Science and religion

[Scattered]

Such negitivity. Absolutely nothing?
What you say simply cannot be true, because he must be a leader before he will have a single follower.
"Everything you can think of is true..." ??? I wonder of your respect for truth.

[dpmartin]

Scattered, and it might be appropriate to add (brained)

It is apparent that distorting with deliberate intent is the purpose for some. Maintaining blindness to the possibility of Truth to be known, and not only that, glory in such. It is a fool that mocks the honest search for Truth, and truly it is a fool that thinks every one else is a fool.

[Scattered]

Cool. I think I've been flamed.
Say what?
If I point out an obvious weakness in someone's logic, I hardly think it distorts anything. I just disagreed. It wasn't a lot there to distort anyway.
If everything you can think of is truth, you don't have to do much of a honest search for it. I must think that seriously devalues truth. Frankly, that is something I am critical of. Truth is a rare and valuable jewel that must be separated from the trivial. Not some cheap product of anyone's imagination.
People willing to lead are as common as sand on a beach. Real leaders are as rare and valuable as real truths. I made the postulate that the world seriously needs a new leader with some broad new vision. I think it is true. Is that a problem or do you think the world is going along fine with the old values of gross materialism, celebrity, excessive exploitation, pandering to the lowest and devaluation of humans?
Where did fools enter this conversation anyway?

[Didymos Thomas]

Scattered, what do you mean by truth? It seems to me that if someone thinks of anything, that which is being thought of is true in many ways. Cows do not seem to be able to jump over the moon; in our imagination, it is true that cows jump over the moon. At least to some extent, anything that can be thought of seems to be true.

[Scattered]

Uhhhh.... Is that a useful truth?
My kids come up with things like that and it is my responsibility to make sure they don't confuse truth with thought.
I looked up truth on Wikipedia and didn't find anything corrosponding to anything like truth being equivelant to imagination... Quite the contrary in fact.
If you want to say that any random thought is truth, then please suggest another word I can use to indicate thoughts that are generally factual as opposed to imaginary.

[dpmartin]

Scattered

Then since you know so much about what the Truth ought to be, then why don’t you seem to know it? Or have you been hiding that from us?

[Scattered]

Wow! Thanks. You give me such credit, but alas, my knowledge is limited. I do know many things and many things I have thought of I decided were certainly not truth... Well, at least in my limited view of truth being things that reflect facts or at least reality.
The only definition of truth I use is that which satisfys both the head and the heart.
And yes, I have been hiding the truth from you. I've been wondering if anyone would be interested.
Tell you what. My version is complicated. You seem very clear on what the truth is. Could you please enlighten the rest of us?
The truth is that this here looks like silly web slanging. Truth is far more than imaginings, but you seem to want to argue about it. That is not of interest to me. I know that truth is something I worked hard to find and the little bits of it I found are far more valuable than imaginings that the cow jumped over the moon. The others on this list talked about the thoughts of people like Thomas Aquinus. I talk about the thoughts of C.D. Darlington or Michael Polanyi. If you can't tell the difference, I'm doubt that I would be interested in your truths.

[de Silentio]

I didn't read all of the posts, so somebody may have said this.

Kant showed that any reasoning about God cannot be scientific, since God is beyond the reach of human intelligence.

He has a book called 'Prolegomena to any future metaphysics that should come forth as science' (I think). This book is a version of the Critique of Pure Reason written for the everyday man. I believe this title says a lot about Kant's philosophy, especially his philosophy on God.

See, there can be no 'science', as we understand it, about God because science has to do with what we can know about the world around us. We cannot know God, scientifically at least, because he is above and beyond the world around us.

Of course, this is where faith comes in. One connects the science we discover with God. We must connect it with something, why not God?

A side thought, Kant says that he must 'abolish knowledge... to make room for belief'. Most people might assume that this is only the case to believe in a "Higher Power". However, there is a lot of faith in what we call science. For example, we cannot know about the beginning of mankind, or life in general. It takes just as much faith to believe in this as it does to believe in God.

[Scattered]

Very very good! No one has brought Kant's logical problem up yet.
I think there is an easier way to express it. You have to be suspect of any reason or logic based on the premise of God or that God exists.
>Kant showed that any reasoning about God cannot be
>scientific, since God is beyond the reach of human intelligence
Who says and based on what evidence???? This statement is based on assumptions about God that Kant himself said were inherently invalid since no assumptions can be made. We have almost no data on God, so anything we say is likely to be an assumption.
We do have a couple of things to work with. If God exists, it seems that he is interested in humans. Can that help us? It suggests against the idea that God is toatally apart from this world.
If the third forbidden question in science is heredity, then the fourth would be God.
What if you could, with fairly simple reasoning, based on direct scientific principles show that God was likely to exist? That is the question I am here to find out from this forum. One corallary would be that God uses science. In terms of memes, it would mean that religion, now based on magic, might need to be based on reason. But look around you. The whole world operates on physical laws. Logic looks universal in this world. Is that perhaps a lesson? If it is not, God is deceiving us, which if God exists, does not seem likely. What if everything in religion (I'll limit the question to inherently non-fundementalist Christianity) could be made sense of in terms of reason?
I'll carry this further. Anselm of Caterbury said "Nor do I seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe that I may understand. For this too I believe, that unless I first believe, I shall not understand." ...... What is needed is a proof with a good enough foundation that it does not rely on prior belief. If a scientist says that they have found magnetized particles in a bird's brain that seem to act like a compass, you need no prior belief to find that it seems true. It fits with previous knowledge and a previous way of reasoning. The same should be with God. You need to find a principle that logically leads to God where you say "ah ha, that makes sense". Ah, were we to find that! By the way, that is my jest above a few posts. What person already posesses that knowledge?

[dpmartin]

If a man seeks his own wisdom for what would that be? To gratify himself? For some, seeking truth is a matter of preference to honor themselves, not God. For the Truth is and can not be changed. The Truth does not fit man. Man must come to the realization of the Truth by the source of the Truth revealing the Truth of it to man. Is there matter of facts? Yes; all the result of the Truth. Man can search high and low for facts and not know the reason. Never knowing, or the knowledge of, the source thereof, or the Truth of the Reason.

Truly if there is a Living God and He has Created, then surly He speaks:
His Word is Truth for if He speaks it, it will be. The Almighty cannot lie for if He speaks it. It will be. Through His Word is that which all may know Him and all of creation obeys Him. For the Truth is the Truth no matter what the Truth is. Whether all mankind is aware of it, or not. It is still the Truth.
The Truth always was, always is, and always will be. It always was true that parting of the sea would happen, even before time. It always is true that parting of the sea happened, and it always will be true, forever. If one had foreknowledge of the Truth about the parting of the sea, before the parting of the sea , one could "prophesy", or repeat the Truth about parting of the sea . Thus Moses knowing the Truth via the revelation of the Truth to Moses that the sea was going to part. He was able to demonstrate to the Israelites the Truth was with him when he raised his staff so that the sea would part. Just because something is manifest in matter doesn't mean it was not true before it became apparent to the world, via a witnessable event in matter. The world can be like a family man. He is the last one to know, and doesn't believe it, until he sees it himself.

The Truth need not time, to exist. For it always was true that time would exist. The Truth need not energy, to exist. The Truth need not space, to exist. The Truth need not matter, to exist. All four need the Truth in order to exist. But the souls which dwell in the earth needs these things in order to exist, and to come to know the Truth. Though all things of the earth respond to the Truth accordingly, the souls that dwell in the earth, do not. For it is only to the souls of mankind, that it is given to choose not to obey the Word of God.

All things that are, are of the Truth. For if they are, then they are true. One cannot hold all the things that are true, in one's mind. All the collective minds of mankind cannot know all that is true. But of Truth, all things are.
If you think that you would create truth by doing something so that it's true. Think again, for it always was true that you would do that thing. It always was true that you would think to do that thing. it always was true that you would read this, it always was true that you were born into the world to think and do that thing. And you had no control over that. Needless to say it goes farther back then that. The Truth is, and there are a series of events, or responses to execute that which is true, that are all also true.

No matter how you think or believe living things came about in the earth, it is true, that living things came about in the earth. Thus living things or, animated matter, if you prefer, are the result of Truth.

Thus, Truth prevails as above all. Or greater then all. For the Truth cannot be created. The Truth is the source of all we can perceive or understand. Other then lies. But it is true that a lie is a lie, and that the lie was told.
If it were to be true, that there is no truth , then that would be the truth, thus Truth exists, and it is false that Truth does not exist. That which would teach you otherwise, knows this.

If you want to say that there is no Truth in the world, that is conceivably possible, but the Truth does not need the world to know the Truth, in order for the Truth to exist. Just because something is perceived as true in the world does not necessarily make it true. Or if the world insists that something is not true, does not necessarily make it not true. In the world, lies are the order of the day. As in, "what can I say to get them to believe me", not, "this is the truth, whether you like it or not".

The Truth cannot be a lie. Thus the Truth is perfect and incorruptible. Though some try to portray it otherwise. It stands forever, no one can change it. Ether you embrace it, turn from it, or lie about it. If you embrace it, you go with it. If you do not embrace it, what you are, remains where it is. If you are seeking The Truth, you are seeking a Living God. For the Truth is God, not all of God, but God none the less. Who knows and repeats the Truth, is another issue. Don't trust me, trust The Truth, The Word of God.

It is the Will, Love, Truth, Wisdom, Mercy of the Living God to reveal Himself in Jesus the Christ, His only begotten Son, to offer mercy to all man in the flesh that the man in the flesh may be resurrected in the flesh for it is mans purpose to live in the flesh with and in God’s presents. The resurrection of Christ is the flesh of the son of man in the presents and at the Right Hand of God. Intrusted by God and ordained by God in His Loving Mercy to those condemned to death by virtue of the will of the flesh.