Nature of God

[loseyourname]

Originally posted by felizitation I'm not trying to convince you. It's too personnal. I'm exposing you the way i think, finding some logical reason of avoiding the non-existance of God.

I'm not asking to be convinced of anything. But if you have a particular spiritual worldview, then I would like to know why you have that. You don't seem to have anything specific, in which case I am asking what the point of believing in any spiritual aspect to existence is in the first place. How does this affect the way you actually live your life or evaluate anything in this world?

[loseyourname]

That is very eloquently put, but it still doesn't change any of the logical difficulties inherent in a spiritual worldview, nor does it cite any form of evidential or rational basis for having that worldview. I'm not going to affirm or deny what we ALL have. To do so would be idiocy. You can't possibly know what every single human being who has ever existed wants or feels.

You've been acting like I'm attacking you, and I'm not. I'm not against spiritualism. I actually happen to suspect that there may very well be a spiritual aspect to human existence, but the more I critically analyze that proposition, instead of just having the blind, unquestioning faith that you seem to be advocating, the more I am left with nothing.

Of course we all long for immortality. A person's survival instinct, which is explainable in purely biological terms, is enough to account for this. It isn't necessary to invoke the actual existence of anything infinite. Neither space nor time is thought to be infinite by physicists who study them. That is only a common misperception. They are said to be unbounded, and there is an important difference.

P.S. This is directed at the Mouse.

[Jenny]

The whole concept of Christianity is based on one word which is love. Love never dies that's why God wouldn't kill himself coz he's filled with love.
God is immaterial, he doesn't have a material body but a soul. He;s with us through it and through angels ofcourse.

Christianity doesn't believe in destiny so humans are free to do whatever he wants. God being almighty knows our future, and just like us he tries to deny it sometimes and gives us a chance to regret and ask for forgiveness simply bcoz he loves us not because he doubts the future or anything

I can talk forever about this but then again I don't want to bore u. No matter what God loves us so show a little more respect and let ur arguments be logical. And ofcourse if u hadn't read the bible and have shallow knowledge of ur religion don't bother arguing.

[felizitation]

Originally posted by loseyourname What he said amounts to sophistry. It contains no coherent thought and could be used to justify belief in any conceivable metaphysical system. Makes me wonder why he calls himself a Christian.

I do not think so. Maybe it's just a matter of character, but the doubt concerning our existance is for some people present, for others absent.
For instance, since my childhood, I was always wondering how color would be perceived if I was on someone else's body.

Descartes convinced people of the being of their mind. But again in the basis of their own "system" or "referential". Granted the mind exists and all of you are more than just the fruit of my imagination, can I ever know if there is something out of my referential ? No, i'm confined in.
All I see, i see it though my eyes. My imagination and my experience are built upon this. All based on my unique referential.

The knowledge of this would breed the doubt concerning my referential, and thus the idea of something outside this referential.
What is on all referentials is God.

I'm not trying to convince you. It's too personnal. I'm exposing you the way i think, finding some logical reason of avoiding the non-existance of God.

With my poor words ...

[Anonymouse]

Originally posted by loseyourname Faith in what? If you have no idea of what God is or even can be, then what is it that you are believing in?

You will never understand. In fact, you can't understand for every mans conception of God must very with his mental cultivation and mental powers. If anyone contents himself with any lower image than his intellect is capable of grasping then he contents himself with that which is false to him as well as false in fact. If its lower than one can reach one must needs feel it to be false. What may be truth the philosopher, may not be truth to the scientist, and respectively to the peasant. What many must believe is not necessarily more correct than what the refined and reflective few believe.

Thus we don't know of God we can only believe in God. ALl of us without being aware of it, although you will deny, worship a conception of our own mind, for all symbolism as well as all language shares the subjective character of the ideas it represents. It is these symbols with the names that come to us that Jung settled on in Man and his Symbols. The names we give to God only recall these symbols to the eye and mind. So like the belief in God, the belief in the souls immortality is rather a natural feeling, an extension of self consciousness, rather than a dogma belonging to any particular age or religion. It gives eternity to our nature and makes us strong in weakness and it alone gives us adequate object for our hopes and energies and value and dignity in our pursuits. It goes hand in hand with the belief in an infinite, eternal spirit ( God ), since it is through consciousness of the dignity of the mind with us that we learn to appreciate its evidences in the universe.

[loseyourname]

Originally posted by felizitation Faith in something that completely supersedes our existance, our way of thinking, our preoccupations.

I don't know if supersedes is the good word...

That is very nearly faith in nothing. How does this change the way you live your life or view the world? No religion, nor any form of spiritual lifestyle, would follow from this kind of non-specific faith.

[felizitation]

Originally posted by loseyourname Faith in what? If you have no idea of what God is or even can be, then what is it that you are believing in?

Faith in something that completely supersedes our existance, our way of thinking, our preoccupations.

I don't know if supersedes is the good word...

[loseyourname]

Originally posted by felizitation I was saying exactly this, in the wrong thread i admit ("evolution & religion", Arvee).

God take birth from the reflect of human intelligence on itself. It's a natural idea.
What is for you (anon) the nuances between a "faith" and an "idea" ?

What he said amounts to sophistry. It contains no coherent thought and could be used to justify belief in any conceivable metaphysical system. Makes me wonder why he calls himself a Christian.

[felizitation]

Originally posted by loseyourname Take this nonsense elsewhere. Start a chicken thread.

Quoting myself (again ...)

From me: "if there is no solution, it's because there is no problem"

[felizitation]

Originally posted by Anonymouse Too many of these threads have been popping up like poisonous mushrooms, each asking the wrong questions and looking at this the wrong way. Man's views with regard to God are limited, within the constraints of finite human intelligence. Since we are finite, we cannot form no adequate idea of the infinite. Being material, we can form no adequate idea of the spiritual. We all acknowledge and believe in the infinity of space and time and the spirituality of the soul, but the idea of that infinity and spirituality eludes us. Even omnipotence cannot infuse infinite conceptions into finite minds. Human intelligence can't grasp it, nor our language express it. As the ancient sages would say, the visible is necessarily the measure of the invisible.

Our consciousness of the individual reveals itself alone. Our knowledge can't pass beyond the limits of our own being. Our conceptions of God and soul and other things are merely our conceptions not those things themselves. The universe is infinite while our ideas and conceptions are finite, since we are finite beings.

Thus God is not an object of knowledge, but faith. You shouldn't approach this by understanding, but by a moral sense, nor should you conceive it, but rather feel it. All attempts to embrace and try to interpet the infinite in the conception of the finite are just accomodations of the frailty of humans. Here thought retreats in conscious weakness, and our intellect is most obviously aware of its own insufficiency. This is why you cannot ask these questions and why this thread is pointless. It is here that we as humans display our stupidity by dogmatizing this, and trying to map out Gods nature and qualities.

I was saying exactly this, in the wrong thread i admit ("evolution & religion", Arvee).

God take birth from the reflect of human intelligence on itself. It's a natural idea.
What is for you (anon) the nuances between a "faith" and an "idea" ?