God

[Stark Evade]

Re: God

Logic, Reason, and the Scientific Method may give the best means of understanding the specific workings of the universe, but this does not necessarily mean they are the best way of understanding the nature of the universe.

Yes, that is precisely what it does.

Basing one's world-view based on "Reason" (which can mean different things to different people) requires as much faith as it does for a theist to believe in God. The atheist sees Reason as his only means of understanding the world but can give no explaination as to why this is so or why Reason can necessarily be trusted at a fundamental level.

It does not require the same amount of faith. You need to be more familiar with logic and maybe even Occam's Razor.

Epistemologically speaking, we can never truly know that our senses are
giving us true data. We can never truly know if we are being deceived by our own body. We can only say - with reasonable certainty - that yes, what my senses are telling me is true.

Science is not based on the senses of an individual.

No its not "vague and meaningless" - admitting that your worldview is fallible is the first step. This is actually a part of the Scientific Method as you probably know: understanding the limitations of one's experiment.

I have already stated that science doesn't say anything is a 100%. You seem to not understand the goal of science and the fact that if it is shown that something is the best process for gaining knowledge and understanding, placing confidence in anything else is illogical.

It is true that many theists use fallacies (ever hear "Liar, Lunatic, or Lord"?) to support their faith in God but it does not have to be this way. Although there are certainly many things about God that are illogical, there are still many more that agree with Reason.

I am not new to this. There isn't a single argument that is not fallacious.

Also, just because one cannot prove something empirically does not mean it is untrue.

It means that belief in it is illogical.

For example, it is generally agreed that the Universe is infinite and continually expanding. We cannot prove that the Universe is infinite, this is actually non-falsifiable. However most scientists agree, with reasonable certainty, that it must be so.

It is generally agreed upon for concrete and logical reasons.

[ara87]

Re: God

My response was to your opinion that a God must have existed at some point. I did not address your comments on morality.

oh, i had taken you comment about fence sitting as referring to my own about in case there is a heaven. My logic in the reasoning that there must be, or has been a supernatural power was because something must have come before nothing, in order for everything else that exists to come into existence. Now whether it is a god(s) or an atom that expanded, or some other non biological matter, that's up for debate. But for me it makes sense that something must have existed before nothing, and the idea that there is or was a god(s) that came out of no where to create the universe make more sense to me at least, than just non biological matter appearing out of nowhere developing into the universe we know today

[Yedtarts]

Re: God

Mother Teresa was not very bright. Sorry.

Why, because she wasn’t making 500,000 a year?
Did you knew her in person?
On what/whom scale you were measuring her brightness?

[jgk3]

Re: God

The only way people can determine that best possible understanding at any given time of the nature of the universe is by logic reason and the scientific method. Trusting God is not as credible as trusting in logic and the scientific method. (See above post.) Just saying something is fallible is vague and meaningless. The leap of faith for believing in a God is entirely, completely, totally, utterly unreasonable and illogical. And that fact can only be clouded by fallacious language manipulation.

What if your religion still prompted you to adhere to a quite secular scientific method in order to provide enhancements for society at large in productivity and learning, much like in the case of Confucianism?

Are logic and faith really diametrically opposed?

[Dice]

Re: God

hate to break it to you stark,
but your 'logic' means nothing..the basic limitations of our brain puts a massive restriction on what we can understand.
if we let go of this logic and voice in our head we call thoughts which is our ego controlling us and giving us the illusion of duality, then we have so much more clarity and what we percieved to be ourselves was actually a mental construct...this way we can feel the aliveness in ourselves, in our bodies...feel our connection with this world and with everybody. to me that is feeling your 'christ within' or 'buddha nature'. it's not something you can logicisize it goes beyond the limitations of this body.

you come from a standpoint of defending yourself...this is because these ideas you speak of...you actually identify with. you want to be right, superior, the best. that is ego...always striving for seperation and power.
whereas enlightenment(christ within or buddha nature) is realizing the oneness and conectedness of everybody; here you have nothing to defend or demonstrate...here you want to treat everybody with respect and give your love unconditionally.

Christ and Buddha were enlightened beings and offered a path to liberation and yet the world was not ready for them...over the years the teachings got twisted and altered through translations but if you look closely enough you can retrieve the essence of them and it's all positive and great stuff. one must find their own path to liberation(of the ego...to oneness) using these teachings as a guideline.

For this purpose alone I reccomend Eckhart Tolle's new book 'A New Earth' ... it attempts to unlock that within you.

hope this plants a seed in you

[LadyLazarus]

Re: God

I'm not a great fan of organized religion. In fact, it should be squashed and the sooner the better (for the reasons outlined below by others which I won't reiterate). The commies might have had the right idea *sigh*

That having been said, I do object to such staunch opposition to spirituality (and I mean that in a very general sense). After all, a prayer to (a however imaginary) God is akin to an artist's inspired reverie, or a poet's silent discourse with his Muse. The passion, the faith, the feeling of possibility should be held in the same esteem as typical religious fervor (slight sarcasm, sorry). And, as such, no religiosity should be bashed. Many an undertaking altering the history of mankind (from war to art and everything in between)has been made possible by the zealous "true believer" type. If his/her God didn't exist, perhaps all of humanity wouldn't have benefitted.

Anyway, to each his own, I suppose.

[Anonymouse]

Re: God

You cannot prove or disprove the existence of God (sorry Dusken). Either way what you are left with is a belief. I know atheists hate this but I cannot change it. That is the way it goes.

[yerazhishda]

Re: God

It does not require the same amount of faith. You need to be more familiar with logic and maybe even Occam's Razor.

I am familiar enough with logic to know that it is limited.

Science is not based on the senses of an individual.

So we do not use our eyes, ears, nose, hands and sometimes mouth (!) to gather and interpret the world around us? At the end of the day, humans are the intemediary in interpreting scientific data and thus is subject to the deception/limitation of the senses.

I have already stated that science doesn't say anything is a 100%. You seem to not understand the goal of science and the fact that if it is shown that something is the best process for gaining knowledge and understanding, placing confidence in anything else is illogical.

I know that the goal of science is to collect verifiable knowledge. However, knowledge in the context of science is limited to objects that are falsifiable. This means that the Scientific Method cannot be, and should not be, carried over to philosophy; it has been done before with disasterous effects.

Like I've said before logic and reason are fallible - never mind the fact that two people can be asked the same question and arrive at two different answers "logically".

I am not new to this. There isn't a single argument that is not fallacious.

It depends what arguments you are looking at. If you are looking at these types of arguments or Aquinas' Proofs then of course you are going to think they are fallacious. If you look at arguments by esteemed philosopher-theologian Hans Kung then I think you will be presently surprised at how he deals with the issues of modern philosophy, atheism, and God head on.

It is generally agreed upon for concrete and logical reasons.

But essentially the "infiniteness of the universe" cannot be empirically verified. I could say the same thing that you said, only this time referring to God. "It cannot be empirically verified, but I believe it for logical reasons."

The same thing can be said about the Law of Gravity - it is something that we cannot see at this point. We can identify it as being a "force of energy" that makes planets orbit and such but we cannot say with certainty that it is completely True. We can only rely, on faith, that our senses are not decieving us and that what we are observing is actually happening.

By the way, I'm sure you know that all physical laws break down at the beginning of the universe, right?

[Armanen]

Re: God

You have no idea what you are talking about. Good bye.

O ok. You are not an Armenian. Goodbye!

[Stark Evade]

Re: God

O ok. You are not an Armenian.

I'll inform my parents.