Its from Luke 17, you should know this man.
The KJV translates it as follows: And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
Haha, everyone knows that Bible quote. Seriously, google searches before calling people out tend to eliminate a lot of embarrassment.
Originally posted by Omega Vision
I think it's this kind of goalpost moving that pushes me toward Humean views on beliefs 😛
Who moved the goalpost? I simply form my beliefs to the evidence. Another reality would no more prove a God than this one does.
Originally posted by Digi
Haha, everyone knows that Bible quote. Seriously, google searches before calling people out tend to eliminate a lot of embarrassment.Who moved the goalpost? I simply form my beliefs to the evidence. Another reality would no more prove a God than this one does.
Originally posted by Omega Vision
Perhaps a poor way of putting it, it just seems like there isn't anything that would convince you of the existence of God.
This is not necessarily an unreasonable position. Much of it depends on the definition of god.
In many forms of Christianity God is claimed to be actively removing all evidence of his existence. In that case any proof that God is real must be fake.
More generally there is the question of how you prove that you are omnipotent to a person who is not. There's no obvious way to do so. Just to start with a creature able to perfectly deceive my senses can seem to perform any physical miracle that God can while being vastly less powerful.
Even if we come up with a method there's the question of how you can truly prove your particular identity. God isn't going to hand over a driver's liscence and passport for us to analyze.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
This is not necessarily an unreasonable position. Much of it depends on the definition of god.[QUOTE=13758600]Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
[B]In many forms of Christianity God is claimed to be actively removing all evidence of his existence. In that case any proof that God is real must be fake.
How utterly irritating.
How can He be an egotistical God (Jealous God) while simultaneously be removing evidence of His existence?
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
More generally there is the question of how you prove that you are omnipotent to a person who is not. There's no obvious way to do so. Just to start with a creature able to perfectly deceive my senses can seem to perform any physical miracle that God can while being vastly less powerful.
Bam!
Hey wasn't there a movie kind of like that? Maybe I'm thinking of Matrix 1.
Anyway, that's part of why I think it is necessary to transcend and becomes gods ourselves. We will never appreciate God until we can reach that point. Maybe that's the point of existence to begin with? To better understand the Creator?
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Even if we come up with a method there's the question of how you can truly prove your particular identity. God isn't going to hand over a driver's liscence and passport for us to analyze.
BAM! You're on a roll: any assessment will automatically be anthropic and subjective.
Originally posted by Symmetric ChaosTwo responses:
More generally there is the question of how you prove that you are omnipotent to a person who is not. There's no obvious way to do so. Just to start with a creature able to perfectly deceive my senses can seem to perform any physical miracle that God can while being vastly less powerful.
1. Yep.
2. Unless it's true what the mystics say: His Omnipotence is radiantly self-evident, ie, we recognize Him because He is our own True nature.
Originally posted by Symmetric ChaosActually, He tried something like that in "Oh God." Didn't work.
God isn't going to hand over a driver's liscence and passport for us to analyze.
Originally posted by Omega Vision
Perhaps a poor way of putting it, it just seems like there isn't anything that would convince you of the existence of God.
There's plenty of things that would convince me to believe in "a" God. Maybe not an omniscient, omnipotent God, for reasons Sym mentioned. But a God who is sufficient to have done anything in the world's major religions need not be those things.
But really, an afterlife is a ridiculously poor example of evidence for a creator. It's like the people who invoke the anthropic principle of physics. The argument, as it's classically used, doesn't hold up logically. However, for argument's sake, even if they were right, there's then a massive leap in their thinking. It amounts to "Fine tuned universe, ergo the Christian God" and it's almost always their God. The only thing it could reasonably provide evidence for is "Fine tuned universe, ergo something we don't yet understand." It doesn't even suggest "a" God, just something beyond our understanding of the universe so far.
I dislike leaps in logic. "Afterlife, ergo God" is another one.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
This is not necessarily an unreasonable position. Much of it depends on the definition of god.In many forms of Christianity God is claimed to be actively removing all evidence of his existence. In that case any proof that God is real must be fake.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
In many forms of Christianity God is claimed to be actively removing all evidence of his existence. In that case any proof that God is real must be fake.
I did not know this. This is actually an interesting idea, since yes, any proof would in fact be fake.
Not sure if convenient or philosophical...
Originally posted by lil bitchiness
I did not know this. This is actually an interesting idea, since yes, any proof would in fact be fake.Not sure if convenient or philosophical...
Its based on the idea that you must have faith so God can't leave any proof or you'd end up believing based on facts. I don't think its an idea that can survive for very long.
It doesn't seem like a new concept, nor one that's hard to understand. Faith as a meme encourages belief without evidence, and sometimes even in spite of contrary evidence. And this idea is deeply embedded in many individuals. So it's little wonder that offshoot ideas would spring up, like the one Sym is talking about. So long as there's no cognitive dissonance resulting from disagreement with preexisting beliefs, it has every chance to stick with a person or entire sect of theists.
Originally posted by Digi
It doesn't seem like a new concept, nor one that's hard to understand. Faith as a meme encourages belief without evidence, and sometimes even in spite of contrary evidence. And this idea is deeply embedded in many individuals. So it's little wonder that offshoot ideas would spring up, like the one Sym is talking about. So long as there's no cognitive dissonance resulting from disagreement with preexisting beliefs, it has every chance to stick with a person or entire sect of theists.
Not all theists believe in blind faith.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
I disagree. Lots of people believe in God because they believe they see evidence for it.