Punished for Babel?

[fr0d0]

Still it's blind faith is it not?

[The Reality Salesman01]

Faith has a few definitions, I just think its ambiguous to use it in the context that implies blind faith when a different definition is intended. Why not just say "believe"? That's what is meant, but for some reason, people choose faith. Never understood that. Either way, after whomever says "faith" clarifies their intended use of the word, that definition is what should be discussed. The word-user gets to dictate His or her meaning when using the word.

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To accurately answer your question, having re-read it...I don't think so.

Saying that I don't think a God's existence can be proven is a statement supported by the countless failed attempts I've witnessed. Not to mention the fact that a God-thing of any kind is indistinguishable from non-existance. It's perfectly reasonable to doubt that such a thing can be proven. Just like big-foot, or the lochness monster. It falls along the same lines.

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Would it be blind faith for me to say that I doubt a human can naturally fly?

Would it be blind faith to say that I doubt a male human can naturally concieve a baby?

[pineapplebunnybounce]

The question of God cannot be known. Therefore the assumption has to be made. The evidence of coherent supporting logic that would make that assumption viable enables faith.

Your objection rests on the substantiation of proof, which as Maelstrom has demonstrated above, is impossible.

Do you think proof of God is possible? If so, please describe what form that proof might take. If you cannot reason any workable hypothesis, then you hold a position of blind faith.

The Maelstrom conundrum:
1. There cannot be proof of God
2. We cannot believe in God without proof
3. 1 defeats 2

this is rather odd. if i understand you correctly, you think that god is a question that can never be proven. what i do not understand is how you get to "the assumption has to be made". i think the difference is just that atheists don't find the need for this assumption, we're happy enough to say we don't know, no point to act like there is a god.

it also wouldn't be blind faith at all on our part, because as Texas Sailor pointed out above, a being like god, even though can never be proven, would at least show some signs of existing, in the absence of all these signs, there's no reason to assume it exists. otherwise it'd just be a figment of our imagination. i could imagine a being right now, and it'll be impossible to prove it, but there's no reason to think it exist to begin with.

[Drich]

Unless the project was a non-issue and what was being discouraged was the soceitial inferstructure created by man after said tower was built.

Exactly! Thank you Drich. I've been trying to tell the Social Services people that forever. A few years back, I caught my 4 year old son trying to catch his shadow in the hallway. I knew he wasn't going to actually catch it. I just beat him senselessly because I didn't want him to harbor creativity or an imagination. Sometimes the real issue is below the surface. I wish everybody was as level headed as you Drich. (Completely made-up story by the way )

What if you knew that if your son were to continue to try and catch his shawdow it would lead to his death or the death of everyone else around him? I know that is a bit extream but appearently God saw the path we were going down pre bable and it wasn't good for the whole species, so He made a course correction that put us back on track.

Plus how do you know the story was made up? The bible never says the tower/city was anywhere near complete, so what evidence would have there been after 5000 or so years?

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If you actually read the story it was not about reaching God.

What Bible did you read?

Gen 11:4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven;

The word in Gen 11 that is translated 'heaven' in some version is: שמים shamayim, which translates visiable 'heavens' or in simple terms sky. when ever translated with lower case h-eaven. When the upper case is used "H"-eaven it refers to the abode of God. http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexi...8064&t=KJV


Easier to read versions of the bible simply translate using modern english terms.: 4 Then the people said, “Let’s build ourselves a city and a tower that will reach to the sky. Then we will be famous. This will keep us together so that we will not be scattered all over the earth.”
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?sea...ersion=ERV




Also one has to remember that at that point in man's history 'Heaven' was not considered to be in the sky. This did not happen till Jesus assended upon a cloud into Heaven some 3000 years later. Up to that point the only direct contact people had with God was on earth in the garden.

[fr0d0]

Tex

'Belief' isn't faith. I believe through faith in God. Faith in the Christian tradition is acting upon knowledge you trust to be true/ My belief in God rests upon knowledge that I've accepted to be true. There has to be an assumption because ultimately God cannot be proven.

What failed attempts have you witnessed? I've witnessed many failed hypotheses. The prayer tests: bad failure that doesn't factor in that Gods response cannot be known. For example.
People do believe so isn't that fuel for speculation? They say it's true but you don't concur. On what grounds?
What about the evidence of existence? Everything either is or isn't the product of a singularity.

Big foot et al rely on physical existence so we can easily know what kind of evidence to expect. Someone could falsify a large footprint etc and then we could run various tests to check.

All we have to go on with God are logical precedents. We have a model to test (if we can formulate a working model, which I claim exists in Christian teaching). If, like me, you conclude that this model works without flaws, that's where you're at. You still have no reason to believe independently. Only acting upon the assumption can be called belief via faith.

Yes it would be blind faith to believe in improbable things without reason. That's what blind faith is. I have no reason to think that I could fly unaided at this moment in time. There (supposedly) is no evidence to support reasonable doubt that flight could or could not be possible. I'm forced to choose the most likely scenario. Unlike with my God question, where the balance is equal.

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you think that god is a question that can never be proven. what i do not understand is how you get to "the assumption has to be made"

It doesn't. Either side of the question is unknowable. You abstain from the choice, I have reason to take it.

[The Reality Salesman01]

'Belief' isn't faith. I believe through faith in God. Faith in the Christian tradition is acting upon knowledge you trust to be true/ My belief in God rests upon knowledge that I've accepted to be true.

That’s how you use faith. I don’t use the word because I think that even in your definition, it is incorrect. If faith is acting upon knowledge you trust to be true, you are suggesting you have a reason from which you compounded this knowledge. If your reason is that you really believe in God, then that is not verifiable by anyone but you. It is something you personally hold to be true but cannot provide evidence of it to anyone else. You are the only expert on the matter that can verify whether or not you really believe something. That would be like me asking you to prove that chocolate really is your favorite ice cream. That’s ridiculous! Why would I challenge whether or not your opinion of something is actually your opinion? That’s pointless.

However, if you extend your claim to the external world, my world, my reality, then I can measure the validity of your claim using processes that are reliable to me. Your belief in God proclaimed as knowledge, to me, makes me think you can show evidence of this knowledge. But, you cannot. You have faith, that is, you believe without reasons that are verifiable by anyone else. You say that your experience of God prevents it from being blind faith, but to everyone else that doesn’t agree, it IS blind faith. It’s still only verifiable by you. Like your favorite color. That is faith to me. You believe something, about the external world, is true, and cannot show evidence of it. To me, that is not a reliable process to determine truth, and I would not accept your claims as true for me or my experience of reality, which is the type of claim asserted when you claim to have knowledge. This confusion can be avoided if you would stop calling it knowledge that your belief is true. I don’t say that I have knowledge that Pulp Fiction is my favorite movie, it’s just my opinion, and it’s subject to change.

There has to be an assumption because ultimately God cannot be proven.

I agree God can’t be proven. God is indistinguishable from Non-existence. Why would I assume, that its real? It shares the exact characteristics of a figment of imagination, and doesn’t correlate with my experience of reality. The assumption I make, is that there are things I don’t know yet. Accepting God on the grounds that there are things I don’t understand seems absurd to me. If by God you mean, that which we don’t understand, then fine. Don’t assign characteristics to it, and then claim to have knowledge of it that cannot be verified. I don’t understand why you think that is a reasonable thing for anyone to do.

People do believe so isn't that fuel for speculation? They say it's true but you don't concur. On what grounds?

Because the process that you use to arrive at your conclusion is unreliable. The conclusion itself is unverifiable and shares the same characteristics with something that is made-up. It sounds like an unfalsifiable anecdote offered to bridge gaps of ignorance. I do not have a single good reason to entertain a single God claim, and any knowledge one claims to have of the contrary is equally unfalsifiable and indistinguishable from a false-claim. This sounds unreasonable to you?

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Exactly! Thank you Drich. I've been trying to tell the Social Services people that forever. A few years back, I caught my 4 year old son trying to catch his shadow in the hallway. I knew he wasn't going to actually catch it. I just beat him senselessly because I didn't want him to harbor creativity or an imagination. Sometimes the real issue is below the surface. I wish everybody was as level headed as you Drich. (Completely made-up story by the way )

What if you knew that if your son were to continue to try and catch his shawdow it would lead to his death or the death of everyone else around him?

No clue, pure speculation and completely irrelevant. Do you find it easier to make excuses for faulty logic when you change the details of the original line of thought being defended.

I know that is a bit extream but appearently God saw the path we were going down pre bable and it wasn't good for the whole species, so He made a course correction that put us back on track.

I believe that you believe that. I just see it as more speculation about a could-be fictitious tale. Combine that with the fact that you cannot show any reason for me to think the agent involved in such a tale is true, and the entire thing makes me wonder why I even responded!!! You are crafty Mr. Drich…Verrry CRAFTY.

Plus how do you know the story was made up?

Originally I was referring to MY story about beating my son…lol. To this Babel babble, I say there’s a good chance it was made up, based on the details that don’t correlate with reality, but I can’t prove it false any more than you can prove it true.

[fr0d0]

TeX

No, my reason isn't "that I believe in God". I gave my reasoning.

We have information. The logic presented is of an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, benevolent and timeless being. That is our point of contention. That information is transferable to other people. Christians verify what other Christians say is correct, and check the information to confirm it's validity.
Belief isn't transferable. it has to be the choice of the individual. This is the model of faith laid out in the bible.

I can't know that my belief is true. I can only have faith that it is.
That belief can change like your favorite movie. New information might force me to concede a better solution. I cannot choose anything that doesn't work for me. Just as you can't choose what might or might not trump what would constitute a better movie in your mind. The information coming in has to work for you. You have to rationalise it.

I bridge no gaps with ignorance. I can draw logical conclusions based on the assumption that God is logical and has to be to exist, based upon knowledge that this universe is physically logical. Therefore I am able to rule out illogical conclusions in constructing my idea of deity.

[Drich]

No clue, pure speculation and completely irrelevant. Do you find it easier to make excuses for faulty logic when you change the details of the original line of thought being defended.

It's not pure speculation for an Omnipotent God. You were using the analogy of you punishing your son for chasing his shadow. therefore you in that senerio take on the role of God. Which means you would also be onmipotent. Meaning you would know exactly what effect your son chasing his shadow would have.

That points to the question I asked: If you being absolutly omnipotent knew beyond a shadow of doubt that your son's shawdow chasing would lead to his death or the death of everyone else around him would you allow him to continue to chase his shadow, EVEN IF the act of shadow chasing was benign?

[The Reality Salesman01]

The logic presented is of an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, benevolent and timeless being. That is our point of contention.

I'm sorry, I'm not trying to instigate, but I assure you that I do not know what this means. Logic presented?

That information is transferable to other people. Christians verify what other Christians say is correct, and check the information to confirm it's validity.

I believe that you think this is sufficient for you and others that want to believe the same thing. To a man looking for an external and verifiable reason, this comes accross as circular logic.

You have to rationalise it.

You and I disagree on what is a reliable form of rationalization.

I bridge no gaps with ignorance. I can draw logical conclusions based on the assumption that God is logical and has to be to exist,

Your assumption is using the word God at all. The definition of assumption is taking someting for granted without evidence. You as well as I are ignorant to what might exist. You are willing to assume that what you've heard about a God is true (based on no evidence that can be verified), and then attribute that assumption, with everything in the universe. That sir, is bridging gaps of ignorance.

based upon knowledge that this universe is physically logical.

The universe is subject to logical contengencies. If your God exists, It too would also be subject to them. Not the other way around.

Therefore I am able to rule out illogical conclusions in constructing my idea of deity.

The diety itself was an assumption. You expanded upon that assumption and started assigning things to it that make sense to you, but are not verifiable to anyone else in the world that isn't already willing to accept your claims using the same process you used. The initial assumption of a diety was illogical. Anything later assigned to it does not have a foundation in reason or reality. That's why I reject your claim of knowledge. It shares the same characteristics of false-knowledge.

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It's not pure speculation for an Omnipotent God.

Anything you say on such an unfounded agent on its behalf is absolute speculation. And currently, remains indistinguishable from fiction.

That points to the question I asked: If you being absolutly omnipotent knew beyond a shadow of doubt that your son's shawdow chasing would lead to his death or the death of everyone else around him would you allow him to continue to chase his shadow, EVEN IF the act of shadow chasing was benign?

Drich, if I was omnicient, I wouldn't be concerned, as I would already know that It would never happen. I would be able to foresee that the catastrophe will be avoided. If I was omnipontent too, I could arrange a less violent solution. These are all obvious flaws with the way your stories are told. It's so strange that you remain oblivious to the absurd nature of the God you describe.

[fr0d0]

TeX

You lazily accuse me of presenting circular logic, when I do no such thing. The validity of the bible comes from reference to physical reality. Reasoning that both you and I must agree upon.

I've explained to you how God is reasoned. That isn't the assumption. Belief in him is the assumption, based upon solid reasoning.
I understand that by using logic I can understand what would make this deity work. No blind faith or lack of reasoning involved. No bridging of gaps.

If my God exists, he is the origin of all things and so the universe is subject to logical consequence from him.

The assumptions are verifiable by anyone else, including you. False knowledge would be based upon false assumptions. No one has shown this. Many have confirmed it.