(May 27, 2016 at 3:40 pm)robvalue Wrote: Okay, I appreciate the honesty [1]
Does this not worry you, that you don't know what it is you believe in? [2] This topic wasn't meant to be a trap, it was a genuine attempt to try and negotiate what a "God" is. Sadly only two theists have been willing to cooperate.
You seem to be describing a slug as it exists in our reality. If you put a slug somewhere that no laws of our universe acted upon it, what's the problem? A slug doesn't have this reality attached to it as part of its definition. [3]
But this seems moot if you don't know what a god is. It's my suspicion that no theist does actually know. Which is why me trying to answer the question of belief is fruitless, because I don't understand the question, and I can't see into their minds. [4]
Indeed; all I generally hear are negatives. The reasons the negatives seem to exist is to keep the god outside the range of falsifiability by science. [5] My hypothesis is that "gods" only exist within the imagination of theists. Any attempt to inject a dose of reality seems to disqualify the thing from being a god. For example, a computer programmer would be a perfectly sensible "God", relative to this reality. [6] But I don't think I've ever heard a theist accept this as a "God".
1) =)
2) Actually, no, it doesn't worry me. If god is anything like the sort of thing my limited understanding tells me god must be like, then I couldn't possibly conceive of or know god like I conceive of and understand other things: like slugs. The moment I identify god as a "thing" in the same way that I identify a slug as a "thing", then it can't be god. Why? God's way of existing is unlike any other way of existing. Existing is "what" he is, but existing is "act" not "thing". So what is god? He is "the act of being" (derived from the negative => god cannot not "be"). What is that? <= A good question for contemplation. Also, as I am sure you know I am Catholic, and as a Catholic I believe that this god, whatever it is, speaks to humanity. More precisely, I believe that he speaks to humanity in a very particular way through the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth. Through Jesus, god speaks to us about "who" he is, and about who WE are. That gives us more information about god. However, seeing as that is information known by faith, it is hardly admissible within the context of a discussion based in reason alone.
3) I don't see how removing the slug "from our reality" changes anything. In whatever reality it finds itself, if it is existing "as-a-slug" (in whatever way that means in any reality), then it can't be existing "as-god".
4) Many theists think that they do know what god is. They are partially right, because not knowing exactly the "what" of god is not equivalent to knowing "exactly nothing" about the "what" of god. There are some things we know about the "what", and those well-meaning theists confuse that "what-we-do-know" with the "exactly-what" of god. I used to be that way, but after more critical reflection and prayer I have learned to distinguish between the little I do know, and the infinite degree of what I don't. That is not scary, that is exciting. I can always discover more.
5) =) Theists don't (at least I hope most of us don't) actively attempt to conceive of god in ways that dodge and avoid validation and experimentation by scientific methods. If there is any god at all, and the-way-in-which-it-exists is not scientifically verifiable in a lab, that is simply because that is the-sort-of-thing-god-is.
6) If you think that this example is a perfectly sensible "god" relative to this reality, then you a very very right to not accept that god exists.