Searching for GOD...

[torridon]

Outrider,
Thanks for another thoughtful response.
It seems that the difficulty you have in seeing my view of reality is similar to the difficulty I experience in seeing an atheist view.  What I perceive in the world around me is a profound sense of wonder and awe in God's creation.  I cannot conceive of the possibility that God does not exist because without God, nothing would exist.  And I see God's creative power in myself, in other people, and in the amazing balance of life in our world.  I know you believe that natural selection of random mutations is a sufficient explanation, but I believe God must have had a guiding hand in the process.  But one thing I find difficult to express in words is the deep relationship and awareness of God which I get through prayer.  I have been saying my own prayers since my earliest memories.  Prayer is just as much a part of my daily routine as eating or drinking.  I cannot imagine a life without prayer, and I presume you can't imagine a life with prayer.  I believe the first steps in faith would be through prayer, because this opens you up to allow God into your life.  But in order to make those first steps, you might need to remove some of the false barriers to faith and at least admit to the possibility of God's existence, even though you may deem it improbable.

That's a testimony to the power of cultural immersion, no ? You have to square your experience with that of people following slightly different faiths originating from different cultures in different geographies which all suggests the common denominator must be to do with the practice of a faith per se, rather than the epistemic truth of the claims by the faiths. So it follows that a student of life wishing to know what is really going on needs to avoid faith in principle because of its power to blind people to a deeper understanding of others, supplanting it with one particular set of truth claims. 

What you see as 'false barriers to faith' in my book are sound principles ringfencing the golden rules of evidence based reasoning.  If we were created by a God, why would he/she endow us with the ability for critical scrutiny only to expect us to deny that to ourselves in favour of 'faith' ?  Just one of the litany of contradictions that people of faith have to live with.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

It seems that the difficulty you have in seeing my view of reality is similar to the difficulty I experience in seeing an atheist view.

No it isn’t. The difficulty Outy and others have in “seeing” (by which presumably you mean agreeing with) your view of reality is that you provide no coherent reason or evidence at all to suggest you’re right. The difficulty you experience in agreeing with atheism on the other hand is that you don’t care that you have no coherent reasons or evidence at all to suggest that you’re right – you just expect people to agree with your assertions nonetheless.
 

What I perceive in the world around me is a profound sense of wonder and awe in God's creation.

But “God’s creation” is just a narrative you find persuasive, not a verifiable causal fact.

I cannot conceive of the possibility that God does not exist because without God,…

I know you can’t – that’s your argument from personal incredulity fallacy. That you can’t conceive of something tells you nothing about whether or not the thing you can’t conceive of is real.

… because without God nothing would exist.

And that’s a non sequitur – (yet) another piece of fallacious reasoning.

And I see God's creative power in myself, in other people, and in the amazing balance of life in our world.

And I see Colin the Leprechaun’s creative power in rainbows. So?

I know you believe that natural selection of random mutations is a sufficient explanation,…

That’s not what evolutionary theory says. Evolution is random mutation PLUS adaptation to environment. Why do you always get this wrong despite having it explained to you so often? 

…but I believe God must have had a guiding hand in the process.

No doubt you do. Why though as such a speculation is entirely unnecessary for evolution to occur?

But one thing I find difficult to express in words is the deep relationship and awareness of God which I get through prayer.  I have been saying my own prayers since my earliest memories.  Prayer is just as much a part of my daily routine as eating or drinking.  I cannot imagine a life without prayer, and I presume you can't imagine a life with prayer. I believe the first steps in faith would be through prayer, because this opens you up to allow God into your life.

No, it perhaps allows you to soften your critical faculties to the level that you’re prepared to entertain that belief, but praying is not a method to investigate and validate claims of fact. 

But in order to make those first steps, you might need to remove some of the false barriers to faith…

What makes the “barriers” to your particular faith (which by a remarkable coincidence just happens to be the one with which you’re most culturally familiar) “false” given that you employ the same barriers to other beliefs of faith to which you don’t subscribe?   
 

…and at least admit to the possibility of God's existence,…

It’d be helpful if you’d a least stop lying about that. No-one denies the possibility of anything, as you’ve been told countless times. Your god, my leprechauns, aliens on Alpha Centauri, the Loch Ness Monster, you name it – all of these things (and anything else that pops into someone’s head) is possible, but only in the trivial sense that epistemically there’s no way definitively to demonstrate that something does not exist (the black swan problem).

Your problem though is in finding a path from the possible to the probable, which is where you fall apart and just tell us that your claims of fact are actually just articles of faith.   

…even though you may deem it improbable.

See above. Your faith belief “god” is precisely as improbable as my faith belief leprechauns, or of Fred next door’s faith belief Jack Frost. The moment you finally realise this is the moment you’ll understand the scale of the problem you face when you try to evangelise armed only with assertions.   

[Roses]

Well, there we are, folks: the clinching argument against belief, courtesy of our resident intellectual titan. I think we may as well close this thread now, as there's nothing more to be said. 

I agree, I have said that needs to be said of this topic.

[Dicky Underpants]

If god exists and created everything, it really screwed up BIG TIME when it created human nature, unless if enjoys human suffering.

The argument of Isaac ben Luria (which is a bit kabbalistic and gnostic) is that god simply screwed up. Not that it enjoys human suffering.

https://www.matthewkressel.net › 2015/09/10 › 36-days-of-judaic-myth-da...

[bluehillside Retd.]

DU,

The argument of Isaac ben Luria (which is a bit kabbalistic and gnostic) is simply that god simply screwed up. Not that it enjoys human suffering.

Well quite. I’ve always thought that the proponents of “intelligent” design would be on safer ground if they argued for a god of stupid design instead. “Male pattern baldness? Ah, that’s because the god I worship isn’t much cop at the designing stuff.”

[Alan Burns]

Evolution is random mutation PLUS adaptation to environment.

But adaption to the environment and to environmental changes presumes that there are sufficient beneficial mutations occurring at the right time with the required survival attributes to select from.  This is a big presumption with no way of verifying that these timely mutations were truly random or subject to some form of interaction from a creative source beyond human perception.

[Gordon]

But adaption to the environment and to environmental changes presumes that there are sufficient beneficial mutations occurring at the right time with the required survival attributes to select from.

There is no 'right' time: it either happens in circumstances when the match between the mutation and the circumstances result in something that survives, or it doesn't - and we only know about those that confer enough advantage to survive long enough to reproduce (for a while).

This is a big presumption with no way of verifying that these timely mutations were truly random or subject to some form of interaction from a creative source beyond human perception.

You're never far from fallacies, Alan, and you fall into them head-first every time.

[Stranger]

But adaption to the environment and to environmental changes presumes that there are sufficient beneficial mutations occurring at the right time with the required survival attributes to select from.

Mutations happen all the time (every human has 60 to 100 of them) and a change to the environment also changes which ones might be considered beneficial.

This is a big presumption with no way of verifying that these timely mutations were truly random or subject to some form of interaction from a creative source beyond human perception.

There is no evidence that mutations happen in a particularly timely way and this is, of course, an argument from ignorance. It's truly incredible that you have these basic logical problems pointed out to you time and time again and yet you never learn. What goes on in your mind? Do you think that logical fallacies aren't real and that people here are just making them up? That they don't apply to you? What on earth are you thinking?

[Alan Burns]

There is no evidence that mutations happen in a particularly timely way …..

Might I suggest that you and I (and every other human being on this planet) offer substantial evidence for the timely mutations that brought us into being.

[Alan Burns]

You're never far from fallacies, Alan, and you fall into them head-first every time.

You need to be careful, Gordon, that your over active fallacy detector does not hide you from the truth.

[Gordon]

You need to be careful, Gordon, that your over active fallacy detector does not hide you from the truth.

It is only over-active, Alan, because you set if off so regularly.

[Alan Burns]

  If nothing would exist without a god, where did god come from?

I believe there has to be an ultimate source for all existence, and that ultimate source is God.

Nothing in the evidence for natural selection precludes the involvement of an interventionist deity, but there is no need for one - it's entirely conceivable that the results could have emerged through entirely natural actions.  Given that, why do you feel a god must have been involved?  What about the natural explanation is insufficient?

In all honesty, I find that a natural explanation involving random unguided forces to be far adrift for what is required to produce the incredible, unfathomable complexity we see in a human brain.

  In order for prayer to be significant to you, I suspect, you'd have to already believe - so if you were praying that early and that consistently, why did you believe at that stage?  If this is from your earliest memories then I presume (but, please, correct me if I'm wrong) this was before you'd developed any significant critical thinking skills - were you 'inducted' into this belief system?

My parents were not particularly devout.  My father was a lapsed Catholic and my mother was a non practicing Anglican  I have early memories of my elder sister taking me to church.  What I remember is having a very profound, personal experience of being aware of God.  I started praying at an early age for my parents, whom I loved dearly.  I can imagine that my experiences will seem odd to an outside observer, but for me, my relationship with God through prayer was perfectly natural, and I found it hard to understand why others did not feel the same way.  Later in life my relationship with God took on a new dimension when I joined up with the charismatic renewal movement in the Catholic church and I discovered a new depth to my awareness of God's love which was shared with many others within the movement.  I find it very hard to see people without faith finding reasons not to believe.  If only they could see ….

[torridon]

I find it very hard to see people without faith finding reasons not to believe.  If only they could see ….

People don't seek reasons to not believe, rather there must be positive reasons to believe; in the absence of positive reasons, unbelief is merely the default state.  Given there is no objective evidence for gods, unbelief would be the order of the day.  When there is convincing evidence, that is the time to start being convinced, all else is head games, psychological shenanigins calculated to induce belief in the absence of any authentic justification.

[Stranger]

Might I suggest that you and I (and every other human being on this planet) offer substantial evidence for the timely mutations that brought us into being.

    You are assuming that we were the intended result. Without that assumption, no, it isn't evidence of "timely" mutations. Your fallacy today is begging the question.

I find it very hard to see people without faith finding reasons not to believe.  If only they could see ….

No rational person needs a reason not to believe in a given proposition. What is required is some reason to take the idea seriously.

[Gordon]

I believe there has to be an ultimate source for all existence, and that ultimate source is God.In all honesty, I find that a natural explanation involving random unguided forces to be far adrift for what is required to produce the incredible, unfathomable complexity we see in a human brain.My parents were not particularly devout.  My father was a lapsed Catholic and my mother was a non practicing Anglican  I have early memories of my elder sister taking me to church.  What I remember is having a very profound, personal experience of being aware of God.  I started praying at an early age for my parents, whom I loved dearly.  I can imagine that my experiences will seem odd to an outside observer, but for me, my relationship with God through prayer was perfectly natural, and I found it hard to understand why others did not feel the same way.  Later in life my relationship with God took on a new dimension when I joined up with the charismatic renewal movement in the Catholic church and I discovered a new depth to my awareness of God's love which was shared with many others within the movement.  I find it very hard to see people without faith finding reasons not to believe.  If only they could see ….

My fallacy-meter is beeping again, Alan: and in the above the fallacies of ignorance, incredulity and begging the question are all blindingly obvious.

[ekim]

What I remember is having a very profound, personal experience of being aware of God.  I started praying at an early age for my parents, whom I loved dearly.  I can imagine that my experiences will seem odd to an outside observer, but for me, my relationship with God through prayer was perfectly natural, and I found it hard to understand why others did not feel the same way.  Later in life my relationship with God took on a new dimension when I joined up with the charismatic renewal movement in the Catholic church and I discovered a new depth to my awareness of God's love which was shared with many others within the movement.  I find it very hard to see people without faith finding reasons not to believe.  If only they could see ….

In which case, as your experience is personal to you,  wouldn't it be better if you explained what caused you to associate that experience to God and then how you connected it to the Catholic God.  As regards your last sentence, I think posters on this site want rational reasons to believe, which you are not providing.  The source of irrational reasons for belief tends to be emotional and this can induce people to believe anything.  It is 'knowing' that is required not just 'belief'.

[Outrider]

I believe there has to be an ultimate source for all existence, and that ultimate source is God.

That always seems a bit... arbitrary... to me.  I appreciate that you're not going full on William Lane Craig and special pleading that God must be different from the 'all things have a cause' claim, but it still seems like it's just a rather blithe acceptance.  Why doesn't God need a cause?  If God can be uncaused/eternal, why can't reality - why does reality need a creator?

In all honesty, I find that a natural explanation involving random unguided forces to be far adrift for what is required to produce the incredible, unfathomable complexity we see in a human brain.

That, for me, is simple, it's just an application of various sciences; maths, information theory, biology, genetics...  We've seen these things happening, and given the immense timescales involved, I have no problem accepting that humanity, with it's unique combination of wonders and intrinsic drawbacks is a result of billions upon billions of iterations of unguided trial and error.

My parents were not particularly devout.  My father was a lapsed Catholic and my mother was a non practicing Anglican  I have early memories of my elder sister taking me to church.  What I remember is having a very profound, personal experience of being aware of God.  I started praying at an early age for my parents, whom I loved dearly.

If that's the case, and if you're right - why do you think God has ignored so many of us?  Why haven't we had that experience that leads us to him?  What happened to all the equally profoundly believing people in other places in the world who just as fervently feel they've been just as blessed but by, say, Allah, or a nature spirit, or one of the Hindu divinities?

I can imagine that my experiences will seem odd to an outside observer, but for me, my relationship with God through prayer was perfectly natural, and I found it hard to understand why others did not feel the same way.  Later in life my relationship with God took on a new dimension when I joined up with the charismatic renewal movement in the Catholic church and I discovered a new depth to my awareness of God's love which was shared with many others within the movement.

I'd probably try to avoid the slightly prejudicial term 'odd', but certainly inexplicable - that said, you're possibly in the majority, especially over the course of human history, where the majority of people have been believers in something supernatural.

I find it very hard to see people without faith finding reasons not to believe.  If only they could see …

And there are some of us that struggle to see people rejecting what we see as reason and rational thinking for superstition and emotional reactions supplanting logical conclusions - this, perhaps, is something intrinsic to people.

O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

But adaption to the environment and to environmental changes presumes that there are sufficient beneficial mutations occurring at the right time with the required survival attributes to select from.  This is a big presumption with no way of verifying that these timely mutations were truly random or subject to some form of interaction from a creative source beyond human perception.

Might I suggest that you and I (and every other human being on this planet) offer substantial evidence for the timely mutations that brought us into being.

I explained this wrongheadedness to you at some length a while back, only for you to ignore the explanation – and then to repeat exactly the same mistake now. What then would be the point in correcting you again?

Oh well. What you’re attempting here is called circular reasoning. On the one hand you look at the remarkable unlikeliness of evolution producing little old you just as you are and conclude therefore that “God” must have had a hand in it, but on the other you also conclude that the same “God” must have intended you little old you as his blueprint in the first place. Thus your argument begins with what it hopes to end with – your premise and your conclusion are the same thing. And round and round you go, forever it seems lost in a death spiral of fallacious thinking.

Make yourself a nice cup of tea, open a packet of garibaldis, sit yourself down and actually try to think this time. For you to exist, the universe doesn't need to know or care that you do exist. Given enough gazillions of events the chances are that life will begin somewhere (indeed quite possibly in many somewheres). And given enough time, the chances are too that those initial forms of life will adapt and will evolve into different types of life – to use the jargon, they will speciate. And sometimes, if those species become self-aware but not to the point of thinking very hard or very clearly, some of them it seems will also conclude that the fact of their existence must have been the outcome of a grand plan that was intended to end up that way all along.     

To put it even more simply for you, you’re like a lottery winner from among the millions who bought tickets marvelling at the unlikelihood of your win because the odds are so long so concluding a magical intervention, whereas from the perspective of the lottery organiser they just didn’t care who the winner was.

Is there any way at all you could at least have the courtesy of addressing this rather than just ignore it in favour of a glibly meaningless mantra? 

[Enki]

Alan,

For my own part, I can quite understand that you hold the views that you describe, and I have met enough people with similar views that I have no trouble in appreciating that they(and you) see reality as quite different to the way I see it. I also am very much aware that I could be wrong in so many ways, just as you could be.

I also am able to react to the world around me with a sense of wonder and awe, but I see no reason to attach those feelings to the idea of any god, because, put simply, I do not see the need for any god to have created it. I know that you cannot conceive of anything being able to exist without reference to your god, and I can quite accept that you think in this way. However, when you makes statements and assertions beginning with the words "But cannot you see.." or similar, then I have to take issue with you, that you are not able to see and appreciate that there are other feelings, points of view and arguments that come into play which are at variance to your own. I have no reason to seek to proselytise, yet I often feel, uncomfortably, that that is the main reason behind your posts. All I can ever hope to do is put forward my views in as reasoned a way as possible, try to follow logical trains of thought, listen to the arguments of others and ask pertinent questions to clarify my thinking. I genuinely think that you ignore this approach in favour of a more personal, assertion laden, evidence light approach. I think this is because you are of the opinion that what appears to you as your overwhelming devotion to your god has to be enough to convince others, without recourse to anything more. If this is so, certainly in my case, you could not be more in error.

What I do abhor (possibly because of the attitude that you are convinced that you have the one true path that you need to share with others) is the temptation that you seem to indulge in, of being rather less than honest in distorting the meanings of words (e.g. magic, determinism/predeterminism, freedom, choice, reaction/interaction)  and belittling ideas(e.g. often with a disparaging word such as 'only' or 'just' when there is no occasion to use such epithets). I also find your propensity to ignore what others say, in order to carry on making the same mistakes, to be mildly irritating.(E.g. your insistence that we at least admit to the possibility of your god's existence, when you have been told repeatedly that we do.) It suggests either you are not listening or you don't believe us. Either way, this is not conducive to constructive debate.

I'm sure you feel you have a deep relationship with your god, Alan. I do not condemn you for it. That is an entirely personal thing on your part. Who am I to try to convince you otherwise? But, likewise, I have no relationship with any god, nor have I any inclination so to do. That does not mean, of course, that I believe there is no god(s) whatever. I am quite open to the possibility. As yet though I have not seen any evidence or any argument that would convince me.

As regards prayer. Again that is a very personal thing. I do not wish to condemn anybody who feels the need to pray. I can only say that, even when I was at my primary school, I kept my eyes open and watched others saying the Lord's Prayer. I was curious as to who on earth they were praying to. Suffice it to say that as I grew older, I had no particular reason to attempt to pray to any god that I did not believe in. That would, in my eyes, be tantamount to a personal dishonesty and, furthermore, would serve no use.

For me, the way you present youself, and how you respond to others, simply demonstrates your lack of understanding and respect for others and illustrates how you continually damage your case that you so earnestly wish to present.

[Alan Burns]

Looks like Kayne West has found God:
https://tinyurl.com/y538jljq
There is hope for us all

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Looks like Kayne West has found God:
https://tinyurl.com/y538jljq
There is hope for us all

Or a belief in "God', which is not the same thing at all. What if he'd "found" Allah or Ra or Zeus instead? 

[Roses]

AB,

Or a belief in "God', which is not the same thing at all. What if he'd "found" Allah or Ra or Zeus instead?

All gods come out of the same mould, the human imagination, imo.

[Alan Burns]

Thanks Enki for you constructive and helpful comments.  I still intend to respond to the points in your earlier substantial post - apologies for the delay, it is work in progress.

I believe there is a substantial difference in my motivation to post and in the motivation of those who do not share my faith.  For my part, the motivation is simply to share the good news of salvation which will benefit all who accept it beyond their wildest dreams.  I am sorry that I come across as not reading or fully understanding the responses made, but I have limited time to answer all the points as fully as I would like.  I am often accused of accepting my faith without question or critical appraisal.  But I do have an enquiring mind and I had already contemplated most of the points made in responses on this thread before I began posting here.  I am sorry that I apparently can't find suitable words to express how none of these points give me cause to doubt my Christian faith.

From this morning's Gospel reading:

Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
Matthew 11:25,28-30

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I believe there is a substantial difference in my motivation to post and in the motivation of those who do not share my faith.  For my part, the motivation is simply to share the good news of salvation which will benefit all who accept it beyond their wildest dreams.

No, what you want to "share" is your belief that there is this "good news". So far at least you've been unable or unwilling to provide any cogent reason at all to suggest that this belief is correct, but you have provided ample evidence to conclude that your reasons for thinking you're correct are hopeless.

That's your problem. 

[Roses]

From this morning's Gospel reading:

Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.
"
Matthew 11:25,28-30

[/b][/i][/u]

If Jesus really said that it was a stupid remark to make.