A proof of God's self-evidence

[Protoman2050]

Originally Posted by Didymos Thomas

What do you mean 'stubbornly cling'? If you mean Islamic fundamentalism, this is the result of radicals taking everything in the book literally - which misses the point of the book.



The Torah, Gospels and Epistles are also full of contradictions.

Looking through this link you provide, it seems like the author was more interested in finding apparent contradictions in the book rather than understanding the book. Checking the main site, I'm appalled by the blatant misrepresentation of Islam promoted by the site.



Depends on which conception of God you appeal to. The notion of God has changed over time. We see contradictory notions of God in the Bible.

I appeal to the God who is at once perfectly holy, just, merciful, and forgiving. And I don't see any true contradictions in the Bible as I see in the Qu'ran; all of those apparent contradictions are due to improper interpretation and thus can be resolved.

If the Abrahamic religions' holy books weren't meant to be taken literally --which by I mean poetry is poetry, narrative is narrative, events are events, figurative language is figurative language, etc.--, why do they have abundant quotations implying the opposite?

[OntheWindowStand]

I guess that means what i said was right.

seeing as how no one responded to me

[Zetetic11235]

Perfectly holy, just, merciful, forgiving, all things which are invention of men. God is not within the discription of god, but rather all descriptions are within god as they are by default part of god's creation thus less than god assuming you take god to be the creator, lest man can also create on the same level as god in which case you admit that man is god, which is just silly as we are such insignificant specks of amalgamte energy and space bound by the same physical laws as anything else. God can only be the unutterable, unkowable and no human thought can even approximate such a god, only god's works, as we are of the same nature of god's works, we are one with the physical universe, composed of the same matter and bound by the same physical laws.

Wittgenstien himself admitted that none of the great questions man can ask can be answered through logic and that thus metaphysics was not within the realm of the considerable.

This concept may be of interest to you protoman:
Logical proof is true within the assumptions made in its construction; e.g.
Making the assumption either my friend or I were the only two people who could have commited a given act and it could not have been both of us and the act was indeed committed then
(A)I committed the act
(B) My friend commited the act
A<---->~ B (A if and only if not B)
~A<---->B (not A if and only if B)
A B (A v B) (A or B) is tautology since the case for both A and B is
T F T T F excluded
F T F T T
Now the problem lies in the assumptions, no one can possibly reduce reality to all of its possiblities to confirm the assumptions and thus the proof is inheirently flawed. such a proof is applicable when probablility is taken into consideration, however it is not absolute. This is one problem with applied logical proof.

The next problem is more directly linked trying to define a metaphysical or supernatural thing specifically god. In orber that a thing be proven, it must be defined very specifially leaving out no attribute. In the case of god, such a definition restricts god to a very pale and insignificant figure or only addresses one attribute, such as a 'creator'. This god might not fit the descriptions of another person's god and might just turn out to be somthing insignificant, expelled by another simple logical proof.

[Protoman2050]

Originally Posted by Zetetic11235

Perfectly holy, just, merciful, forgiving, all things which are invention of men. God is not within the discription of god, but rather all descriptions are within god as they are by default part of god's creation thus less than god assuming you take god to be the creator, lest man can also create on the same level as god in which case you admit that man is god, which is just silly as we are such insignificant specks of amalgamte energy and space bound by the same physical laws as anything else. God can only be the unutterable, unkowable and no human thought can even approximate such a god, only god's works, as we are of the same nature of god's works, we are one with the physical universe, composed of the same matter and bound by the same physical laws.

Wittgenstien himself admitted that none of the great questions man can ask can be answered through logic and that thus metaphysics was not within the realm of the considerable.

This concept may be of interest to you protoman:
Logical proof is true within the assumptions made in its construction; e.g.
Making the assumption either my friend or I were the only two people who could have commited a given act and it could not have been both of us and the act was indeed committed then
(A)I committed the act
(B) My friend commited the act
A<---->~ B (A if and only if not B)
~A<---->B (not A if and only if B)
A B (A v B) (A or B) is tautology since the case for both A and B is
T F T T F excluded
F T F T T
Now the problem lies in the assumptions, no one can possibly reduce reality to all of its possiblities to confirm the assumptions and thus the proof is inheirently flawed. such a proof is applicable when probablility is taken into consideration, however it is not absolute. This is one problem with applied logical proof.

The next problem is more directly linked trying to define a metaphysical or supernatural thing specifically god. In orber that a thing be proven, it must be defined very specifially leaving out no attribute. In the case of god, such a definition restricts god to a very pale and insignificant figure or only addresses one attribute, such as a 'creator'. This god might not fit the descriptions of another person's god and might just turn out to be somthing insignificant, expelled by another simple logical proof.

I see. We cannot apply human concepts to God, but we can at least try to analogize, can we not?

[OntheWindowStand]

attempting to understand something when you have no basis or start for learning merely puts you into more ignorance thats why you'll hear people say the word faith in trusting the Bible.

[Protoman2050]

Originally Posted by OntheWindowStand

attempting to understand something when you have no basis or start for learning merely puts you into more ignorance thats why you'll hear people say the word faith in trusting the Bible.

Elaborate, please!

[OntheWindowStand]

Originally Posted by Protoman2050

Elaborate, please!

Because any progress appeared to be made just dilutes why you tried to learn before. It will always be rout with speculation and misapplied lessons.
That is why when dealing with something so complicated like God you need help along the way. People often look for this help in the Bible which takes a great deal of faith in it because if its wrong nothing they learned about God is valid anymore.

[Protoman2050]

Paul did say "If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are (A)of all men most to be pitied." (BibleGateway.com - Passage*Lookup: 1 Cor 15:19;

[OntheWindowStand]

Indeed he did, philosophy in the Bible. That actually reminds me Paul actually get into a deep discussion with the philosophers in one the towns he was staying in sorry i cant remember which

[Zetetic11235]

I see. We cannot apply human concepts to God, but we can at least try to analogize, can we not?-protoman 2050

But would it not be a human concept to which we draw our analogy, a process which is itself human in origin, thus godly in origin thus still a part of a whole and no more applicable than anything which we can use to describe a human conception of god. I think the rationalization and adopting a doctrine can only muddle the idea of the devine and unkowable by covering it with mental blankets. A doctrine is not truth, no matter what, your truth comes form within you but thus from god as you are of god. If you take your truth form a doctrine or from fear of pumishment or from anything but yourself and your perception you will find that those beliefs to be a hinderence and a burden rather than anything worth keeping.

I first realized that to act in fear of god is not true morality when I was 12. My confirmation speech (I found the whole process of confirmation obligatory and agreed to it in order to please my parents) was mostly an attack upon the injustice of exculsion based on faith when the person in question was truely a great person and was not christian. The adults found my view 'interesting' and held for me no answers I could accept. One example which I included was ghandi, due to the fact that at the time it had been indicated to me that you could not be non-christian and still be admitted to "the kingdom of heaven". I questioned how it could be just to exclude those who have never heard of christianity from this 'kingdom' based upon a mere formality dispite the greatness and compassion in their actions. I recieved no answers that were remotely satisfactory. Bear in mind that this was a very liberal church, most of its congregation was upper-middle class and left leaning. I found the contradiction in acceptance of al men and discusion of those who are not up to the standards of the organization and the blindness to the glareing ideological contradiction and lack of wisdom held by the adult members and pastors disgusting. I rejected the literal interpretation of the bible very quickly, but I still found value in the philosophy of a non divine jesus and the allegorical lessons in the old testament to a lesser extent. I still hold the non literal interpretation of the bible and the deeper, psychological and sociological implcations of jesus' philosophy to be of great value if considered properly and carefully. Just my take on it all.