is spot on.

If I could only add that with the grace of the Holy Spirit we also accept and understand that revelation all the better.

To the OP: The trouble is that it will be almost impossible to communicate this Christian framework to your argumentative friend - as they reject the premise of God to begin with.
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I would also add to this that for some the argument is greater than the subject. Philosophical arguments in general fit that category well, especially when taken from a negative position. No matter how absurd the argument as long as it is beautifully constructed, it is therefore perceived to be perfectly valid in a hypothetical context.

In other words, baffle the opponent with words rather than truth.
 
Presurmksdimnds said:
Yeah but you can measure gravity o_O like the gravitational force of a planet…
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Really and you can’t measure a baseball? A baseball did not just appear, that baseball was created from the invisible creative ideas from the mind of mankind that made it visible.

On a grander scale all things visible in creation came into being from the invisible.

Can you measure Love with a ruler? Yet Love exist, yet no one has ever seen Love. Thus God is Love, and humanity is parted that Love.

A baseball cannot Love it is created and subject to change, Love is not created, Love is parted and freely given, Love is not subject to change.

The result of Love can be seen in all of creation, proves Love exist, yet no one has ever seen Love or measured it, the best measurement that is applied to Love but does not suffice the exact measurement, when Love is unconditional.

If one applies a philosophy to Love, that love is never love but a lie, that is subject to passions/reacting to the desires of the flesh.

True Love is made known from the act of sacrifice for another but never seen.
 
Presurmksdimnds said:
Hmmm… I see what your seeing about only being able to perceive it through your own mind - but wouldn’t science (measurements/facts) be the independent verdict of truth?

But even then - at one point they couldn’t measure germs… That doesn’t mean they didn’t always exist…
Click to expand...
The notion that measurement reveals the true nature of what is measured is itself an hypothesis. We cannot be certain that the mere act of observing/testing/measuring an object does not in some way change its nature or behaviour. Nor can we be certain that we are measuring the “right” things about it to reveal its essence. Nor can we know that it does not have qualities about it which are beyond our range of perception but nonetheless crucial to its essential nature. Science can reveal all that we practically need to know about a thing but it cannot affirm that all that we need to know is the same thing as all that can be known.
 
When it comes to the existence of God, the evidence is usually personal individual experience, something that cannot be gauged, beyond ones own understanding. So usually if someone tries to tell me God does not exist, my response is “well why don’t you ask Him whether He exists”. After all, if God supposedly doesn’t exist, you will get no answer, so what is to be lost and what is to be gained.

Often I find people won’t do this, it is almost like they know God exists, but they don’t want the responsibility of knowing He exists. That is a whole new ball park (excuse the baseball link) to actual atheism, or even agnostic. The atheist and agnostic would both ask God to answer them, one because they know for sure He doesn’t exist and won’t answer, one because they don’t know whether He exists but would like to know. The one who is not capable of asking God for evidence that He exists, would prefer to be ignorant of His existence.
 
Presurmksdimnds said:
Dude it’s like a rabbit hole… Deeper and deeper… O_o

A baseball doesn’t exist except for communication.
Communication is an illusion.
A baseball is therefore an illusion…
Click to expand...
I prefer practical responses to philosophical nonsense such as this.

Is this baseball bat an illusion? (WHACK)
Are we communicating yet? (WHACK, BAM)

(I am not really being serious) 😃
 
prodromos said:
I prefer practical responses to philosophical nonsense such as this.

Is this baseball bat an illusion? (WHACK)
Are we communicating yet? (WHACK, BAM)

(I am not really being serious) 😃
Click to expand...
While you are not being serious, the argument you present is serious. Too often people make claims with their mouth, but they are not prepared to extend their words beyond the mere words and into actions. I see the same thing with those who claim “Christmas is pagan”, my response to that is “So you have told your boss you are prepared to work Christmas Day like it is just any other day?” Words are easy, actions not so much.🤷
 
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