RE: I am an orthodox Christian, ask me a question!
August 14, 2009 at 10:13 am
(This post was last modified: August 14, 2009 at 10:39 am by Jon Paul.)
(August 14, 2009 at 7:00 am)Kyuuketsuki Wrote: Like I say there's a definition but as far as I know there is no law despite your claim that it existsTheres no law? The law of contradiction is just imagination, isn't true? In that case, there is a law of contradiction, because saying that there isn't is invoking it by positing a contradiction between there not being a law of contradiction and there being one.
If you deny the existence of the law of contradiction, also, you won't have a problem that I burn and beat you, because being burnt and beaten is obviously the same as not being burnt and beaten, unless there is a contradiction, a mutual exclusion between two exclusive things, in which case the law of contradiction holds true.
Again, do you deny the basic experience that tells us the truth of the law of contradiction - that I exist, and cannot both exist in the same sense and the same time, and not exist in the same sense and the same time? If you deny this, then you are the one being rhetorical and wasting time on definitions and semantics, to deny the obvious fact that of this law.
(August 14, 2009 at 9:04 am)LukeMC Wrote: If it is that God had no choice, this is not the murderous God of the OT who revealed himself to people and answers prayers and all the rest-Whether he "desires", that depends, like so many other things we say of God, on how you are using this word, you can surely use it symbolically of God as you can of creatures. But as with many such accomodative symbolisms, they are anthropomorphic, and don't apply if we are to be technical. If you are to be technical, then God does not desire; him, being subsistent pure actuality, has no need to desire, because he needs nothing outside of himself, and anything outside of himself exists only as a free charity of his actualisation. The most relevant sense that it's true to say he desires, is in the sense that he wills that other intellectual agents follow his will and come into communion with his being insofar as he has actualised/created intellectual agents that realise that he is the highest being, pure actuality and therefore pure good and pure perfection, for whom this communion is a possibility; but he does not need it, and so does not desire it in the anthropomorphic sense of a survival necessity.
(August 14, 2009 at 9:04 am)LukeMC Wrote: For God to have made us either requires that God has desires or God had/has no choice.Since you are probably using "desire" in a technical and narrow sense (rather than a symbolical sense, in which case it would be sufficient), then you are wrong. God does not need to desire to create, because nothing restrains God from creating, since nothing exists outside of himself except that which he wills into existence - that which he actualises. That he has given everything outside of himself it's existence -actualised it- means that God is the only agent with a say; the only agent with a choice, the only entity which could have a choice, because any other entity is itself the result of his actualisation of it. So no, you are wrong; God is not restrained by something outside of himself, because he is pure actuality - transcendent-; and therefore he does not need to desire anything because he needs nothing, and he is the only entity that has a choice as to whether anything outside of him shall come into existence.
(August 14, 2009 at 9:04 am)LukeMC Wrote: he is a deistic God, basically the universe.First of all, "deistic" comes from "Deus", which is simply the Latin form of Greek "Theos", from which theism comes from; boht terms mean God, and nothing else. The God of pure actuality is certainly not the universe, for the universe is impure actuality.
(August 14, 2009 at 9:35 am)Tiberius Wrote: You claim TAG has confirmed the Christian worldview and falsified the atheist one; it has done neither. The best I can say about TAG is that it is such a confusing muddle of philosophical terms that it tries to hide the fact that it presupposes Christianity in order to try and prove Christianity.It doesn't presuppose Christianity anymore than it presupposes atheism, before it has realised that the epistemic structure of atheism is irrational. And if you grant this conclusion, then you are obviously saying that atheism is wrong, and so you would never grant it to begin with. Again, that is not circularity, it's a conclusion which didn't exist before the argument had weighed the options.
(August 14, 2009 at 9:35 am)Tiberius Wrote: If you want to prove the laws of gravity, you don't presuppose they exist. You define clearly what they are, and do tests that the claims apply to. The result of the tests (the evidence) should either confirm or reject the claim.If you want to prove the laws of gravity, you do presuppose that they exist in order to make predictions about the universe from the premise of them, that can then be tested, like is done with so many other theories. But gravity has nothing to do with the epistemology of the TAG, so please, stop dodging it.
(August 14, 2009 at 9:00 am)Eilonnwy Wrote: So you claim to have special knowledge about God's intellectual mind after you claim that he is transcendent,No. We know that God has active intellect because he is pure actuality; active intellect consists exactly of his ontologically informative actualisation, or apprehension, as in the abstract actualisation that intellection consists of, rather than a potential intellect abstractly actualising things informed by already-existing ontological entities, which is not possible for pure actuality, since pure actuality is the informer of the existence of those things, rather than being even partially the informed one, like human intellects.
(August 14, 2009 at 2:03 am)omjag86 Wrote: You cannot get past your belief in God with this answer. This answer is draped in hypo-thesis. It is based in the mythology of God and not one iota of factual evidence.Again, worthless answers, since the only argument which someone accused of being circular was the orthodox TAG (which is not circular, unless it's conclusion is true; namely that Christianity is a necessary presupposition; and if that's true, then the atheist wrong, so obviously no atheist will grant that to be true to begin with).
You argue your case for God from your left brain, chopping and sorting your case into seperate bits, while defending your arguement from your Global minded right brain. This is highly narcissistic and why you are being told your arguement is circular and going nowhere. It's equivalent to playing Dodgeball with someone who has one set of rules for when I throw the ball and a different set of rules that favor you for when you throw the ball.
(August 14, 2009 at 2:03 am)omjag86 Wrote: What would it mean to you to convince me that God as you know "him" exists?I can't blame you for haven't read the entire thread, but I have repeatedly said that I didn't come here to convert you or "convince" you, as you say, that I am right. As I told EvF, that depends on will; if one wills to be convinced, then it might at least be possible to be convinced. However, I am not here to change your will. If I was, I would have brought an army, but that was never my mission here. My mission was just to see if I could get some intellectual challenge, and/or see what kind of ways atheists would argue in. And even if my arguments have not been refuted, there is always things to learn from experience in debating, arguing, et.c.
If you could convince every atheist and agnostic on the planet would that be enough?
(August 14, 2009 at 2:03 am)omjag86 Wrote: If everyone on Earth saw God exactly like you do would you feel complete then?No. That people do not believe in God is primarily a problem between themselves and God; not because I don't believe it's a problem in this world, but because there's nothing I can or will do about it (unless people ask me for a spiritual discussion; I am open, then), but because I belive the problem is rather when people pass from this world, and will not reside in peace eternally.
Would you feel seen?
(August 14, 2009 at 2:03 am)omjag86 Wrote: Would you have inner peace?What do you think? That I came here to find inner peace? No, I came here for intellectual challenges. And that is not intellectual peace, either, but an active mind.
(August 14, 2009 at 2:03 am)omjag86 Wrote: What if you didn't need to prove God to anyone?I don't need to prove God to anyone. Most Christians (the ones that I know, at least) are not going to go to atheists and try to prove Gods existence, nor is that what I am doing; because I cannot prove anything without the consent of the person who I am "proving" anything to, and I didn't come with an amibition to change peoples minds.
(August 14, 2009 at 2:03 am)omjag86 Wrote: Imagine that you aren't your ego-that you don't have to cling to an identity as a believer in order to feel good about being you.Then you are not feeling good about being you, but perhaps feeling bad about being another guy next-door who has not found what you might call spiritual peace.
But we Christians, don't cling to our ego; we don't cling to the destruction of our ego, either; we simply cling to God, and pray bring us nearer to God, (and longer away from our fallen, spiritually sick and unharmonious selves, and come back into harmony, soundness, and immortalization) to become like God, not by nature, but by grace.
(August 14, 2009 at 2:03 am)omjag86 Wrote: Imagine when someone dies too damned soon that you don't have to repress your anger in a cloak of shame because God needed them in heaven.It has never been orthodox or correct Christianity to say anything about who gets damned. Ultimately, it's up to people themselves to choose their path; and except for themselves, deep inside, only God knows if they became lost.
(August 14, 2009 at 2:03 am)omjag86 Wrote: Imagine that you don't have to justify your existence on a myth based on an Egyptian Sun God from 5000 B.C.,Feel free to take the most convenient views for your worldview, concerning the origins of the bible. But the origins is missing the point; and if you do not see the truth in the mythic, the parabolic, then you are missing the way of communication of truth of the greatest teachers in human and divine history; and too, missing the truest teachings, written by all of humanity in myths.
The people who are the most bigoted are the people who have no convictions at all.
-G. K. Chesterton
-G. K. Chesterton