Searching for GOD...

[Sebastian Toe]

And I am trying to get to the bottom of why Seb and indeed other atheists find the trinity insufficiently monolithic.

Given that all Christians don't agree with the trinity, why should non Christians.
Sort out your own house first.

[Alan Burns]

Dear Blue,
After consciously choosing to re read one of your recent posts, I have employed my brain to interpret the words - and as their meaning enters my conscious awareness, I contemplate their meaning and consciously choose words to convey my consciously thought out response to selected parts of your post:

Theoretical physics comes up with all manner of explanations that are difficult or impossible for experimental physics to test. That doesn’t mean we should just junk the theories in favour of superstitions though. 

My take on reality does not contradict anything in theoretical physics.  What I am implying is that there is much more to reality than the unavoidable consequences predicted by the laws of physics.

“regardless of the fact that no one understands what it comprises or how it works.”

No, that should be something like “regardless of the fact that the explanations we have are partial and subject to amendment” but again, so what? Why junk the possible picture when you only have some parts of the jig-saw in favour of a picture (“god”) with no parts of the jig-saw at all?   

I do not ditch the existing parts of the jigsaw of reality - I add to them with what I believe in order to achieve a more complete picture of reality with meaning and purpose.

No, I don’t “shoe horn” anything. What I actually do is to map my understanding of reality to the only verifiable method of investigation available to me. The irony here (which will be lost on you) is that “shoe horning” is precisely what you must do to bend the reality you observe to fit a theistic narrative for which there’s no evidence at all (eg prayers being “answered”).

If you approach the question of prayers being answered or witness stories of miracles with the premise that God does not exist - you will inevitably search for reasons to dismiss these stories instead of reading them with an open mind.

That’s not “the reality” at all for reasons that have been explained to you countless time without rebuttal; it’s just your personal reality, and it collapses under its own absence of evidence and deep contradictions as soon as you examine it. 

I find overwhelming evidence for my Christian faith and see no contradictions with the reality we all perceive.

…what you attempt here is a logical fallacy called circular reasoning – that is, you’re using your premise to justify your conclusion rather than rely on connecting logic to make your case – that is, your premise and your conclusion are the same. Before we get to your use of it, here’s a different example to get you started: “The Bible is the word of God because God says so in the Bible, therefore the Bible is the word of God…” etc.

The Christian Bible is a collection of books written by numerous authors over a period of hundreds of years.  You cannot simply dismiss it as circular reasoning.  Each author claims to be inspired by God or to have had encounters with a person whom they believe to be God incarnate.  If you read the Bible from a premise that there is no God, you will search for reasons to dismiss the writings (see Sassy's opening post).  If you read it with an open mind you should come to one of three conclusions - (i) The authors are deluded.  (ii) The authors are telling lies  or (iii) they witness to the truth.

You think that the complexity of the outcome “Alan Burns” occurring entirely naturally is so fantastically unlikely that it’s more likely that some intelligent guidance was necessary to make it that way, hence “God”. You also though assume that “Alan Burns” was the plan all along because God wanted it that way, so “God” is required for both your ab initio premise and for your conclusion – ie, your premise and your conclusion (“God”) are the same. And that’s circular reasoning.

I see nothing circular about an intelligent being forming an intention and then using their intelligence and powers to fulfil their intention.  It happens all the time with humans.

Now re-set, and consider instead a universe that neither knew nor cared whether Alan Burns, three-headed aliens on Alpha Centauri or anything else appeared – no matter how complex any of them might have be. The process involved would have been natural and unguided, and there was nothing specially chosen about whatever it produced. That’s you. And me. And bonobos.

You seem to ignore the unfathomable complexity needed to bring about such creations and the unlikelyhood of random unguided forces being able to achieve this.

If it helps at all, consider a three-headed alien on Alpha Centauri for example that could have occurred that's self-aware and reasoning too, but not particularly thoughtful. Now imagine too that this alien reasoned that it was so fantastically unlikely that it could have occurred naturally that there must have been a god of the three-headed aliens to guide events in that direction. What would you make of his reasoning?       

Our ability to reason goes far beyond what can be achieved by unavoidable material reactions.

[Maeght]

  Each author claims to be inspired by God or to have had encounters with a person whom they believe to be God incarnate.  If you read the Bible from a premise that there is no God, you will search for reasons to dismiss the writings (see Sassy's opening post).  If you read it with an open mind you should come to one of three conclusions - (i) The authors are deluded.  (ii) The authors are telling lies  or (iii) they witness to the truth.

If you read it with an open mind you will see that the writings are records of people's beliefs written, as you say, over many centuries. This doesn't tell us anything about whether those beliefs are true.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

After consciously choosing to re read one of your recent posts, I have employed my brain to interpret the words - and as their meaning enters my conscious awareness, I contemplate their meaning and consciously choose words to convey my consciously thought out response to selected parts of your post:

Provided by “I” you mean Alan Burns rather than some invisible hobgoblin you’ve asserted into existence to do the choosing, fine...

My take on reality does not contradict anything in theoretical physics.  What I am implying is that there is much more to reality than the unavoidable consequences predicted by the laws of physics.

First, you seemed to think that not being able to test theories with experiments makes the theories wrong. It doesn’t.

Second, if you want to imply “that there is much more to reality than the unavoidable consequences predicted by the laws of physics” you’re free to, but you’ll need to provide some justifying reasons if you want that to be taken seriously.
   

I do not ditch the existing parts of the jigsaw of reality - I add to them with what I believe in order to achieve a more complete picture of reality with meaning and purpose.

Yes you do. The “existing parts of the jig-saw” suggest a materialistic model for consciousness. What you “believe” on the other hand causes you to junk that for no parts of the jig-saw at all – they’re just faith claims.   

If you approach the question of prayers being answered or witness stories of miracles with the premise that God does not exist - you will inevitably search for reasons to dismiss these stories instead of reading them with an open mind.

No – you have it backwards. It’s examining such claims and testing them (with double blind trials for example) that shows them to be false. That’s what an open mind looks like. A closed mind on the other hand insists a priori that prayers work and miracles happen, and then dismisses out of hand the evidence to the contrary. 

I find overwhelming evidence for my Christian faith and see no contradictions with reality we all perceive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

The Christian Bible is a collection of books written by numerous authors over a period of hundreds of years.  You cannot simply dismiss it as circular reasoning.  Each author claims to be inspired by God or to have had encounters with a person whom they believe to be God incarnate.  If you read the Bible from a premise that there is no God, you will search for reasons to dismiss the writings (see Sassy's opening post).  If you read it with an open mind you should come to one of three conclusions - (i) The authors are deluded.  (ii) The authors are telling lies  or (iii) they witness to the truth.

You’ve missed the point. I was just illustrating circular reasoning with an example – I could just as well have said that claiming any book to be true because a character in says it’s true is circular reasoning. 

I see nothing circular about an intelligent being forming an intention and then using their intelligence and powers to fulfil their intention.  It happens all the time with humans.

Then you need to try again. The circularity is in deciding that the likelihood of your existence by chance is so small that there must have intentionality ab initio – therefore a “guiding” god to steer the process. You also though need “god” to have been involved to start with to decide that Alan Burns was the plan all along. That is, your premise “god” and your conclusion “god” are the same thing. And that’s circular reasoning.     

You seem to ignore the unfathomable complexity needed to bring about such creations and the unlikelyhood of random unguided forces being able to achieve this.

FFS Alan – see above.

Our ability to reason goes far beyond what can be achieved by unavoidable material reactions.

Now you’ve collapsed into a statement of blind faith. Could you try at least to understand what’s being said to you? You’re like the winner of a lottery with a trillion tickets in the draw who decides that there must therefore be special about you, oblivious to the fact that the lottery company neither knows nor cares who will win (or indeed if anyone will).

This isn’t difficult to understand Alan. Really it isn't.     

[Dicky Underpants]

The Christian Bible is a collection of books written by numerous authors over a period of hundreds of years.  You cannot simply dismiss it as circular reasoning.  Each author claims to be inspired by God or to have had encounters with a person whom they believe to be God incarnate.

Hundreds of years? That would include the Old Testament, and there's no way you can argue that 'each author claims to be inspired by God'. The Book of Esther doesn't mention God. The Song of Solomon makes no such claims, nor Ecclesiastes, nor Proverbs, nor Job (though it does present an intriguing argument about theodicy). As for the Pentateuch, they are just compendiums of different stories (or sometimes different versions of the same story) which mention God's actions, but there are no claims to divine inspiration, apart from Moses receiving the Commandments on Mount Sinai (or was it Horeb? - depends which version you read).

And as blue says, you're just employing circular reasoning. Now if it could be demonstrated that a huge collection of religious texts written over hundreds of years all made the same claims in exactly the same words about what they were writing about God, that might just give us pause. But there are almost as many different images of God in the Bible as there are authors - and even if they did say the same thing, it would still be a circular argument.

[Alan Burns]

That evolution is a blind undirected process is evident, and we no have reason or evidence to suggest otherwise.  Apart from which, the suggestion that an intelligent designer would use employ a design process based based on random mutations is an oxymoron.  This is the opposite of design. Even worse still, this designer is in other places claimed to be benevolent, wise and compassionate; yet this design process has resulted in 99% of all species going extinct and this, not to mention the suffering inflicted on countless organisms who suffered the consequences of somatic mutations along the way, what were they, just collateral damage, a necessary evil, the price paid for beneficial germline mutations to accrue ?  This is not the design of a wise and compassionate designer; it is the scheme of a designer that cares nothing whatsoever for its creations.

You rightly point out that we live in an imperfect world.
I admit that there are many things which I do not understand.
But I believe the fact that we have the ability to conceive of and aspire to a much better world is no accident.
Our yearning for a better place is part of what makes us human.
We are not in heaven yet.
So I thank God for the gift of life, and for His promise of eternal salvation earned for us by the suffering, death and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

You rightly point out that we live in an imperfect world.

Just as you’d expect with no god at all present in fact, but ok…

I admit that there are many things which I do not understand.

There are many things that all of us don’t understand Alan. What’s harder to fathom though is why you don’t understand arguments (like the explanation of circular reasoning) no matter how often and in how many ways they’re explained to you.

But I believe the fact that we have the ability to conceive of and aspire to a much better world is no accident.

I know you do. And I believe in fairies at the end of my garden too. What each of us believes with no supporting arguments or evidence is though epistemically worthless.
 

Our yearning for a better place is part of what makes us human.

Could be.

We are not in heaven yet.

Nor are we likely to be unless you can first find an argument to justify your claim “Heaven”.

So I thank God for the gift of life, and for His promise of eternal salvation earned for us by the suffering, death and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour.

And there’s the unqualified faith assertion to finish. What you actually “thank” is your belief in “god”. You have a long way to go though to establish first that such a thing exists outside your imagination.     

[torridon]

You rightly point out that we live in an imperfect world.
I admit that there are many things which I do not understand.
But I believe the fact that we have the ability to conceive of and aspire to a much better world is no accident.
Our yearning for a better place is part of what makes us human.
We are not in heaven yet.
So I thank God for the gift of life, and for His promise of eternal salvation earned for us by the suffering, death and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour.

This does not address the question.  If God is perfect and benevolent and has unlimited creative powers then why would he create an imperfect world ? This does not make sense.  God, as claimed, would create a perfect world. In an imperfect world, however, the inhabitants suffer the consequences of this imperfection either because the designer is incompetent or because the designer is evil, desiring the inhabitants to experience gratuitous suffering.  This is the simple logic of the intelligent designer claim and it reveals theism to be fundamentally irrational, and all 'Searching for God' merely the practice of apologetics.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

This does not address the question.  If God is perfect and benevolent and has unlimited creative powers then why would he create an imperfect world ? This does not make sense.  God, as claimed, would create a perfect world. In an imperfect world, however, the inhabitants suffer the consequences of this imperfection either because the designer is incompetent or because the designer is evil, desiring the inhabitants to experience gratuitous suffering.  This is the simple logic of the intelligent designer claim and it reveals theism to be fundamentally irrational, and all 'Searching for God' merely the practice of apologetics.

I think you are crediting yourself too much regarding knowledge of benevolence.

[Alan Burns]

This does not address the question.  If God is perfect and benevolent and has unlimited creative powers then why would he create an imperfect world ? This does not make sense.  God, as claimed, would create a perfect world. In an imperfect world, however, the inhabitants suffer the consequences of this imperfection either because the designer is incompetent or because the designer is evil, desiring the inhabitants to experience gratuitous suffering.  This is the simple logic of the intelligent designer claim and it reveals theism to be fundamentally irrational, and all 'Searching for God' merely the practice of apologetics.

How would we recognise and appreciate perfection if there was never any knowledge of imperfection?
How would we know how to be good if there was no temptation for evil?

[Sebastian Toe]

How would we recognise and appreciate perfection if there was never any knowledge of imperfection?
How would we know how to be good if there was no temptation for evil?

Well didn't God set it all up originally as perfect?

[Udayana]

Well didn't God set it all up originally as perfect?

If so, must have found it too boring ...
 

[Alan Burns]

Well didn't God set it all up originally as perfect?

God allowed free will

[Sebastian Toe]

God allowed free will

Did God set up everything as perfect originally?

[torridon]

God allowed free will

Does 'free will' account for malaria, then ?  Children dying of bone cancer, well they brought it on themselves by their own free will, of course.

Anything but look facts in the face, eh ?

[Alan Burns]

Does 'free will' account for malaria, then ?  Children dying of bone cancer, well they brought it on themselves by their own free will, of course.

Anything but look facts in the face, eh ?

In addition to human free will, God allows nature to take its course.  It all leads to an imperfect world, but a world in which we can get glimpses of the perfection which we should all aspire to.

[Sebastian Toe]

a world in which we can get glimpses of the perfection which we should all aspire to.

Examples?

Oh and ...
Did God set up everything as perfect originally?

[torridon]

In addition to human free will, God allows nature to take its course.  It all leads to an imperfect world, but a world in which we can get glimpses of the perfection which we should all aspire to.

Which buys you no brownie points.  If God designed Nature, then he did it in the full knowledge and calculation that it would inflict gratuitous suffering on natural beings, given that a life without suffering is indeed possible (ie Heaven)

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

God allowed free will

I see your faith assertion. If you want it to be taken seriously though, then you need to justify it with arguments that aren’t hopeless re the following:

1. That “God” exists at all (and that this is god is also the one you think it is).

2. That this god was capable of and intended to “allow” something.

3. That “free” will exists as you think it does despite the huge contradictions that claim throws up. 

As ever, good luck with it though.

In addition to human free will, God allows nature to take its course.  It all leads to an imperfect world, but a world in which we can get glimpses of the perfection which we should all aspire to.

But we know “nature” produces unfathomable pain, loss and suffering on a huge scale day after day. Why would a god you think to be benign “allow” any such thing rather than engineer affairs such that all that misery wasn’t necessary?     

[Sebastian Toe]

God allows nature to take its course. .

...up until the point where, according to you, he didn't!

[Alan Burns]

Oh and ...
Did God set up everything as perfect originally?

Have you not read and understood the profound message illustrated in the Garden of Eden?

[Alan Burns]

...up until the point where, according to you, he didn't!

God has free will too

[Alan Burns]

AB,

I see your faith assertion. If you want it to be taken seriously though, then you need to justify it with arguments that aren’t hopeless re the following:

1. That “God” exists at all (and that this is god is also the one you think it is).

God is the source of all existence

2. That this god was capable of and intended to “allow” something.

God allows all that exists

3. That “free” will exists as you think it does despite the huge contradictions that claim throws up. 

I use my gift of free will every day - as do you.

But we know “nature” produces unfathomable pain, loss and suffering on a huge scale day after day. Why would a god you think to be benign “allow” any such thing rather than engineer affairs such that all that misery wasn’t necessary?   

Nature also produces profound glimpses of the joy we are all entitled to if we choose to accept Jesus as our saviour.

[Sebastian Toe]

Have you not read and understood the profound message illustrated in the Garden of Eden?

Did God set up everything as perfect originally?

[Sebastian Toe]

God has free will too

You said that

God allows nature to take its course. .

I am wondering what that statement means when you also claim that God interferes with nature and alters it's course and presumably can do that at any time?

It might have been more accurate to say that God mostly allows nature to take it's course ..but not always.

Do you agree?