What can you say about the following claims?

[Douglas_Kraeger]

How can God do everything at once? In which case He is logically impossible – He cannot both do and not do something at the same time. Otherwise He has changed from sustaining to not sustaining, or vice versa in the case of Surtsey.
Our Faith is that God is infinite and everywhere. We not see Him all around us. That I do not see Him all around me is not a proof that He does not exist. Is it? I hope you have heard of the analogy concerning a person in a one-dimensional or two-dimentional world, how they would naturally think in their one or two dimentions and how a three dimentional world would be a little hard to envision (if you want, add time as a dimention to each). Our faith is that God created space and time. That you can not understand or imagine that God could create all time and space, see and be present to all, always, act in specific ways in specific times and places, with one single infinite thought, without change; shows only that you can not imagine or understand how He could do it. That’s all. This is where I see it as evidence that you have not really comprehended or can imagine what it means to be outside time and space. I do not see it as logically impossible for a truly infinite God to do such. Therefore your statement that it is “logically impossible” is an opinion that I disagree with. It does not prove anything.
My question was, “I repeat; “Do you deny that this is possible”? Can you provide any evidence,( something more than you do not see it that way) to show why God can not be doing everything at once, always?”

Read the Brahmajala sutta. The Buddha did not deny the existence of a powerful God who was convinced, incorrectly, that He was the creator God. The Buddha made it clear that the supposed creator God was in fact mistaken about His status. He was just another god, albeit a particularly powerful and long lived one.

What is your definition of a “god”? My definition of God is creator of all things other than Himself. The one God that brought into existence all creation from nothing.
How many of your “gods” make the claim to be Creator of all creation? How can there be more than one Creator God, one true God? did buddha believe there was a Creator God who brought all things into existence and who created and revealed His absolute, objective moral Law? Then buddha denied the existence of a true God. Correct?
His “gods” were not God in the true sense of Creator of all things God. Correct?
Do you understand deists belief that the devil wants everybody to think of God as something less than true God, something less than infinitely powerful? as just a “god” not really God?
Why is it not possible that you have inadvertantly accepted a lie of the devil ?

  I have asked several times, (I do not see where you answered), how does the sum of many subjective opinions make something objectively right or wrong in the true sense of objective being something more authoritative than the mere sum of many subjective opinions of men? You claim to believe in an "objective" moral order, without any source of that order, nothing brought it into existence. 
  You have said that you get your objective moral order from the world around you, and you have quoted  the statement below. If you were in nazi germany, and everybody around you was exterminating (jews, weak, mentally deficient...) which would you go by:  the world around you, (those wise and learned men) or the voice inyour heart that said it was wrong, absolutely wrong to kill jews weak, ...   just because ?  If your conscience said it was wrong, evil,  and the world around you said it was right, what would you do? Why? If your conscience should have the final word or say, trumping the world's opinions, What is the true source of the authority of what your conscience says should be? the world? karma? God's voice speaking his Law? His should? I posed the situation where all themen and women believed there were social advantages to all girls being raped at a certain age. You evaded the direct answer to my question. If you were in that circumstance, if, if if, would you go with the flow, or say there was an absolute objective law that was being violated? 
   You have made no rebuttal of my explanation that each is held accountable, by God, according to what God has revealed to them. You have said  "to God, this may be an absolute moral law, but I need to know what I am supposed to do.(because I see it as changing, being more and more revealed in more detail)"  The obvious answer is, you must choose. If you want to be judged with mercy for all the times you did not do that which you knew in your heart was the right thing to do, or for all ther times you did that which you knew was wrong and should not be done, If you want to be judged with mercy, not pure justice, then should you choose mercy for the girl (and the man who was let go before they brought the woman to Jesus) caught in adultury?

rossum

 

[Douglas_Kraeger]

My apologies. I did not include the proviso that “God can not do that which is a contradiction of His infinitely good nature. " I was sloppy in the use of the phrase, “capable of all”.
I did point out that because our God has an infinite intelligence and infinite power (to do all that is not contrary to His nature) that is why we believe He is capable of Judging with Justice and Mercy, because He knows all the details and because He is a GOD with a mind and infinite love, he cares about us . You are the one who is trying to say that karma can do what we believe God does, that karma can do it without intelligence, without knowledge, without understanding. I have asked you what is in the nature of karma that is not in the nature of a rock, that allows karma to “read” our past completely and correctly even when we have forgotten details, and then for karma to decide? choose? make a determination according to somebodies rule or order? and send each person on to the “right” correct next life? Do you have an answer? What is your evidence that karma possesses this in it’s nature? If it is on your faith in yourself, in buddha, or in what? If it is on faith, say so?
I have asked,” When buddha died, did he know or just believe there was no creator God? What was the verifiable evidence he had to show that there is notrue God? or was it faith?

Do you not read what I post? I have consistently said that I support an objective, not a subjective, morality.
I repeat my question," Are you claiming that the sum of many subjective moral opinions makes something that is truly objective, truly more than the sum of many subjective opinions? If so, how?Now what if YHWH ordered the rapes, would those rapes be morally correct?

I see the Sun rise in the East. Other see the Sun rise in the East. We all agree that the Sun rises in the East. Is the Sun rising in the East subjective or objective ‘in the true sense of the word’?
Obviously I am talking about an objective moral fact and you are talking about a objective physical fact.

It has nothing to do with the existence or not of God, it is a fundamental property of the universe that everything changes:

"
That, as I said, is a matter of your faith. It is a matter of your faith that there is no changeless, infinite God who promises to give us an undeserved gift of union with Him in a changeless heaven, forever and ever and ever and ever… if we are sorry enough,(truly sorry) when we die. I repeat, it is a matter ofyour faith. Correct?

Objective justice.
What did you mean by this response?

rossum​

 

[rossum]

My apologies for the delayed reply. I was away for three days in a rather wet and windy Biarritz, though the food was generally excellent.

This is where I see it as evidence that you have not really comprehended or can imagine what it means to be outside time and space.

Time and space make up four dimensions. So let us place God in a fifth dimension. This fifth dimension is neither space nor time so let us call it ‘faarn’. We cannot use words like “change” in faarn because change refers to time, not faarn. So let us use faarnmutable for the equivalent of changing in faarn and faarnstatic for the equivalent of unchanging in faarn. It is perfectly possible that your God is faarnstatic in faarn. It is not possible that He is unchanging in time. He has changed in time from creating Dodos to not creating Dodos. I am prepared to grant you that this change in time, the fourth dimension, has left Him faarnstatic in faarn, the fifth dimension. Change and stasis in different dimensions are independent. Your error, as I see it, is to use terms relevant to the fourth dimension when you should be referring to the fifth dimension.

Measured in the fourth dimension God changes. Measured in the fifth dimension He may well be faarnstatic.

Can you provide any evidence,( something more than you do not see it that way) to show why God can not be doing everything at once, always?"

Dodos. Show me God making a live Dodo now.

How many of your “gods” make the claim to be Creator of all creation?

One.“I am the Brahma, the great Brahma, the conqueror, the unconquered, the all-seeing, the subjector of all to his wishes, the omnipotent, the maker, the creator, the supreme, the controller, the one confirmed in the practice of jhana, and father to all that have been and shall be. I have created these other beings.”

• Brahmajala sutta, Digha Nikaya 1

did buddha believe there was a Creator God who brought all things into existence and who created and revealed His absolute, objective moral Law?

No. As I said in my previous post, the god who claimed that was mistaken in his claims and the Buddha pointed out why he was mistaken.

What is your evidence that karma possesses this in it’s nature?

How does gravity know that I have released my grip on a rock and so makes that rock fall to the ground? How does gravity know how strongly I throw a ball so it knows how far to let the ball travel? Karma knows as much as gravity knows.

Obviously I am talking about an objective moral fact and you are talking about a objective physical fact.

And what is the difference? Why do you accept that the sun rises in the East as objective when all that you have is a collection of subjective observations? I have already given you the basis of my objective morals in the Kalama sutta. If you want to see my answer then go back through my posts and read it there.

What did you mean by this response?

It was my answer to your question in post #218, “whether or not the justice you perceive is objective justice or subjective justice.” It is objective justice.

rossum

 

[Douglas_Kraeger]

It is not possible that He is unchanging in time. Do you disagree with me in that I say humans see “time” sequentially, one point in time after another? Even when we “look back in history” all we are doing is looking at information in this time, in a sequential way, that purports to be a representation of what happened in the past. We can do nothing but act in the present moment and then in the next moment and so on, and so on…You ask to see that which is impossible to produce in this space time continuum, and then, when I can not produce the evidence you ask for, you seem to say that is proof to you that God is not doing everything, all at once, always in His changeless existence. Simply because you do not see Him doing it, now. Is this an accurate assessment of your position? That because you can not see it being done, therefore it is not possible that He is doing it? Not possible?

Perhaps it would be more accurate for you to say,

Measured in the fourth dimension God appears to change . Measured in the fifth dimension He may well be faarnstatic, and if He is truly faarnstatic, truly without change, doing everything at once (even though we do not see it at this time, in this dimension) then we can not take this failure on our part to see Him doing everything, all at once, as a proof that He is not indeed truly changeless because we do not see the whole picture. We have to be honest and look for some other reason or “proof” that the monotheist’s God does not exist".

One.“I am the Brahma, the great Brahma, the conqueror, the unconquered, the all-seeing, the subjector of all to his wishes, the omnipotent, the maker, the creator, the supreme, the controller, the one confirmed in the practice of jhana, and father to all that have been and shall be. I have created these other beings.”

• Brahmajala sutta, Digha Nikaya 1

No. As I said in my previous post, the god who claimed that was mistaken in his claims and the Buddha pointed out why he was mistaken.

It is interesting that you have mentioned severaltimes that “the god who claimed that was mistaken in his claims and the Buddha pointed out why he was mistaken” but I a can not see where you have put forward the “proof” that buddha presented to show how it can be shown the the great brahma was mistaken. In other words your, buddha’s claim is just an unsupported claim. So far.

How does gravity know that I have released my grip on a rock and so makes that rock fall to the ground? How does gravity know how strongly I throw a ball so it knows how far to let the ball travel? Karma knows as much as gravity knows.
Gravity does not need to understand our intentions, or the ‘intentions’ of a rock in order to exert a force proportional to our mass and inversely proportioal to the square of the distance between all objects in order to move us according to the “laws of physics”. It just needs to ‘know’ mass and distances, intent is unimportant. Correct? Gravity does not need to know the intent and each and every detail of every persons each and every action and descision. Correct? If gravity needed to knowour intentions, then itwouldhave tohave someway to know intentionand compare and evaluate extenuating details before deciding how to move us. Correct? It would need something that gravity does not have, whatever is needed to understand and correctly balance intention and circumstances, Correct? This is what is also needed by karma to understand intentions and circumstances that could be very complicated, correct? What does karma have that allows it, by its’ nature, to understand our intentions and toknow all the circumstances involved in each and every descision weever make, (some of which we do not know) and for karma to always know where each person should spend their next life accordingto the objective order that karma follows?

And what is the difference? ??? Do you really mean that you do not see thedifference between an observable objective physical fact and opinions on an objective moral question? Really??? Subjective observations of a physical phenomenon is of a different kind than a question containing a moral issue of right or wrong, good or evil, truly objective or simply subjective.
Why do you accept that the sun rises in the East as objective when all that you have is a collection of subjective observations? I have already given you the basis of my objective morals in the Kalama sutta. If you want to see my answer then go back through my posts and read it there.
Your basis for your “objective” morals, is the subjective opinions of many “wise” people. Correct? I am not asking for your basis of your ‘objective’ morallity, I am asking you to explain, if you can, how the sum of many subjective opinions becomes objective in the true sense of the word. Can you try to help me see how you start with many subjective opinions, add up many of them, and then suddenly you have as if by magic, a truly objective moral fact?

It was my answer to your question in post #218, “whether or not the justice you perceive is objective justice or subjective justice.” It is objective justice.Are you saying that each and every court decission is always objective justice? And if different people disagree witha particular courtdecission, they have differing subjective opinions, correct? How do you define “objective” i this case?

rossum

 

[rossum]

Simply because you do not see Him doing it, now. Is this an accurate assessment of your position? That because you can not see it being done, therefore it is not possible that He is doing it? Not possible?

God is not creating Dodos now. God did create Dodos in the past. Therefore what God is doing now is different from what God was doing in the past. What is it you find difficult to understand about that? If God is doing different things at different times then God is changing in time. I am perfectly prepared to concede that God is faarnstatic in the fifth dimension but that does not prevent Him changing in time, which is the fourth dimension not the fifth dimension. Change and stasis in different dimensions are independent.

Perhaps it would be more accurate for you to say,

Measured in the fourth dimension God appears to change .

So if I move in the East-West dimension whilst not changing in the North-South dimension I am not actually moving but merely ‘appearing’ to move? Movement or change in one dimension is independent of movement or change in other dimensions.

It is interesting that you have mentioned severaltimes that “the god who claimed that was mistaken in his claims and the Buddha pointed out why he was mistaken” but I a can not see where you have put forward the “proof” that buddha presented to show how it can be shown the the great brahma was mistaken. In other words your, buddha’s claim is just an unsupported claim. So far.

I have referred you to the original source of my quotes, the Brahmajala sutta. This is a lengthy piece, too long to quote here in full. The relevant section is paragraphs 39 to 45: web.ukonline.co.uk/theravada/brahma1.htm

What does karma have that allows it, by its’ nature, to understand our intentions and toknow all the circumstances involved in each and every descision weever make, (some of which we do not know) and for karma to always know where each person should spend their next life accordingto the objective order that karma follows?

We know our own intentions. Karma merely reads our own knowledge of our own intentions and motives. Gravity ‘knows’ about mass; Karma ‘knows’ about intentions.

Subjective observations of a physical phenomenon is of a different kind than a question containing a moral issue of right or wrong, good or evil, truly objective or simply subjective.

How do subjective observations of one thing differ from subjective observations of another thing? Some people derive an absolute morality from the Bible. However, all that they really have are subjective observations of a particular book. All forms of morality are ultimately derived from subjective observations since all of our sensory (name removed by moderator)uts are subjective observations.

Your basis for your “objective” morals, is the subjective opinions of many “wise” people. Correct?

Please, please listen to what I have told you may times now. Go back and read the Kalama sutta again. My objective morality is not based solely on the opinions of the “wise”. If you do not read what I say then there is little point in our continuing to discuss since we will just endlessly cover the same ground.

Here is that quote from the Kalama sutta again, with added emphasis just to make sure you get the point this time:[The Buddha said:] “Kalamas, when you yourselves know: ‘These things are bad; these things are blameable; these things are censured by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill,’ abandon them. … Kalamas, when you yourselves know: ‘These things are good; these things are not blameable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,’ enter on and abide in them.”
The opinions of the wise are indeed part of the equation – we do not start from a blank slate but are allowed to stand on the shoulders of giants. However we should not just accept what we are told without also examining it for ourselves. Just because YHWH orders us to slaughter pregnant women that does not mean that we should automatically do so.

rossum

 

[Douglas_Kraeger]

God is not creating Dodos now… Movement or change in one dimension is independent of movement or change in other dimensions.
I believe the difference in our understanding is that you see god as unchanging only in another dimension. I believe He is totally unchanging. You say God is not creating dodos now, and this is a matter of your faith, because you believe Him to be subject to time and do not seem to grasp the concept that since God is infinite and sees all time all at once, with every thought of every person known in the present tense. He sees everything happen at once (all happens in the now of God), we see it sequentially and therefore we see ‘time’. That we see God do one thing, then another, then after a ‘long’ time another; that we see it this way is not proof that, to God, it is not being done in the infinite now, all at once.
You have no proof that our idea of God doing everything in the infinite ‘now’ is not correct. All you have is that you see time moving on, so therefore God is doing different things at different times, and therefore you conclude He must be changing what He is doing. You conclude that He can not be outside of time and you conclude that He can not be doing everything He does all at once, but your only ‘proof’ is your opinion based on how you see things. Correct?
I ask again: That because you can not see it being done, therefore it is not possible that He is doing it? Not possible?

I have referred you to the original source of my quotes, the Brahmajala sutta. This is a lengthy piece, too long to quote here in full. The relevant section is paragraphs 39 to 45: web.ukonline.co.uk/theravada/brahma1.htm

  I read much of what you submitted me to read.  I found no evidence that can be verified. All I found was the unsubstantiated opinion of one person, and that we were to accept His opinion (if we wanted to) as all he had for 'proof'.  That it was only his opinion does not prove or disprove it as correct. It merely means that it is an unsubstantiated point of view.  Buddha believed it, and you believe because buddha was enlightened, he was correct in all he said. Correct?  You believe in Him who believed what he believed but there is no 'proof'. Correct? 
      No proof of reincarnation, all you have is faith and what you see as knowledge. I agree that you have a right to believe what you want, like I do, but, I urge you to consider the apparant difficulty you have with certain questions as evidense that your faith does not seem to you to have good answers for these questions. 
      The concept of objective moral values versus subjective opinions.  You seem to be unable to try to show how the sum of many subjective opinions somehow becomes truly objective.  Yes, it might be outside you and in that way objective. But if it is only a subjective opinion of another person outside of yourself, you have no way of making it truly objective as in a moral law that is independent of the subjective opinions of men. In that, everything would be relative, a matter of opinion. As all honest philosophers admit, IF THERE IS NO GOD, ANYTHING GOES IS THE BOTTOM LINE. People may not say it, or admit it, but they can not find any reason for a truly objective moral order unless there is an infinitely powerful Creator who is the Lawgiver. Yet, people know in their hearts that there is a truly objective moral law. They just sometimes find it hard to admit that the only legitimate source of such a moral law must be God. 
    
  As you evidense to the above by what you do not say below:

We know our own intentions. Karma merely reads our own knowledge of our own intentions and motives. Gravity ‘knows’ about mass; Karma ‘knows’ about intentions.

I know I am Rehashing old things, but, you have not been specific in your responses. You make the claim that karma has something that a rock does not have so that karma can ‘rread’, ‘know’ our thoughts, but you have not tried to explain what it might have since it can not have an intelligence, and an intelligence is the only thing wehumans knowof that can truly understand our intentions and weigh correctly all the individual detailsof every action. Youalso seemed to ignore the problem that I proposedin that many times people do not know all the details that shouldbe mitigating factors, yet, you believe karma can know these details even if the person has forgotten them or never new them. How, without an intelligence and a mind???
rossum

 

[ManOnFire]

THIS will totally blow your mind:

The best anyone can do to explain the beginning of the space of the universe is to quote “Singularity,” which claims that the universe came from a single timespace event of infinite mass and zero volume. It sounds completely implausible and illogical that hte universe would have infinite mass, zero volume, and spontaneously started with no other infinitely-existing help, yet this is apparently where the mathematical formulae took cosmologists. Assuming God exists, then he might be laughing at how all the mathematical formulae lead to it. Too many people can’t get past it, won’t get past it, and refuse to acknowledge it to protect the ego from this enlightened knowledge which might make it uncomfortable.

Think about how ironic this is: Science answers the questions of WHY by believing there must be some, any, many, one, REASON for something. If there is a reason why, then there can be an answer. Many atheist scientists exist in the world. Yet, ironically, for those who believe there is no God, they “magically” claim THERE IS NO REASON, or “the reason isn’t important” for the beginning and end of time and space! An admission of actual infinity negates the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago and negates the theory of Singularity. If time and space are infinite and have always been infinite, then THERE IS NO REASON for our existence, and a REASON CAN NOT EVER be assigned to answer the basic question: WHY do we exist?

**Or, **they claim that “we just haven’t learned it yet,” which we know is false, because if time and space had a beginning, then a Supreme Being outside the realms of time and space must be the REASON that time and space had a beginning.

 

[rossum]

I believe the difference in our understanding is that you see god as unchanging only in another dimension. I believe He is totally unchanging.

You are free to believe what you want. In reality the God described in the Bible changes in time. He lived in Palestine. He died on the cross. He rose from the dead. Those are changes, or do you deny the incarnation, death and resurrection of God? He caused miracles in the past which He is no longer causing now. God does different things at different times so God is changing. That is the definition of change.

That because you can not see it being done, therefore it is not possible that He is doing it? Not possible?

Can you see God making Dodos now? Can you prove it? What God did in the past is different from what God is doing now. That is change by any rational definition of change.

That it was only his opinion does not prove or disprove it as correct. It merely means that it is an unsubstantiated point of view. Buddha believed it, and you believe because buddha was enlightened, he was correct in all he said. Correct?

Yes. I am Buddhist so I believe Buddhist scriptures. You are Christian so you believe Christian scriptures. There is as much evidence for my position about gods as there is for yours – both of us are basing ourselves on our respective scriptures.

No proof of reincarnation, all you have is faith and what you see as knowledge.

If you want proof then I have already referred you to a source: the Visuddhimagga, Chapter 13. If you do not want proof then stop asking for it.

How, without an intelligence and a mind?

How does gravity work without an intelligence and a mind? How does the Second Law of Thermodynamics work without an intelligence and a mind? All sorts of things work perfectly well without either an intelligence or a mind. Does a cold virus work? Does it have an intelligence and a mind? You are assuming that there is a requirement when no such requirement exists.

rossum

 

[rossum]

The best anyone can do to explain the beginning of the space of the universe is to quote “Singularity,” which claims that the universe came from a single timespace event of infinite mass and zero volume.

That may have been the best a few years ago. However, now cosmologists are looking at what came before the Big Bang, trying to work out its causes. See The Myth of the Beginning of Time for an overview of some of the work in this area.

yet this is apparently where the mathematical formulae took cosmologists.

And that is one of the issues with your post. The formulae of General Relativity do indeed lead to a singularity, which is one of the reasons that we know that the formulae of General Relativity are incorrect on quantum scales. Einstein’s theory is excellent at large scales but it is not a quantum theory so it breaks down at very small scales. Currently scientists are looking for a theory of Quantum Gravity to replace GR. It is likely that the singularity that appears in the GR equations will not appear in the QG equations – the presence of a singularity usually indicates a fault in the theory.

**Or, **they claim that “we just haven’t learned it yet,” which we know is false, because if time and space had a beginning, then a Supreme Being outside the realms of time and space must be the REASON that time and space had a beginning.

Beware of trying to fit your God into a gap in scientific knowledge. Science is always working to close gaps so all such a God can do is to get smaller. There was once a gap in knowledge about how thunder and lightning were caused, and that gap was filled by gods like Thor and Zeus. Now that the gap has been closed, look what has happened to Thor and Zeus.

“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we do not know; God wants us to realize his presence, not in unsolved problems but in those that are solved.”

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer

rossum

 

[ManOnFire]

That may have been the best a few years ago. However, now cosmologists are looking at what came before the Big Bang, trying to work out its causes. See The Myth of the Beginning of Time for an overview of some of the work in this area.

Let’s call the new pre-Big Bang-theory as Theory A. One of the points of my post is that, without God, there is no logical reason to discount actual infinity of time and space. (I’m not trying to rationalize religion. I was faithful before I could reason science.) If actual infinity of time and space exists, then Theory A will be followed by Theories B,C,D, etc. INFINITELY by the next generation of scientists, each proclaiming to be smarter than the last. Each goes a little farther out on the time/space line, incapable of reaching the end since there is no end. So, you, arriving on the scene and proclaiming your intellectual superiority to me is a joke. There is no honor in claiming to be one nano-step closer to the Ultimate Truth since the Ultimate Truth is unknowable if God doesn’t exist. Your proclaiming your intellectual superiority to me is doubly a joke when your tag line claims “The ultimate truth is that there is no Ultimate Truth.” If the Ultimate Truth is unknowable, then you can’t say with certainty if you are one step closer than me.

And that is one of the issues with your post. The formulae of General Relativity do indeed lead to a singularity, which is one of the reasons that we know that the formulae of General Relativity are incorrect on quantum scales. Einstein’s theory is excellent at large scales but it is not a quantum theory so it breaks down at very small scales. Currently scientists are looking for a theory of Quantum Gravity to replace GR. It is likely that the singularity that appears in the GR equations will not appear in the QG equations – the presence of a singularity usually indicates a fault in the theory.

Beware of trying to fit your God into a gap in scientific knowledge. Science is always working to close gaps so all such a God can do is to get smaller. There was once a gap in knowledge about how thunder and lightning were caused, and that gap was filled by gods like Thor and Zeus. Now that the gap has been closed, look what has happened to Thor and Zeus.

“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we do not know; God wants us to realize his presence, not in unsolved problems but in those that are solved.”

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer

rossum

 

[Douglas_Kraeger]

You are free to believe what you want. … He is no longer causing now. God does different things at different times so God is changing. That is the definition of change.
That is your definition. Does that prove that God changes?
As seen by man, God does do one thing, then another… Do you make the explicit claim that because man sees change, therefore God can not be outside of time, doing all things at once, eternally?
Perhaps the analogy of thinking of God as looking at a painting of all creation, (including all times) will help you see my position more accurately. In this analogy, God sees each point of space and time in His mind as a snapshot, along with each of His actions inevery part of the picture. We see one instant of time, then the next… One part of the picture, then another part, then another part, only one part of the picture at once, even though thewhole picture is there, being seen by God. But God sees, ‘now’, always, THE WHOLE PICTURE, exactly what He is doing all the way to the end of time, even though to us, that time does not exist yet. Also, since God is present in every point of space and time in His infinite totality, and also present in Jesus Christ in His infinite totality, and all space and time maintain their existence in God (Jesus Christ) all space and time “existed” in Jersus Christ as He walked around Judea. Since Jesus Christ was and is True God and True man, and therefore infinite, the people that saw Him walk and talk and grow did not see all that there was to see. Just as we do not see the infinite glory of God all around us at this time.
You keep repreating that we see change in what God is doing, and therefore this proves that God is changing. Your repeating this mantra does not prove it any more than my stating that God is outside of time and space, doing everything He does eternally, always; does not prove that this is the way it is.
My question was: Are you saying that it is impossible for God to be outside of time and space, doing all He does in the present tense, all at ‘once’ always? Not possible?

Can you see God making Dodos now? Can you prove it? What God did in the past is different from what God is doing now. That is change by any rational definition of change.

THIS IS CHANGE AS SEEN BY MEN. DOES THAT DISPROVE my idea THAT WE DO NOT SEE THE WHOLE PICTURE FROM THE ANALOGY ABOVE?
All faiths are an attempt to explain the reasons for existence and the reasons why man should do one thing and not another. All faiths are beleivable only to the extent that they do not propose to many contradictions to reason. Your belief is that there is no God, yet there is a reason for “good” (although there is no all-powerful source for determining good vs. bad, everything is subjective) behaviour. There is something (karma) that for some reason, rewards good behaviour and punishes bad behaviour, without thinking. What is it you propose as an explanation for karma, that boils down to anything more than, “it is magic”?

Yes. I am Buddhist so I believe Buddhist scriptures. You are Christian so you believe Christian scriptures. There is as much evidence for my position about gods as there is for yours – both of us are basing ourselves on our respective scriptures.

If you want proof then I have already referred you to a source: the Visuddhimagga, Chapter 13. If you do not want proof then stop asking for it.
This is not proof in that it can be verified. Just as the buddha’s claims about there being no God can not be a proof, only an unsustantiable claim. Correct?

How does gravity work without an intelligence and a mind? How does the Second Law of Thermodynamics work without an intelligence and a mind? All sorts of things work perfectly well without either an intelligence or a mind. Does a cold virus work? Does it have an intelligence and a mind? You are assuming that there is a requirement when no such requirement exists.
Apparantly, You are assuming that there is no need for a mind in order to know what each person intended at each point of their life (even if they have forgotten everything) and you do not propose any explanation on how karma could work without an intelligence capable of understanding intentions and capable of truly knowing all the details of the whole life. I say that seems contradictory or implausible as an explanation for why we should do one thing and why we should not do another. You say there is no cause for existence, it just is. That this karma does not have an intelligence to know things, seems to make it hard for karma to nknow my intentions. Doyou understand this?
You said above, “You are assuming that there is a requirement when no such requirement exists.” How can you prove no requirement exists for an intelligence in order for karma to be able to know every detail of every person’s life and intentions, ?

rossum

 

[rossum]

Does that prove that God changes?

Yes, by all normal definitions of change. We have agreed that God may be faarnstatic in the fifth dimension but in the time dimension He changes. You agree that God died on the cross. Is God dead now? Are you worshipping a dead God each Sunday? The whole point of the resurrection is that God changed from being dead to being alive. If God cannot change then there was no resurrection.

My question was: Are you saying that it is impossible for God to be outside of time and space, doing all He does in the present tense, all at ‘once’ always? Not possible?

Yes, it is not possible. You use the words “present tense”. That means you are inside time – look at the definition of ‘present tense’ if you doubt me. If God is outside time then you cannot use an expression like ‘present tense’ since that only applies inside time and not outside it. The same applies to the word ‘always’. Can you define ‘always’ without using the word ‘time’ or a synonym?

You are trying to move God outside time yet using words that only have a meaning inside time. That is philosophically nonsense; if you are outside time then you cannot use any time based words. Conversely, if you want to use those time based words then you must be talking about inside time. One or the other, not both.

everything is subjective

WHY DO YOU NOT LISTEN TO WHAT I AM SAYING! Sorry to shout, but I have repeatedly said that although I do not accept an absolute morality I do accept an objective morality. If you do not listen to what I am saying then this discussion will not progress very far but will continue to go over old ground.

This is not proof in that it can be verified.

Did you actually bother to read Chapter 13 of the Visuddhimagga? Here is my paraphrase of the start of Chapter 13:If you want to remember your previous lives then go and sit down in a quiet place and meditate in this way …
What follows are detailed instructions on what stages of meditation to enter and precisely how to remember your previous lives. Have you followed those instructions? Have you determined for yourself that they do not work? Have you remembered back to your birth and earlier and found nothing? I cannot remember your past for you, any more than you can remember my past for me. You do not have to go and look for your own proof, but do not claim that I have not told you where to find it. If you want to verify it then go and do so, nobody is stopping you.

You are assuming that there is no need for a mind in order to know what each person intended at each point of their life

There is a mind, our own mind. Karma does not need a mind because it merely piggy-backs on our own mind. At the time we are acting we are aware of our own motives. Our accumulated karma is not the same as our memory; we may forget things but the karma is still there. In some bars the waiters leave a piece of paper on your table and update it whenever you order something. When you want the bill they total up what is on the paper. They do not have to remember what you ordered, it is all written on the piece of paper for them. Karma uses your own mind to update your individual record for every conscious action you take. At any time it can total what is on the record. Our karmic record (samskāra) is one of the five constituents of a human being.

rossum

 

[rossum]

It would help if you could use the quote feature to separate your words from mine.

Let’s call the new pre-Big Bang-theory as Theory A. One of the points of my post is that, without God, there is no logical reason to discount actual infinity of time and space. (I’m not trying to rationalize religion. I was faithful before I could reason science.) If actual infinity of time and space exists, then Theory A will be followed by Theories B,C,D, etc. INFINITELY by the next generation of scientists, each proclaiming to be smarter than the last.

That is the nature of science. All theories are provisional and open to alteration or replacement. Aristotle’s Theory of Gravity was replaced by Newton’s Theory. Newton’s Theory was replaced by Einstein’s General Relativity. Einstein’s GR will be replaced by Quantum Gravity once scientists have finished their work on developing it. No scientific theory is ever final.

Your proclaiming your intellectual superiority to me is doubly a joke when your tag line claims “The ultimate truth is that there is no Ultimate Truth.” If the Ultimate Truth is unknowable, then you can’t say with certainty if you are one step closer than me.

You are not the first person to notice my sig. The original source of my sig is Mark Siderits, “Thinking on Empty: Madhyamika Anti-Realism and Canons of Rationality” in S Biderman and B.A. Schaufstein, eds, Rationality In Question (1989). Dordrecht: Brill.

I have not read Siderits but saw the quote in a piece on Nagarjuna. The “Madhyamika” in Siderits’ title refers to the religious and philosophical school of Buddhism that Nagarjuna founded. I have seen the same quote again in other places in reference to the Madhyamika and Nagarjuna - it seems quite popular. The quote is intentionally paradoxical; paradox is necessary to remind us that words are insufficient when trying to describe the fundamental nature of reality.

For a philosophical discussion of Nagarjuna and reality see the web article Nagarjuna and the Limits of Thought. The Siderits quote is at the end of section four of the article:
There is, then, no escape. Nagarjuna’s view is contradictory. The contradiction is, clearly a paradox of expressibility. Nagarjuna succeeds in saying the unsayable, just as much as the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus. We can think (and characterize) reality only subject to language, which is conventional, so the ontology of that reality is all conventional. It follows that the conventional objects of reality do not ultimately (non-conventionally) exist. It also follows that nothing we say of them is ultimately true. That is, all things are empty of ultimate existence; and this is their ultimate nature, and is an ultimate truth about them. They hence cannot be thought to have that nature; nor can we say that they do. But we have just done so. As Mark Siderits (1989) has put it, “the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth.”

rossum

 

[jmcrae]

Yes, by all normal definitions of change. We have agreed that God may be faarnstatic in the fifth dimension but in the time dimension He changes. You agree that God died on the cross. Is God dead now? Are you worshipping a dead God each Sunday? The whole point of the resurrection is that God changed from being dead to being alive. If God cannot change then there was no resurrection.

We already have a word for that - it’s “eternal.” Eternity is not “a really long time,” but rather, it is the absence of time.

God lives in Eternity. God does not experience the passage of time. Everything God did, does, or will do, is all occurring in Eternity. We might conceptualize it as “an instant” of time, but even that is wrong. I don’t think it’s possible to describe what Eternity is, other than simply to say, it is the absence of the passage of time. Things do not occur in sequence, in Eternity - they just “always” are.

When we arrive in Eternity, after we die, and leave this world, we will find that we “have always” been there, because in Eternity, there is no “before” or “after.”

 

[rossum]

God lives in Eternity.

God lived. God died for three days. God rose from the dead. Is God alive in Eternity or is God dead in Eternity?

We might conceptualize it as “an instant” of time, but even that is wrong. I don’t think it’s possible to describe what Eternity is, other than simply to say, it is the absence of the passage of time.

In that case it is incorrect to say “God changes” and it is equally incorrect to say “God does not change”. Any word related to time cannot be used to describe God.

Things do not occur in sequence, in Eternity - they just “always” are.

Please define ‘always’ without using the word “time” or one of its synonyms.

As soon as you enter a timeless Eternity you have to drop a part of the English language, that part dependent on time. You have to be very careful about precisely what words you use.

rossum

 

[jmcrae]

God lived. God died for three days. God rose from the dead. Is God alive in Eternity or is God dead in Eternity?

In that case it is incorrect to say “God changes” and it is equally incorrect to say “God does not change”. Any word related to time cannot be used to describe God.

Please define ‘always’ without using the word “time” or one of its synonyms.

As soon as you enter a timeless Eternity you have to drop a part of the English language, that part dependent on time. You have to be very careful about precisely what words you use.

rossum

Hence, the quote marks. Eternity isn’t something we’re going to understand very well, from this side.

 

[rossum]

Hence, the quote marks. Eternity isn’t something we’re going to understand very well, from this side.

We can agree on that.

rossum

 

[grannymh]

God lived. God died for three days. God rose from the dead. Is God alive in Eternity or is God dead in Eternity?

To answer your question. As a supernatural spirit, God is alive wherever He exists.

Catholics believe that God is three Persons in one spiritual nature, i.e., the Blessed Trinity. The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, Jesus Christ also shares human nature.

It is the Second Person, Jesus Christ, Who lived on earth as a human being. I am totally amazed at the mystery that the one Person Jesus Christ’s human nature could be susceptible to death, but it was. At the same time, because Jesus Christ is Divine, He could raise up the human body, known as the Resurrection.

Personally, I look at the meaning of Jesus Christ, true God and true man, in regard to mankind. And I am totally grateful for His presence even though I don’t understand it totally.

Blessings,
granny

The human person is worthy of profound respect from the moment of conception.

 

[grannymh]

In that case it is incorrect to say “God changes” and it is equally incorrect to say “God does not change”. Any word related to time cannot be used to describe God.

“Any word related to time cannot be used to describe God.” That is a new thought to me. I wonder since humans are doing the describing, should the word accurately be added to that statement?

Blessings,
granny

Human life is meant for eternal life.

 

[Douglas_Kraeger]

If God cannot change then there was no resurrection.

That God (Jesus Christ) died and rose from the dead at one point of space and time is no different than at another point of space and time God opened the red sea, or gave moses the two stone tablets, or made dodos. Man sees each point sequentially, God sees all of them, all the ‘time’, eternally. That we see them sequentially does not prove that God does not see them eternally. Does it???

Yes, it is not possible.

It would help me understand what you are saying if you coulduse as much ofmy question as possiblein your answer. A simple yes does not tell mewhich question you are referringto. Thank you. I believe your answer above was supposed to be to my question “Does that prove it is impossible for God to be outside of time, doing everything at once, always?” If I am correct and you are saying itis impossible, please try to provide areason why it is impossible rather than get sidelined with problems of the english language when dealing with God?

You are trying to move God outside time yet using words that only have a meaning inside time. That is philosophically nonsense; if you are outside time then you cannot use any time based words. Conversely, if you want to use those time based words then you must be talking about inside time. One or the other, not both.

I do not accept an absolute morality I do accept an objective morality. If you do not listen to what I am saying then this discussion will not progress very far but will continue to go over old ground.
I HAVE BEEN LISTENING. I keep asking (I think 4 times so far) how you start with a number of subjective opinions and comeup with a truly objective morallity. Would it do any good if I shouted louder? (used bigger font) You seem to be unabletoaddress this question.

Did you actually bother to read Chapter 13 of the Visuddhimagga?
This not a proof. If I try it for so long and do not remember any previous lives, all you have to say is I was not doing it correctly. I know there are objective moral should’s and should not’s. And I know that there can be no truly objective moral order without something bigger than men and women to so ordain that order. What is the originator of your objective moral order?

There is a mind, our own mind. Our karmic record (samskāra) is one of the five constituents of a human being.
That we have a record of what our all of our intentions have been throughout our lives is an interesting theory, which can not be proved or disproved. Correct? But, if karma decides where to send us, then it behaves as if it had a mind that can decide, choose from the many possibilities. If it does not decide, it merely does, like a computer program, who or what programed it and made the decision, (in thebeginning) as to what rule karma should follow under which circumstances?

again, how do you start with subjective opinions and get to a truly objective morallity???
rossum