What is God?

[Moonstruck888]

That is only a difference of happenstance, not of quality or definition.

Oh, that’s good… Can you back it up?

We do not at present have the necessary senses to observe God. He can, we believe, be sensed by those who have the necessary ability (Angels, saints, etc.). As for our not being able to observe Him currently, we could just as conceivably have lacked the senses needed to sense matter, and could have just been blind consciousness, with our bodies doing what we needed to survive mechanically without our minds sensing any of it at all. Matter would still exist, in such a reality. If we posited that it did not, we would quite frankly be dead wrong. Thus the difference you point out is circumstantial, not definitive.

Blessings in Christ,
KindredSoul

You do realise that until we do have the necessary senses it is our intellectual duty to suspend belief?

 

[Stylites]

None of us have seen God . . .

A truer statement would be “Most of us have not seen God . . .”

.

 

[Moonstruck888]

Where is this supposed ‘admission’ of mine?

Here

“God is infinite, and hence is beyond all definition.”

I described Reality, and anyone is free to disagree with Reality if they want to, but are not free to misquote without challenge nor lie with impunity about what others have said.

It’s not a question of disagreement with reality. Your description of reality is invalid. There is no sound reasoning behind it. There is no observation behind it. As I said, it’s not even wrong, it’s just a complete and utter non sequitir.

 

[tonyrey]

How can a mindless automaton be self-motivating?

Don’t you equate the mind with the brain? Aren’t you a materialist?

repeat:

“I am a self motivating automaton constructed from protein, water and electrolyes, based on information contained in a self replicating nucleic acid molecule, a transitional phase in a nested cascade.”

I’m pleased you are emphasizing your materialism which excludes free will, value and purpose from life.

Your kind of verification is worthless because it does not do justice to the reality of being a person with consciousness, free will, a conscience, an awareness of beauty and a capacity for love… No wonder you don’t believe in God. You don’t even believe in yourself!

That is an unsubstantiated sentimental personal opinion based on an unwarranted assumption.

It is a fact substantiated by your definition of yourself as an automaton. As I have pointed out, it doesn’t makes sense to regard a biological machine as self-motivating. Machines have neither a self nor motives!

 

[Moonstruck888]

A truer statement would be “Most of us have not seen God . . .”

He’s quite correct. No one has ever managed to demonstrate that they’ve seen God. Those who claim they have rely on those of us with enough blind credulity to take their word for it.

 

[GaryTaylor]

If you believe in Science than you believe in Theory. All in theory isn’t based on fact?

 

[KindredSoul]

Oh, that’s good… Can you back it up?

Can you back up the contrary?

You do realise that until we do have the necessary senses it is our intellectual duty to suspend belief?

By, perhaps, an arbitrary strict empiricist standard. In the objective sense, no such duty is demonstrable.

Blessings in Christ,
KindredSoul

 

[Stylites]

You do realise that until we do have the necessary senses it is our intellectual duty to suspend belief?

Likewise, until you can attest that there is no God then the intellectually-honest thing to say is “I don’t know” rather than dishonestly saying “I know God doesn’t exist,” or even renouncing the atheist creed which says “I believe that God doesn’t exit.”

Those who believe in God even though they haven’t seen are truly blessed, and as the spirit is higher than the intellect they are under no obligation to suspend belief without intellectual proof.

.

 

[Moonstruck888]

Don’t you equate the mind with the brain?

Yes. However there may be other complex forms that can give rise to mind.

Aren’t you a materialist?

I wouldn’t describe myself that way. I would rather say that the jury is still out on that as far as I’m concerned.

I’m pleased you are emphasizing your materialism which excludes free will, value and purpose from life.

From now on, I am going to ignore this kind of silliness…

It is a fact substantiated by your definition of yourself as an automaton. As I have pointed out, it doesn’t makes sense to regard a biological machine as self-motivating. Machines have neither a self nor motives!

By automaton, I mean that I can operate under my own volition, nothing more.

 

[Moonstruck888]

Likewise, until you can attest that there is no God then the intellectually-honest thing to say is “I don’t know” rather than dishonestly saying “I know God doesn’t exist,” or even renouncing the atheist creed which says “I believe that God doesn’t exit.”

Those who believe in God even though they haven’t seen are truly blessed, and as the spirit is higher than the intellect they are under no obligation to suspend belief without intellectual proof.

.

I have stated numerous times on this forum that I don’t know how the Universe got here. I am intellectually honest, or at least I try to be…

I assume you don’t believe that people become ill because Shigidi possesses them, or that bad weather occurs because Thor is busy with Mjolnir?

I see no reason to give your God special dispensation from skepticism…

 

[Stylites]

He’s quite correct. No one has ever managed to demonstrate that they’ve seen God. Those who claim they have rely on those of us with enough blind credulity to take their word for it.

Ah, but the proof is available to all honest seekers. Perhaps you’ve never seen the ocean, or the Gobi desert. Perhaps you are credulous and take it on faith that such things exist, or perhaps you’d rather do the hard work of proving it to yourself by going to see for yourself. The choice entirely belongs to the honest seeker.

.

 

[Stylites]

I have stated numerous times on this forum that I don’t know how the Universe got here. I am intellectually honest, or at least I try to be…

I assume you don’t believe that people become ill because Shigidi possesses them, or that bad weather occurs because Thor is busy with Mjolnir?

I see no reason to give your God special dispensation from skepticism…

Sorry, I thought the topic was the Creator, not creation.

.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

I hate the term “your God”. There is no “your God”. God is the God of everybody. Muslims, Jews, and Christians acknowledge His existence. To a certain extent, so do Hindus. Whether or not other people BELIEVE in God is irrelevant if He actually exists.

Here’s an answer: God is the Greatest Conceivable Being.

 

[Moonstruck888]

Sorry, I thought the topic was the Creator, not creation.

.

Which Creator? Do you believe in all of them?

 

[GaryTaylor]

Through physics and electricity theres pretty good evidence that Spirits can manipulate Energy and manifest. We have seen this in many forms including the appearences of beings that assume the manifestation of a human being? And they can manipulate energy and speak through simple electronics.

My point is that from this point its not difficult to realize that supreme beings do exist, thus God.

Of course this is from a different perspective than Faith. But its not a far stretch. We move closer daily through science. I believe it safe to say that you will see this come to its fruition.

 

[Moonstruck888]

I hate the term “your God”. There is no “your God”. God is the God of everybody. Muslims, Jews, and Christians acknowledge His existence. To a certain extent, so do Hindus. Whether or not other people BELIEVE in God is irrelevant if He actually exists.

Here’s an answer: God is the Greatest Conceivable Being.

He’s not my God.

 

[Moonstruck888]

Ah, but the proof is available to all honest seekers. Perhaps you’ve never seen the ocean, or the Gobi desert. Perhaps you are credulous and take it on faith that such things exist, or perhaps you’d rather do the hard work of proving it to yourself by going to see for yourself. The choice entirely belongs to the honest seeker.

.

I have seen the Ocean, and I can go and see the Gobi desert anytime I choose. There is evidence to back up the existence of these things… People can show me photos of them, locate them on maps for me, give me the information I need to see them for myself.

 

[Moonstruck888]

Through physics and electricity theres pretty good evidence that Spirits can manipulate Energy and manifest. We have seen this in many forms including the appearences of beings that assume the manifestation of a human being? And they can manipulate energy and speak through simple electronics.

I’ve yet to see any compelling evidence of that.

 

[tonyrey]

However there may be other complex forms that can give rise to mind.

A loophole!

I wouldn’t describe myself that way. I would rather say that the jury is still out on that as far as I’m concerned

Another loophole!

By automaton, I mean that I can operate under my own volition, nothing more.

You are distorting the meaning then.

From now on, I am going to ignore this kind of silliness…

From now on, I am going to ignore your posts altogether…

 

[Shawn_Ravenfire]

lemondiesel is pointing out that consciousness of something is not necessary for something to exist, unless a radical experientialist wants to try to claim that the universe ceases to exist each time he or she falls into a deep sleep.

.

There is a branch of philosophy that holds that very opinion. Deepak Chopra basically takes the position that things only exist so long as there is at least one person concously observing them. Albert Einstein rejected this position.

Some philosopher (I forget who it was), suggested that God counts as an observer. And so, if a tree falls in the forest, and no human is around to hear it, it still makes a sound, because God is there to hear it. And if God is not aware of the tree, then the tree can’t be there.

Schrodinger’s famous paradox was that if there’s a fifty-fifty chance of a cat dying in a box, then the cat is both dead and alive simultaneously, until someone opens the box and observes the cat. (Of course, one of the popular arguments against this scenario, is that the cat is observing itself.) Some of the modern proponents of M-theory have suggested that the cat is both alive and dead in separate parallel universes. When the observer opens the box, then the observer is existing in both universes as well. The disagreement is as to whether the observer spilt into two alternate realities at the moment the cat died or did not die, or not until he opened the box to look inside. If the former is the case, then it means that the universe around us is in a constant state of being split into infinite realites, re-merging together as each of us observes our immediate surroundings, and creating transiet realities which exist only relative to ourselves. A very untidy universe, which gives me a brain-ache just to think about it.