Nature of God

[Anonymouse]

Originally posted by loseyourname Mousy, you believe they are wrong. What's the difference?

Who is wrong? I'm lost. maybe you can not quote snippets and quote a few passages so I know where exactly from the paragraph you are quoting.

Originally posted by loseyourname So do I. The conclusion is that they observed things that they could not explain, and so invented supernatural explanations. Gradually, we have become able to answer many of the things they couldn't, and their supernaturalism was disproved. Even so, we still have questions that can't be answered, and people like you still exist to give them supernatural answers, even though it has been shown historically that such an attempt will always be ill-fated.

Things that happen to "superstitious" people are not observed, they are things outside of our natural observable frame. The best word I can say is "feel" from my own experience.

Supernaturalism was never "disproved" despite such gigantic claims. If my "supernatural", you mean God, then God was never disproved. God cannot be proven or disproven according to our man made material standards of science. This is what I've reiterated time and again.

As for your claim that "historically it has been ill fated" is pure conjecture. What are you basing it on, mans misunderstanding of the natural elements? No one denies science' role. One can reuse your quote in the same way, historically it has been shown that if science is employed alone we have dire results and I can point to Nazism for that.

Originally posted by loseyourname A society with no morals would kill itself off. Therefore, none are observed. How's that for natural selection?

For this to be true, we would have to know if animals are self aware like us and can think between "right" and "wrong". We don't know what they think. Thus if animals have no morals, and we know we do, how can we make this general and broad statement?

Originally posted by loseyourname And it remains a fact that we are wrong to do that. You are also wrong not to critically analyze your faith in God.

Sure Mr. Lose it might sound all nice in rhetoric to say "we should always question our teachers, historians, politicians or LOVERS", but how many of us actually do that? This goes back to my point that human nature, and humans themselves are naturally more inclined to believe and behave according that, than they are to question, otherwise we wouldn't have blind masses following Marxist or Hitlersque thought.

Originally posted by loseyourname This is your excuse for contradicting yourself?

Did I say it's an excuse? You did. I was playing with you because it got silly. And where did I contradict myself? Between all the one liners you've been quoting I don't know from where, I've lost all sense of what your accusation was pertaining to, to begin with.

Originally posted by loseyourname Of course. Every one of these desires is explainable biologically. Perhaps this is why you are so adamantly against evolution, because it is evolution that explains it.

I'm aware evolution through natural selection can explain this. We seek to survive. That is a given, if we approach humans as mere animals. But we are not mere brutes, we have thought, intelligent thought, and I've already gone into how thought itself is intangible, we just know it, feel it, and express it. There is no source of thought in our genes, other than our mind.

Originally posted by loseyourname Indeed, there would be little purpose. It seems a little unfair to characterize yourself as the knowledge seeker and me as the person who only keeps this up because of his ego.

I didn't characterize you such, I asked you a question to prove to you that I'm making a "knowledge claim" that is valid for all.

Originally posted by loseyourname An act of divine revelation is God directly communicating to you metaphysical truth.

Really? Who defines what "divine revelation" God is to communicate. You do? This is why such experiences defy reason and this is why you cannot grasp this in rational terms.

Originally posted by loseyourname Then you will need to quit using them and insisting that logic can't explain them, since that remains to be seen.

Really? I have to quit using them? Why? Says who? Is there some rule in the discussion that says that? That is the whole basis of why I went from an atheist who made fun of my parents for essentially the same thing that I believe in now. Not sharing my "evidences" to some stranger online is my personal choice. Of course if it defies reason and logic what is the point of you insisting on it, or wanting to know them in the first place? Just know that they defy reason, thats all, and from that to you it shouldn't be worth taking it seriously.

Originally posted by loseyourname Matter cannot be destroyed or created in a chemical process. Matter is routinely created and destroyed in nuclear processes. You are showing a fundamental lack of understanding of the laws of thermodynamics.

Matter only changes form Mr. Lose, I didn't make that up, thats what the 1st Law states. We cannot just go into a lab and "create" matter out of thin air. "Nuclear processes" are all theoretical lets not forget. Even before humans had a grasp on physics, there was matter, how did it get there? Now please don't dodge the question? Your answer should be "I don't know". It's that simple.

Originally posted by loseyourname Mousy, I believe, therefore it is true means that anything a person believes is true. I thought you were against relativism.

This is not relativism it is God, and not mere "anything". What I believe has been validated to me. If it wasn't I wouldn't make the claim that I believe in God, because I used to be an atheist.

Originally posted by loseyourname First off, I have no difficulty finding purpose in an uncreated universe. Second, even if I couldn't, that would mean nothing. Our universe could very well be purposeless. There is no reason to exclude that possibility.

But purpose would mean that there is a design, and intelligence. If evolution is about randomness and haphazardness, there is no purpose, and if you subscribe to it then you shouldn't believe there is purpose from unpurpose. Only from order do we move towards chaos, let's not forget since all systems move towards disorder. Thus when I look at the intricacies of nature randomness cannot be responsible for its precision and how it all works. If you claim to see purpose, then it means there is intelligence behind that purpose.

Originally posted by loseyourname There is no middle ground in what is true. There either is or is not a creator. This does not mean you must believe one or the other. Let me ask you something: Do you believe that Calabi-Yau topography adequately shows a means of translating superstring vibrations into elementary particles?

I'm not a physics student Mr. Lose, but if we go as far as superstrings, where did superstrings come from? If they came from this or that, where did those come from? Science eventually tip toes to a dead end, and I just thought of skipping all this and going back to the source. It's a matter of yes or no.

Originally posted by loseyourname Well, thank you for admitting that. If I might be right, then you might be wrong, which means that you don't know for sure. Have we reached reconciliation on this matter? Don't worry, because we still have plenty else to argue about.

I only said you might be right for the sake of argument because of the constant adamance of given positions. Thus, at that point I wouldn't believe, I'd be back to being an agnostic. You believe you may be right and power to you. I believe I am right. My experiences have been too great and for all time validated what I have been seeking and couldn't make sense of using exactly rational criteria. And yes, I am using my "experiences" as "evidence" for my position. Whether its inconceivable to the rational mind, to simply assert that only through reason we can understand the world is ignorant, for we are gifted with the faculty of faith as well, which is another thing that separates us from mere animals, unless we know their thoughts.

Originally posted by loseyourname Of course they do. Again, that is not the point. Will they continue to exist when all human perception and all the paper they are written and every record of them disappears? Does there exist anything that can be called "Socrates" anywhere, not just here in the physical universe.

This is equivalent of assuming that if all humans die, thought will die to, but since we ( those of us that or of the persuasion that there is a God ) believe that our thought didn't just come to us from nowhere, but it was given to us by a more intelligent power, that is responsible for intelligent design, for only intelligent thought can produce purpose and design, why we have gravity, why there is rainfall, why there are four seasons, why the planets do not fall off their axis. We can always explain WHAT is happening but when we ask the question of HOW it came to be, we reach a void where science cannot answer.

Originally posted by loseyourname This an awful lot of unfounded speculation here. Your premises are completely unconnected to your conclusions.

I would disagree with you. My inner sense tells me otherwise. We are all a product of other peoples' thought. And you yourself are influenced and are upholding the thoughts of those before you.

Originally posted by loseyourname Yes, you speak of each person's autonomy of thought and desire, then you proceed to say that because you have a certain desire, all humans must have them. Even if that were the case, it still would prove nothing.

I don't know about you, but the idea of my thoughts living on doesn't do much for me. I want to know whether or not I will live on. A man is a lot more than the sum of his thoughts. A man is the awareness of his thinking.

Yep, and all of this desire to live on may be perfectly explainable through survival instinct. I'm not saying that is all there is to it. Don't get me wrong. Such a statement would be ludicrous in its arrogance, and even I am not that arrogant. Nonetheless, what you have here does not constitute proof of either God or an individual soul

So you deny aspirations of this sort, to have your thoughts, and actions live past your life? I believe this is true for all of us humans, Mr. Lose. Where does that awareness to think come? Where does that awareness to grasp thoughts of others previously before us and defend them and build on them come? Where does that awareness that seeks to transcend its limited sense of self and live past his life in his thoughts and actions, come from?

[loseyourname]

Originally posted by Anonymouse [B]Who is wrong? I'm lost. maybe you can not quote snippets and quote a few passages so I know where exactly from the paragraph you are quoting.

Fundamentalist who claim that their faith is the only true faith and that all others will suffer eternal damnation. You have said that they are wrong, that others will suffer nothing of the sort and fundamentalism is a misinterpretation of divine intent.

Supernaturalism was never "disproved" despite such gigantic claims. If my "supernatural", you mean God, then God was never disproved. God cannot be proven or disproven according to our man made material standards of science. This is what I've reiterated time and again.

Supernaturalism was disproved. Spirits do not cause crops to grow. Water, sunlight, and nutrients cause this. God does not cause rain to fall. Condensation of water vapor causes this. Every time one more thing is explained, one more superstition is disproven. I didn't mean that all supernaturalism has been disproven, only that it has a history of being wrong time and again. Science does not.

For this to be true, we would have to know if animals are self aware like us and can think between "right" and "wrong". We don't know what they think. Thus if animals have no morals, and we know we do, how can we make this general and broad statement?

I guess you didn't get the wit. My fault.

Sure Mr. Lose it might sound all nice in rhetoric to say "we should always question our teachers, historians, politicians or LOVERS", but how many of us actually do that? This goes back to my point that human nature, and humans themselves are naturally more inclined to believe and behave according that, than they are to question, otherwise we wouldn't have blind masses following Marxist or Hitlersque thought.

Not to mention all those blind masses following Christ and Mohammed and Joseph Smith.

Really? Who defines what "divine revelation" God is to communicate. You do? This is why such experiences defy reason and this is why you cannot grasp this in rational terms.

Well, if we are going to be discussing this, it seems we should know what the other means when he says "divine revelation." I mean God directly revealing something to you. You mean having an experience that you cannot grasp using your knowledge of logic. We had a misunderstanding. Now we don't. Neat the way that works, isn't it?

Matter only changes form Mr. Lose, I didn't make that up, thats what the 1st Law states. We cannot just go into a lab and "create" matter out of thin air. "Nuclear processes" are all theoretical lets not forget.

There's nothing theoretical about several grams of uranium becoming pure energy and obliterating 300,000 Japanese lives. What you meant to say is that matter/energy is never created or destroyed, because the two are interchangeable. Where this matter/energy came from, I don't know. But this line will get you nowhere, for you can always ask what the last cause in your line came from. Eventually, something must have been uncreated. It is either God, or is our universe. One was uncreated. Which it is, we don't know.

This is not relativism it is God, and not mere "anything".

If what anybody believed was automatically true simply because they believed it, which is the argument you are using, then relativism ensues, as not everybody will believe the same thing.

But purpose would mean that there is a design, and intelligence. If evolution is about randomness and haphazardness, there is no purpose, and if you subscribe to it then you shouldn't believe there is purpose from unpurpose.

First off, evolution is not about randomness. Only mutation is random. The way they are adopted by the gene pool is not.

Only from order do we move towards chaos, let's not forget since all systems move towards disorder. Thus when I look at the intricacies of nature randomness cannot be responsible for its precision and how it all works.

You are again misunderstanding the laws of thermodynamics. A closed system always moves toward disorder, and the aggregate disorder in the universe is always increasing. Simple calculations show that every time a biochemical reaction makes a complex molecule out of simpler ones, heat is released, and the result is more net disorder. The order we observe does not violate this rule.

If you claim to see purpose, then it means there is intelligence behind that purpose.

Yes, and I am that intelligence. I didn't say the universe itself had a purpose. It may or it may not. I said that I had a purpose. I don't need a God to give me that.

I'm not a physics student Mr. Lose.

Exactly my point. You don't what a Calabi-Yay space is, and so you can't answer the question. Your knowledge of the topic is limited, and so you hold no belief regarding it. There you go. Now you know how I can hold no belief regarding whether or not the universe is created.

This is equivalent of assuming that if all humans die, thought will die to.

No it isn't. It's the equivalent of asking. I am assuming nothing. Furthermore, I still don't understand what you're saying here, so please answer my questions. Do you believe that Socrates still exists in some form? Not Socrates' thoughts, but Socrates.

I would disagree with you. My inner sense tells me otherwise. We are all a product of other peoples' thought.

So you would cease to exist if you were alone?

So you deny aspirations of this sort, to have your thoughts, and actions live past your life?

When did I deny them? I said that they exist, and that furthermore, they are probably explainable entirely by survival instinct. Please let us not get into this. I know that instinct alone is not what drives it. The desire to live on is a conscious process that involves thought. Nonetheless, it may very well originate entirely in survival instinct.

Where does that awareness to think come? Where does that awareness to grasp thoughts of others previously before us and defend them and build on them come? Where does that awareness that seeks to transcend its limited sense of self and live past his life in his thoughts and actions, come from?

I don't have the answers to these questions, and it is my contention that you do not, either. You have ideas, which is fine. I have those as well, and they not be all that different from yours. The difference is that my ideas have not crystallized into beliefs because nothing exists to verify them or test them. Perhaps if I had had your experiences, then I would believe. But that alone would make me wonder. Why is it that God allows some people to have these experiences, and not others? Why do you get the answers, whereas others do not?

[Anonymouse]

Originally posted by loseyourname Fundamentalist who claim that their faith is the only true faith and that all others will suffer eternal damnation. You have said that they are wrong, that others will suffer nothing of the sort and fundamentalism is a misinterpretation of divine intent.

Fundamentalism is akin to fanaticism. That is exactly what I said. What is your point? Every religion, not just Christianity, claims the same. Could it not be that they are all the same, sending the same message with different allegories and symbols? Of course it can, and I showed that when one has a proper understanding of religions themselves, one can have an understanding of them in relation to each other.

Originally posted by loseyourname Supernaturalism was disproved. Spirits do not cause crops to grow. Water, sunlight, and nutrients cause this. God does not cause rain to fall. Condensation of water vapor causes this. Every time one more thing is explained, one more superstition is disproven. I didn't mean that all supernaturalism has been disproven, only that it has a history of being wrong time and again. Science does not.

No one said spirits cause crops to grow. But the science you just described, that in itself is the power of God, of purpose. I see that as science revealing the magic hand of a purpose.

Originally posted by loseyourname Not to mention all those blind masses following Christ and Mohammed and Joseph Smith.

What's wrong with following them? Do you know what their messages are? We all follow someone or somebody's thoughts. You are following Darwin.

Originally posted by loseyourname There's nothing theoretical about several grams of uranium becoming pure energy and obliterating 300,000 Japanese lives. What you meant to say is that matter/energy is never created or destroyed, because the two are interchangeable. Where this matter/energy came from, I don't know. But this line will get you nowhere, for you can always ask what the last cause in your line came from. Eventually, something must have been uncreated. It is either God, or is our universe. One was uncreated. Which it is, we don't know.

What is our universe then I ask? Where did the universe come from? Eventually we can go back only so far before we realize something must have created something else.

Originally posted by loseyourname If what anybody believed was automatically true simply because they believed it, which is the argument you are using, then relativism ensues, as not everybody will believe the same thing.

But I am not believing something simply because I want to. Even when I was an atheist I adhered to an objective moral law. Now by belief has been based on experiences that have testified to me that I was wrong previously. This isn't about silly earthly beliefs of relativism such as "I believe I can kill". This is about something our mere material world, Mr. Lose and it's either you are of the persuasion that there is purpose, or not. If the initial, then it needs an intelligence.

Originally posted by loseyourname First off, evolution is not about randomness. Only mutation is random. The way they are adopted by the gene pool is not.

And that is the randomness I disagree with. I suggest we live this for the evolution thread, no?

Originally posted by loseyourname You are again misunderstanding the laws of thermodynamics. A closed system always moves toward disorder, and the aggregate disorder in the universe is always increasing. Simple calculations show that every time a biochemical reaction makes a complex molecule out of simpler ones, heat is released, and the result is more net disorder. The order we observe does not violate this rule.

I never disputed thermodynamics Mr. Lose, nor did I misunderstand it as it is. Randomness is not a part of order. If there is randomness there is no order. Everything perfectly fits into everything else in nature. We know that crops are affected by the four seasons, no different than our day and night is affected by our earth spinning. This is a design that cannot have come about through randomness and no purpose. Let's confine this to the evolution thread. I see this as the product of exactly that which we cannot materialize and have trouble mapping

Originally posted by loseyourname Yes, and I am that intelligence. I didn't say the universe itself had a purpose. It may or it may not. I said that I had a purpose. I don't need a God to give me that.

That everything is precisely arranged mathematically is no purpose to you, the fact that 2+2 are equal to 4 is not a result of intelligence? The fact that our body contains sacred numbers such as 11,22, and 33, which are all multiples of 11, is something that displays no intelligence?

Originally posted by loseyourname Exactly my point. You don't what a Calabi-Yay space is, and so you can't answer the question. Your knowledge of the topic is limited, and so you hold no belief regarding it. There you go. Now you know how I can hold no belief regarding whether or not the universe is created.

Comparing my lack of knowledge of Calabi Yay to God, is a bit of an over exaggerating. You have knowledge of what you just descrbed me, and you are trying to use this to make a claim that since I don't know about Calabi Yay, therefore this applies to God as well. Calabi Yay, if I studied, I would know what it is about. Just like when we study everything around us from science to religion, we come to know what God is and what is responsible for both science and religion, which in turn wouldn't even exist if there was no human. Thus I don't see this as a valid analogy, for I already expressed lack of knowledge in physics, which if I was a physics student I would have knowledge of. This is therefore, a non-issue.

Originally posted by loseyourname No it isn't. It's the equivalent of asking. I am assuming nothing. Furthermore, I still don't understand what you're saying here, so please answer my questions. Do you believe that Socrates still exists in some form? Not Socrates' thoughts, but Socrates.

We humans have a problem of conceiving things that are abstract and not quantified in some way or mapped onto a formula. Thus, where the invisible and the visible meet. Socrates, physically, does not exist in the material world. Socrates' soul exists for us through thought. It is his thought that has lived on, and is with us today. It is no different the thoughts of our grandfather that have lived on to us today. I can think of my grandfather, and although having never met him, his thoughts are very much a part of me, no different than anyone else, and hence it is the dead that control us.

Originally posted by loseyourname So you would cease to exist if you were alone?

This is inconceivable. How can a human be alone? The best I can make this argument out to be is that, let's assume I get shipwrecked on an island. I am alone. But prior to it, I lived in civilization, and whatever thoughts from there I carry on. I will die. Those back home will remember me and my thoughts, and I will live again. This is why those of us that acknowledge a God, see that as the first cause, the antecedent, the thought before our thoughts.

Originally posted by loseyourname When did I deny them? I said that they exist, and that furthermore, they are probably explainable entirely by survival instinct. Please let us not get into this. I know that instinct alone is not what drives it. The desire to live on is a conscious process that involves thought. Nonetheless, it may very well originate entirely in survival instinct.

Pleeease, let us get into this. How would this be part of survival instinct? If we are merely to survive, why should we desire to compose an Opera that will live beyond our years? Or art that still speaks to us? If we just simply wanted to survive like mere animals, all we would do is eat, sleep, kill, have sex and release waste.

Originally posted by loseyourname I don't have the answers to these questions, and it is my contention that you do not, either. You have ideas, which is fine. I have those as well, and they not be all that different from yours. The difference is that my ideas have not crystallized into beliefs because nothing exists to verify them or test them. Perhaps if I had had your experiences, then I would believe. But that alone would make me wonder. Why is it that God allows some people to have these experiences, and not others? Why do you get the answers, whereas others do not?

Moreover Mr. Lose this isn't about what is provable or not, or right or wrong, it is how these are reflected in your soul, in that inner self which you call "Me". I have questioned God before. I was an unbeliever. I doubted. Doubt is important. It is the essential preliminary of all improvement and discovere, for itmust accompany all stages of our onward progress. We are gifted with the faculty of doubting and questioning, without which or faculties of comparison and judgement would be worthless. Our ability to doubt, is itself a divine prerogative of the reason. Can a turtle doubt his existence? Can a turtle send man into space? Knowledge will always be imperfect, or complete only so far as in which discovery multiplies doubt, and doubt leads to new discovery. Thus what science boasts of is not so much its results, but its capacity for unlimited progress. Thus the more we know, the more doubts we have, but in reality the more we are studying and unfolding the workings of a purposeful design the more we in reality learning about God. The true religious philosophy of imperfect beings such as us is not a system of creed, but as Socrates thought, in infinite search or approximation.

[Crimson Glow]

Ok. Before anyone thinks I'm pin-pointing them or their views/arguments, I'm going to start out by saying I'm totally unbiased on the subject. I understand that there is a possibility that something greater then our selves resounds above us, and I also accept the possibility that we are all there is to life. I've been balancing this paradox on both sides of the scale for many years now, so please don't feel that I'm trying to rip anyone or am out to destroy one's beliefs. This is for the sake of discussion in the never ending pursuit of a never ending question.

Mouse, you keep mentioning that you can't prove your faith because it is in a completely different realm to which our laws of science and reasoning do not apply. I'm still struggling to understand where this faith stems from. I touched on this a bit in the other thread about souls. If faith is built into us inherently, or intrinsically, at what point does it start? At what point do you just "know", as you're saying Mouse, that there is a God, there is a "holy" landlord watching over its property? And again I ask, if this is built into us, why are there so many variances in this faith?

You mentioned something earlier about every culture having religions, thus giving ground to the argument that there is something supernatural responsible for this. But what about the fact that every culture (at least that I know of) has music? Or that once upon a time, every culture thought males were superior to females? Or how about the desire of so many cultures to conquer all others? What about all the fairy tales in every culture about the dashing hero saving a damsel in distress? There are MANY universally traits besides religion and faith. Carl Jung was big on discussing these universals. He called it the collective unconscious, our ability to somehow tap into our ancestors subconsciously, producing behaviors and traditions for which we are not certain as to the origins of, but yet seem so familiar. Obviously, this is one form of spiritual belief, but that was the way he chose to link all these common denominators. Anyone can attempt to explain these coincidences in any number of ways. That's one reason I don't buy the use of every culture having a religion as a form of evidence. Another reason is because, in spite of some similarities in more modern religion, ancient mythology gods bore little to no resemblance to today's concepts and faiths. Many of these gods were known as "petty and cruel", deceptive, and even down right evil! (gasp!) Why were these universal faiths held for so long? Most likely because of the more reasonable explanation: The unexplainable. When people feel helpless or feel their fate is no longer in their hands’, what else do they have left to fall back on except faith that something stronger above them has a way to make changes which are not possible by the tangible and material methods we know? I’m sure the first person that discovered fire thought it was some miracle or act of god. That doesn’t make it so. My opinion is that religions started out as nothing more then uneducated superstitions, taking a different shape and form century upon century until it snow balled into what we have today. Now this doesn’t necessarily rule out the possibility that there may be something far beyond what the human mind can conceive at this point in time, be it a “god” or something totally unimagined as of yet, but I'm just pointing out why I don’t feel this is a good argument for faith.

The other argument I don’t care for is that we were not meant to comprehend an entity such as God. Wasn’t that the whole point of Jesus being “given” to us? Wasn’t that the point of him dying for us? He came to us to speak of his father, the lord, and to lay down the ground rules for getting into heaven and what he expected from us. If our minds are so finite and we are not meant to understand the infinite god, why the rules? Why give us regulations in a “material” form? Why did Jesus come down to "explain" God? It seems to be a cycle. To get the answers and understand God, look into the Bible. If you question the Bible, your finite mind was not meant to understand God. Sounds more like an excuse to me as opposed to an elucidation.

And so no one feels left out ...

Loose, I don't feel that discrediting his omnipresence and such is really eroding the possibility of God's existence. Just because he doesn't exercise all his "powers" doesn't mean he is not capable of them. If someone in a stock Honda Civic lines up next to me at a light and wants to race, I'm probably not going to waste my "powers" on him. There is a reason for this power, and it isn't to display against a car with a 17 second quarter mile time. Does this mean I don't have the power to destroy his car in a race? Heeeeeeeeeell no! But in his mind, I'm sure he thinks he won because I didn't display this power for him, so anything I say will be consider by him as an excuse or a disproving of my capabilities. In reality, it’s merely a case of "a time and place for everything". This case just so happened to be neither.

Alrighty, that’s all I got time for. Man, I don’t know how you two have the time to keep up the extremely long posts, but damn…nice discussion going.

[loseyourname]

Originally posted by Anonymouse [B]Fundamentalism is akin to fanaticism. That is exactly what I said. What is your point? Every religion, not just Christianity, claims the same. Could it not be that they are all the same, sending the same message with different allegories and symbols? Of course it can, and I showed that when one has a proper understanding of religions themselves, one can have an understanding of them in relation to each other.

A fundamentalist Muslim would disagree with you. He would say you are going to hell. Presumably, you think that you are not going to hell. Only one of you can be right.

No one said spirits cause crops to grow.

Really? Then why did Roman cults castrate themselves to make the harvest bountiful? They did it because they believed it would please the Gods that cause the crops to grow. The symbolism is obvious. We now know that they were incorrect, that it is primarily nitrogen and carbon dioxide and sunlight that cause the plants to grow.

But the science you just described, that in itself is the power of God, of purpose. I see that as science revealing the magic hand of a purpose.

It makes little difference how you see it. The simple fact is all we know for certain is that rain falls because the temperautre in a cloud becomes too low for water to remain in a gaseous state. There is no need to assign any purpose to this.

What's wrong with following them? Do you know what their messages are?

Yes, I do. Jesus Christ claimed to be the son and human incarnation of the one true God. Joseph Smith claimed that the angel Moroni came to earth and informed him that Jesus was indeed not the human incarnation of God. You cannot follow both of them.

We all follow someone or somebody's thoughts. You are following Darwin.

First off, I believe what Darwin said. He did not give any dictates on how to live one's life. In that arena, I waver between Aristotle and J.S. Mill and my own conscience, for the most part. Second, I believe what he said because it meets certain standards of verifiability and logical plausibility and what he said fits the evidence. I do not believe what he said because of faith.

What is our universe then I ask? Where did the universe come from? Eventually we can go back only so far before we realize something must have created something else.

No, the fact remains that one thing must have been uncreated. Either the universe was uncreated, or it was created and its creator was uncreated. This line of reasoning will get you nowhere because if God could be uncreated, so could the universe itself. Neither is less plausible than the other.

But I am not believing something simply because I want to.

Look backward in this thread. I said that your argument was that because you believed it to be true, it was true. You agreed that that was your argument.

Even when I was an atheist I adhered to an objective moral law. Now by belief has been based on experiences that have testified to me that I was wrong previously. This isn't about silly earthly beliefs of relativism such as "I believe I can kill". This is about something our mere material world, Mr. Lose and it's either you are of the persuasion that there is purpose, or not. If the initial, then it needs an intelligence.

Yes, it is, and someone can use your exact argument to prove that there is no purpose, whereas you use the argument to show that there is purpose. There is no way to evaluate either, because, according to you, faith is not subject to critical evaluation. That is relativism.

I never disputed thermodynamics Mr. Lose, nor did I misunderstand it as it is. Randomness is not a part of order. If there is randomness there is no order.

Mousy, if you understood the law, you would not be using it to show that intelligence is needed to generate the order observed in the natural world. Chemists would not have proposed the law if the entire world existed in violation of it. Think about that for a second. And furthermore, trust me on the fact that there is no violation. I have done the calculations, and I'm not going to repeat them here. I can give a small example, if you really want me to, but you'll need to give me time.

Everything perfectly fits into everything else in nature. We know that crops are affected by the four seasons, no different than our day and night is affected by our earth spinning. This is a design that cannot have come about through randomness and no purpose.

Life evolved that fit the world. The world wasn't created to fit the life. You have it backwards.

That everything is precisely arranged mathematically is no purpose to you, the fact that 2+2 are equal to 4 is not a result of intelligence? The fact that our body contains sacred numbers such as 11,22, and 33, which are all multiples of 11, is something that displays no intelligence?

I have 2 arms. I have 1 brain. I have several billion cells, several trillion molecules. In fact, I would imagine just about every conceivable number can be found to exist somewhere in the human body. The fact that this doesn't prove anything should be rather obvious.

Comparing my lack of knowledge of Calabi Yau to God, is a bit of an over exaggerating.

No it isn't. You don't possess the prerequisite knowledge to come to a conclusion about the question I asked. I don't possess the prerequisite knowledge to answer the question of whether or not the universe was created, and flatly put, the knowledge I do possess is as much as any 23 year-old out there, except for you. You have your revelation. I don't have that. Imagine yourself without the experiences you have had that you claim led you to this belief. If not for them, you would not possess this belief. On what am I supposed to base the belief? I have shown pretty effectively that the aggegrate weight of all the evidence and arguments out there is not enough.

Socrates, physically, does not exist in the material world. Socrates' soul exists for us through thought.

This isn't what I asked. I am quite aware that Socrates' thoughts are still in existence. In fact, I have read them quite extensively and they have done a lot to shape my current worldview. But again, Socrates is more than his thoughts. Socrates was an individual that existed as an awareness of these thoughts. As you said, we are primarily beings of self-consciousness. Socrates was an individual consciousness. I want to know if this consciousness still exists. You cannot say that it does simply from the fact that his thoughts are still studied. There are many people who never wrote down anything and who have been forgotten. In fact, most of the people that have ever lived fall into this category. Does one need to be a great thinker of influential figure in history to be capable of immortality?

This is inconceivable. How can a human be alone? The best I can make this argument out to be is that, let's assume I get shipwrecked on an island. I am alone. But prior to it, I lived in civilization, and whatever thoughts from there I carry on. I will die. Those back home will remember me and my thoughts, and I will live again. This is why those of us that acknowledge a God, see that as the first cause, the antecedent, the thought before our thoughts.

It is impossible. It is not inconceivable. Unless you have no imagination whatsoever, you should be able to conceive of existing by yourself. You claimed that we exist only because of the thoughts of others. I think that is quite a ridiculous claim, and I'm guessing you probably meant to say something else. If that is the case, fine. Just say so.

Moreover Mr. Lose this isn't about what is provable or not, or right or wrong, it is how these are reflected in your soul, in that inner self which you call "Me". I have questioned God before. I was an unbeliever. I doubted. Doubt is important. It is the essential preliminary of all improvement and discovere, for itmust accompany all stages of our onward progress.

What do you want me to say, Mousy? I was in the same position you were two years ago when I was your age. I had grown up a Christian, even though my parents didn't practice. I went to church on my own. Then I questioned it and became an atheist. Then I started reading Sitchin and Frissell and Kierkegaard and Aquinas and I came back to belief, something of a unitarian - almost new age - belief, much like your own. Then I realized how completely unbased some of my ideas were, and I decrystallized them. Now they are only ideas, not beliefs. I will only believe that which can be proven by some means. It doesn't need to be through argumentative logic or through science, but it must be proven somehow, even if through revelation. Nothing has ever been revealed to me, so I do not believe.

The true religious philosophy of imperfect beings such as us is not a system of creed, but as Socrates thought, in infinite search or approximation.

Exactly, Mousy. I do not come to any conclusions, whereas you have. I am only searching. I will most likely die searching. At that point, I will either have my answers, or I will cease to exist. Whatever it be, it will not stop me from constantly searching, and constantly reading, and constantly arguing and constantly questioning as long as I am here. As I said, even if I never get the answers, I find the pursuit of knowledge to be noble in and of itself.

[loseyourname]

Originally posted by Crimson Glow Alrighty, that’s all I got time for. Man, I don’t know how you two have the time to keep up the extremely long posts, but damn…nice discussion going.

Well, my man/woman, the Lakers are on and a man must have his priorities straight. This will be resumed at a later time, and I will address what you have said. I should probably invite you to introduce yourself in the intro thread in General Talk. Later on folks.

[Anonymouse]

Originally posted by loseyourname A fundamentalist Muslim would disagree with you. He would say you are going to hell. Presumably, you think that you are not going to hell. Only one of you can be right.

Do you think fanatacism is confined to religion? This goes back to you trying to somehow link religious violence to belief systems therefore it is bad to have faith. Only one of us can be wrong according to that fundamentalist Muslim, and according to you, but does this conclusion display actual thought into studying religion, not just your own, but of others? I've already made my point, thus you are drilling a non-issue.

Originally posted by loseyourname Really? Then why did Roman cults castrate themselves to make the harvest bountiful? They did it because they believed it would please the Gods that cause the crops to grow. The symbolism is obvious. We now know that they were incorrect, that it is primarily nitrogen and carbon dioxide and sunlight that cause the plants to grow.

My point was that I didn't make that claim, and hence why they would have made it, because to them it was not obvious. Moreover, belief has taken a new turn. You believe that the result gained from science are indeed valid.

Originally posted by loseyourname It makes little difference how you see it. The simple fact is all we know for certain is that rain falls because the temperautre in a cloud becomes too low for water to remain in a gaseous state. There is no need to assign any purpose to this.

You just described a purpose and a process, and then go on to say there is no need to assign any purpose to this. To me it seems clear there is a reason why the things happen, as you described, rain falls because the temperature in the cloud is low for it to remain gaseous. Therefore that is purpose, there is a reason behind it, a design. Can you prove that? No, you can't. But you have faith in science.

Originally posted by loseyourname Yes, I do. Jesus Christ claimed to be the son and human incarnation of the one true God. Joseph Smith claimed that the angel Moroni came to earth and informed him that Jesus was indeed not the human incarnation of God. You cannot follow both of them.

Can you not follow Jesus as both a human and a God? Sure you can, it is the belief of whoever holds the faith. Moreover, we have faith, and that is what our perception of the world eventually amounts to. We have faith either in the creation of God or the uncreation. We have faith in either Jesus or no Jesus. And faith is how we determine our consciousness, faith in science, or faith in God, or faith in both. I will post a thread about this.

Originally posted by loseyourname First off, I believe what Darwin said. He did not give any dictates on how to live one's life. In that arena, I waver between Aristotle and J.S. Mill and my own conscience, for the most part. Second, I believe what he said because it meets certain standards of verifiability and logical plausibility and what he said fits the evidence. I do not believe what he said because of faith.

It is not a matter of giving dictates on how to live. It is a morality which humans haven't made, it is something that has been handed down to them by their creator eventually. Moreover, ask yourself, where did J.S. Mill and Aristotle get their ideas?

Originally posted by loseyourname No, the fact remains that one thing must have been uncreated. Either the universe was uncreated, or it was created and its creator was uncreated. This line of reasoning will get you nowhere because if God could be uncreated, so could the universe itself. Neither is less plausible than the other.

This line of reasoning implies that it's either God or Universe. Moreover, the Universe is another product of God. Those who have faith in God see the beautifully above the great wide human errors, shines the calm natural human religion, revealing to us God as the infinite cause of all things, even the vast stretches the universe to the forming dust and nebulas as far as Orion.

Originally posted by loseyourname Look backward in this thread. I said that your argument was that because you believed it to be true, it was true. You agreed that that was your argument.

You are missing the point of my statement. I agreed insofar as believing because of certain experiences that to me were reason enough to believe and simply believing because it is cool or I'm a blind believer. Faith has no prerequisites aside from faith. I have faith in God, you have faith in science. Thus a little that was revealed to me, is alot gained. God is the principle moral of truth, and of personal morality. I am a moral person. You are a moral person. That means we are one endowed with reason and liberty. We are capable of virtue, and virtue has two forms, respect for others, and love of others. Thus to admit that morality is universal, is to admit to a truth.

Originally posted by loseyourname Yes, it is, and someone can use your exact argument to prove that there is no purpose, whereas you use the argument to show that there is purpose. There is no way to evaluate either, because, according to you, faith is not subject to critical evaluation. That is relativism.

Musy, if you understood the law, you would not be using it to show that intelligence is needed to generate the order observed in the natural world. Chemists would not have proposed the law if the entire world existed in violation of it. Think about that for a second. And furthermore, trust me on the fact that there is no violation. I have done the calculations, and I'm not going to repeat them here. I can give a small example, if you really want me to, but you'll need to give me time.

God is not a logical being, you forget. Nor is its nature explained by deduction, and by any means of algebraic equations. When the attributes of God are attempted to be deduced we end up with nothing but abstractions. Thus from a critical point of view of using logic, you cannot approach God, or any discussion of God, although we may certainly discuss God. If you cannot understand why this is, it is because of our consciousness, that which determines all reality. Thus the first notion we have of God is of an infinite being, not given us a priori, independently of all experience. It is our consciousness of ourselves, a limited being at once, that raises us to the conception of a being, the principle of our being, and itself without limits. Therefore there is no relativism aside from what we make. Essentially all our approach to this world, and even science is based and rooted in our consciousness.

The claim was that matter had its roots somewhere. And that the order we see is a result of intelligence, because only intelligence can create such order that has laws and rules for how it works. From the beginning an infinite being must create and preserve the finite, and we the finite must in our own way give our kind. We cannot conceive of any finite thing existing without a God, an infinite basis. God is the necessary logical condition of a world, its necessitating cause. A world, is then,the necessary logical condition of God, its necessitated consequence or cause.

Originally posted by loseyourname Mousy, if you understood the law, you would not be using it to show that intelligence is needed to generate the order observed in the natural world. Chemists would not have proposed the law if the entire world existed in violation of it. Think about that for a second. And furthermore, trust me on the fact that there is no violation. I have done the calculations, and I'm not going to repeat them here. I can give a small example, if you really want me to, but you'll need to give me time.

I never misunderstood it, nor did I question the validity of it. All I said was we observe an order that could not result from nothingness, which can only be the result of intelligent design. Somehow, the massive amount of precision and order and purpose we see in nature, is translated as meaning something other than what it is obviously implying.

Originally posted by loseyourname Life evolved that fit the world. The world wasn't created to fit the life. You have it backwards.

How do you know you don’t have it backwards? That life evolved is itself an educated guess, it is taken upon faith, in fact, most of science is.

Originally posted by loseyourname I have 2 arms. I have 1 brain. I have several billion cells, several trillion molecules. In fact, I would imagine just about every conceivable number can be found to exist somewhere in the human body. The fact that this doesn't prove anything should be rather obvious.

We got 33 bones in our vertebrae. Our skull has 22 bones and our ribs have 11 bones. 11, 22, and 33, are precise numbers that are multiples of 11 and are encoded within our DNA. This is only the result of intelligent thought, because as we know mathematically it is improbable for such things to come about due to random mutations. To deny this is one thing, to say that this means nothing is another which shows someone who doesn’t want to come to grips.

Originally posted by loseyourname No it isn't. You don't possess the prerequisite knowledge to come to a conclusion about the question I asked. I don't possess the prerequisite knowledge to answer the question of whether or not the universe was created, and flatly put, the knowledge I do possess is as much as any 23 year-old out there, except for you. You have your revelation. I don't have that. Imagine yourself without the experiences you have had that you claim led you to this belief. If not for them, you would not possess this belief. On what am I supposed to base the belief? I have shown pretty effectively that the aggegrate weight of all the evidence and arguments out there is not enough.

Physics is not about revelation. It is something we can all study. The illogical nature of your analogy is apparent, once it is exposed to your own argument. You believe you can never gain any knowledge of God, therefore why comment on it, it is impossible to know. Then to make your analogy you state that one cannot make a judgment about topography because one doesn’t know. Whereas in the case of God you say we can never know because it is beyond our knowledge, the area of physics is not, therefore making your analogy moot.

Originally posted by loseyourname This isn't what I asked. I am quite aware that Socrates' thoughts are still in existence. In fact, I have read them quite extensively and they have done a lot to shape my current worldview. But again, Socrates is more than his thoughts. Socrates was an individual that existed as an awareness of these thoughts. As you said, we are primarily beings of self-consciousness. Socrates was an individual consciousness. I want to know if this consciousness still exists. You cannot say that it does simply from the fact that his thoughts are still studied. There are many people who never wrote down anything and who have been forgotten. In fact, most of the people that have ever lived fall into this category. Does one need to be a great thinker of influential figure in history to be capable of immortality?

Thoughts are intangible and as such live before and after us. Thoughts are sort of akin to electricity traveling, we don’t see it, we don’t touch it, it just is, it’s the current that connects the whole of humanity into one whole consciousness. That most people aren’t famous and that we don’t know there thoughts mean nothing for their thoughts live with their children, and their children’s children. My grandfather wasn’t famous, but his thoughts are here, and so are his fathers. The point which I am making is that thoughts live past us, and all our actions and thoughts are an attempt to live past our lives as well, our desire to transcend our limited sense of self and have thoughts live past our lives into the minds of others.

Originally posted by loseyourname It is impossible. It is not inconceivable. Unless you have no imagination whatsoever, you should be able to conceive of existing by yourself. You claimed that we exist only because of the thoughts of others. I think that is quite a ridiculous claim, and I'm guessing you probably meant to say something else. If that is the case, fine. Just say so.

It’s not that it’s impossible, it is inconceivable to me that a human can be alone. That makes no sense whatsoever, even the Bible as a last ditch reference, states that at least 2 humans had to be created for anything to happen. I cannot conceive of how that would even be. We exist because of the whole of humanity, it is one single thought. A human cannot exist by itself, that is impossible, and this is where Marx is right, for once.

[Anonymouse]

Originally posted by loseyourname What do you want me to say, Mousy? I was in the same position you were two years ago when I was your age. I had grown up a Christian, even though my parents didn't practice. I went to church on my own. Then I questioned it and became an atheist. Then I started reading Sitchin and Frissell and Kierkegaard and Aquinas and I came back to belief, something of a unitarian - almost new age - belief, much like your own. Then I realized how completely unbased some of my ideas were, and I decrystallized them. Now they are only ideas, not beliefs. I will only believe that which can be proven by some means. It doesn't need to be through argumentative logic or through science, but it must be proven somehow, even if through revelation. Nothing has ever been revealed to me, so I do not believe.

The names of Kierkegaard, Aquinas are all refreshing. I myself have indulged in those, even Adler, and Sitchin’s 12th Planet is simply a marvel. I never grew up Christian. In fact, my family was very secular, they did however believe in God. They lived in the Soviet Union so they had not been really religious. They nonetheless believed in God, and that was it. I was never forced to go to Church, and nor do I go now.

Originally posted by loseyourname Exactly, Mousy. I do not come to any conclusions, whereas you have. I am only searching. I will most likely die searching. At that point, I will either have my answers, or I will cease to exist. Whatever it be, it will not stop me from constantly searching, and constantly reading, and constantly arguing and constantly questioning as long as I am here. As I said, even if I never get the answers, I find the pursuit of knowledge to be noble in and of itself.

And search you will, to paraphrase the great Albert Pike, just because God is not within our reach nor understanding does not mean we shouldn’t work towards the great truth and the best evidence of that is our goodness, our ability to seek, and to respect, and love.

[anileve]

I finally had some time to read through this fascinating thread. Reading arguments between Loser and Anon I have to conclude they consist of a cyclic pattern, a rejection of certain views based on the concept that ones opinion is more “logical” than the that of the other by not allowing the consideration of an alternate possibility. I also see a lot of terms being thrown around without clearly understanding the concept. Thus I am posting some of the terms and their “dictionary” definitions for you to examine the apparent connections that result in the same concept of the arguments you are trying to present.



faith __

1.Confident belief in the truth (search for the truth), value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
2.Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.
3.Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters.
4. The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will.
5.The body of dogma of a religion
6.A set of principles or beliefs.


rea·son __

1.The basis or motive for an action, decision, or conviction.
2.A declaration made to explain or justify action, decision (i.e. search for the truth)
3.An underlying fact or cause that provides logical sense for a premise or occurrence
4. The capacity for logical, rational, and analytic thought
5.Good judgment; sound sense.
6.A normal mental state; sanity
7.Logic. A premise, usually the minor premise, of an argument.


log·ic __

1.The study of the principles of reasoning, especially of the structure of propositions as distinguished from their content and of method and validity in deductive reasoning.
a.A system of reasoning: Aristotle's logic.
b.A mode of reasoning: By that logic, we should sell the company tomorrow.
c.The formal, guiding principles of a discipline, school, or science.
2.Valid reasoning (that in itself is subjective, a belief that your truth is righteous)

Also I'd like to bring up a quote by Loser which I think sums it all up without draining it's complex and rather precise view of our existence.

“I am perfectly content not to know everything. I don't invoke faith in order to claim I know that which is unknowable.”

I'd have to say that this is precisely how faith is born. It's is in our undying quest of finding answers to what we are not meant to discover or comprehend.

Anon wrote “Faith doesn't deal with reasoning, faith is precisely faith, for faith is the absence of reason, it is belief, otherwise it would not be faith,” this reasoning is based precisely on critical analysis deductive reasoning. Faith exists BECAUSE of reason, and if you take a close look at the definition of the two terms, you shall see why. We turn to faith because we apply reasoning, in effect “logic” exists in the idea that if the answers to some matters is not scientifically or factually proved, than it must be God (the “NAME” or “TERM” for the unknown). Thus you can see that you apply reason and logic to come to that conclusion.

What we would consider lack of “logic” or “reason” are statements such as “just because”, “it's right”, “it's wrong”. In those statements logic or reason doesn't exist only because analysis of the issue or the path of how one came to that conclusion is not explored, they are just fragments of clichés that have been imposed by the social standards of what is acceptable. As an example of how majority never looks in the concept of “Opening doors to women” or “Brushing your teeth”, people have been conditioned with the accepted habitual standards without applying reason as to what evokes such actions. Their common assessment lies in the habitual instinct thus statements such as “it's right” or “it's the right thing to do” arise.

It is evident that science has not come up with explanations for everything and to rely on it's power to do so, or invest your faith in is omnipotent power to do so is absurd. Our mind must not be bound to to a single concept for our existence is so complex that to rely on one ideology to explain everything is foolish and a waste of common sense. We cannot rely on God to explain environmental factors, or medical science or human psychology, for if we do there would be no room for advancement, it's the delegation of powers that keeps the world revolving and continuation of life. If the world would consist of only spiritual devotees that rely on the higher power to provide them with all of the answers, human race would cease to exist.

René Descartes said “I think, therefore I am”, that is on its own a display of faith in self. The ability to apply reasoning which ensures our existence. He did not say “God thinks, therefore I am”. It is the belief in self that justifies the existence.

All of us are enslaved by our quest in search of a purpose, a purpose that may very well not exist. It is the idea of penetrating the shell of the unknown that gives us the drive to live. And on the contrary of our belief the lack of purpose would not make life not worthwhile but it is the search for the answer that keeps us yearning to live. Once the purpose is discovered the interest is lost. Think of it in terms of a film or a book: You open the book read first few pages and then skip to an end, you lose your interest in reading it in it's entirety, the interest is lost due to discovered conclusion and purpose. Perhaps the purpose does not exist and if it doesn't our faith in life will be shattered, it's not easy to cope with an idea that there is nothing.

In the end everyone must believe in something to exist call it God, Satan, Anileve, Feminism, Communism, Lavash, Basturma, what ever else, but it is the search of some purpose that keeps us breathing, that cannot be denied. Discovery of the purpose in antidote of life.

It is the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. --
Robert Pirsig

[Anonymouse]

I appreciate anileves attempt at trying to sift through the thread to try to see from a third eye to the development of it, but I must also point out that, the whole "reason" and "faith" cliches are indeed exclusive.

While we use reason to arrive at conclusions based on our known world, we use reason in our discussions, and our analytical mind, even with regard to God, but at a certain point, it ends. It is limited. Using reason and logic, to approach the nature of God, asking myself "Why should I believe in God if I don't know via my reasoning faculties or it cannot be proven?" means it is unreasonable and illogical to believe in God from a purely rational approach of analyzing and reasoning. Thus, we cannot conceive of that which is not here or does not deal with reason or our senses, in this world, hence reason fails at a certain point. It is at this gap of reason where faith begins to take hold. If the assertion of loser and anileve is correct, we humans wouldn't care to nor care for of conceiving the immaterial that which is not here, but it is instead our innate drive to be drawn to that thought, instead we would only be confined to that thought of only that which is reasonable and logical. But we don't and we do veer off and take faith in that which is beyond logic and reason.

We can have no actual knowledge of the absolute itself, the very God, or Providence, or Deity. Our means of obtaining what is commonly termed actual knowledge, are our senses only if to see, to hear, to smell, to touch, and feel be knowledge, from this it means we have no knowledge of our soul, if this is constituted as the only things we know, that of our senses. From this we have no knowledge of not only our soul, not even of our thoughts, not even magnetism or electricity. We see and feel and taste an acid or an alkali and know something of the qualities of each, but it is only when we use them in combination with other substances, and learn their effects, taht we really begin to know their nature. It is because of chemistry that give us knowledge of the nature and powers of these substances. As these are cognizable by inspect of our senses, we may partially know them by that alone, but the soul, either of ourself or of another, being beyond that cognizance, can only be shown by the acts and words that are carrying the thoughts which are its effects.

Magnetism, electricity are also beyond our jurisdiction of the senses, and when they are in action we see, feel, hear, taste, and smell only their effects, not the actual things themselves. We do not know what they are, but only what they do. We can know the attributes of God, or Providence, or whatever you want to call it, only through its manifestations. To ask anything more, is to ask, not knowledge, but something else, for which we have no name. God, Providence, Allah, Astvats, is a power, and we know nothing of any power itself, but only its effects, results, and action, and what we reason teaches us by analogy.

Ultimately, this comes to two outlooks on how we perceive the world and nature. Do we see, order, harmony, and beauty in nature, or do we see no order, no harmony, and no beauty in nature? IT is from this question which ones views on God develop. Those that say they don't know, or are confused along the way, are struggling in themselves to try to fuse the visible with the invisible, the order and harmony and beauty that they see and feel, with that which cannot be conceive of or comprehended.