Does God exist? (your opinion anyways.)

[BTGBullseye]

To each their own. I just see how God can't interfere all that much while still preserving free will, but I'm one of the rare ones that understands the completeness of the issue.

 

I'm not sure if you intended your post to read this way, but it strikes me as rather... Impolite.

I don't think I really care... Nope, don't care.

 

But we're talking about a being we have no knowledge of; a being we're not even sure exists. If people have faith in god, that's fine, but I don't think anyone can claim to have a better understanding of a god than anyone else. Understanding requires knowledge, but we don't have any here.

Just because you don't have knowledge, doesn't mean others don't. Just because you don't believe that other's knowledge is really knowledge, doesn't mean that you're right and they're wrong.

[Stevezor]

How do we know that you're right then?

[Wheatley]

To each their own. I just see how God can't interfere all that much while still preserving free will, but I'm one of the rare ones that understands the completeness of the issue.

 

I'm not sure if you intended your post to read this way, but it strikes me as rather... Impolite.

I don't think I really care... Nope, don't care.

 

Either side of this argument can contribute rather hostile rhetoric, I was hoping to avoid it altogether here as there's enough of it on the rest of the internet to go around.

 

Just because you don't have knowledge, doesn't mean others don't. Just because you don't believe that other's knowledge is really knowledge, doesn't mean that you're right and they're wrong.

 

Knowledge has to be reasonably separated from belief to be meaningfully defined. To demonstrate: I believe that my neighbor's door is solid. I believe this very strongly, I have seen them walk through the door before, and interact with it in a way to indicate it has substance. The technology or phenomena required to make the door unsubstantial are so unlikely that my belief is quite supported by the evidence; however, until I walk over and feel the door for myself, I do not truly know that it is solid.

Now, this argument can be taken much deeper, to the point where only repeatable evidence will constitute knowledge, but the key here is demonstrability. If I can demonstrate something, then I know it.

 

This is a question about the solidity of a door, where a degree of uncertainty exists until direct demonstration is achieved. For the matter of the existence of deities, I have never seen any empirical evidence and many people who are religious will agree with this assessment and admit that it requires faith. Many people have asked for such demonstrations of divine knowledge and I haven't seen any such request fulfilled. Until such evidence can be provided and demonstrated, I can safely say that knowledge isn't present, because even if these people were correct, they had no way of "knowing" it.

[BTGBullseye]

I have knowledge of God through personal experience, but solely my own experience, so no corroborating witnesses. I have repeated evidence of God as well, but no lasting evidence that others can or have seen.

 

 

 

 

...waiting to see someone say that I hallucinated it, or some such.

[Stevezor]

Not HALLUCINATE, I'd say, but that does kinda kill anyone believing you.

[BTGBullseye]

That's the point, God doesn't seem to reveal himself to many people at once, and it tends to cause conversions when it does, making anyone not a believer not believe the people that have the knowledge.

[Alyxx Thorne]

God cannot interfere with us because of free will. If God were to interfere with our actions it would make free will irrelevant.

[Stevezor]

If there's free will, why can't gay people get married under god the same way a straight couple can? And to top it off, if god is all-knowing, and knows everything there is to know, wouldn't he know everything that happens as well, therefore making him not have free will himself, making him a non-personable being, but more of an automaton type of sentience? Then if this was the case, why would you worship an automaton? Might as well join the church of Google. http://www.thechurchofgoogle.org/

[Wheatley]

I have knowledge of God through personal experience, but solely my own experience, so no corroborating witnesses. I have repeated evidence of God as well, but no lasting evidence that others can or have seen.

 

...waiting to see someone say that I hallucinated it, or some such.

 

Allow me to give a sort of hypothetical.

 

Let's say I walk out my door one morning to find a Brachiosaurus in my front yard. I can walk over to it, see it clearly, touch it, hear it, even smell it. I pinch myself, check my pulse, look at my watch; do everything to make sure it's not a dream. After I collect my wits I run back into my house to grab my iPod and take a video of it, but when I come back outside I find no trace of it. I tell the police and my family what I have seen, as I clearly remember everything with a sober and rational mind, but the police can't find any footprints, any other sightings except for one man who claims to have seen a dinosaur, but it was in a different area and the wrong type of dinosaur. Soon it seems that the dinosaur left no evidence at all. It doesn't matter to me, I know I experienced something, but with the facts in mind it becomes very difficult to explain how a dinosaur could have appeared and vanished in a neighborhood without leaving a trace, and much easier to explain why only two people with conflicting stories witnessed this.

Admittedly, I had direct experience of a dinosaur, however given the severity of the claim and complete lack of external evidence, at some point I would have to admit that I don't really know a dinosaur was actually there.

 

This is an example I've borrowed from a series of videos on a slightly different subject, but it illustrates the idea I'm trying to communicate. I don't know whether you hallucinated, experienced a weird but natural phenomena, or straight up met god in heaven, but I don't think it's possible for either of us to know for sure.

[BTGBullseye]

And since 'you' (this being a general term, not specific) don't know, then I absolutely can't either? Some of 'you' even have to resort to trying to insult me just to make yourself feel better about not knowing, or believing otherwise... Makes perfect sense to me. (those last 5 words were oozing sarcasm, just in case you didn't notice)

[Wheatley]

And since 'you' (this being a general term, not specific) don't know, then I absolutely can't either? Some of 'you' even have to resort to trying to insult me just to make yourself feel better about not knowing, or believing otherwise... Makes perfect sense to me. (those last 5 words were oozing sarcasm, just in case you didn't notice)

 

Neither of us know because there's no way either of us could know. That's generally the reason most people say believing in god requires faith; there's not any way to actually know. If you claim to know a god exists, then I would ask how you know. Based on what you've presented so far, and what I've heard others answer, there isn't sufficient information for anyone to know if god exists.

 

The subject of defining knowledge has spawned an entire field of philosophy called epistemology. There are different definitions of what constitutes knowledge, but I have based mine on principles of empiricism. That definition encompasses everything most people would consider knowledge while separating simple beliefs. Essentially, knowledge isn't just a very strong belief or even a correct one; it's the ability to demonstrate the case of something.

 

Here is an example from the article I linked to above: "For example, a person believes that a particular bridge is safe enough to support him, and attempts to cross it; unfortunately, the bridge collapses under his weight. It could be said that he believed that the bridge was safe, but that this belief was mistaken. It would not be accurate to say that he knew that the bridge was safe, because plainly it was not. By contrast, if the bridge actually supported his weight then he might say he "thought" that the bridge was safe, and now after proving it to himself, he knows."

 

This can be considered knowledge because the evidence is available at any time. There are certain things in science for which the evidence isn't repeatable per se, but for which the evidence is still accessible. For example, if investigating a murder, there's no way to actually repeat the event; however, if we obtain DNA evidence of the murderer, that evidence can be repeatably examined. We can reasonably know certain things about the past with the proper evidence, but if that evidence can't be repeatably seen, it's value is greatly diminished. This is one reason why eyewitness accounts aren't a good form of evidence for extraordinary phenomena.

[BTGBullseye]

So you're saying that I can't know, simply because you can't think of a way for anyone to know?

[Wheatley]

No. I'm saying that by this definition of knowledge, it's impossible for anyone to know under these circumstances. Essentially, the concept of knowledge implies a lack of doubt; not personal doubt, but potential doubt. If there is a way for you to be wrong, then doubt exists. True "knowledge" may not actually exist, so knowledge is more a matter of degrees, falling between blind faith and certainty (though as I said, certainty doesn't really exist, we can only get relatively close to it.)

 

Now, this is certainly a semantic argument, but a rather important one, because the word "know" has a strong implication. Of course, you're free to not use this definition of knowledge and say you "know" god exists, however my point is that you cannot "know" god exists the same way you can know, say, gravity exists.

[BTGBullseye]

I can, you just don't seem to be able to comprehend that.

[Wheatley]

You've asserted that you can, however based on the clear empirical differences between the two, it's not really a matter of interpretation, rather one of logic. If my argument is flawed, I wish you'd elaborate as to how.

[Blue]

God cannot interfere with us because of free will. If God were to interfere with our actions it would make free will irrelevant.

 

As far as I've heard it, God's Will can be classified four ways:

 

The Preordained Will of God,

The Preferred Will of God,

The Permissible Will of God and

The Proactive Will of God.

 

The Preordained Will of God is synonymous with God's 'predestination', that is, something that is his will which WILL come to pass, regardless of the course of history. He has made a promise and the course of the universe and human will does not have a "choice" in the matter. Such events like the Abrahamic Covenant, the Second Coming of Jesus, the Apocalypse, etc. These events WILL happen because God has Pre-ordained them to occur.

 

The Preferred Will of God is concerned with Morality: he has left us free to choose between being in favour of his morals, or rejecting him. He does not prefer us rejecting him, but it is also his will for us to be free to do so. Without this Freedom of Choice and empowerment of our own will, Love would be impossible. If we could not choose between Loving him and loving something else, then we would just be robots that are programmed to like him, and existence would have a futile purpose in regards to human reason. This is what makes it possible that people can chose to believe God or not believe God. How this is then reconciled with Romans 8:30 "And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified." is the fact that The Predestination of our belief can only be observed though retrospect. We have free will and full responsibility for our choices, but we only see that God is sovereign through all of our choices after seeing how he works through what has already come to be. We are free to draw our own lines, but all things are under God's control because he in a sense is the paper on which we are drawing.

How this can be fully reconciled with "God's Complete Predestination vs. Free Choice" is that not all events are Predestined to occur. God predestined Christ to suffer and die on a cross, but he did not predestine you to be late for the bus or for an avalanche to occur (necessarily. See below.)

 

But the final nail the coffin I would like to say, is that this matter, while complex and interesting, is not a matter which has solid enough bearing to disestablish a possible Faith in God if it is rejected. The concern over Predestination vs. Free Choice is only a concern which Post-Modern Enlightenment-saturated Philosophy members of Western Society find a hard time with. Most other cultures do not have a problem with this either way. Do not think that your cultural moment and location in the world is tantamount reason to consider the merits of Faith on the basis of this axiom alone.

 

The Permissible Will of God is largely concerned with God's ability to work through allowing Demons and dark forces to influence the world. This aspect of God's will is almost exclusively spiritual and non-material in form, and is primarily about explaining things that happen in the Old Testament. Events such as "Now the Spirit of the LORD had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD tormented him." (1 Samuel 16:14, NIV. Note, Saul here is King Saul I of Israel, not Saul who is named Paul of Tarsus from the book of Acts.) An alternative form of this verse would be "And an evil spirit tormented [saul] that was permitted from the LORD". This would also be the case for the opening chapter in the Book of Job, where Job is attacked by Satan directly, after requesting to do so from God. This indicates that even the sinful influence of dark powers on the world is something that can happen only if God allows it to happen. (Why is a whole matter of its own.)

 

The Proactive Will of God is God's direct intervention into the world by way of Miracles and such, and things that come about by means of Intercessory Prayer. This is often seen in Spiritual Gifts as described by Paul in II Timothy and Ephesians. Things can happen directly through God yanking the control from physics and whatnot to make some tings that would otherwise be impossible, occur. This is how the Red Sea parted.

[Vapymid]

This is how the Red Sea parted.

 

I thought the Red Sea parted because of a big rock (aka meteorite) having fallen nearby, which, of course, could well have been sent by God as part of his proactive will... Alternatively, He may have merely preferred that the asteroid fell rather than missed. Oh, wait - it could also be preordained too!

 

Anyway, it is unlikely that any breaking of physics was needed to achieve safe passage for Moses and co. and it would have been inelegant and kludgy for God to do so, so I'm pretty sure He didn't do it that way...

 

As for prayer as a means of calling for divine intervention - I like how Jim Morrison said it: "You cannot petition the Lord with prayer".

 

 

k1g8WCA7mJk

 

 

Sounds convincing to me...

 

Regards

[Blue]

This is how the Red Sea parted.

 

I thought the Red Sea parted because of a big rock (aka meteorite) having fallen nearby, which, of course, could well have been sent by God as part of his proactive will... Alternatively, He may have merely preferred that the asteroid fell rather than missed. Oh, wait - it could also be preordained too!

 

Anyway, it is unlikely that any breaking of physics was needed to achieve safe passage for Moses and co. and it would have been inelegant and kludgy for God to do so, so I'm pretty sure He didn't do it that way...

 

As for prayer as a means of calling for divine intervention - I like how Jim Morrison said it: "You cannot petition the Lord with prayer"

Surely the means are not as important as the fact that He can do it.

Also I have no idea what that youtube video was about because Youtube does not work at my school network.

 

"You cannot petition the Lord with Prayer" is directly unbiblical.

"Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you." Philippians 4:5-9 (NIV)

 

Apart from the promotion of a singer, can't see how that's relevant.

[Vapymid]

Oh, the singer's dead and needs no promotion now...

 

"You cannot petition the Lord with Prayer" is directly unbiblical.

 

That may well be so, but I still believe you can't do that...

 

Regards

[BTGBullseye]

You've asserted that you can, however based on the clear empirical differences between the two, it's not really a matter of interpretation, rather one of logic. If my argument is flawed, I wish you'd elaborate as to how.

You believe what you say is logical, but you're still trying to use your argument to try and 'prove' that I don't really 'know'. (even if you don't 'know' you're trying to do that) I feel pity for you.