How Can Anyone Believe in God?

[snex]

Even scientists speculate that there was indeed a flood and they think they have located the ark. But they do not have permission to search the area due to a country's privacy or whatever.

Edit: The area is in Turkey, and they have a satellite feed of it. Well you see the distinct oval shape, the ark is supposedly buried underneath there. But Turkey will not allow excavation for some reason.

http://www.satellite-sightseer.com/id/11056

no, "scientists" do not speculate this. the word you were looking for is "wacko creationist nutjobs with no qualifications." that link of yours is a common formation you can find all over the place in the ararat mountains. try google earth next time kthx. http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH503.html

pro-tip: next time you think you have a clever argument for creationism. search talkorigins.org for it first. 99% odds its already debunked. youll save everybody time and you just might learn something.

 

[Aesir]

Actually, that's only partially correct.

A few cultures within the area have stories about a massive deluge, for instance, it's mentioned in the epic of Gilgamesh.

Global flood... probably not. Devastating, and covered a large swath of land? Probably.

Look it where the first jews were located near the black sea, then look it where the epic of Gilgamesh is located between the Tigris and Euphrates.

The Black sea use to be much larger then it is today, and when it floods it's a a pretty devastating incident. Now Mesopotamia is known for it's flooding after all they're in between two rivers. Now it's not unlikely that their rivers flooded around the same time as the black sea's flood. Which would have appeared like a global flood to primitive man.

Also the Gilgamesh flood story and the Noah flood story aren't very similar at all minus a deluge.

A global flood is impossible, during the time of the flood pyramids were being built stone henge was under construction. Do you mean to tell me these people adapted gills and lived? Of course they didn't. The Polar Ice caps would have been broke up and drifted, they wouldn't have the time to freeze over again, furthermore the ice in Greenland couldn't refreeze given the climate of the time.

Also if noah had one of every animal how come all marsupials are in Australia?
Did noah make a special trip and drop them all off there?


edit: LOL @ Snex, my bad but most marsupials live in Australia actually 90% do. Also just so people don't think it's more then a coincidence that the epic of Gilgamesh and the OT are evidence a great flood could occur. the epic predates noahs story by several centuries. Thus Gilgamesh story came first before the OT, the OT barrows heavily from Babylonian and Egyptian mythology.

 

[snex]

Also if noah had one of every animal how come all marsupials are in Australia?

possums live in north america! therefore god did it.

 

[Chaco]

-sigh- They do not know for a fact, I researched this already. Your quick checks amount to nothing when clearly researched. When they did a scan with a frequency generator, they seemed to have found something of the sort of an internal structure. Then when they further investigated, WITHOUT drilling. So they figured it was a freak of nature and not man made. So when David Fasold made his report he claimed it "absolutely BS". So when others went back they believed that they found the Arzap Drogue Stones, or what was the anchors for the Ark. So after this Fasold kept repeating,

"There is too much going for the Durupınar site for it to be dismissed. I am convinced it is the fossilized remains of Noah's Ark."

So they have not gone back since, due to Turkish law.

 

[snex]

-sigh- They do not know for a fact, I researched this already. Your quick checks amount to nothing when clearly researched. When they did a scan with a frequency generator, they seemed to have found something of the sort of an internal structure. Then when they further investigated, WITHOUT drilling. So they figured it was a freak of nature and not man made. So when David Fasold made his report he claimed it "absolutely BS". So when others went back they believed that they found the Arzap Drogue Stones, or what was the anchors for the Ark. So after this Fasold kept repeating,

"There is too much going for the Durupınar site for it to be dismissed. I am convinced it is the fossilized remains of Noah's Ark."

So they have not gone back since, due to Turkish law.

do you know what a "frequency generator" is? its a fancy word for a dowsing rod. its not a scientific tool and any "findings" you get from one are entirely in your own head. dowsing does not work. ron wyatt was a con-man and even "professional" creationist outfits like answersingenesis and ICR say as much.

 

[adumbrodeus]

Look it where the first jews were located near the black sea, then look it where the epic of Gilgamesh is located between the Tigris and Euphrates.

The Black sea use to be much larger then it is today, and when it floods it's a a pretty devastating incident. Now Mesopotamia is known for it's flooding after all they're in between two rivers. Now it's not unlikely that their rivers flooded around the same time as the black sea's flood. Which would have appeared like a global flood to primitive man.

Also the Gilgamesh flood story and the Noah flood story aren't very similar at all minus a deluge.

A global flood is impossible, during the time of the flood pyramids were being built stone henge was under construction. Do you mean to tell me these people adapted gills and lived? Of course they didn't. The Polar Ice caps would have been broke up and drifted, they wouldn't have the time to freeze over again, furthermore the ice in greenland couldn't refreeze given the climate of the time.

Also if noah had one of every animal how come all marsupials are in Australia?
Did noah make a special trip and drop them all off there?

Which was why I suggested a large relatively local flood, not a global flood.

Again, that's why I said "partially", I have no intention of suggesting that a global flood occured, but a massive flood that was interpreted as global did probably happen. The related mythology is possible, albeit definitely exaggerated. Though, at least part of this probably comes from a different understanding of what the world actually was, at least it's scale.

 

[Aesir]

That wasn't really directed at you, more a less I was putting emphasis that a global flood is impossible. Many cultures have a flood, but this doesn't mean a global flood happens. it's probably a human interpretation of the events happening.

Sumerians had pyramids, so did Mayans and Egyptian. It's just early human reasoning.

 

[Crimson King]

-sigh- They do not know for a fact, I researched this already. Your quick checks amount to nothing when clearly researched. When they did a scan with a frequency generator, they seemed to have found something of the sort of an internal structure. Then when they further investigated, WITHOUT drilling. So they figured it was a freak of nature and not man made. So when David Fasold made his report he claimed it "absolutely BS". So when others went back they believed that they found the Arzap Drogue Stones, or what was the anchors for the Ark. So after this Fasold kept repeating,

"There is too much going for the Durupınar site for it to be dismissed. I am convinced it is the fossilized remains of Noah's Ark."

So they have not gone back since, due to Turkish law.

Wikipedia disagrees.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durupınar_site

After a few expeditions to the Durupınar site that included drillings and excavation in the 1990s, Fasold began to have doubts that the Durupınar formation was Noah's ark. He visited the site in September 1994 with Australian geologist Ian Plimer and concluded that the structure was not a boat. He surmised that ancient peoples had erroneously believed the site was the ark. In 1996 Fasold co-authored a paper with geologist Lorence Collins entitled "Bogus 'Noah's Ark' from Turkey Exposed as a Common Geologic Structure" which concluded that the boat-shaped formation was a curious upwelling of mud that merely resembled a boat. In April 1997, during sworn testimony during an Australian court case, Fasold repeated his doubts and noted that he regarded the claim that Noah's ark had been found as "absolute BS".

Others such as fellow ark researchers Don Patten and David Allen Deal, reported that before his death Fasold returned to a belief that the Durupınar site might be the location of the ark. His close Australian friend and biographer June Dawes wrote:

He [Fasold] kept repeating that no matter what the experts said, there was too much going for the [Durupınar] site for it to be dismissed. He remained convinced it was the fossilized remains of Noah's Ark.

Until his death he believed it was false, then a friend claims he changed his mind... sounds like Darwin's false repentance to me.

If you actually read that article, none of those "scientists" aren't creationists.

So, let's pretend that those rocks are an ark. How did Black people, Chinese people, Russians, Samoans, Hawaiis, Mexicans, Japanese, etc etc etc come into existence? All that was on the ark was Noah and his sons and their wives. Keep in mind, mixed marriages was out of the question - ALL those people had to be Jewish.

Also, what about all the insects and bugs and whales? Noah couldn't have collected those and the rainwater was either fresh or salt water so that eliminates a whole ecosystem of sea creatures. How did they come about?

One claim was that instead of bringing horses, Noah brought the archtype for horses, zebras, etc. which basically supports evolution.

 

[Sudsy86_]

(I'm sure this is nothing new, but what the heck!)

OP, I'm currently agnostic-theistic. However, the main reason I can't shift to atheism is when I consider our fundamental properties--obviously matter and energy--I keep coming up with properties who, individually, have no capabilities of existing by themselves. This leads me to wonder how they can exist in the first place.

Of course, one would say " Who cares? They're the fundamental properties of our universe! They CAN'T have a physical origin!" I would ask you to consider how strictly naturalistic a thought that is--more specifically how ignorant of other possibilities it is.

Ignoring naturalism for the sake of open-mindedness ( which is an entirely valid method, by the way), the only way to have a reason to assert we don't necessarily need an origin beyond physical property is to ignore the properties of energy and matter. Again, both couldn't exist alone ( self-generation is an absurdity) and, to add to the effect, are entirely dependent entities.

This leads me to at least intuitively conclude some greater force is out there.

Also, not to cliche my way to strength using common, popular resources, but if the universe had a beginning, a greater force must necessarily exist ( the first cause argument, as I'm sure you all know).

 

[snex]

and why do you fail to apply the same reasoning to your "greater force?" if self-generation is an absurdity, you have just invented something even MORE complex than the universe that self-generated.

 

[adumbrodeus]

Wikipedia disagrees.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durupınar_site

Not anymore!!!


Just kidding, but my point is wikipedia really is not a valid source. It's a great repository of valid sources, but it's user-created, no credentials to back up the information. Only what it cites can be considered accurate and since this is totally dependent on the validity of the source it cites, posting Wikipedia's sources are far better for establishing facts in a debate.

Granted the info tends to be accurate, but the more popular the subject the better maintained and thus more accurate the page is. With some exceptions, for the longest time the Final Fantasy IV page had an error in regards to "spoony bard".



The point of all that was of course, that your source doesn't establish... well anything.

 

[Sudsy86_]

and why do you fail to apply the same reasoning to your "greater force?" if self-generation is an absurdity, you have just invented something even MORE complex than the universe that self-generated.

? Who says I don't? I don't disclude the possibility that there might be endless amounts of greater forces, but it's self-evident that there must be an infinite entity somewhere along the line encompassing all but, perhaps, reality/ existence.

And, quite frankly, the universe does not meet that criteria.

I only speculate the qualities of a supposed greater force, but I do not assume it is necessarily the infinite entity we're looking for, though I don't see how it's much of a reach to assume it is.

This is why I believe "God", if one exists, must be in some way embedded or a part of reality, as opposed to the popular Christian view of God.

 

[snex]

? Who says I don't? I don't disclude the possibility that there might be endless amounts of greater forces, but it's self-evident that there must be an infinite entity somewhere along the line encompassing all but, perhaps, reality/ existence.

And, quite frankly, the universe does not meet that criteria.

I only speculate the qualities of a supposed greater force, but I do not assume it is necessarily the infinite entity we're looking for, though I don't see how it's much of a reach to assume it is.

This is why I believe "God", if one exists, must be in some way embedded or a part of reality, as opposed to the popular Christian view of God.

it is not "self-evident" that there must be an infinite entity somewhere along the line.

consider: assume the universe is just a set of completely RANDOM events, one after the other. but how can this be? we look around and see order, cause and effect, etc. well, given a long enough random sequence, patterns will show up. it is impossible for them not to. and the longer the sequence, the larger the patterns will be.

so there, i just gave a perfectly possible explanation of the universe without resorting to any higher powers.

 

[Sudsy86_]

Determinism/ fatalism is only necessarily present in the universe, meaning I have no reason to assume anything beyond the universe is necessarily caused or uncaused deterministically.

The fact that there is no valid application of your explanation makes it invalid/ irrelevant in this case.

The universe could have come from an undetermined cause, as, in the premise, IT is the only realm whose included events are fatalistic.

Likewise, the universe could be a cause determined by some greater force for reasons we can't know.

 

[Sudsy86_]

it is not "self-evident" that there must be an infinite entity somewhere along the line.

Yes it is, actually. Without SOME thing greater than all else causing events and properties to occur and exist, all other explanations include actions caused from nothing.

If I must go further past this point, nothing is an anti-quality/ thing ( for lack of a better word)
with no potential for anything, as it( for another lack of a better word) is not a thing.

A non-thing can't have properties of any kind.

 

[snex]

Yes it is, actually. Without SOME thing greater than all else causing events and properties to occur and exist, all other explanations include actions caused from nothing.

If I must go further past this point, nothing is an anti-quality/ thing ( for lack of a better word)
with no potential for anything, as it( for another lack of a better word) is not a thing.

A non-thing can't have properties of any kind.

which is irrelevant. there is no reason to assume an infinite thing can be uncaused whereas a finite thing like the universe cannot be. as my random example demonstrates, causality itself can be called into question.

 

[AlcyoNite]

religion=faith
no logic about it

 

[Sudsy86_]

What the hell is wrong with you, snex?

An infinite entity is an entity which encompassed EVERYTHING.

If it has a cause for origin, it does not encompass that which caused it, making it finite.

It violates the principle of an infinite entity for it to be caused.

 

[snex]

What the hell is wrong with you, snex?

An infinite entity is an entity which encompassed EVERYTHING.

If it has a cause for origin, it does not encompass that which caused it, making it finite.

It violates the principle of an infinite entity for it to be caused.

and all you have done is demonstrate that "infinite entity" is an incoherent concept.

 

[Sudsy86_]

That must only be because you're stupid.

The fact you don't understand the concept of an "infinite entity" is your own fault.

Others do, therefore you can do. If you can't, it must be your fault. Either way, it's still possible to grasp it, and you're simply failing to.

Not my problem to work with.

 

[Byronman]

religion=faith
no logic about it

That is why trying to prove that God doesn't exist logically is a logical fallacy within itself

 

[snex]

That must only be because you're stupid.

The fact you don't understand the concept of an "infinite entity" is your own fault.

Others do, therefore you can do. If you can't, it must be your fault. Either way, it's still possible to grasp it, and you're simply failing to.

Not my problem to work with.

rofl. ok oh wise one. expound upon your knowledge of infinite entities for us. id love to hear this one...

That is why trying to prove that God doesn't exist logically is a logical fallacy within itself

actually, no, its why belief in god is stupid.

 

[BFDD]

I'm confused, why can't the universe be created from nothing, but an infinite entity can be?

Are you saying that this infinite entity would be composed of something other than matter and energy. As you said they can't exist separately, so this entity would be composed of something that can exist separate from matter and energy. So it is able to be created from a void?

And just for clarification the infinite entity, is not a being. You said it was different Christian view of god and mentioned "greater force", so it would be, for lack of a better description, a "thing". Its hard to find words to describe a non-being made of something that we have yet to discover.

I have to ask these questions because as I mentioned before in the topic, many philosophers referred to "god" but not in the Christian sense. I am have been wondering why they believed it, because obviously as philosophers they relied more on reason than on faith.

 

[Aesir]

Not anymore!!!


Just kidding, but my point is wikipedia really is not a valid source. It's a great repository of valid sources, but it's user-created, no credentials to back up the information. Only what it cites can be considered accurate and since this is totally dependent on the validity of the source it cites, posting Wikipedia's sources are far better for establishing facts in a debate.

Granted the info tends to be accurate, but the more popular the subject the better maintained and thus more accurate the page is. With some exceptions, for the longest time the Final Fantasy IV page had an error in regards to "spoony bard".



The point of all that was of course, that your source doesn't establish... well anything.

Wikipedia is actually a rather creditable source when dealing with evidence as any fabrication would be easily removed. Members of wiki are heavily critical of supportive claims in their articles.

 

[Sudsy86_]

rofl. ok oh wise one. expound upon your knowledge of infinite entities for us. id love to hear this one...

What's there to not know about it?

By definition, an entity is that which is perceived or known or inferred to have its own distinct existence (living or nonliving).

An infinite entity is that whose existence is not dependent on anything ( other than maybe emotion and logic--that's debatable) nor is encompassed by anything; otherwise its existence encompasses a finite amount of entities.

 

[snex]

What's there to not know about it?

By definition, an entity is that which is perceived or known or inferred to have its own distinct existence (living or nonliving).

An infinite entity is that whose existence is not dependent on anything ( other than maybe emotion and logic--that's debatable) nor is encompassed by anything; otherwise its existence encompasses a finite amount of entities.

in other words, you simply try to define the problem away.

you have not demonstrated that non-finite reality cannot self-exist.
you have not demonstrated that reality minus god is finite.
you have not demonstrated that infinite reality MUST self-exist.

the key word here is "demonstrated." all you have done is ASSERT these things, and when asked how you can possibly know this, you just redefine the words to be equivalent. this is neither honest nor an effective debating tactic. your manner of sophistry is exactly the kind of thing that quacks like deepak chopra engage in. it amounts to using a whole lot of words to say nothing at all.

 

[tissue]

(By Snex from the Evolution Thread)

the problem with your response here is that it simply asserts the existence of other types of knowing other than science/math/what-have-you. if you teach the methods of science and math to two people living on opposite ends of the earth, they can apply those methods and consistently arrive at the same conclusions. so far, nobody has ever outlined any such method of metaphysics, supernatural reasoning, or any way of coming to understand "divinity" as you call it.

John Calvin described exactly what I'm talking about as a "sensus divinitatis", and it is merely one proposed model by which rational, justified, and warranted belief of God can be generated; there are others.

if you have other ways of knowing, then present them. but given the fact that theologians who are smarter than both of us have been trying and failing to do so for millenia, i really doubt you have anything to offer.

I can only assume you're asking for a logical argument. I have none, though many, with varying degrees of validity, exist. I am presenting my particular story, as an intellectual.

I have experienced God through my "divine sense" (Calvin). Through this, I can directly and basically determine the existence of God through personal experience. This is of the nature that it cannot be shared (some have called it convenient for Christians as it cannot be disproven; such 'convenience' is merely gloss, and does not have anything to do with the truth of the thing discussed) in a way that is logically binding upon anyone who hears it. It is such that it must be experienced. I can tell my story (in Christian terminology, this is the "testimony"), but I cannot force such an experience upon you, and it is precisely this experience that verifies Christian theology.

It is perfectly logical, even if it is not up-to-the-standard which you and others have set (which, ultimately, is frivolous; such standards must be set using metaphysics, if they are to have any claim to objective truth, and one cannot get beyond metaphysics (meta-metaphysics?) to set THAT standard).

 

[snex]

I can only assume you're asking for a logical argument. I have none, though many, with varying degrees of validity, exist. I am presenting my particular story, as an intellectual.

I have experienced God through my "divine sense" (Calvin). Through this, I can directly and basically determine the existence of God through personal experience. This is of the nature that it cannot be shared (some have called it convenient for Christians as it cannot be disproven; such 'convenience' is merely gloss, and does not have anything to do with the truth of the thing discussed) in a way that is logically binding upon anyone who hears it. It is such that it must be experienced. I can tell my story (in Christian terminology, this is the "testimony"), but I cannot force such an experience upon you, and it is precisely this experience that verifies Christian theology.

It is perfectly logical, even if it is not up-to-the-standard which you and others have set (which, ultimately, is frivolous; such standards must be set using metaphysics, if they are to have any claim to objective truth, and one cannot get beyond metaphysics (meta-metaphysics?) to set THAT standard).

if you cant share the experience, then you have no justification to assume that your experience is any more valid than that of the hindu who also claims a sense of his divine. this is exactly my point - if your method really is getting at some real phenomenon, why dont people who apply it independently achieve the same results? anybody who claims to have a real objective method is bound by this problem, and theists have not been able to overcome it.

i dont doubt that these experiences are real phenomena, but i have no reason to believe that their asserted content is any more real than the dream i had last night. we all agree that dreams are real experiences, but that their content is imaginary. we all know that such experiences can happen while awake and conscious.

on the one hand, you want to claim that your "experience of the divine" relates to real objects, yet on the other hand you are forced to assume that the hindu who has an "experience of the divine" is only experiencing that which is imaginary. and he is doing the same exact thing to you. from a neutral perspective, the only reasonable assumption is that you are ALL experiencing that which is imaginary.

and this is in fact testable. many atheists are former believers in one religion or another. many are people who had such experiences during their time as believers. yet they no longer believe - how can this be possible? i myself could have told you that i felt god's presence, and you would have believed me because we shared the same god. yet the more i THOUGHT about it, the more i realized that i was simply fooling myself and engaging in wishful thinking.

the question you need to ask yourself is whats more likely, that out of the 6 billion people on the planet who engage in self-delusion and wishful thinking, YOU have managed to be lucky enough to experience the REAL god, or that you are a victim of the same self-delusion and wishful thinking as the rest of us are? your brain contains the same reasoning flaws that everybody else's brain has (and this is including rationalists) and it is trivially easy to fool you, as any amateur magician can demonstrate.

 

[tissue]

if you cant share the experience, then you have no justification to assume that your experience is any more valid than that of the hindu who also claims a sense of his divine. this is exactly my point - if your method really is getting at some real phenomenon, why dont people who apply it independently achieve the same results? anybody who claims to have a real objective method is bound by this problem, and theists have not been able to overcome it.

In this, I am not an orthodox Christian. I do not believe in hell; or, at the very least, I do not believe in hell as understood by traditional Christianity. I certainly think that those who hold a religion other than my own are entirely sincere; I also do not understand how they could be punished by a loving God for doing their best and coming to a different conclusion. It is my belief, then, that Christianity is not the only religious truth out there, but it is the only COMPLETE religious truth. To this end, we would have to get more the fine details of the different religions, but I think we have come far enough for the purposes of this topic.

i dont doubt that these experiences are real phenomena, but i have no reason to believe that their asserted content is any more real than the dream i had last night. we all agree that dreams are real experiences, but that their content is imaginary. we all know that such experiences can happen while awake and conscious.

Perhaps. Nonetheless, what I have experienced has all the hallmarks of an experience, and it would be irrational for me to classify it as anything but. It does not contradict logic.

on the one hand, you want to claim that your "experience of the divine" relates to real objects, yet on the other hand you are forced to assume that the hindu who has an "experience of the divine" is only experiencing that which is imaginary. and he is doing the same exact thing to you. from a neutral perspective, the only reasonable assumption is that you are ALL experiencing that which is imaginary.

I'm not forced to believe anything of the sort. I do not think the Hindu is imagining things.

 

[AltF4]

I have experienced God through my "divine sense" (Calvin). .

Try some peyote and then come back and tell me how reliable your senses are when you're the only one seeing things.

 

[snex]

In this, I am not an orthodox Christian. I do not believe in hell; or, at the very least, I do not believe in hell as understood by traditional Christianity. I certainly think that those who hold a religion other than my own are entirely sincere; I also do not understand how they could be punished by a loving God for doing their best and coming to a different conclusion. It is my belief, then, that Christianity is not the only religious truth out there, but it is the only COMPLETE religious truth. To this end, we would have to get more the fine details of the different religions, but I think we have come far enough for the purposes of this topic.

and this raises more problems for you. jesus himself preached hell. if christianity is the only "complete" religious truth, then hell must exist and be just as jesus described it. you could always claim he was misquoted or misunderstood, but then this undercuts the ability to be sure about anything else he preached. and again, calvin himself believed in hell, and he presumably arrived at this belief through his application of his own method that you claim to be using. unless you can somehow show how he misused it, your position is on rather shaky ground.

and how do you even determine how "complete" a religious truth is? you have yet to provide us with the method. a hindu would claim that christianity might contain religious truths, but that hinduism is the only "complete" religious truth. i still have no way to tell who is right. from my POV youre just both being arrogant.

Perhaps. Nonetheless, what I have experienced has all the hallmarks of an experience, and it would be irrational for me to classify it as anything but. It does not contradict logic.

so do my dreams, but it would be silly for me to believe that i actually flew through the clouds last night.

I'm not forced to believe anything of the sort. I do not think the Hindu is imagining things.

you certainly do think so. you do not believe in the literal historicity of things that the hindu believes in and arrived at through his religious experiences. you do not believe in the miraculous deeds of krishna, for example. and likewise, the hindu does not believe in the miraculous deeds of jesus. you both cannot be correct. either these events happened or they did not happen.

 

[tissue]

Try some peyote and then come back and tell me how reliable your senses are when you're the only one seeing things.

Is that the suggestion, then? That the billions of people who are religious are merely influenced by some sort of drug-effect, and that what they sense is incorrect? How could the experiences possibly be proven true or false? They cannot, not conclusively.

 

[tissue]

and this raises more problems for you. jesus himself preached hell. if christianity is the only "complete" religious truth, then hell must exist and be just as jesus described it. you could always claim he was misquoted or misunderstood, but then this undercuts the ability to be sure about anything else he preached. and again, calvin himself believed in hell, and he presumably arrived at this belief through his application of his own method that you claim to be using. unless you can somehow show how he misused it, your position is on rather shaky ground.

Calvin was a product of his times, and was not infallible, nor omniscient. Elements of his belief system are likely incorrect, as are elements of any belief system. Humans simply cannot directly approach truth; even mathematics, as Godel proved, is incomplete.

I have not quite determined what my beliefs on hell are, at the moment. Interestingly, there is no mention of it in the Nicene Creed. As far as Jesus talked about hell, I think is certainly worth a listen, but I'm not convinced that what he spoke of necessarily leads to the traditional understanding of it.

Regardless, the "completeness" of Christianity does not in any way necessarily lead to hell. I'm not at all sure what you mean by that.

and how do you even determine how "complete" a religious truth is? you have yet to provide us with the method. a hindu would claim that christianity might contain religious truths, but that hinduism is the only "complete" religious truth. i still have no way to tell who is right. from my POV youre just both being arrogant.

Let us keep from applying terms such as "arrogant" for now and make sure we both understand each other. I would hate to think I'm being insulted when I have been nothing but open, honest, and sincere with you to this point. Respect me and my position, as I respect your's.

I can not say much more than this:

1) I have had experience, properly defined, that has led me to believe that God is real, and that Scripture, more or less, speaks of God and his actions in the world.

2) There are many others who are sincere in their religious pursuits, and do not believe the same I do.

3) They are seeking the same thing I am, yet, while I have reached it, they have not. In no way does this make them inferior to me, or incorrect, or necessarily misguided. After all, there is error in Christianity (it is a religion; I don't think God much cares for religion), but it is the closest thing to truth I think there is in the religious world.

I am not making claims beyond this. I am not making an argument as to why YOU should believe in God, or Christianity. I am displaying why I believe, and why it is rational, justified, and warranted.

Again, for a more particular and detailed analysis of the subject, by someone smarter than either you or me, I reference Alvin Plantinga's epistemological trilogy on the nature of warrant.

so do my dreams, but it would be silly for me to believe that i actually flew through the clouds last night.

Because you recognize it as a dream. What am I to recognize my religious experience as? Wish-fulfillment, a la Freud? Having read much of his work, I find his imagination astounding, but his actual science less-than-convincing. Because Marx and Nietzsche were particularly eloquent in their hate of it? Again, beautiful work, but little in the way of actual proof. I have yet to see why my beliefs are inferior, or logically incorrect, or contradictory, or in any way against what is proper and correct.

This is a prime example. You assume my beliefs are built upon nothing but whimsy, and in so doing, refuse to even consider my experiences valid. But for what reason(s)? Present it/them, I think they shall be found incompetent for the matter at hand.

you certainly do think so. you do not believe in the literal historicity of things that the hindu believes in and arrived at through his religious experiences. you do not believe in the miraculous deeds of krishna, for example. and likewise, the hindu does not believe in the miraculous deeds of jesus. you both cannot be correct. either these events happened or they did not happen.

Two people viewing a silhouette from different directions will come to different conclusions as to what that silhouette is, and one can imagine a situation in which those conclusions are contradictory. Nevertheless, they are viewing the same silhouette, and are attempting to reach the same thing.

 

[snex]

Is that the suggestion, then? That the billions of people who are religious are merely influenced by some sort of drug-effect, and that what they sense is incorrect? How could the experiences possibly be proven true or false? They cannot, not conclusively.

well, as ive been saying, you can compare the content of these experiences and see if they are mutually contradictory. you can even do this in a controlled condition so that there is no possibility that your description of your experience influences my memories of mine. if the experiences match, then youre on to something. if they dont, we can rule them out as hallucination.

religious people seem afraid to perform such a test though. almost every religion actively seeks to spread itself through cultural transmission, especially to impressionable children. but you never see anybody just giving children the TOOLS and letting them discover on their own the way you can do with math and science. everybody i know that genuinely wanted to find these tools so they could discover god on their own is now an atheist.

 

[AltF4]

Is that the suggestion, then? That the billions of people who are religious are merely influenced by some sort of drug-effect, and that what they sense is incorrect? How could the experiences possibly be proven true or false? They cannot, not conclusively.

No, I'm trying to tell you that subjective experience such as that does not qualify as evidence in a scientific sense. It may be a good indication to PURSUE real evidence, but it is not evidence itself.

If I saw a ghost tonight, plain as day right in front of me, and it waved at me and then floated through a wall, I would not immediately believe in ghosts. Despite my experience, there are still much more likely explanations which are actually consistent: such as that I was having a brief mental breakdown.

Despite having seen a ghost with my own two eyes, I would still not believe in them. Because my brain knows better. Ghosts don't make logical sense in the slightest bit.

I may, however, be inclined to try to reproduce the experience, or otherwise validate it.

 

[snex]

Calvin was a product of his times, and was not infallible, nor omniscient. Elements of his belief system are likely incorrect, as are elements of any belief system. Humans simply cannot directly approach truth; even mathematics, as Godel proved, is incomplete.

I have not quite determined what my beliefs on hell are, at the moment. Interestingly, there is no mention of it in the Nicene Creed. As far as Jesus talked about hell, I think is certainly worth a listen, but I'm not convinced that what he spoke of necessarily leads to the traditional understanding of it.

Regardless, the "completeness" of Christianity does not in any way necessarily lead to hell. I'm not at all sure what you mean by that.

"christianity" is defined by the teachings of jesus. if jesus taught hell, then hell is a necessary part of christianity.

1) I have had experience, properly defined, that has led me to believe that God is real, and that Scripture, more or less, speaks of God and his actions in the world.

no matter how powerful an internal experience feels to you, you have to honestly admit that it CANNOT prove or disprove something a book says. reality simply does not work that way.

2) There are many others who are sincere in their religious pursuits, and do not believe the same I do.

3) They are seeking the same thing I am, yet, while I have reached it, they have not. In no way does this make them inferior to me, or incorrect, or necessarily misguided. After all, there is error in Christianity (it is a religion; I don't think God much cares for religion), but it is the closest thing to truth I think there is in the religious world.

I am not making claims beyond this. I am not making an argument as to why YOU should believe in God, or Christianity. I am displaying why I believe, and why it is rational, justified, and warranted.

your point (3) is exactly the opposite of "rational, justified, and warranted." you have no way of knowing you have reached it and they have not. and they have no way of knowing they have reached it and you have not. and yet no matter how much this is emphasized, you both will continue to make the claim. this is exactly why i mention arrogance. to assume YOU have reached the "truth" when you have the exact same standard of measurement that the hindu has is the very definition of arrogance.

Again, for a more particular and detailed analysis of the subject, by someone smarter than either you or me, I reference Alvin Plantinga's epistemological trilogy on the nature of warrant.

plantinga's arguments amount to little more than simply asserting that he is correct. i am not impressed by him, and neither is anybody that takes the time to examine his arguments in detail. there is nothing in his arguments that places christianity above any other religion. you could literally replace all instances of "christianity" in his work with "hinduism" and it would make just as much sense.

Because you recognize it as a dream. What am I to recognize my religious experience as? Wish-fulfillment, a la Freud? Having read much of his work, I find his imagination astounding, but his actual science less-than-convincing. Because Marx and Nietzsche were particularly eloquent in their hate of it? Again, beautiful work, but little in the way of actual proof. I have yet to see why my beliefs are inferior, or logically incorrect, or contradictory, or in any way against what is proper and correct.

the fact that you do not have an explanation for your experiences is not license to make one up. that will never lead to a proper understanding of them. if you had asked an ancient about his experiences while on drugs, he probably would have asserted that they were divine experiences. yet today we understand how drugs affect the brain and why you hallucinate while on them. there is no reason to assume that religious experiences have an anything other than a plain old materialistic explanation - and short circuiting the process by declaring that they are supernatural by fiat can only hinder our understanding of them.

This is a prime example. You assume my beliefs are built upon nothing but whimsy, and in so doing, refuse to even consider my experiences valid. But for what reason(s)? Present it/them, I think they shall be found incompetent for the matter at hand.

i have already presented them. millions of other people come to me claiming that their experiences are just as real. alien abductions, psychic experiences, all manner of ghosts, goblins, and gods. and the one thing they all have in common is that they demand a privileged position for THEIR beliefs, while agreeing with me that everybody else's are probably flawed. why should i not apply the same skepticism to you that i apply to them? if your beliefs really are genuine, then they will survive skepticism.

Two people viewing a silhouette from different directions will come to different conclusions as to what that silhouette is, and one can imagine a situation in which those conclusions are contradictory. Nevertheless, they are viewing the same silhouette, and are attempting to reach the same thing.

thats why instead of endless bickering and schisms, they can perform further experimentation on the silhouette. that is the great thing about science. the longer you do it, the more consistent INDEPENDENT testing reveals things to be. religion shows exactly the opposite.

 

[tissue]

well, as ive been saying, you can compare the content of these experiences and see if they are mutually contradictory. you can even do this in a controlled condition so that there is no possibility that your description of your experience influences my memories of mine. if the experiences match, then youre on to something. if they dont, we can rule them out as hallucination.

That's hardly the case. You forget, the Christian religion also posits such beings as demons, who certainly could deceive. This is, at the least, a possibility.

religious people seem afraid to perform such a test though. almost every religion actively seeks to spread itself through cultural transmission, especially to impressionable children. but you never see anybody just giving children the TOOLS and letting them discover on their own the way you can do with math and science. everybody i know that genuinely wanted to find these tools so they could discover god on their own is now an atheist.

And every intellectual I know personally is a Christian. It depends upon who we surround ourselves with; there are very smart, sincere people on both sides of the issue.

 

[tissue]

No, I'm trying to tell you that subjective experience such as that does not qualify as evidence in a scientific sense. It may be a good indication to PURSUE real evidence, but it is not evidence itself.

And how is it not? I cannot reproduce it in front of the rest of you, I cannot describe it in such a way that allows it to validate itself, but it is nonetheless an experience, just as walking out on my back deck and seeing a plethora of old pine needles is another experience.

If I saw a ghost tonight, plain as day right in front of me, and it waved at me and then floated through a wall, I would not immediately believe in ghosts. Despite my experience, there are still much more likely explanations which are actually consistent: such as that I was having a brief mental breakdown.

Despite having seen a ghost with my own two eyes, I would still not believe in them. Because my brain knows better. Ghosts don't make logical sense in the slightest bit.

Ghosts are not logically contradictory. We just don't have a reason to believe in them, as is commonly argued. Never mind that there are frequent reports of ghost sightings, and certain phenomena that are admittedly hard to explain.

Do I believe in ghosts? Not really; I haven't been given a good reason to. But I wouldn't label someone else who does believe in ghosts irrational. They may very well have seen one. There's nothing illogical about a ghost.

 

[snex]

That's hardly the case. You forget, the Christian religion also posits such beings as demons, who certainly could deceive. This is, at the least, a possibility.

and so do other religions posit such entities. again, you offer no reason to accept that YOUR experiences arent caused by deceitful demons and the hindu's are the real ones.

And how is it not? I cannot reproduce it in front of the rest of you, I cannot describe it in such a way that allows it to validate itself, but it is nonetheless an experience, just as walking out on my back deck and seeing a plethora of old pine needles is another experience.

if somebody doubts that there are pine needles on your back deck, you can bring them out there and they can witness them. or you could have photographed them. there are an endless number of ways we can validate such things to others. and even in the absence of validation, we can gauge how likely such an experience is given our knowledge about the world. we all know pine trees exist and shed their needles. but nobody has experienced the wild claims that are made about jesus or krishna.

Ghosts are not logically contradictory. We just don't have a reason to believe in them, as is commonly argued. Never mind that there are frequent reports of ghost sightings, and certain phenomena that are admittedly hard to explain.

Do I believe in ghosts? Not really; I haven't been given a good reason to. But I wouldn't label someone else who does believe in ghosts irrational. They may very well have seen one. There's nothing illogical about a ghost.

there is something illogical about experiencing something you cant explain and then INVENTING an explanation for it. its called an argument from ignorance, and its a logical fallacy.

 

[tissue]

and so do other religions posit such entities. again, you offer no reason to accept that YOUR experiences arent caused by deceitful demons and the hindu's are the real ones.

Being continuously in search of truth, and learning more of other religions, I am becoming more sound in my beliefs. I do not believe in Hinduism simply because it does not square with my experiences in the way that Christianiy does.

Once again, you seem to be suggesting that I have some sort of obligation to prove that Christianity is true while Hinduism is false. This isn't my intent. I'm arguing about my personal beliefs. We might do better to remove religions from the discussion.

if somebody doubts that there are pine needles on your back deck, you can bring them out there and they can witness them. or you could have photographed them. there are an endless number of ways we can validate such things to others. and even in the absence of validation, we can gauge how likely such an experience is given our knowledge about the world. we all know pine trees exist and shed their needles. but nobody has experienced the wild claims that are made about jesus or krishna.

Yet, whether I bring needles to you, or whether you conclude that "Yes, it is likely" (after all, how would such an analysis actually work, and on what foundation?), the truth of the matter remains separate from such analyses.

there is something illogical about experiencing something you cant explain and then INVENTING an explanation for it. its called an argument from ignorance, and its a logical fallacy.

You are assuming many things in this discussion, and I think you would have a better jobof understanding my position if you didn't.

I did not invent an explanation for it any more than I realize that the farmers are harvesting corn nearby when corn sheathes appear in my front yard. Christianity follows from my experience.