A Question for Anyone who Believes in the Judeo-Christian God

As a matter of fact, mentalism is one of my talents.

But, Mr. Lang feels that Be Here Now and Ram Dass texts connects him to who he is, right? And it probably helps all your psychedelic trips go more smoothly.

But there is a little secret you hide. Even though you don't list it on your MySpace account, the 1976 film ROCKY is one of your favorites. You also admire many more people than Ram Dass or Baba Neem Karoli--such as Jim Garrison, right? And most of the time you feel that your old friends don't quite get "it", do they?

But, I love ya, brother.

- LIBERTINE

 

Yes Rocky was one of my favorites, still probably is even though haven't watched it in a while... and I do admire Jim Garrisson, I even admire Larry Flynt and he is a total athiest, but god dammit how can you not admire somebody crazy enough to throw around oranges in a court room, yell out curses during a supreme court case, and wear an American flag as a diaper?

I think everybody gets it deep down, but many are not aware that they get it.


Any other things the great mentalist Libertine can pick up...

My dick has a specific question

who am I gonna marry? My dick would like what pussy will be its consistant friend.

 

Libertine can only read vibes, I am not a psychic.

 

Trippin:

I was brought up Catholic too, and it probably does inflluence my thinking. I still have a lot of respect for some Christian philosophers. Out of curiousity, why would you think that I'm a Christian? I'm not at all offended, just curious. And you can respond to any thread you like. That's the point of these forums.

Jatom:

Because it's not unreasonable to accept the general reliability of sense-data. Something reasonable doesn't require absolute certainty, analytic a priori. It only needs to be a good inference. A good inference can generally be characterized as the best possible conclusion that can be drawn from any given set of premises. A good inference need not be deductive, although all sound deductive inference are good inferences. Since there is precious little evidence that supports the existence of God, let alone the existence of the Judeo-Christian God, that conclusion may then be characterized as a bad inference, a departure from reason (as Trippin put it), or a leap of faith. If you find this explanation clear, then please answer the question. If not, then we can try again.

As far as I know, my atheism isn't built on a set of axioms. But even if it were, axioms are self-evidently true, by definition. Second, since axioms are analytic a priori and since you seem to think that all atheists build their systems upon such a set of axioms, then no atheist would have a use for empiricism any more than Euclid or Spinoza did. You can't be a rationalist and an empiricist at the same time, or at least not at the same time concerning the same topic. However, I deny that I am a rationalist in that my philosophy is not built upon a set of axioms. On the other hand, I will readily admit to being an empiricist of sorts but certainly not to being a "strict" empiricist, in the way that Locke, Berkeley, and Hume were strict empiricists. There are two reasons for this. (i) I'm a direct realist. So, my conception of the word "idea" differs radically from Locke's, Berkeley's, and Hume's. (ii) I have no problem making inferences that there exist things that are inperceptible. Such things include light, gravity, electro-magnetic fields, microwaves, etc. No strict empiricist would grant the existence of these things, such as many of the logical positivists, for example.

We've been over that. Axioms are self-evident by definition.

Perhaps the term "praiseworthy" is the problem. I agree that it's very vague, but Christian theologians and philosophers like to throw it around all the time. So, I decided that it must be acceptable to a Christian audience.

Certainly. He wouldn't be much of a God if the opposite were the case.

GanjaPrince:

Say I drop acid today. If it's good, then I will see, hear, and feel all sorts of things. Some may even appear to have divine origin. I may even believe that for a little while, given my state. When I come back down though, chances are, I'll still be an atheist. Surely it takes some faith to interpret such an experience in a spiritual way and not to just attributing it to really good acid?

 

That certainly happens to some people, but according to statisctically stuides of mystical experiences on psychedelics, the persons view of the world tends to change. It is more common I'd say for you to change then to stay how you were and just write it off as drug induced delusions...

In some studies they interviewed people that practiced meditation and so on... and usually at least have of them had a psychedelic experience that lead to thier practices. It is uncanny the correlations. Which is probably why Leary and Alpert and Ken Kesey and other leads of the psychedelic movement of the 60s wanted everybody to do acid, so they would all get into spiritual stuff.

If you did that I would say you didn't have enough powerful experience...

The experience that I'm talking about shakes you from everything you thought you know, and it so real and so vivid, that you are changed completely forever.

Take enough acid, say 4 tabs, hang out with a close friend who will just sit there with you... and either you will freak out or have a mystical experience. Thats why there were more mystical acid experiences in the 60s, there was most really powerful acid going around and people took more tabs.

 

But it did indirectly provide you with the answer that you needed.

"My question is, why is it that a God who requires a leap of faith from his followers is more praiseworthy than a God who can be known to us, fully or partially, by reason alone?"

"Faith is required to see at first. It's like opening your inner eye."

It's not that God requiring a 'leap of faith' (opening of your mind) makes God more praiseworthy. It's just the way it is. Perhaps this does mean that God is more praiseworthy- God makes it essential that you do something in your relationship with God (praise is willingly given).

 

i dont understand the relevance of the question, can someone explain it to me? :&

 

This post is directed at both Kharakov and Colours.

Your answer didn't the question directly or indirectly. "It's just the way it is" is not an acceptable answer.

Now that, on the other hand, is an acceptable answer. However, it still doesn't make much sense. While faith certainly is active, in that it is the action of a subject, so is knowledge. It is not implicit in the question that God imprint the fact of his existence on passive minds, like a seal imprints itself on wax. Such knowledge could be learned, painstakingly, from either extrapolation from analytic truths or empirical inquiry.

Specifically, the relevance of the question is that if a God who can be known through reason is more praiseworthy than a God who can only be known by faith, then the God of reason must be the True God because God is the most praiseworthy being conceivable. However, there is no God of reason because God cannot be known through reason alone. Therefore, there is no God.

 

It is part of the answer.
Faith is required to see at first. It's just the way it is. You can refuse to try some food, or have a judgement against it before you eat it that makes it taste bad (because of your prejudice).

Open your mind (initial 'leap of faith', you are learning a new concept).
Apply reason.
Gain faith as a product of an open mind and reason.

 

I think part of the problem may be that most rational thinkers see the concept of "God" as something (potentially) sitting atop a mountain of rational thought when in fact He may be buried beneath it.

 

it seems liek youre assuming a lot about this god, which you dont believe in, to make this premise valid

The part i dont understand is how you come to the conclusion about which god is more praiseworthy.

 

That's what this thread is about. We haven't reached such a conclusion one way or the other yet. And the deduction is only valid if the God of reason is more praiseworthy. So, if you plan to defend the Christian God, then your goal is clear. Demonstrate that a God who can be known by reason alone is less praiseworthy than a God known by faith.

 

isnt whether something is praiseworthy or not ones opinion? I dont really understand the equation youve set up here.

 

Can something be known by reason? I'm not asking if facts can be deduced from reason (of course they can) but if we're (potentially) talking about a sentiant intelegence with it's own personallity then "know" would imply meeting and interacting with, rather than just knowing of.

We can deduce via reason and evidence that countries we've never been to exist but is that knowledge as praiseworthy, ie, can we appreiciate it as much as the experience of actually going there?

 

Let's stop with the vague metaphors and get to the heart of what you're really saying:

(i) After taking the leap of faith, you see confirming evidence of God's existence everywhere.

Response: After people accept the validity of astrology, tarot, and psychics, they see confirmation of those pseudo-sciences everywhere. You're argument is nothing more than an elaborate form of begging the question, in that one has to accept the premise that God exists in order to conclude that God exists.

(ii) Only those who have faith are capable of understanding truths concerning God.

Response: This is just nonsense. Why should I believe in a form of elitist, esoteric knowledge? The truth-conditions of propositions can be understood and then investigated, at least in principle, by anyone. That's the great thing about propositions. Take the following:

"Here is one hand, and here is another."

"Snow is white."

"The present King of France is bald."

Now compare those to these:

"When we affirm the reality of the Real Beings and their individual identity of being and declare that these Real Beings exist in the Intellectual Realm, we do not mean merely that they remain unchangeably self-identical by their very essence, as contrasted with the fluidity and instability of the sense-realm; the sense-realm itself may contain the enduring. No; we mean rather that these principles possess, as by their own virtue, the consummate fullness of being."

"Self-consciousness thus, in the third place, recognizes its positive relation as its negative, and its negative as its positive, - or, in other words, recognizes these opposite activities as the same i.e. it recognizes pure Thought or Being as self-identity, and this again as separation."

"Thus, for systematic Natural History and methodical Natural History, which were in constant opposition for a good part of the eighteenth century, one can recognize: an inadequation of the objects (in the one case one describes the general appearance of the plant; in the other certain predetermined variables; in the one case, one describes the totality of the plant, or at least its most important parts, in the other one describes a number of elements chosen arbitrarily for their taxonomic convenience; sometimes one takes account of the plant's different states of growth and maturity, at others one confines one's attention to a single moment, a stage of optimum visibility); a divergence of enunciative modalities (in the case of the systematic analysis of plants, one applies a rigorous perceptual and linguistic code, and in accordance with a constant scale; for methodical description, the codes are relatively free, and the scales of mapping may oscillate); an incompatibility of concepts (in the 'systems', the concept of generic character is an arbitrary, though misleading mark to designate the genera; in the methods this same concept must include the real definition of the genus); lastly, an exclusion of theoretical options (systematic taxonomy makes `fixism' possible, even if it is rectified by the idea of a continuous creation in time, gradually unfolding the elements of the tables, or by the idea of natural catastrophes having disturbed by our present gaze the linear order of natural proximities, but excludes the possibility of a transformation that the method accepts without absolutely implying it)."

All six quotes are from quite famous philosophers, but only the first three are from good philosophers. Why? Because I know quite clearly what it means for here to be one hand, for snow to be white, and for the present King of France to be bald (if there were a present King of France). The remaining three are nonsense. I think you'd probably prefer the last three philosophers to the first three. I'll readily admit that they sound more profound. But that still doesn't change the fact that they're jabbering on about nothing. The point is that metaphor and flowery language make good poetry, not good philosophy, and that something that goes against natural reason and just plain common sense, no matter how pretty it sounds, is still false.

 

Common Sense, that is a whole lot of common sense!

 

That’s fine, but how do we know that “sense-data” is generally reliable? If it is not grounded in a more ultimate source, then it is circular, and viciously so.

By what “good inference” do you infer the reliability of sensory perception? And even reasoning to a best explanation requires certainty since it relies on induction.

First I deny that “there is precious little evidence that supports the existence of God.” I would say that the fact that you exist, speak, type, can reason etc., are all evidences of God’s existence. But this should come as no surprise since I am an presuppositionalist of sorts. But your view of reality depends largely on how you interpret it through your world view.

By "axiom" all I mean is "starting point" or "first princple(s)" by/on which the rest of your world view is built. I do not however, mean to imply that your system of thought is deduced deductively in rationalistic fashion from this set of axioms (although it may if you were a rationalist, and the term "axiom" would still apply here). Empiricism for example, may have the starting point "All knowledge has its basis in sense perception." Anyway, Neither am I a rationalist, nor do I believe that you are one.

I disagree. If one’s axioms allow for knowledge to be gained inductively through sense perception, then empiricism is in play.

The term “praiseworthy” is not the problem. Your use of the word “faith” is where I find the problem at.

 

I love presuppositionalists who like to introduce "unexplained" phenomena, push it as if it is "inexplicable" and introduce "God" as the answer.

They are sly in the fact that, at first, they just want to attempt to erode your thinking process by using subtle tactics to confuse you into equating "unexplained" with "supernatural" by affirming that such is the only OTHER explanation since science can't (yet) explain it. *Notice: The key word, I inject here, is "yet".

Throughout history the Pre-Sups have played this game by filling the gap with their voodoo until science finally captured an understanding of the previously unexplained phenomenon and explained the "unknown" with known facts. Finally, the old voodoo version became laughable. "Volcano gods" are a great example of this.

Yes, Pre-Sups act as if they are not saying "God" is the explanation at first. No, at first, they must lead you down a path of mysteries and then introduce Omni-Max Sky Daddy as the answer.

Another way is to say that "God" is "Ultimate Reality" whatever the fuck that is. They can't really explain that either without using vague, sketchy phrases and terms.

Either way they are introducing a foreign concept and trying to explain the unknown by the unknown...er, well, "unknown" yet THEY know what it (God) consists of and of the attributes of such an entity (i.e. anything needed to fill the gap-- uncaused, timeless, etc.) because they have encountered a problem of logic and thus, they must resort to the two ultimate weapons at their disposal: "faith" and "miracles".

"God" is uncaused, timeless, omni-max, etc. all "foreign" concepts introduced to place a band-aid over the fact that they can't explain it in any reasonable way without doing so. And plus, it adds to their propaganda, conveniently, as well.

Pre-Sups are usually the most unreasonable people because they can't understand for the life of them how "God" is a foreign concept and how in the world they are unnecessarily multiplying entities. No, they see it as the most logical thing: Since the universe is caused, what caused it? AH-HA! It must be my preconceived notion and personal interpretation of "God". Viola! Case closed. Problem solved.

In the fairytale world they live in, getting on their knees and talking into thin air cures cancer and ends wars. Angels protect them from harm, a devil is waiting for them in a fire hole, and they are in a "spiritual" warfare for the "soul". Hollywood is losing out here. They could make a HELL of an EPIC!

The "Greatest Story Ever Told" has no reliable evidence that it isn't just that: A STORY and nothing more.

 

I think you misread what I wrote. I said "the fact that YOU thought I was a Christian of some sort..."

You are quite clearly not a Christian, haha

 

Libertine, that is one of the most atrocious renditions of presuppositionalism I have every seen! First off, how does the presuppositionlist push the inexplicable as somehow referring to God? Can you give an example of this? On the contrary, I would say that the inexplicable is, well, the inexplicable. I see no need to push God off as the primary cause, unless it is reasonable to believe that to be case (such as if it say’s so in the Bible, or it can be shown to follow implicitly from the text, or if it can be shown by other means).

Second off, you give a vague reference to something about presuppositionalist filling the gap with their voodoo until science finally understood what was previously unexplained. Care to give an example of this? A presuppositionalist doesn’t usually concern himself with scientific explanations and experiementation, but instead looks at the underlining principles and assumptions of science and decides if they are consistent with the world view of the one who holds them. In other words the presuppositionalist is far more concerned with philosophy then science. It’s a harsh misunderstanding to think that the presuppositionalist is at odds with science. No, his concern is for those who would practice science from within a world view that does not allow such a method.

Third off, you make many references which lead me to believe that either you are confuse as to what presuppositionalism is, or you are intentionally perverting the matter in an effort to confuse the reader and appear to gain some psychological defeat. At one point you put “God is Ultimate Reality” in the mouth of the presuppositionalist . Not only have I not find such a statement in presuppositionalist material, but the sentence doesn’t even make sense within the context of our discussion. At another point, you talk about volcano gods. First, this has nothing to do with either presuppositionalism, or Christianity for that matter, so how is this even relevant? And second, at the time one would have relied on the “volcano god” explanation, there was no such thing as presuppositionalism (which is a modern school of thought by the way). And at another point you make reference to the cosmological argument--to God being uncaused and the universe being caused. But this is an evidential/classical approach, and not presuppositionalism.

Libertine my advice is that you either make some attempt at learning just what it is that you arguing against, or else keep your nose out of places where it doesn’t belong.