Well let me put it like this;

You and your friend are painting pictures together but you have to share the paints. So your friend says to you, "Can you pass me the yellow paint please?" You reach for the bottles of paint, but instead of taking the yellow bottle you grab the red bottle of paint and respectfully hand it to your friend who is surprised. "No, not the red paint, I wanted the yellow paint." So you look at the bottle in your hand and proclaim, "It IS the yellow bottle of paint!"

Now which one of you is seeing the "truth"? Who is correctly seeing the bottle of paint? Are they both wrong?

The parallel I am trying to make here is that the concept of god is NEVER a consistent nor fully agreed upon idea. Some like to write it off and say god just can't be conceptualized by humans so stop trying. But then if I ask if god is evil, they quickly state that god is not evil. They then try to state that through their deductive reasoning it can be stated that god could not be evil. Well that is fine but then can't I use deductive reasoning as well to also point out my reasoning? But they object as if only their statements can be the correct ones, where as my points are invalid.

So if we are even going to try to talk about a topic, the definitions or applied concepts must be agreed upon or else you can't finish the painting.

I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm simply stating that god is not subject to sensory perception, deductive logic, empirical analysis, or any reason. He is in a supposed superior, dimensional mode of existence. Therefore, there is no objective endorsement for his existence. Without an objective basis on existence, there can be no true judgement on anything derived from existence(which is everything, given that existence is primary.) I'm not saying that there isn't an intelligent designer, in fact, his existence is almost necessary. However, any judgement pertaining to motive, identity, etc, is pure unmitigated speculation. Faith is divorced from all reason.

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"In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit."

But what I am saying is that even this you stated above, has no actual basis if you are implying that a god is not subject to deductive logic or reasoning. You making these arbitrary distinctions are based off something, but you ignore that you are doing that. Later you go on to say have and must, but those to imply that you can know through some form of reasoning that they must be true statements, but turn around and make a claim that you can't use deductive reasoning. So which is it?

To be totally and utterly honest intellectually NOTHING stated in any sense of the word could be applied to a thing in which can not be deducted through logical means nor otherwise. To do so you make your own possibility impossible.

So where does "dimensional mode of existence" come from? How do you arrive at such a statement? Is it only through deductive reasoning since no other options support the concept? So since a god can't be experienced with the senses it must supersede the senses? That doesn't say anything. Because ALL things that can not be experienced with the senses are then superseded from the senses. So the flying pink elephant does exist!

krumple-
what about things perceived through senses other than the usual five? of course there isnt any physical proof there are any, but if they exist outside the physical part of us, which also hasnt been proved to exist, and perceive something outside of what is physical...then that perception would be proof, wouldnt it? can logic go anywhere from there? or do the other senses have to be named and described and documented first? is intuition a sense? could there be more or others beyond that?

let's look at it this way. suppose we can prove we have senses other than physical. they would be there only for the purpose of sensing things that are not part of the physical realm, wouldnt they?

(this has nothing to do with the existence of god in particular or his purpose if he had one, but it has to do with there being another realm or dimension that we also partly exist within but are unaware of as yet)

thoughts arent physical are they? but you must agree they exist. so in what realm do they exist?

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"The idea is to die young as late as possible."....Ashley Montagu

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Originally Posted by salima what about things perceived through senses other than the usual five? of course there isnt any physical proof there are any, but if they exist outside the physical part of us, which also hasnt been proved to exist, and perceive something outside of what is physical...then that perception would be proof, wouldnt it? can logic go anywhere from there? or do the other senses have to be named and described and documented first? is intuition a sense? could there be more or others beyond that?

You are approaching the rationalist versus the empiricist theories of knowledge and also the pan sensationist theory of knowledge. Does our only knowledge of the world arise through sensory experience?

I think quite often pure reason and imagination; thought experiments “discover” the truth. Einstein’s musings in the patent office are a good example. In many ways I think scientific truth, moral truth, aesthetic truth; religious truths lie deep in the nature of the universe and are discovered by reason and imagination and verified by experience. I believe in transcendent value and transcendent truth so my notion is one of truth discovered by man and created by god. Some of your discoveries or intuitions can be verified others can not. All human truths are partial, incomplete and contingent.

For truth as correspondence you can not “know” if it is the “truth” or not until it is “empirically verified” by observation. Then there is the notion of truth as coherence which may be applicable to speculative philosophy or truth as consensus applicable to cultural and social truths. Then there is the metaphysical notion of truth as a transcendent eternal value. Is there a relationship between “truth” and “gods purpose”. I would say yes. God’s purpose is the actualization of the true, the beautiful and the good. Gods purpose is primarily aesthetic not moral.

Quote:

Originally Posted by salima let's look at it this way. suppose we can prove we have senses other than physical. they would be there only for the purpose of sensing things that are not part of the physical realm, wouldnt they?

Materialism is the dominant metaphysic in science. The question is whether science gives us a complete or only a partial and incomplete view of reality. Is there more to the world than the material or the physical? Can science (like Laplace’s demon) eventually explain and predict everything?

Quote:

Originally Posted by salima (this has nothing to do with the existence of god in particular or his purpose if he had one, but it has to do with there being another realm or dimension that we also partly exist within but are unaware of as yet)

Well in modern physics M brane theory of everything there are I think eleven dimensions. Who knows what is going on in those other dimensions?

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Originally Posted by salima thoughts arent physical are they? but you must agree they exist. so in what realm do they exist?

Mind and qualia (mental experience is perhaps one of the most controversial areas of investigation. There are physicalist and materialistic theories of mind. I do not believe them “true” but it is a commonly held notion; perhaps the dominant notion in the scientific community.

Somewhat disjointed musings on my part, sorry. Why is this in mythology?

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The truth is easily vanquished but a well told lie is immortal (Mark Twain)

Yeah there are a lot of things in which we can not perceive with our senses but we know they exist because we have designed tools which can detect them and even exploit their existence.

I am not in conflict with anything outside the sense fields.

What I was trying to point out is that anything that does exist outside our sense field is completely and utterly up to speculation if we don't have a tool which can determine the characteristics of such a thing. So me making the claim that a flying pink elephant exists, is not any different than saying a god exists. Because we are both using the exact same premise and lack of sense data.

But most tend to object to that. If you use an argument that god can be known where as the flying pink elephant can not then by what means does that become true?

I did not make distinctions pertaining to an "actual god." I did and do not claim any knowledge on god. Quite the opposite, I understand and accept the recondite nature of god. I simply admonish a moral code grounded in faith, because i believe a rational ethical code exists independent of human subjectivity, a code firmly entrenched in reason. Morality, i believe belongs to the natural world not the supernatural.

Not once was i pretentious enough to claim any definitive objectivity concerning god. How did you come to that inference?

Bravo

God's contingent identity exists in a realm detached from human consciousness. That is, a "dimensional mode of existence" independent of the natural world. I arrive at this from the absurdity and irrationality of the competing circumstance, a duality of the natural and supernatural. If god exists it is in a "mode of existence" different from our natural world.

However, you are correct that with no sensory evidence no definitive statement can be made. Since reason is the foundation from which the edifice of human knowledge is built. With no reason, there is no foundation for knowledge. With no foundation, there is no structure. With no structure, there is no purpose. That much we can agree on.

And yes, i know the flying pink elephant does exist...i'm not a complete fool

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"In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit."

i guess the idea of the flying pink elephant hasnt been subjectively experienced by as many people in as many different countries and historical eras and cultures as the idea of god. that and the fact that there are more wars and arguments going on about god than the flying pink elephant would lead me to suspect there must be something behind it. but other than that, no there isnt any difference as far as proving it to be true.

yes, why is this thread in mythology? if god is a myth, why is there a religion forum section on the board? you mean you didnt put it in mythology, prothero? i thought it was your choice, and you were discussing the concept of 'a god' rather than within any particular religion and you didnt know where else to put it...was it moved?

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"The idea is to die young as late as possible."....Ashley Montagu

Before you beat up prothero, it was I who started the question. I couldn't decide where to put it since I felt that if I had actually placed it in the religion section it would have been considered inflammatory in nature. So I figured if I put it in mythology it could be considered divorced from any and all religious finger pointing. Even though the concept of god can be applied to almost any religion the question is equally fair for all instances.

Maybe it would have been better to place it into politics since now it seems I still wasn't successful in avoiding critism.

by now i had completely forgotten who started the thread, and i am getting mixed up trying to separate this from the one 'is god omnipotent'...

naw, people will always point fingers especially concerning religion. but it could just as easily, especially for the point of discussion or speculation, be considered a part of mythology as roman gods are, dont you think?

i have found that if a person has religious biases they will come out no matter what. there are still some left rattling around in my head that may be uncovered in a thread...and that is a good thing. it is when they are not recognized by the owner that they do the most damage.

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"The idea is to die young as late as possible."....Ashley Montagu