Do you believe in God?

[SuperCobraJet]

Why is God unknowable? How have you arrived at this conclusion?

I would have to ask you the same question.

Or perhaps you're like SCJ and DCP and don't want to question religion, because it might not give you the answers that you're looking for.

Why do you automatically jump to that assumptive conclusion?
I don't know about DCP but I have pondered these concepts for years.
My findings are not a result of what I want or what I was looking for, other than the objective quest for truth.

No rational person simply refuses to learn more for no reason at all.

Thats quite correct.
And I have the best reason in the expanse of life as we know it, to no longer seek inquiry as to the existence of God.

Just because something is called an experience of God, doesn't mean it is one.

Yes and likewise it doesn't mean it isn't one.
Two way street again.

On the other hand, you could wave your arms and say "ooo, it's all mystical, must be God. Move on, nothing to learn here".

Again why do you immediately jump to that assumptive conclusion?

Then you're no wiser, and you've in fact closed your mind to anything new that might enlighten you.

You might want to run another spread sheet on that closed mind sector?

 

[Famine]

You might want to run another spread sheet on that closed mind sector?

In the same post as which you say this:

I have the best reason in the expanse of life as we know it, to no longer seek inquiry as to the existence of God.

That's literally the definition of closing your mind - to the possibility that you're wrong.

 

[doctorrg]

And what do you experience after you've believed enough in the story?

What story? It's not about what I experience, it's about being to able to recognize said experience in the account of the people talking about religious experiences. It's my way of saying I know where they're coming from, I can even understand why they believe what they do.

Fair enough, that's not how I'd originally read your statement. I read it as "...science cannot reason with an object that has a certain set of properties", as in there were a certain set of properties that an object could have that would mean that science couldn't reason with it.

I'm still not entirely sure how to read your meaning out of that sentence, but I understand what you meant now that you've explained it. I'll skip replying to your other points that are based on this misunderstanding.

Fair enough.

But I'm talking with you. I'm not interested in other people's opinions, I want yours.

I've tried to address this previously, in this very thread, and was told it was off topic. Am I right to assume it is now within topic? Because I will have to go all the way back to the beginning, to the nature of reality. That would be ok now, correct?

Why is God unknowable? How have you arrived at this conclusion?

It's more appropriate to say that I am accepting of these accounts. As said, I'll have to go all the way back to the nature of reality in order to address this properly, but let me try and summarize the essence of it. Irrespective of what people may say about God, and what exactly they believe, any particular description seemed to essentially be more of a rationalization than anything else. At the end of the day, even people who thought they knew God, really didn't. Yet, even the awereness of this did not in the slightest affect their belief. The only reasonable conclusion is that what they described as God had absolutely no bearing with respect to their belief in God. As such, what they described as God could not be God. In fact, there was not a single description of God that had any bearing on their belief in God. This brings me to the accounts of God being unknowable, and how it relates to the experience of God, and I completely understood what was meant. I had no issues accepting their faith.

Now, what, in short, is the God experience and why is God unknowable. It essentially goes back to us being slaves to our own perception. To use Kant's classical distinction of Phenomena and Noumena. God essentially is Noumena. We cannot know God because all we can know is Phenomena. When I say God is unknowable, I'm saying God cannot be Phenomena. But how then can we know God? Imago Dei. We ourselves, not as we perceive and understand ourselves, but as as the thing-in-itself (in Kantian terms not really a thing as we understand it), are Noumena. It's, in other words, our real self. The God experience is the experience of our real self, a naturally entirely internal process that abandons everything we've come to know. Unfortunately, once we're trying to understand the experience we're already back within the realm of Phenomena and have already lost the experience.

Edit: I feel this is subject to misunderstanding due to my use of the phrase "real self" here. No doubt this is ambiguous, so please note I am referring to Noumena.

How can you describe God as measurable yet unknowable?

I've never desribed God as measurable. The human experience would be measurable. Even during the experience, the person having the experience would still be within the realm of Phenomena from the perspective of an outside observer.

Surely to measure some part of an experience that was caused by God would be to know some part of Him, however small?

All you have access to is, and always will be, Phenomena. You are observing the result the experience has within the realm of Phenomena, that does not tell you anything about Noumena.

If I talk to a German, I can learn some small things about German people and Germany. Although I wouldn't say that I know all about Germany, or even that it would be possible from such an interaction.

With respect to what I've just said about Noumena and Phenomena, you can see how this analogy doesn't really apply, right?

Yes, and I'm trying to understand why you have decided that there's no reason to. Either you've never tried, or you have some rationale that you can share.

I have no reason to doubt the accounts of people having religious experiences, if it strengthens their belief in God and they have Faith that it is, in fact, an experience of God, it is no business of mine to tell them otherwise. As such, I have no inclination to do so. That enough of a rationale to you?

Or perhaps you're like SCJ and DCP and don't want to question religion, because it might not give you the answers that you're looking for.

This is not about questioning religion. I have no reason to question their experience, nor any reason to question their Faith.

No rational person simply refuses to learn more for no reason at all.

This is not about learning, it is about acceptance. Is that so hard a concept to grasp?

Just because something is called an experience of God, doesn't mean it is one. People used to think spirits were responsible for all sorts of things, but upon closer examination it just turned out that the real world is actually pretty complicated.

The descriptions of the events may be accurate (which is dubious in most cases, but anyway), but there's nothing to say that the authors are making correct interpretations of those events. If they're making interpretations from single events, then they almost certainly are not making correct ones. Data is not the plural of anecdote, as the saying goes.

I don't even think this is relevant. As said, based on what I know (going all the way back to the nature of reality), I have no reason to question their experience, nor any reason to question their Faith. After all, we're talking about Faith here, which is a very individual, and subjective, thing. I am merely accepting their view of the world. Would you consider this wrong?

I see that you don't understand scientific investigation either.

Sadly, I think you fail to see many things.

Observation is everything we have. There is nothing beyond that. What you term "the experience" is exactly how every other scientific discovery in the world to date has been made. That's what we use.

We have the experience of interacting with molecules. We don't know exactly what they're made of at the smallest level, or if there is a smallest level. We can describe how they act and interact, and we can predict some interesting properties of atoms and molecules that we have not yet observed.

Somehow you seem to think that to learn something using the scientific method you have to understand it completely. There are only the most basic concepts for which this could be true even in the broadest sense, most scientific fields are littered with things that are poorly understood. That's why scientists still have jobs.

If you can have an experience, then you can start the investigation with the 5 W's and move on from there. That's science.

Re-read the section where I address Noumena and Phenomena. What you are describing here is entirely within the realm of Phenomena. How could this bring us any closer to Noumena?

On the other hand, you could wave your arms and say "ooo, it's all mystical, must be God. Move on, nothing to learn here". Then you're no wiser, and you've in fact closed your mind to anything new that might enlighten you.

As I've said before, this is about acceptance, nothing else.

 

[TenEightyOne]

What story? It's not about what I experience, it's about being to able to recognize said experience in the account of the people talking about religious experiences. It's my way of saying I know where they're coming from, I can even understand why they believe what they do.

Could you describe the experience? Why do you think it is that there are people who cannot have that experience while others can?

 

[doctorrg]

Could you describe the experience? Why do you think it is that there are people who cannot have that experience while others can?

Oddly enough, the first term that jumps to mind is "Oneness with God", and I do not intend for this term to be religiously loaded. And I do not at all think that there are people who cannot have that experience while others can. After all, it's a human experience.

 

[LeMansAid]

@doctorrg My thoughts go to being in "the zone". Sportspeople are taught to concentrate, watch the ball, know your position - but I think that concentration is actually an enemy of the zone, and breaks the connection.

It can be felt in other pursuits as well, like gaming and music performance. It's the simplest thing I can think of in trying to understand the possibility of some of the things I think you are talking about.

 

[SuperCobraJet]

In the same post as which you say this:
That's literally the definition of closing your mind - to the possibility that you're wrong.

I beg to differ.
My response was to his claim that no one without a reason, refuses to learn more.
In reality here, it is not refusal but solid reasons to the contrary for rejecting what is assumed to be learning on this subject.

Those solid reasons are the product of my tests and findings that have 100% absolutely, positively, not beyond reasonable doubt, but shadow of a doubt, been repeatedly confirmed and reconfirmed to give the same result and conclusion.
To date it is ironclad.
Now if someone can show legitimate results, evidence, etc. to disprove my findings that would constitute alternative reality, further scrutiny maybe advisable.
Thus far, however nothing has scratched the surface.

So the challenge to it is open, not closed.
The closest thing in this entire thread to a challenge thus far is Exorcet and his claim of recieving the Holy Spirit and not being aware of it, or having any affect, perceptionally.
However in light of the hundreds of people I have met personally and been exposed too just like DCP the commonality of understanding is unmistakable, and relateable, so his claim is highly unusual.
Not only that, but it is practically impossible, in that the Holy Spirit is a witness to the deity of Jesus Christ, God the father, and the truth of scripture.
So solid reasons are not of a closed mind, but one of substantial foundation that must be overcome to change it.
I will say convincing someone that knows they know God and it is a reality not a fantasy, will be a tall order.

 

[LeMansAid]

Those solid reasons are the product of my tests and findings that have 100% absolutely, positively, not beyond reasonable doubt, but shadow of a doubt, been repeatedly confirmed and reconfirmed to give the same result and conclusion.
To date it is ironclad.
Now if someone can show legitimate results, evidence, etc. to disprove my findings that would constitute alternative reality, further scrutiny maybe advisable.
Thus far, however nothing has scratched the surface.

Doesn't The Bible state that the only way that God can be tested is in being financially giving? You may be risking a right spanking at the mighty hand of God.

 

[sammy neuman]

And what makes you so certain that you truly have a relationship with the god of the Bible? How can you be certain that it's not the Devil, or another deity, or that it's all just in your head and that you're merely conversing with an imaginary friend, like children often do. What makes you so very very certain. It's an honest question and I'd really like to know.

I was waiting to see what @DCP or @SCJ were going to say, but if they answered, I missed it. So, understand that this is a subjective answer coming from a believer. While Satan is capable of many things, YHWH, for His own Names' sake (reputation, you might say), will never allow Satan to directly impersonate Him. If someone can come up with a text in which this is allowed, let's have it.

Scientific papers are quite specific, but I thought it wasn't all that uncommon for a non-literal intepretation of scripture, depending on the particular faith. But your point is well taken, maybe it isn't the God of the Bible they believe in.

Edit: This begs the question, could it be that there are a lot of people with a very specific faith, a belief in God, but where they don't actually believe in the God described by their faith, or rather, specific to their faith? Could they have a more general belief, and actually identify their God within other faiths? Naturally, this wouldn't apply to anyone following a literal interpretation of scripture, but is that a majority?

This was touched upon earlier in the thread. In many cases it is not so much not believing in the God of their faith, but in not accepting some specific doctrine. Non-literal interpretation is common, but there are True Believers in any faith.

the God of the Bible is incorrect and that actually the God of the Koran is the true God.

Just as a note, myself and others consider YHWH and Allah to be one and the same. All are People of the Book. If you are at all interested, a citation is: "The Three Testaments", Brian Arthur and others. The introductions and commentaries are interesting, and the role of Zoroastrianism is explored.

 

[Denur]

While Satan is capable of many things, YHWH ... will never allow Satan to directly impersonate Him.

That sounds a lot like wishful thinking. Makes me think of a conversation like this:

Sammy: Hello God, got a minute?
Devil: Yes, Sammy, what's up?
Sammy: Are you really the God of the Bible?
Devil: Sure I am, you wouldn't think I'd allow anyone to impersonate me, would you now?
Sammy: Of course not, sorry I doubted you.
Devil: No problem.

 

[Scaff]

I beg to differ.
My response was to his claim that no one without a reason, refuses to learn more.
In reality here, it is not refusal but solid reasons to the contrary for rejecting what is assumed to be learning on this subject.

To learn knowledge has to be transfered, we have asked you how this can be achieved many, many, many, many times and all we get its "mumble, mumble, believe, mumble, inner not outer, mumble. GOD"

Those solid reasons are the product of my tests and findings that have 100% absolutely, positively, not beyond reasonable doubt, but shadow of a doubt, been repeatedly confirmed and reconfirmed to give the same result and conclusion.
To date it is ironclad.
Now if someone can show legitimate results, evidence, etc. to disprove my findings that would constitute alternative reality, further scrutiny maybe advisable.
Thus far, however nothing has scratched the surface.

You seem to forget (again) that many of us have been on a spiritual journey in the past, that we have been open and looking for this and found nothing.

I suspect however that you will simply ignore this once again.

So the challenge to it is open, not closed.
The closest thing in this entire thread to a challenge thus far is Exorcet and his claim of recieving the Holy Spirit and not being aware of it, or having any affect, perceptionally.

You seem to forget (again) that many of us have been on a spiritual journey in the past, that we have been open and looking for this and found nothing.

I suspect however that you will simply ignore this once again.

However in light of the hundreds of people I have met personally and been exposed too just like DCP the commonality of understanding is unmistakable, and relateable, so his claim is highly unusual.
Not only that, but it is practically impossible, in that the Holy Spirit is a witness to the deity of Jesus Christ, God the father, and the truth of scripture.
So solid reasons are not of a closed mind, but one of substantial foundation that must be overcome to change it.
I will say convincing someone that knows they know God and it is a reality not a fantasy, will be a tall order.

Yet despite holding testimony in such higher regard you ignore any input that says otherwise.

You also seem to once again be mistaking volume of belief for proof, its proof of nothing more than large numbers of people believe the same thing, that in and of itself does not make that one thing true.

 

[Manasseh257NSX]

Didn't realize so many of the moderators and people on here were Agnostic, Atheist or Realists..

 

[DCP]

Of course I'm familiar with the blood moon prophecy. You had just failed to mention this prophecy as the one you believe to be true. Although some claim that as many as 62 tetrads have happend since the first century AD and that nothing bad has happened on each occasion, they fail to see, that the other signs are also there: We had that massive earthquake not so long ago, and in September a massive asteroid will destroy the Earth. We can't see it now, because it is coming in from behind the Sun and will pass it close by, creating a massive solar eclipse as it plummets towards Earth (hence the Sun as black a sackcloth of hair).

/s

Yes, there are plenty tetrads, agreed, but you missed the fine print, which is the obvious plan, but anyway, "Falling on Gods Feast Days". There are no more tetrads falling on Gods Feast Days. Leviticus 23 in case you missed it.

Hey, if you were actually taught that we come from rocks and that monkeys turned into humans, then your teachers were morons. As in, they should never have been let out of grade school, let alone been placed in a position to educate young children.

Maybe it's true, maybe you had the world's dumbest teachers. Bad luck on that one.

Still, you should be smart enough now that you're presumably an adult to see that what your teachers taught you was dribble, and that it's not in fact the explanation that rational people hold to be true.

Don't keep trying to push an argument that nobody put forward just because you had retard teachers. It's a shame that you were taught by idiots, but you don't have to follow their example.



Nah, you've already been provided enough evidence in this thread AND the evolution thread and ignored it. You're looking for absolute certainty. You won't find it.

As with all these things, it's the best explanation that fits all available evidence. If you can't accept that, then that's up to you. But that's what rational people do, take the best explanation available to them at any given moment.

If you continue to look for evidence of a dog turning into a giraffe, you're not going to find it. Because you still don't understand what it is that evolution claims, and as such you continue to make outrageous accusations about things that evolution has never and will never claim happened.

I've said before that you don't understand science and evolution, and I stick by it. Educate yourself, and then maybe a productive discussion can be had.



Because I don't say I know that. I say that is the best explanation of the available facts that have been observed.

It's by no means settled that the Big Bang is what happened. The evidence tends to point that way, but any sensible physicist will give you half a dozen other plausible hypotheses that simply don't have as much evidence favouring them at the moment. But that could change in the future, and indeed such things have changed in the past in many fields.

What we say we "know" is the best explanation we have for all the information we've seen. What you say you "know" is what you want to believe, regardless of what information you are presented with.

Erm, no, it was in the text books. They didn't make up the stuff themselves in case that was your assumption.
Also. by you saying you don't know, then you are going by belief that the big bang happened, or by your own choice and free will. Why is it when I say you are ignorant, it's an issue?

It's simple. Evidence of a Designer, and evidence of an explosion. If you say the explosion fits your world view better because of science, so be it. I'm not against science at all.

You were banned from the Evolution vs Creation thread for the reason that you repeatedly post nonsense such as this without taking on board a single thing anyone else presented, you WILL NOT do the same thing here. Try again and you will be banned from the site as a whole.

Oh and I see I still don't have an answer to my question, are you going to pretend to have forgotten it again?

Come on Scaff, I'm sure I answered your question... Why would you keep asking?
I had no intention of starting the evolution vs creation topic. The question still stands though. If the answers are just theories, then say so. Simple.

Oh dear me, please tell me you really wrote that.

For the record, monkeys and apes have never turned into humans although evolution is indeed happening (observably) all around you. Have your children ever had headlice, for example? Ever wondered why some potions will work on your children's little head-friends and not others?

I have to agree with @Imari, your teachers sound like they were idiots.



So I have to accept that god exists/doesn't exist in a dimension that's somewhere unknown to us, I will never see him (or indeed perceive him I guess, I'm not trans-dimensional) although I should just know that he's there. Simply, I will believe once I believe. Sorry man, that sounds like nonsense.

So lets be clear. Evolution you are referring to is adaptation?
Basically, each species popped up own their own, and were never one animal changing into another, based on the fossil records?

So what I'm asking is, a Ford popped up from somewhere, but never changed into a toyota, ferrari, mazda, nissan etc.
They randomly popped up on their own, is what I understand.

Oh, and you accept God exists by faith. It all points to Jesus, 2000 years ago. He represented The Father, and mankind. You will get to see Him, and that I can promise you.


@SuperCobraJet

Yep, that is another awesome verse. It's amazing how God used a ruthless killer like Paul, and turned him around completely. Even though the Lord told us we would be persecuted for His namesake, which is what we see now right in front of our eyes, it still doesn't matter, because we believe so truly in His Love, that even the threat of death doesn't scare us.

 

[Denur]

Yes, there are plenty tetrads, agreed, but you missed the fine print, which is the obvious plan, but anyway, "Falling on Gods Feast Days". There are no more tetrads falling on Gods Feast Days. Leviticus 23 in case you missed it.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm quite ignorant in Biblical matters (despite of or because of my Catholic upbringing, I don't know). Only referring to things like blood moons and Feast days doesn't help me in understanding how you come to believe that the End is near. You'll have to add some explanations to help me understand this obvious Plan.

 

[SuperCobraJet]

What story? It's not about what I experience, it's about being to able to recognize said experience in the account of the people talking about religious experiences. It's my way of saying I know where they're coming from, I can even understand why they believe what they do.

I've tried to address this previously, in this very thread, and was told it was off topic. Am I right to assume it is now within topic? Because I will have to go all the way back to the beginning, to the nature of reality. That would be ok now, correct?

It's more appropriate to say that I am accepting of these accounts. As said, I'll have to go all the way back to the nature of reality in order to address this properly, but let me try and summarize the essence of it. Irrespective of what people may say about God, and what exactly they believe, any particular description seemed to essentially be more of a rationalization than anything else. At the end of the day, even people who thought they knew God, really didn't. Yet, even the awereness of this did not in the slightest affect their belief. The only reasonable conclusion is that what they described as God had absolutely no bearing with respect to their belief in God. As such, what they described as God could not be God. In fact, there was not a single description of God that had any bearing on their belief in God. This brings me to the accounts of God being unknowable, and how it relates to the experience of God, and I completely understood what was meant. I had no issues accepting their faith.

Now, what, in short, is the God experience and why is God unknowable. It essentially goes back to us being slaves to our own perception. To use Kant's classical distinction of Phenomena and Noumena. God essentially is Noumena. We cannot know God because all we can know is Phenomena. When I say God is unknowable, I'm saying God cannot be Phenomena. But how then can we know God? Imago Dei. We ourselves, not as we perceive and understand ourselves, but as as the thing-in-itself (in Kantian terms not really a thing as we understand it), are Noumena. It's, in other words, our real self. The God experience is the experience of our real self, a naturally entirely internal process that abandons everything we've come to know. Unfortunately, once we're trying to understand the experience we're already back within the realm of Phenomena and have already lost the experience.

Edit: I feel this is subject to misunderstanding due to my use of the phrase "real self" here. No doubt this is ambiguous, so please note I am referring to Noumena.

I've never desribed God as measurable. The human experience would be measurable. Even during the experience, the person having the experience would still be within the realm of Phenomena from the perspective of an outside observer.

All you have access to is, and always will be, Phenomena. You are observing the result the experience has within the realm of Phenomena, that does not tell you anything about Noumena.

With respect to what I've just said about Noumena and Phenomena, you can see how this analogy doesn't really apply, right?

I have no reason to doubt the accounts of people having religious experiences, if it strengthens their belief in God and they have Faith that it is, in fact, an experience of God, it is no business of mine to tell them otherwise. As such, I have no inclination to do so. That enough of a rationale to you?

This is not about questioning religion. I have no reason to question their experience, nor any reason to question their Faith.

This is not about learning, it is about acceptance. Is that so hard a concept to grasp?

I don't even think this is relevant. As said, based on what I know (going all the way back to the nature of reality), I have no reason to question their experience, nor any reason to question their Faith. After all, we're talking about Faith here, which is a very individual, and subjective, thing. I am merely accepting their view of the world. Would you consider this wrong?

Re-read the section where I address Noumena and Phenomena. What you are describing here is entirely within the realm of Phenomena. How could this bring us any closer to Noumena?

I'm not sure about all of this, but there is a possible relatable element of note.
The trinity is made up of God the Father(heavenly) Jesus Christ the son, and the Holy Spirit.
They are all considered for practical purposes, the representation of God or authoritatively the same.
But they are three distinctively different entities.
However, these distinctions are somewhat vague in as far as explanations given.
In reality a person accepts Jesus Christ and then as a result of that process, one recieves the Holy Spirit.
And this single avenue is plainly stated as the only way to God or right standing with God the Father.
When I say I know God, it is through this connection and the specific entities that are structurally appointed and involved.
Perhaps this has some relation to your explanation.

As I've said before, this is about acceptance, nothing else.

What are you saying here exactly and why is it all about acceptance?

Doesn't The Bible state that the only way that God can be tested is in being financially giving? You may be risking a right spanking at the mighty hand of God.

The only way? No.
Is it a clear and specific challenge?
Yes, and one I have undertaken for many years now.

As far as the spanking, I do not agree.
Obviously if you are in arrears in that regard, as with any debt and absolutely with this one, you should start paying it and paying this one first, then you won't have to worry about being able to pay the rest of them.
BTW, God is no fool, he knows precisely where our priorities lie.
Just a note here about this, is in essence, God is challenging us to adopt his value system in exchange for the skewed one we are born into or the world system.
Now concerning the solid reasons I spoke of in the prior post to Famine, this is one of them.
I've tested this one repeatedly for years now and found his system to be a lot better, and not just financially.

That sounds a lot like wishful thinking. Makes me think of a conversation like this:

Sammy: Hello God, got a minute?
Devil: Yes, Sammy, what's up?
Sammy: Are you really the God of the Bible?
Devil: Sure I am, you wouldn't think I'd allow anyone to impersonate me, would you now?
Sammy: Of course not, sorry I doubted you.
Devil: No problem.

Believe it or not, that analogy is applicable in all of this.
Thats one of the reasons you need the Holy Spirit to help you distinquish who is who and what is what.

 

[Famine]

I beg to differ.

Of course you do.

My response was to his claim that no one without a reason, refuses to learn more.

Actually it was "for no reason at all". It's not a shocker to see that you're heading off on your own tangent with your own definition of words and language, but mildly tedious that you're misquoting something that you already actually quoted...

The full sentence, of course, was "No rational person simply refuses to learn more for no reason at all." - and that's because no rational person ever gets to the point where they are unwilling to learn more, because no rational person ever believes that they know everything already.

You have decided to shut down your mind to the possibility that you are wrong and you are unwilling to take in any information that contradicts your position without trying to squash it into your predetermined conclusion. This is the very definition of closed-minded.

While Satan is capable of many things, YHWH, for His own Names' sake (reputation, you might say), will never allow Satan to directly impersonate Him.

How do you know this?

Erm, no, it was in the text books.

No scientific text book says that monkeys turned into humans - so either you were being indoctrinated by bad teachers into bad ideas by bad text books or you're flat out lying to us.

Name the text book that told you that monkeys turned into humans.

 

[TenEightyOne]

So lets be clear. Evolution you are referring to is adaptation?
Basically, each species popped up own their own, and were never one animal changing into another, based on the fossil records?

I'm not sure what your question is and this belongs in the C.vs.E thread, but as you're banned from there... here's a simple guide to evolution. It's about changes over a very very very long time.

 

[Denur]

Believe it or not, that analogy is applicable in all of this. Thats one of the reasons you need the Holy Spirit to help you distinquish who is who and what is what.

And how do know that it really is the Holy Spirit and not again the Devil in disguise?

 

[Scaff]

Come on Scaff, I'm sure I answered your question... Why would you keep asking?

Posting misleading or inaccurate statements is an AUP violation, and your either doing that or calling me a liar?

Which NT verse says that you are not allowed to be a member here at GT Planet?

A simple question I have asked you at least six times and you have ignored every time. If you don't know the answer just say so.

I had no intention of starting the evolution vs creation topic.

I'm going to be blunt. I do not believe you.

The question still stands though. If the answers are just theories, then say so. Simple.

You still don't know or understand what that word (theory) means in a scientific context do you?

 

[Imari]

Just as a note, myself and others consider YHWH and Allah to be one and the same. All are People of the Book.

Some do, some don't. Substitute a completely unrelated god like those of the Greeks or the Maoris if you'd like the sentence to have the relevance to you that it was intended to have.

I'm not against science at all.

Because you still don't understand what science is. As you continue to make clear in every single post that you make.

To use Kant's classical distinction of Phenomena and Noumena. God essentially is Noumena.

Now we're getting somewhere.

I've not run across Kant's definition of Noumena before, so my knowledge of it is what I read on Wikipedia today. It seems fairly comprehensive, but I hope you'll educate me if it seems that my understanding of it is imperfect.

Basically, as far as I can tell, Kant seems to say that noumena are the quote unquote real things, and that what we perceive/think about are concepts in our brains that have been derived from observations of phenomena that originated with those noumena. Because we can never perceive noumena directly (whatever that means), our understanding of the true nature of the object, the noumenon, will always be imperfect.

This is the sort of idea that is both staggeringly brilliant and entirely trivial.

What makes it most brilliant is that he came up with it some time in the 1700's. By the standards of the day, which to my awareness still thought of the universe as largely mechanistic and deterministic, this was a radical thought.

However, fast forward to modern times and it's entirely trivial, for reasons which I will explain. Even without being specifically taught this concept of noumena, you will find that a modern scientist or student of science will have a very similar concept. Our current understanding of perception and observation does not allow much else.

Our understanding of biology teaches us that our "self" is either to be found in our brains or somewhere downstream of it, if you wish to subscribe to souls or other such things. Upstream can be thought of as the senses, feeding information to the brain. We know that our senses take stimulation and convert that into electrical impulses that are then sent to our brain where they are perceived.

With this knowledge, it becomes pretty obvious that nothing can be perceived directly. All we ever do is take readings off the "instruments" that come as standard with our bodies.

Further, the advance of quantum physics has actually defined limits on how much information can be known about any single system. There are pairs of physical properties that cannot both be defined to below a certain accuracy, the most well known being position and momentum. If you define a particle's position to high accuracy, then you have a very low accuracy in the definition of the particle's momentum, and vice versa.

As such, someone with a reasonable knowledge of modern science would naturally come to the conclusion that an observer does not observe the true object, but merely the product of interactions with his senses. And also that there are actual hard limits on what can be known about any given object, and that while we can get very accurate models predicting how certain things will behave we are never describing the "true" object, the noumenon, merely a simplified concept of it that happens to correspond very well to real behaviour.


So to bring it back to God, the question was why is God unknowable?

Noumena are unknowable in an absolute sense, but we accept that. We still learn a lot about their behaviour by observing the phenomena that they produce, which is why we know quite a bit about molecules and orbits and that ice cream melts if you leave it in the sun, even though the absolute reality of "what is a molecule" or "what is Venus" will always be unknown. It is, as far as we know, impossible to absolutely define every aspect of something in the way that the classical physicists might have imagined.

I'm willing to accept that there are also noumena that do not produce phenomena, and those are completely unknowable to us. You can tinker around with them as a mental exercise, but if they do not produce any phenomena there's no way to learn any more or check your ideas. On the other hand, they don't affect us either (because they don't do anything perceptible by a human) so it's really not that important.

But, and this is the big but, as far as I can tell you accept that God produces phenomena. That the God "experience" is one that is produced by phenomena. Tell me if I'm wrong, but that's my understanding of your position.

If so, then that puts God in the first category, of noumena that generate phenomena. As such, we have just as much ability to learn about God as we do of learning about the puppy next door, or an extra-solar planet, or a black hole. We'll never know the true reality of these noumena either, but we can observe the phenomena that they produce and refine our mental models of how they behave.

Do you see why I'm confused by your statement that God is unknowable?

If God is a noumenon that does not produce phenomena, then it doesn't matter. We shouldn't care, because things that don't produce phenomena by definition do not affect us.

If God is a noumenon that does produce phenomena, then we should be able to learn more about Him in the same way that we've learned about all other noumena that produce phenomena. Namely, the scientific method.

We may not ever know the whole truth about Him, but we'll never know the whole truth about anything and any modern scientist is totally aware of this. As such, when I advocate learning more about God using the scientific method, I'm merely advocating doing exactly the same thing that we do with any other noumenon that we would like to refine our understanding of.

P.S. This is a difficult topic, and I've tried to be as clear as possible about what I mean, but no doubt somewhere I've failed to do so. Please just ask if I've not made what I mean clear to you.

 

[DCP]

I'll be the first to admit that I'm quite ignorant in Biblical matters (despite of or because of my Catholic upbringing, I don't know). Only referring to things like blood moons and Feast days doesn't help me in understanding how you come to believe that the End is near. You'll have to add some explanations to help me understand this obvious Plan.

A tetrad on the feast days happened when Israel was reborn in 1949.
It happened again when Israel re-claimed their Holy City, Jerusalem.
It's currently happening now, when you read Matthew 24, of which these things are happening as we speak:

And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. 6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. 10 And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. 11 Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. 12 And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.

The godless will say, "Yeah, but these things have been happening throughout history", but because they don't want to know God, they miss this crucial verse:

Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place.

All things taking place at once. It would happen after Israel took over their land, and their City. We are now beginning to see all the other things mentioned take place all at once. We are the generation seeing all these things happen.
I mean what more must God tell us about the future, other then showing us His face? By then it's too late.

Also Joel 2:30, the sun will be darkened, and the moon turned to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.

We have another solar eclipse coming up, and the Super Blood moon, of which the only one of the 4, can be visible in Israel, in September.

An explosion 20.3 billion years ago planned for the Sun to temporarily change the color of the moon? I think not.
Only a Designer can plan such things, and He told us in Genesis 1:14

The End is 7 years after the peace treaty between Israel and Palestine (Daniel 9:25). That two state solution as very close.
What I have mentioned above is the Rapture, since it says no man knows the day or the hour. Rightfully so, but we know that it is close, because of the signs we have looked out for.

@Famine

You going to get me fired with asking the evolution questions.
I don't think I could ever remember those books (25 years ago), and even so, science is changing so the text books change.
I know for a fact that they showed that man slowly evolved from apes. You still see those transitional pictures pop up every now and then. For me, saying it happened over long periods of time requires massive faith.

@Scaff

There is no verse for it.

I've never forced you to believe the things I say. People don't believe what God says, so who am I?
We all make the mistake of wondering off topic every now and then.

No then. So what does theory mean in scientific form, because my understanding is, science is observed and tested.
If not, then it's best guess. Other than that, I know I must then receive it by faith.

 

[Scaff]

@Scaff
There is no verse for it.

2 Corinthians 6:14 - 17

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?
What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?
What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."
Therefore, "Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you."
And, "I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty."

You are right now, as a signed member of GT Planet 'yoked together with unbelievers', you willingly signed an agreement (the AUP) that has bound you together (in membership) with unbelievers (me for one).

Its just one part of the Bible that is clearly designed to totally separate believers from unbelievers, its almost impossible to follow in the modern world and you broke it as soon as you agreed to the AUP here at GT Planet (and in a number of other agreements and memberships you will have signed over the years.

No then. So what does theory mean in scientific form, because my understanding is, science is observed and tested.
If not, then it's best guess. Other than that, I know I must then receive it by faith.

http://www.livescience.com/21491-what-is-a-scientific-theory-definition-of-theory.html

A scientific theory is an explanation of the facts (tested to a scientific standard) in a particular area or areas, it is highly tested and subject to rigorous examination and is very long way from the common English use you are referring to of a guess (that in scientific terms would be a hypothesis).

An from now on you have no excuse at all to ever misuse the term, do so and I may act under the assumption you are doing so deliberately, which would be a violation of the AUP.

 

[Famine]

You going to get me fired with asking the evolution questions.

I didn't ask you any evolution questions - and if you work in a place that fires you for discussing evolution I think we've found some of the problem.

I don't think I could ever remember those books (25 years ago)

Odd. I can remember what biology textbooks I used 25 years ago. This one:

​

and even so, science is changing so the text books change.

Evolutionary biology has not changed so much in the last 25 years that they used to claim that monkeys turned into humans and now they don't.

I have never encountered ANY scientific textbook that claims that. Quit stalling.

I know for a fact that they showed that man slowly evolved from apes.

Then you should know for a fact which book it was.

You still see those transitional pictures pop up every now and then.

You mean "The Descent of Man"?

You genuinely think that when you see that image it means that one individual monkey turns into a human? Really?

That would mean that your teachers weren't bad or stupid (well, maybe a bit bad) and the textbooks weren't bad or stupid, but that you can't understand simple diagrams.

An explosion 20.3 billion years ago planned for the Sun to temporarily change the color of the moon?

What?

 

[Spurgy 777]

For me, saying it happened over long periods of time requires massive faith.

Why?

 

[Denur]

@DCP Thank you for the elaboration. Much appreciated.

Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place.

Interesting how a simple sentence like this, can still lead to different interpretations. The way I understand it, is that Jesus said here, that the Rapture will occur during His own generation. So within no more than a few decades after His Crucifixion. If what you say were to be true, then He should have said: Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will take place during a single generation.

 

[Liquid]

I know for a fact that they showed that man slowly evolved from apes.

No they didn't. Science textbooks haven't ever changed the fundamental principles of human evolution, let alone done it in the last 25 years.

For me, saying it happened over long periods of time requires massive faith.

So a very, very, very, very long time is difficult to wrap your head around but an 'eternity' for extrajudicial punishments is perfectly fine?

You still see those transitional pictures pop up every now and then.

Okay. Right. Let me try and break it down very basically. You mean something like this:

That is not a monkey turning into a man. They might look superficially similar but no matter what you think it looks like, it simply isn't true.

We branched away from monkeys and apes from a common ancestor, popularly referred to as "the missing link". The timeline photo is our evolution from the common ancestor. Apes and monkeys have their own, separate evolutionary timelines.

*Unknown. Curse my spelling!

 

[Touring Mars]

For me, saying it happened over long periods of time requires massive faith.

No, it requires evidence.

Science works by relying on multiple, distinct lines of inquiry which, when taken together, tell a story - a story that does not depend on the subjective nature of analysis by any particular person or group.

But let's compare the sources of information between two opposing schools of thought, one scientific, the other Biblical, on a variety of key questions:

Q: How do we know the age of the Earth?
A1: Geology; Chemistry; Astronomy
A2: The Bible

Q: How do we know the age of the Universe?
A1: Astronomy; Cosmology; Physics
A2: The Bible

Q: How do we know where human beings came from?
A1: Evolutionary Biology; Genetics; Chemistry; Archeology; Paleontology
A2: The Bible

I could go on, but hopefully you are starting to see the pattern here.

A key feature of science is that most scientists, while often multi-talented and interdiscipinary, largerly operate independently of other fields and never encounter or are never directly involved in most other fields other than their own specialties. This being the case, it is fair to say that different branches of science can and do arrive at conclusions independently, and yet they all point in the same direction on the key questions addressed above. Why is that, and why is it that so many independent scientific studies contradict the Biblical version? Is it a grand conspiracy? (I'll give you a clue) Is it that science itself or scientists themselves are inherently biased against religion or the Bible specifically? (see previous clue). Or, is it that science, conducted independently across a slew of mostly unrelated fields, is actually arriving at something close to the objective truth i.e. that it is a method by which we might begin to understand reality? (I'll give you another clue, it's this one). And, if science contradicts The Bible, The Qu'ran, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (however unlikely that may be) or whatever, then what is more likely to be right - a single, often self-contradictory text written before most modern day science was conceived, or the multitude of independent scientists who somehow arrive at the same conclusion and have physical evidence to back up everything they say?

 

[DCP]

2 Corinthians 6:14 - 17

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?
What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?
What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."
Therefore, "Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you."
And, "I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty."

You are right now, as a signed member of GT Planet 'yoked together with unbelievers', you willingly signed an agreement (the AUP) that has bound you together (in membership) with unbelievers (me for one).

Its just one part of the Bible that is clearly designed to totally separate believers from unbelievers, its almost impossible to follow in the modern world and you broke it as soon as you agreed to the AUP here at GT Planet (and in a number of other agreements and memberships you will have signed over the years.



http://www.livescience.com/21491-what-is-a-scientific-theory-definition-of-theory.html

A scientific theory is an explanation of the facts (tested to a scientific standard) in a particular area or areas, it is highly tested and subject to rigorous examination and is very long way from the common English use you are referring to of a guess (that in scientific terms would be a hypothesis).

An from now on you have no excuse at all to ever misuse the term, do so and I may act under the assumption you are doing so deliberately, which would be a violation of the AUP.

So then what happens when you read, "we must love our enemies, and pray for those that persecute us"?
Is there is contradiction? By mixing with unbelievers, I'm not following the path of the unbelievers.
If anything, I'm telling unbelievers that there is One option that they haven't tried, Christ.
If they say they have, then I don't have much else to say to them, except, was their hearts right at the time.
Only they would truly know that.

Also. with your website posted, are you now forcing me to accept what it says, else I'm violating the rules? Mark of the beast is here already...
What about the one that says science is to observe and test? Must I just believe that science is right because "they" have facts about origins, by their standards? Do you go by their laws and rules always?

Why?

Simple. No one was there to know what happened so long and far away. It's just best guess, based on scientific data.
The flood is another possible guess, and I choose the flood. Everyone can choose which one suits them best.
Before I came to know the Lord, billions of years was my accepted view.

@DCP Thank you for the elaboration. Much appreciated.

Interesting how a simple sentence like this, can still lead to different interpretations. The way I understand it, is that Jesus said here, that the Rapture will occur during His own generation. So within no more than a few decades after His Crucifixion. If what you say were to be true, then He should have said: Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will take place during a single generation.

Pleasure.

Well He didn't need to, because He was telling the disciples of these things that "must" happen.
You only reading the sentence, and not the entire verse, of what Jesus was explaining to them.
By saying this generation, He was referring to "that" generation, that will see all these things happen together.
Quite obvious, because there has been no Rapture since.

@Liquid

So the missing link is what science is still waiting to find out (more research), much like to find out what caused the big bang right?
So by this, it could take years to find this scientific theory, or perhaps never get to find out, right?

 

[Liquid]

So the missing link is what science is still waiting to find out (more research), much like to find out what caused the big bang right?
So by this, it could take years to find this scientific theory, or perhaps never get to find out, right?

You're conflating too many things at once. As Touring Mars alluded to and has been pointed out many times in this thread: evolution, abiogenesis and the origin of the Big Bang are three totally different and distinct disciplines/subjects/areas of science.

Can you at least see how humans and apes did not evolve from each other? That they came from a common ancestor (now long extinct) and that common ancestor branched off in two different directions?

I could be setting myself up for a bad analogy here but think of it like football. Soccer, rugby, gridiron, Aussie rules and gaelic are all different codes of football which branched off from an older game. They went in different directions but retain some common elements. Try to imagine that but over a much, much longer period of time.

 

[Mike458]

This. Just this.

Please, for the sake of our sanity @DCP ...

ACTUALLY look at all of the evidence around you. Have you ever been to a science center? Or looked at a biology textbook? You'd be surprised at how far we've come on the (proven) theory or speciation and evolution.

Once again, have you even CONSIDERED any of the scientific evidence that we have regarding these subjects @DCP ?