Proof of God argument

[wanstronian]

Let’s hypothesize a necessary complication: we are always free to choose whether or not we will continue to belong to our church. The Church’s ability to dictate what we ought to believe is conditional on our freely believing that the Church speaks the truth. Make sense?

What you’re saying is that you have no choice other than to believe what your church tells you, but you can use your free will at any time to reject the church in its entirety if you don’t agree with any part of its doctrine. However, you’ve metaphorically signed a contract when you join the church that you believe everything it says and will ever say; so you automatically relinquish your individual right to question the dogma that is fed to you. You’re not actually prevented from thinking for yourself, but you are willingly putting yourself in a position where your thinking is done for you and those thoughts are deemed correct by default. You’re releasing yourself from your moral obligation to think for yourself.

My question was - you are proud of this? Do you think that blindly following dogma is more worthy than thinking for yourself?

 

[Katholish]

Catholic Dogma is a complete and cohesive systems of truths. Ultimately accepting two simple premises, that God has revealed truths to the world and that the Church is the authentic interpreter of these truths, it follows that one must accept all or none of the Churchs doctrines (or if you only accept some, it is coincidental and not because of adherence to the Catholic Faith).

As a previous poster mentioned, the exercise of free will is in no way diminished by the facts that the truths of the Church are interdependent. It is logically inconsistent to accept some and not others. Given the nature of the system it is simply illogical. Hence, even though someone might not understand all of the concrete reasons that the Church holds a certian doctrine, they accept it as true because they believe that entire system to be valid, hence logically, each of its parts must be correct.

 

[Leela]

Since you list your religion as Catholic, I just wanted to point out that the fact that God’s existence can be proven by reason alone is a de fide teaching of the Catholic faith and not something Catholic are free to disagree with. It was defined by the First Vatican Council.

Catholics are not free to disagree with the Church? How exactly does that get enforced? How could the Church impose a belief on someone who does not believe it?

I think just about every Catholic I have ever met disagrees with at least one important teaching such as the personal use of birth control, the position on homosexuality, transubstantiation, women in the priesthood, discouraging condom use in AIDS-stricken Africa, discouraging family planning in overpopulated impoverished areas, voting for Republican candidates, etc. Catholics publicly disagree with this sort of stuff all the time. Some even disagree about abortion rights and aren’t so sure about the virginity of Mary. In what sense are they not free to hold such beliefs? If true it would seem that few Catholics are really Catholic.

Best,
Leela

 

[James_S_Saint]

Catholic Dogma is a complete and cohesive systems of truths. Ultimately accepting two simple premises, that God has revealed truths to the world and that the Church is the authentic interpreter of these truths, it follows that one must accept all or none of the Churchs doctrines (or if you only accept some, it is coincidental and not because of adherence to the Catholic Faith).

As a previous poster mentioned, the exercise of free will is in no way diminished by the facts that the truths of the Church are interdependent. It is logically inconsistent to accept some and not others. Given the nature of the system it is simply illogical. Hence, even though someone might not understand all of the concrete reasons that the Church holds a certian doctrine, they accept it as true because they believe that entire system to be valid, hence logically, each of its parts must be correct.

This seems to be a worship of the Church itself. And as the Church is to reveal what Jesus did or did not say, mean, or do, then the Church would actually be in a position above Jesus himself.

This is an old issue that led to many catastrophes.

 

[Betterave]

What you’re saying is that you have no choice other than to believe what your church tells you, but you can use your free will at any time to reject the church in its entirety if you don’t agree with any part of its doctrine. However, you’ve metaphorically signed a contract when you join the church that you believe everything it says and will ever say(?); so you automatically relinquish your individual right to question the dogma that is fed to you. You’re not actually prevented from thinking for yourself, but you are willingly putting yourself in a position where your thinking is done for you and those thoughts are deemed correct by default. You’re releasing yourself from your moral obligation to think for yourself.

My question was - you are proud of this? Do you think that blindly following dogma is more worthy than thinking for yourself?

I’m sorry, did I say I have no choice other than to believe what my church tells me, but I can use my free will at any time to reject the church in its entirety if I don’t agree with any part of its doctrine? That sounds ridiculously implausible. Are you sure that’s what I said? Do you really think the church does my thinking for me? That again sounds ridiculously implausible. If someone tells me the truth, I still have to think for myself to understand it, don’t I? What makes you think this is a “blind” process? Have you ever heard of fides quaerens intellectum? Do you think that if I believed everything my physics professor told me about physics I would be blindly following dogma? Do you think if I got 100% on his exam I should not be satisfied with myself and happy that I had understood what I was supposed to have understood, as opposed to upset that there weren’t more points of disagreement between us?

 

[Betterave]

Catholics are not free to disagree with the Church? How exactly does that get enforced? How could the Church impose a belief on someone who does not believe it?

I think just about every Catholic I have ever met disagrees with at least one important teaching such as the personal use of birth control, the position on homosexuality, transubstantiation, women in the priesthood, discouraging condom use in AIDS-stricken Africa, discouraging family planning in overpopulated impoverished areas, voting for Republican candidates, etc. Catholics publicly disagree with this sort of stuff all the time. Some even disagree about abortion rights and aren’t so sure about the virginity of Mary. In what sense are they not free to hold such beliefs? If true it would seem that few Catholics are really Catholic.

Best,
Leela

There are ways the Church has of ‘enforcing’ belief (e.g., excommunication) but generally the Church just proposes beliefs, or as the case may be, fails to propose them (i.e., effectively, to the faithful, who are usually partly to blame for this failure, though often largely not). As for Catholics who ‘disagree’ with the Church, the vast majority disagree with what the Church teaches, but not with Church teaching - you have to understand a proposition before you can really disagree with it and dissenters very rarely do understand (or give a sh about understanding) the teachings they claim to reject. (Is "sh" allowed here?)

 

[Betterave]

This seems to be a worship of the Church itself. And as the Church is to reveal what Jesus did or did not say, mean, or do, then the Church would actually be in a position above Jesus himself.

This is an old issue that led to many catastrophes.

Not above Christ, the vicar of Christ (“they hear you, they hear me; they reject you, they reject me” and all that jazz).

 

[entheogensmurf]

Sure, but it’s non sequitur. If a computer can simulate transformers in a movie, do they really exist? Not the same thing of course, but I think it illustrates my point.

You need to explain what you mean by simulate Transformers. The models? That is not the same thing.

This sounds more accurate:
If computer can simulate consciousness, does that consciousness exist?

 

[wanstronian]

I’m sorry, did I say I have no choice other than to believe what my church tells me, but I can use my free will at any time to reject the church in its entirety if I don’t agree with any part of its doctrine? That sounds ridiculously implausible. Are you sure that’s what I said?

Sorry, it sounded like exactly what you were saying. First you say that the Catholic Church isn’t the ‘free thinkers’ club, then you say you can exercise your free will and leave the church. The implication being that you can’t decide for yourself what parts of the doctrine you choose to believe.

Do you really think the church does my thinking for me? That again sounds ridiculously implausible.

I agree, that’s why I was confused.

If someone tells me the truth, I still have to think for myself to understand it, don’t I? What makes you think this is a “blind” process? Have you ever heard of fides quaerens intellectum? Do you think that if I believed everything my physics professor told me about physics I would be blindly following dogma? Do you think if I got 100% on his exam I should not be satisfied with myself and happy that I had understood what I was supposed to have understood, as opposed to upset that there weren’t more points of disagreement between us?

So you are free to cherry pick the church’s teachings as you see fit? That’s all I was asking. It originally sounded as if you weren’t ‘allowed’ to do this, and further, you seemed proud of the fact. Sorry if I got the wrong end of the stick.

 

[Betterave]

Originally Posted by Betterave
I’m sorry, did I say I have no choice other than to believe what my church tells me, but I can use my free will at any time to reject the church in its entirety if I don’t agree with any part of its doctrine? That sounds ridiculously implausible. Are you sure that’s what I said?

Sorry, it sounded like exactly what you were saying. First you say that the Catholic Church isn’t the ‘free thinkers’ club, then you say you can exercise your free will and leave the church. The implication being that you can’t decide for yourself what parts of the doctrine you choose to believe.

But belief just doesn’t work the way you describe. It not a matter of just making decisions about what to believe. Beliefs are much more organic than that and ‘live options’ for belief are always constrained by various factors (have you read William James at all?), not just a matter of ‘using my free will.’ Of course it is possible to reject the Church in toto after believing what it teaches, but it is very unlikely that you could reject it in its entirety just because you don’t agree with some one point of doctrine. In any case, it wouldn’t be just a matter of ‘free will at any time.’

Quote:
Do you really think the church does my thinking for me? That again sounds ridiculously implausible.

I agree, that’s why I was confused.

That’s a good sign I guess!

Quote:
If someone tells me the truth, I still have to think for myself to understand it, don’t I? What makes you think this is a “blind” process? Have you ever heard of fides quaerens intellectum? Do you think that if I believed everything my physics professor told me about physics I would be blindly following dogma? Do you think if I got 100% on his exam I should not be satisfied with myself and happy that I had understood what I was supposed to have understood, as opposed to upset that there weren’t more points of disagreement between us?

So you are free to cherry pick the church’s teachings as you see fit? That’s all I was asking. It originally sounded as if you weren’t ‘allowed’ to do this, and further, you seemed proud of the fact. Sorry if I got the wrong end of the stick.

The physics analogy was actually supposed to be a little more instructive than you took it to be. You can’t cherry pick in physics and you can’t in the Church (you can, of course, but not if you want to be a good Christian or a good physicist). But in neither case does this imply that one doesn’t think for oneself. It just means that one of the things that one must think is, “I am not self-sufficient - I am not the final arbiter of truth.” (Although, in a sense, I am the final arbiter - that is, I can (within certain constraints) choose to view myself that way. The contention of a Christian or a physicist, however, would be that such a way of viewing oneself is dogmatic and irrational (epistemic solipsism…)).

 

[djeter]

Here are six arguments or approaches to God as advanced by Fr. Aidan Nichols in my Fundamental Theology textbook. Not to be outdone I threw in a seventh based on my own experience. Aquinas used the same word “via” that got translated to “proofs” of God’s existence.

Spaced over two posts you can find them here:

payingattentiontothesky.com/2009/09/09/approaches-to-god%e2%80%99s-existence/

payingattentiontothesky.com/2009/09/11/theodicy-and-the-idea-of-salvation/

dj

 

[liquidpele]

You need to explain what you mean by simulate Transformers. The models? That is not the same thing.

This sounds more accurate:
If computer can simulate consciousness, does that consciousness exist?

Well of course… I was just trying to stay away from things that haven’t been actually accomplished yet though as many on this forum get caught up in the details without considering the larger point. All in all, simulating a walking talking thing is just a very simple version of AI anyway. This does, however, bring up the great argument about whether a being that simply fakes conciousness to the point that you can’t tell is actually concious or not. This is the basis of the Turing test, and is exactly how many neurologists thing our brains work.