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Thanks for your response. This show seems to be in the direction of what I am looking for...something more concrete than the Bible to prove, or attempt to prove, that the goings-on in the Bible are somewhat reputable.
I have never taken the bible as literal and I am not a Christian. I don't have any problem with my religious tradition and viewing the bible as not literal.
I have never taken the bible as literal and I am not a Christian. I don't have any problem with my religious tradition and viewing the bible as not literal.
I am not a Christian either and do not hold the bible in any regard. I know this is going off on a tangent, but after a recent trip to NoVA to see my parents there was a lot of pressue to "get in the church" and "make God number one if your life." I'm fine with the fact that my family chooses to believe, but I am having a hard time wrapping my head around it all. I am good just to be good. I don't feel I have to immerse myself in a certain belief to attain this. Basically, this recent experience is the root cause of my posting today.
One of my reasons for believing there is a god of some sort is because humankind has always believed in some form of deity for as long as there have been humans. The ideas surrounding the deity (s) change but the belief in something bigger than ourselves that guides our destiny has always been there. It's as natural to our species as walking on two legs. Maybe we somehow sense there is more to our existence that we aren't been told about and cannot comprehend. We then try to latch on to it with religions of our own making.
It could be there is something physiological in our brains that makes them work that way, but from an evolutionary standpoint it seems illogical to devote time, effort and resources to something that isn't there, so you'd think such behavior would have selected against early on in the process. Yet throughout history and even today people all over the world feel they are guided and/or assisted by some sort of divinity in many different ways. Can they all be deluding themselves?
My reason for asking this is because there are many things, History related, that can be backed up and are clearly irrefutable. However, the whole God thing seems to hinge on the Bible which, IMO, is not a credible source. So I am just curious to see if there is anything, besides the Bible, that can "prove" his existence.
The term "prove" is a bit tricky as "Proof" tends to be subjective. However, I can easily explain why belief in the Christian God is both logical and reasonable...albeit, it may take some time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 4sar2cas0tic
**I am on the fence when it comes to religion and am hoping to find some credible, logical answers here**
I suppose that time will tell as to whether or not you're being real or just trolling.
The term "prove" is a bit tricky as "Proof" tends to be subjective. However, I can easily explain why belief in the Christian God is both logical and reasonable...albeit, it may take some time.
I've had extensive conversations with you in the past where you have attempted to do this, and I have yet to see anything logical or reasonable about a belief in "the" Christian God. Most concepts in Christianity are illogical and unreasonable, and choosing a belief arbitrarily (e.g. with faith instead of any proof) is illogical and unreasonable as well.
I don't think there's anything you can say to make rational people think that the one thing that earns you eternal punishment is to not have faith in a specific unproven belief, or that we are all worthless because of something our ancestors did but God sacrificed himself to himself to relieve us from the punishment we deserve for being born, or that Jesus is God but talks to God as if he is not and also spends time healing only some people 2000 years ago, then dies and is called everyone's savior even though we still live in a horrifyingly evil world... I could go on..
One of my reasons for believing there is a god of some sort is because humankind has always believed in some form of deity for as long as there have been humans. The ideas surrounding the deity (s) change but the belief in something bigger than ourselves that guides our destiny has always been there. It's as natural to our species as walking on two legs. Maybe we somehow sense there is more to our existence that we aren't been told about and cannot comprehend. We then try to latch on to it with religions of our own making.
It could be there is something physiological in our brains that makes them work that way, but from an evolutionary standpoint it seems illogical to devote time, effort and resources to something that isn't there, so you'd think such behavior would have selected against early on in the process. Yet throughout history and even today people all over the world feel they are guided and/or assisted by some sort of divinity in many different ways. Can they all be deluding themselves?
You think it is counter evolutionary? We are self-aware beings and self-aware about our own mortality. I can think of a lot of positive reasons why we would believe in something that provides answers, comfort and a reduced fear of our own demise even if the entire thing was baloney.
My reason for asking this is because there are many things, History related, that can be backed up and are clearly irrefutable. However, the whole God thing seems to hinge on the Bible which, IMO, is not a credible source. So I am just curious to see if there is anything, besides the Bible, that can "prove" his existence.
**I am on the fence when it comes to religion and am hoping to find some credible, logical answers here**
I suppose one way would be to quote some other theistic work like the Qur'an or the Guru Granth Sahib or the Avesta. I have a hunch that's not what you're meaning.
There are mathematicians who have tried this. There is a Bayesian argument on the probability of God that apparently was made by Stephen Unwin. Although the equation included some speculation as does the Drake Equation. Unwin used it and got a 67% probability for God, skeptic Michael Shermer got 2% when he used it, and Dawkins was skeptical of the whole idea. (I might be too, but I'm not sure)
Kurt Godel had his own ontological proof. There was also a group of Russian mystics called the Imiaslavie or "Name Worshippers" who were significant to the "Russian school" of mathematics. Their work concerned functions and transfinite. I bought a book by a Harvard fellow on them and they sound intriguing. Anyway the transfinite numbers have some appeal to mystics in that they concern things that are beyond nature, as in there is nothing in nature that is transfinite, but are accepted as mathematically real.
Then there are arguments concerning the observer principle and the creation of the Universe. So far the Universe just "is" or it's part of some greater multi-dimensional space that can not yet, or maybe ever, be verified by experiment. Also on a Quantum level reality seems to involve observers collapsing probability waves. (This involves things like Quantum entanglement, Schrodinger's Cat, and the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox) So either "we", meaning conscious beings of any kind, are the center of the Universe who collapse probability waves into material reality or there is some "ultimate observer" who "watches over our shoulder" to collapse the probabilities when "we" collapse them. This would give Quantum reality one ultimate source rather than having it be "the reality of whatever being measures the thing." (Problem here is it might seem a bit weird or unnecessary for God to play "peekaboo" with the Universe, but I believe the physics require that it at least appear to be the measurer who is collapsing the wave. Also it might seem to be adding an unnecessary element to have a "hidden measurer", but many find the alternative unpalatable) This probably sounds rather goofball, but QM is something I'm only self-taught in and I'm not sure I can give a full explanation of what I'm trying to say in it.
The problem with the title, taken in tandem with the advert is, what 'god' did man supposedly create?
Obviously, if there is a sort of creator out there, not to mention something we'd regard as a 'god' on some other planet, man did not invent it. But the question really is - did man invent the gods that we have as part of our religions? I'd say obviously we did, otherwise we'd all be talking about the same god or gods.
But the advert says prove otherwise, without using the Bible. That is, scientifically, or logically or with evidence.
We have seen attempts to prove both types of god - the non-specific creator through the familiar watchmaker and first cause arguments. They don't 'prove' a god, though it's hard to get believers out of the illogical type of thought that says: 'if science can't prove reasonably how it came about by natural causes, then 'god' mustha dunnit'. The argument founders on the reef of illogic right away. And I can say that, long before I signed on this board, I knew that theists use a kind of illogic called 'God's logic' which uses such fallacies as 'if you can't explain it, God must be the answer', 'if you can't prove that God doesn't exist, God must exist' and of course, 'let's first assume that God exist..right, then..'
All without using the Bible.
When we get onto the specific gods of religion, then it is a slightly different game, because, although the arguments above are pressed into service, the idea of a revealed god is used as a springboard for the leap of faith to get to a personal god.
Here again, without using the Bible, or any other Holy Book, we can get all sorts of evidences, from the rather tricky claims of miracles, healings and inexplicable occurrences to personal feelings and ideas which, though on the face of it, are the weakest possible evidence, seem to be the most used.
To get back to the advert. To prove that the various personal gods are not man - made is almost pointless. There's hardly anyone here who cannot have expressed some view not in accordance with religious orthodoxy and I doubt that any will ignore the fact that all the religions have rather different 'takes' on 'god'. Therefore religions are, to some considerable extent, clearly man - made.
But is 'god'? There is still this god of everything idea whether one goes rather pantheist and says it's the god of all religions or none or that it approves one particular religion, or even one particular view of religion (often believed apparently by only one person) and all the others are false.
So what's the conclusion? The advert is of course addressing 'Biblegod' belief. But it really relates to any god - belief.
One cannot disprove the postulated man - invention of 'god/s' any more than one can disprove the reality of 'god/s'. The question really is: can the believers prove a god exists, the Bible not being proof of anything much?
Logically, the supposed proofs from Aquinas through Blaize Pascal, Paley's watchmaker and C.S. Lewis' long discredited logical fallacies, add up to nothing, if one applies logic, reason and evidence (1). That's not hard to show. The hard part is getting the believers to accept the logic, reason and evidence. That is the hard part.
(1) reason is sometmes a bit tricky. There are rules in logic and science but not in reasoning. It is terribly easy to construct a convincing line of reasoning that is actually false in every respect, particularly if one starts from an illogical premise such as: 'Let us start with the assumption that God is real..'
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 12-02-2009 at 03:18 AM..
Reason: a footnote is needed..and some proofreading!
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