God Is Dead

Alsharad.
Now THAT, is a sweeping statement.
"There will never be , ever, positive proof hat a god exists"

How do you know this?

Occam believes rational method can and will find conclusive evidence for the
existence of god..If one exists.

Oh yes he will.
If we do not believe in him. We burn forever.
Occam calls THIS the BIGDADDY of forcing it appon us.

The rest of this bit is you trying to convince occam that god canot allow itself to be proven. Or free will goes away...But god wants free will.
So he does not reveal himself.

What a crock

And thus god must exist because reason and logic exist...?
No more than occam must exist because DNA exists

Read up on gravity..you may profit.

No.. Occam says that becuse we can see the effects of gravity..
EVERYWHERE.
We as a race can define 'the effects of gravity' with diamond precision.
The inverse square law is one.
We know the effects of gravity up and down [nearly]
But this does not mean we know how gravity works.
We do not.

If we have no data to discern the workings of gravity. We cannot logically
define it. With such as gravity. we cannot simply deduct from the evidence.
What the cause is.
We can refer to no other understood effect. [there is NO precedent]
There are many theories..but not complete.
We see the effects.. But have insufficient evidence to understand what it is..
Logic must stop untill we have more evidence /understanding. [data]

Thus the statement 'logic must stop due to insufficient data' s true.

RED is a human interpretation.
Reality only has 'colour' as interpretation by mind.
RED the word. is our interpretation of reflected light from an object.
RED does not exist as a thing in itself. But as an information structure enabled by the operation of many parts of the human mind.
An information structure. Is no more than 'noise' untill interpreted.

Reality IS the only truth..You try to use human interpretations as a way out of this.
But such interpretations are part of the logical set.
'What is real'

They exist only because reality does.
Only because thinking beings define an EM frequency as red.
RED. exists as a set of understanding within the existent human mind.

It cannot exist unless humans do. And they cant exist unless reality does.

You stated that he WOULD NOT..Because then there would be no free will.
You wish us to make choices within the allowed parameters by god...
We dont even know if there is a god...
And we are speaking of what he will allow us to know or not...?

But god has not made himself so available...
When that happens.
You will find out what happens.
Speculation is pointless on this issue.


Occam

"He could very justifiably blame us"
[unless god has an ego, and cant be wrong]

Because we cannot ever be blamed for not looking hard enough.
Humans have invested BILLIONS OF MAN DAYS to the search for god.
Each human life is ~25 thousand man days.
If the christian god is not seen..It is not for the want of us looking.
The question of god has occupied human minds to the power ten over anything but survival. And small talk..

PPS.

Just as a reminder.
Occam cares not if TCG exists.
If he goes to hell for being a good man that believes not in TCG.
Then god has rigged the game.

There is no choice between good and evil. Haven and hell.
There is only the choice of 'believe in TCG and go to heaven.
Do not. And go to hell.

So morality according to TCG.. IS believe in me and do the life of the bible.
OR do not , and suffer forever.

Why offer ANY choice.?
Why not just create a race that believes..built in?

For creating a race such as us..
Who CAN THINK RATIONALLY.

Is just asking to get spat on when they are told..'do this or suffer'

 

I did not say that. You are applying your presupposition that the only evidence is evidence that is testable through the scientific method. This kind of evidence, I believe, is not available. You are looking for evidence that would, in effect, put God on a metaphorical leash. We could demonstrate God's existence at our leisure. I do not believe that God can be put on an examination table. He will not let that happen. As I said, "There is no observable, testable phenomena that, upon application of the scientific method, leaves us with the positive proof that God exists." By this I mean that you will not be given the empirical evidence that you seek.

There is yet another answer. Jesus Christ is God. If you examine the evidence we have surrounding the resurrection, then you have your empirical evidence. However, you will probably dismiss that as "words from a book." So, because you assume that the book cannot be historically accurate, you dismiss the only evidence that you have.

But if you want observable, testable, repeatable phenomena which will conclusively prove the existence of God, then you will not have it. It doesn't exist.

I am sorry that I miscommunicated the idea. Allow me to rephrase. He will not force Himself on us in the sense that he will not force us to love Him, or even acknowledge His existence. However, there will come a time when we will no longer have the ability to choose. More specifically, we have had the time to choose, after a certain point, we have to live with the consequences of our choice. He will not remove our ability to choose. Now, there will come a time where He will come and judge the world, yes, but at that point, the world will have already made its choice. If a choice has been made then free will has been excercised and God's appearance will not remove our free will at that point.

Now let's keep it civil. I have not called a single one of your ideas a "crock." It is not necessary and is pretty insulting. That is not something this forum needs.

Now, what you haven't done is refute the ideas. My view is internally consistent. Why do you call it a crock? Is it impossible? Does it lead to logical contradictions?

I wasn't trying to prove God's existence. I was rebutting your statement that we cannot know anything about God (if He exists).

Just because you cannot make a simple deduction to determine what something is doesn't mean that you cannot apply logic to it. I think you have an inaccurate view of what logic is and how it works. If you say that you cannot apply logic to it, then you cannot form either a deductive or inductive argument at all. That means that you cannot deduct what gravity is, yes. It also means that you cannot deduct what gravity is not. Would you say that we cannot deduct what gravity is not?

Okay, then let's remove RED and use a different example.

Light with a wavelength of 700 nm.

True or false? Does it exist? Yes. Is it true or false? Not until we make it into a statement.

My car reflects light with a wavelength of 700 nm.

True or false? Unless my car actually DOES reflect that wavelength, it is untrue. Again I say that truth is a quality of a statement. The truth of a statement is determined only when it is compared to reality. All true statements are reflective of reality, yes and that might be what you mean when you say that reality is the ONLY truth, but the statement "Reality IS the only truth" seems a very confusing and cryptic way of saying "only those things that are in agreement with reality are true."

No. I stated that the specific form of evidence that you are demanding will not be found. I am not sure that it exists. However, God has provided evidence (regardless of whether you consider it evidence).

It is only pointless if it does not unearth truth.

That is your opinion. You can choose to believe what you want.

Because love and trust and, yes, faith are not real unless given freely. It is unjust to force someone to love you, God wouldn't do that. So He gives us the choice.

 

Alsharad...

But you did.

quote from your post of..06-01-2004, 08:43 PM
"There is no observable, testable phenomena that, upon application of the scientific method, leaves us with the positive proof that God exists. There never will be. Ever."

Cornered yourself there my friend.

You are proposing in your comment. That we can never understand if TCG
Exists. Not through rational method/science.
But only through...faith?

If you will accept such, so be it. Occam cannot.
Any more than he will accept the existence of Thor, on faith.

 

Atheism is a tricky term because the word itself cannot stand without theism. Had man never thought up the gods in the first place, followed by organized religion, the word atheism would not have been born.
Calling oneself atheist is in part describing oneself in a society where theism is strong.
But you are right, atheism merely describes what one does not believe in. Therefore many atheists also describe themselves in other terms as well...such as humanist, freethinker etc.

Paz,
Josie

 

JosieJune

Thank you

A teacher is found,a thing of great value.
You have a gift of pure communication.
What you said was understood.
On first scan.
A rare thing.

Please say more.

Occam

 

Thank you Occam--I can only hope to communicate my thoughts well as my own children will greatly benefit if I do!

I'm not sure what I would add other than perhaps the word atheist in and of itself may be somewhat deragotory because it has the effect of elevating the status of the theist.
This frame of mind runs something like this. Those which lack theistic thinking are without.
If one can take their mind back to the beginnings of human civilization, when superstitions were not organized into religions with various denominations etc, the word theism might not have been appropriate...particularly when we examine the increasing complexity of religious thought which brings us to the present.
With this in mind, one might say that we are and were (in the early days of humanity) born atheist.
It would be more accurate to describe human beings as born with a blank slate...and while the instinct to believe in a higher power has the ability to manifest itself in all human beings...the makings of a theistic mind are taught.

Therefore, perhaps the atheist should not be viewed as being without or lacking, but rather the theistic mind should be viewed as one whom adds or embelishes his/her thinking to incorporate thoughts which cannot be seen, touched or otherwise measured.

Whatcha think?

Paz,
Josie