Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
(August 12, 2010 at 9:39 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote:
(August 11, 2010 at 3:46 pm)tackattack Wrote: nothing. They were two separate points that seemed to be contradicting each other, yet a lot of people have both those personality traits, which was my point.
And a lot of people dont... so what is your point?
Quote: On philosophical tests I'm apparently more prone to the skeptical answer. However if I had to be either optimistic or pessimistic about an outcome I was skeptical about, I typically choose optimism. Yes that's biasing, but I think it's more productive than being a skeptic and a pessimist.
Why says you have to "choose" a bias? Why not withhold judgement until the evidence comes in (which is what skepticism is... and I'm glad you agree with me it has nothing to do with optimism or pessimism).
(August 11, 2010 at 8:20 pm)AngelThMan Wrote: By the same token, if God dropped from the sky tomorrow, atheists would still find a way to deny it was actually God.
If God ostensibly dropped from the sky how could anyone tell that it actually was God?
My point was since life is about experience and by their nature is (at the very least originally) subjective to believe you can be completely unbiased is just as irrational as believing in absolute proof or knowledge. If I had to lean towards a bias it would be optimism because I find it more productive (when defining or evaluating usefulness) in general than a pessimistic bias. To answer your question, probably because whatever it was exhibited the traits we reference him as. Are you making the argument that if God reveals himself then he ceases to be God because he is therefore part of experience and sub sequentially part of the universe?
"There ought to be a term that would designate those who actually follow the teachings of Jesus, since the word 'Christian' has been largely divorced from those teachings, and so polluted by fundamentalists that it has come to connote their polar opposite: intolerance, vindictive hatred, and bigotry." -- Philip Stater, Huffington Post
always working on cleaning my windows- me regarding Johari
(August 23, 2010 at 3:49 pm)tackattack Wrote: Are you making the argument that if God reveals himself then he ceases to be God because he is therefore part of experience and sub sequentially part of the universe?
Well he'd no longer be supernatural. So he wouldn't be a supernatural God.
August 24, 2010 at 3:42 pm (This post was last modified: September 1, 2010 at 6:45 pm by downbeatplumb.)
(August 24, 2010 at 5:48 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote:
(August 23, 2010 at 3:49 pm)tackattack Wrote: Are you making the argument that if God reveals himself then he ceases to be God because he is therefore part of experience and sub sequentially part of the universe?
Well he'd no longer be supernatural. So he wouldn't be a supernatural God.
Well the babel fish is a dead give away............
@dbp-Faith is not a requirement of God dbp, it's a requirement from a lack of understanding. I would think an omnipotent being requires nothing. I think Christianity strives for getting closer to an understanding of what God is, therefore maybe eventually faith won't be necessary and belief will remain for everyone. Some Christians see subjective evidence and use that to call their faith belief.
@EvF- That's a very good point and I don't think an omnimax God who's sole attributes are omnimax is comparable with being part of nature. The Christian idea of the trinity reflects the nature of existing outside the universe yet influencing the universe.
"There ought to be a term that would designate those who actually follow the teachings of Jesus, since the word 'Christian' has been largely divorced from those teachings, and so polluted by fundamentalists that it has come to connote their polar opposite: intolerance, vindictive hatred, and bigotry." -- Philip Stater, Huffington Post
always working on cleaning my windows- me regarding Johari
Maybe faith is as much an individual experience as breathing, something you can describe but is incredibly difficult to translate into an actual verbal language.
I've been giving it a shot anyway, though what you're saying could very well be true. Maybe if unbelievers would experience what you and I have, they'd be believers.
(August 31, 2010 at 10:37 pm)AngelThMan Wrote: I've been giving it a shot anyway, though what you're saying could very well be true. Maybe if unbelievers would experience what you and I have, they'd be believers.
...because no true believer would ever become an atheist, correct?
September 1, 2010 at 1:12 pm (This post was last modified: September 1, 2010 at 1:14 pm by downbeatplumb.)
(August 31, 2010 at 10:01 pm)josh.niles Wrote: Maybe faith is as much an individual experience as breathing, something you can describe but is incredibly difficult to translate into an actual verbal language.
(August 31, 2010 at 10:37 pm)AngelThMan Wrote: I've been giving it a shot anyway, though what you're saying could very well be true. Maybe if unbelievers would experience what you and I have, they'd be believers.
![[Image: imaginary_friend-790514.gif]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.glyn.dk%2Fblog%2Fuploaded_images%2Fimaginary_friend-790514.gif)
