Who am I? Why am I here?

[reen12]

quote: Anonymous_1

…and what I hold to be irrefutable proof, the deductive reasoning of St. Thomas Aquainas…

and

quote: Anonymous_1

faith is a gift of grace…
thus why i hold you can not argue someone into it…thus why I will pray for ya’ll

I’m glad to hear that you will rely on prayer, because
relying on “deductive reasoning”…courtesy of
St. Thomas… isn’t going to ‘bring home the bacon’ in
the give and take of world of ideas, I fear. :tiphat:
“Irrefutable” proof? :ehh:

Not to mention the fact that it was my grandmother…
with very little schooling - who influenced her granddaughter…
chock full of “reasoning” power…[degree in philosophy etc.]
For you see, she would put aside her Agatha Christie novel,
and I would find her napping…her rosary in her hand, her
glasses atilt on her nose…and somehow the “deductive”
enterprise - that I was engaged in - seemed to pale…
in comparison to her faith.

If it were maintained that Aquinas provided logical
sequences - by which faith can be seen to be not “illogical” -
I could go with that.

But “irrefutable proof” ?

I…don’t…*think…*so.

cf. my post, this thread, # 84.

[And, before we get too settled on “irrefutable” - a
quick tour of the Square of Oppositon might be
be of interest.]

plato.stanford.edu/entries/square/

quote: Anonymous_1

…thus why i hold you can not argue someone into it…

Glad to hear it!

[BTW, you might check my “signature” line, below.]

Best wishes,

reen12

 

[EnterTheBowser]

Lapsed:

…

Where Pascal’s Wager actually fails is if when we die we find out Sally was in charge all along, in which case we all lose. Pascal’s wager only functions in an either/or environment, which was more or less the case in Pascal’s culture when he formulated his wager.

…

I agree with you - the Wager does rest on the unwarrranted assumption that the only possible positions are “The Christian God exists” and “the Christian God does not exist.” Remove that assumption and the argument goes haywire.

 

[RyanL]

EnterTheBowser:

I think that if there is, in fact, other evidence for the existence of the Christian God, then Pascal’s Wager is not important. More importantly, the Wager is so constructed that the “probability” of God’s existence is not actually important. So long as it is some positive number the argument works - since we’ve got infinites in the rewards table.

We can deal with this more when you start your PW thread. Suffice it to say that this is not really good logic - the probability goes to which God you put into the wager, not the wager itself.

God Bless,
RyanL

 

[Philthy]

PLP:

Who am I? Why am I here?*

Hi PLP-

This thread seems to be wandering aimlessly without a specific destination. If I am mistaken, please pardon my ignorance. My guess is that you want to discuss the reasonableness of believing in a being separate from our natural world - hereafter referred to as God. The two questions you posed above are exactly the questions that you need to address in your search. In addition, Im going to go out on a limb a bit and say that the answer to them is the strongest indication(not a formal proof) for the existence of God as well. But before we can answer them, we need to address a precurser to their answers: What am I? That question seems simple but it holds the key, I think, to a fairly strong argument in favor of God.
So, what are we? The Catholic answer is that we are human beings, created in the “image and likeness of God” in a manner unlike all other creation. When you reflect on all the attributes of the human being and humanity as a whole - particularly in relation to ALL other life forms - I think it is quite revealing. There are essential differences which are undeniable. The origins of these essential differences as being explained exclusively through evolution are not particularly convincing to me. For example - uniquely human terms and concepts like “I also believe I have an ethical duty to seek the truth.” Think about that statement and tell me how that arose from nature. It seems very unnatural to me. Im sure you disagree, but I would be interested in hearing your explanations and then considering how much they “prove” your position. From there we can “decide which argument is most reasonable”: nature explains humanity; nature potentially explains humanity but we haven’t figured out how yet; nature does not explain humanity and the concept of a God remains intact.

Phil

 

[RyanL]

PLP:

Assuming that I do have a free will choice about whether to believe in God, and assuming that having the ability to make a free will choice about belief is the highest good, then why would a God punish me for exercising this free will?

Freedom should never be confused with license.

So all you need to do is declare the subject a matter of faith without objective proof and you’re done. If you feel that satisfying the request for argument or evidence is unethical, then you’re under no compulsion to do so.

This is not my position, and I sort of expected you to realize that by now. Your are constructing a straw man. Please re-read my post and take note of the word “incontrovertible”. There is evidence and there are proofs, but none that I’m aware of are incontrovertible. Furthermore, I believe I was writing that to ETB (as your position seems far more reasonable, having already stated that such a position is illogical / impractical).

God Bless,
RyanL

 

[EnterTheBowser]

Anonymous_1:

do you mean evolution in the neo darwinistic sense of unguided natural processes or do you mean evolution in the sense of a mechanism in palce under the guidance of a Creator to bring about the diversity and complxity of life and existence as we know it?

I mean that variation and natural selection are sufficient to explain the diversity of life on Earth.

the efficacy, order and the sheer amount of data encoded in DNA is far superior to our best programming language, and I repeat the assertion that if SETI was to pick up a stream of data equitable to that found in DNA there would be no question: the source of this data was some intelligent life

Interestingly enough they would not. Were we to pick up such a signal, we would probably think that it was noise. SETI does not look for heavily encoded information - without the proper method for decoding it, it simply appears to be noise. SETI looks for unnaturally regular signals - ones which would have almost no “information” whatsoever. This is why pulsars got everyone buzzing for a while - they appeared to be unnaturally regular.

I believe in a inductive sense that the evidence supports the proposal that it is more probable that existence is the result of purposeful creative wisdom of an omnipotent Creator than that of sheer accident.

In a deductive sense, take Aquainas’s five proofs as solid reason for believing int he existence of a Creator…what is really awesome when you take His deductive reasoning in light of the latest scientific evidence , and here

I know people will want to start arguing about oscillating universes and so on, but I believe no matter how we put it, existence needs to be accounted for.

…

I’ll go look at Aquinas when I get the time; and regarding the Big Bang - I’m sure PLP will start up that first cause thread one of these days, and I’ll comment on that there.

 

[RyanL]

Sparetherod:

What if Pat Robertson or even Aquinas had written our Constitution? I realize most believers here would consider themselves too moderate to allow such a thing to happen, but moderates are precisely the reason that extremist have a leg to stand on

1. Pat Robertson is not the intellectual equal of Thomas Aquinas. It’s like saying that Einstein is the intellectual equal of Bill Nye the Science Guy.
2. Thomas Aquinas was not, by the secular definition, an “extremist”. He was a brilliant theologian and scholar.
3. Equating these two people on a Catholic forum makes you lose credibility as an honest participant. You are starting to paint yourself as someone who is contemptuous of anyone who believes in Christ.

…and it does allow retribution against sinners and infidels of all sorts.

Depends on how you want to proof-text.

This inescapable tendancy to clash with the infidel is the inherent danger in religion that has gone way past the golden rule. Religion served a societal purpose when we where homogenous, but will be a constant source of strife in the secular world.

It is only dangerous if religion is wrong; otherwise, it is an inherrent good. Let’s swap shoes, for a second, and talk about the Atheist Inquisition. Much like historic Christendom, modern Secular-dom hunts down those who would teach contrary to their dogmas of science. People will soon be jailed for teaching creationism in schools, the modern equivalent of burning at the stake. When truth is denied, those in power are empowered to take action to suppress the teaching of error. If belief in God is true, it should not be condemned when action is taken to suppress the teaching of error by infidels any more than it should currently be condemned when retributive action is taken against public-school-teachers-of-creationism.

Sorry, but the insinuation that I am at fault for not believing, peeves me.

You are not at fault unless you are obstinately denying right-thinking out of pride or arrogance. Then you would be at fault. How you feel about it is irrelevant, and the same would apply to me.

God Bless,
RyanL

 

[Philthy]

EnterTheBowser:

I mean that variation and natural selection are sufficient to explain the diversity of life on Earth.

Hi ETB -

I don’t mean to be rude by jumping in here, but this is a very broad statement. There are many elements of “life”. If you take a minute to read my previous post to PLP you’ll see that I believe that in the search for an “unnatural entity” (ie, God) that WE are the most compelling evidence. Apart from any physical considerations, there is much about us that seems distinctly unnatural and therefore not sufficiently explained by “variability and natural selection”. PLP’s contention that “I also believe I have an ethical duty to seek the truth.” is a reasonable example. Such a statement seems highly unnatural to me and I find very little evidence in nature to support it’s existence. I would be interested in hearing how justice, ethics and the concept of truth derive from nature and more specifically how one would “sense” a moral responsibility from a natural force. Do you have an example of a creature, apart from human interaction, which has ever demonstrated any of these traits?

Phil

 

[reen12]

A perspective, on the 'proof" of G-d’s existence, from a Judaic
source:

chabad.org/magazine/article.asp?AID=335581

reen12 :tiphat:

 

[Maranatha]

Lapsed:

I’m forced to agree with the atheists that Pascal’s Wager doesn’t work. It’s a good thing my faith isn’t dependent on such twists of logic.

Here’s another thiest that agrees with you. It’s not an argument for God’s exsistence.

 

[Maranatha]

Sparetherod:

…to the point of making the results useless.

This certainty, with the follow up that others are guilty in their ignorance…and then dangerous, is precisely how Aquinas justified frying a few people a while back. Do not tell me it couldn’t happen again. What if Pat Robertson or even Aquinas had written our Constitution? I realize most believers here would consider themselves too moderate to allow such a thing to happen, but moderates are precisely the reason that extremist have a leg to stand on…you, the majority, essentially validate their belief in the Bible…and they have read it…and it does allow retribution against sinners and infidels of all sorts. Or was Aquinas insane? I do not know how secular societies will remain free if this is not rejected, and I do not know how, in a world of WMDs, we will survive the clash of religious beliefs that are mutually incompatible. Secularists like the founding fathers knew this. (many quotes if you’re interested) This inescapable tendancy to clash with the infidel is the inherent danger in religion that has gone way past the golden rule. Religion served a societal purpose when we where homogenous, but will be a constant source of strife in the secular world.

Sorry, but the insinuation that I am at fault for not believing, peeves me.

As Aquinas, I believe capital punishment is valid when there is no other way to protect society.

Secular governments, i.e. since the times of our revolution, have committed far worse wars and crimes then religious governments of the past.

Atheist governments have committed even worse crimes, such as genocide, then even the secular governments.

 

[EnterTheBowser]

reen12:

A perspective, on the 'proof" of G-d’s existence, from a Judaic
source:

chabad.org/magazine/article.asp?AID=335581

reen12 :tiphat:

As an atheist, I think there is a definite distinction between acknowledging that God exists and deciding to love and serve God.

 

[EnterTheBowser]

Philthy:

Hi ETB -

I don’t mean to be rude by jumping in here, but this is a very broad statement. There are many elements of “life”. If you take a minute to read my previous post to PLP you’ll see that I believe that in the search for an “unnatural entity” (ie, God) that WE are the most compelling evidence. Apart from any physical considerations, there is much about us that seems distinctly unnatural and therefore not sufficiently explained by “variability and natural selection”. PLP’s contention that “I also believe I have an ethical duty to seek the truth.” is a reasonable example. Such a statement seems highly unnatural to me and I find very little evidence in nature to support it’s existence. I would be interested in hearing how justice, ethics and the concept of truth derive from nature and more specifically how one would “sense” a moral responsibility from a natural force. Do you have an example of a creature, apart from human interaction, which has ever demonstrated any of these traits?

Phil

Is your question then: how does evolution explain the fact that humans have this weird concept of ethics, and how does it explain that no other animals do?

In response to the first question, humans are social creatures. In order for a group of animals to survive in such a context, there need to be some ground rules which cover behavior. In other words, those social creatures which evolve so that they have a natural inclincation towards, for example, not stealing from, or killing, or lying to other members of the group would have an advantage over an other group of social creatures which do not have these rules.

In response to the second question - the fact that you want explained is false. Chimpanzees, for example, seem to hold to some ethical rules (such as justice). I don’t mean to say that they hold to them in the way humans do, but they do in fact hold to things that appear to be rather like justice.

You might be interested in a book called “The Science of Good and Evil,” by Michael Shermer.

 

[Maranatha]

EnterTheBowser:

As an atheist, I think there is a definite distinction between acknowledging that God exists and deciding to love and serve God.

Yes, unless the whole purpose of existence is to get in to a love affair with God. Are you married? (This is rhetorical and an answer is not expected.) Humans in marriage server each other and promise to put each others needs and wants first.

 

[EnterTheBowser]

Maranatha:

Yes, unless the whole purpose of existence is to get in to a love affair with God. Are you married? (This is rhetorical and an answer is not expected.) Humans in marriage server each other and promise to put each others needs and wants first.

I would maintain that even if a person recognizes that there is such a God, and that God has decreed that one’s whole purpose in life is to love God, she might still not enter into such a relationship. And the article in the link I was originally responding to did not make that distinction.

 

[Mijoy2]

PLP:

Well, I’ve covered most of the direct questions to me. My top two priorities are a thread for First Cause arguments and a thread for Pascal’s wager.

I do need to leave in an hour to pick up my son from the airport, and he’ll be staying with me for a week. So please be patient! I’ll not be able to post as much during the week.

I’m having a terrific time! I hope most of you, both readers and participants, are enjoying these discussions as much as I am.

It’s a bit discourging to see that your top two priorities in terms of further discussion are FC and PW. Both of these (not to undermine the importance), hold risk of dead end discussion. At risk of sounding like a broken record (promise I won’t mention it again ),

I like to think :

Brain (Intellectually): Divine inspiration of the Holy Scripture
Heart (emotionally): Holy Spirit, intuition, love, lives and words of the Saints

to be better issues.

 

[Mijoy2]

Maranatha:

Here’s another thiest that agrees with you. It’s not an argument for God’s exsistence.

I agree also. It is not an argument for God’s existence. However it can be a powerful catalyst in bringing one’s attention to God.

 

[EnterTheBowser]

Mijoy2:

…

Heart (emotionally): Holy Spirit, intuition, love, lives and words of the Saints

…

You might be interested in this: Martin on Craig’s Holy Spirit Epistemology. It’s a notable atheist philosopher critiquing an argument along those lines proposed by a notable theologian. I’m not making the points myself because I merely intend to suggest it as reading, since you seem to be interested in that issue.

 

[Mijoy2]

EnterTheBowser:

You might be interested in this: Martin on Craig’s Holy Spirit Epistemology. It’s a notable atheist philosopher critiquing an argument along those lines proposed by a notable theologian. I’m not making the points myself because I merely intend to suggest it as reading, since you seem to be interested in that issue.

Thanks. I scanned it. I don’t necassarily go along with Craigs’ claim that the atheist has “refused” to accept the Holy Spirit. I suspect that many, if not most atheists (especially those regulars on these forums) are simply seeking a greater knowledge, searching for truth. As we all are. I know that many evangelicals would heartedly dispute this. Especially if the atheist held this position to the grave. Fortunately the Catholic Faith doesn’t require me to hold this postion. As I understand it the Catholic faith requires me to believe that everyone will be judged based on the light they have benn given. And that God, not I, will make this judgement.

 

[Sparetherod]

RyanL Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparetherod
What if Pat Robertson or even Aquinas had written our Constitution? I realize most believers here would consider themselves too moderate to allow such a thing to happen, but moderates are precisely the reason that extremist have a leg to stand on

1. Pat Robertson is not the intellectual equal of Thomas Aquinas. It’s like saying that Einstein is the intellectual equal of Bill Nye the Science Guy.
2. Thomas Aquinas was not, by the secular definition, an “extremist”. He was a brilliant theologian and scholar.
3. Equating these two people on a Catholic forum makes you lose credibility as an honest participant. You are starting to paint yourself as someone who is contemptuous of anyone who believes in Christ.

Quote:
…and it does allow retribution against sinners and infidels of all sorts.

Depends on how you want to proof-text.

I’m sorry if the truth hurts Ryan. My concern is with the faithful of all sorts, and what they’ll do in it’s name…not Catholics, or even christians for that matter. So far Pat only advocated one assasination…Aquinas rationalized thousands of executions…not in my mind a man worthy of adulation. What would you have advised the great man at that time? Are you sure your beliefs would have passed muster?
Maranatha had no problem with it:

As Aquinas, I believe capital punishment is valid when there is no other way to protect society.

Problem is, they weren’t really protecting society were they?

It is only dangerous if religion is wrong; otherwise, it is an inherrent good.

The truth is that all heaven bound religions that say " It’s my way or the highway" validate and breed extremism. The cultural clashes are inevitable. Please comment on this point…it’s too easy to just say " but Catholics wouldn’t do that anymore."
Maranatha again:

Secular governments, i.e. since the times of our revolution, have committed far worse wars and crimes then religious governments of the past.

Atheist governments have committed even worse crimes, such as genocide, then even the secular governments.

As if I’m going to defend any murderous group. And by the way, atheism is a noun, not a philosophy. It is not Nazism or communism or any other irrational philosophy that people kill for. Atheism doesn’t guarantee strife in the world like religions do. Personally, I’m a democratic secular humanist…which gells pretty well with the ideals of this country. It espouses reason and science…just like our country should.
Ryan:

People will soon be jailed for teaching creationism in schools, the modern equivalent of burning at the stake. When truth is denied, those in power are empowered to take action to suppress the teaching of error. If belief in God is true, it should not be condemned when action is taken to suppress the teaching of error by infidels any more than it should currently be condemned when retributive action is taken against public-school-teachers-of-creationism.

If science is preempted by dogma, we are truly sunk, hence my irritating discussion. And “suppress the teaching of error by infidels” is what I’m worried about…so you don’t have any problem with Aquinas’ solution.
And as far as I’m concerned…teach the theory of creationism…“God made us all”…“see you at the final”.
What does that explain?