The Great Deception - What if what we know was chosen deliberately to deceive us? ---greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread |
[Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only]What if what we know was chosen deliberately to deceive us?
By Charley Reese of The Sentinel Staff
Published in The Orlando Sentinel on December 9, 1999.
A fairly recent movie, The Matrix, is an interesting science-fiction thriller. People believe they are living normal lives, but, in fact, it is all an illusion. In reality, their naked bodies are hooked up in vast rows of vats and used by machines, which control the Earth, to generate energy.
I would like to suggest to you that we, too, are living in an illusionary world. Our five senses vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch are our only contact with the world outside our bodies. These senses send data to the brain, which processes it and stores it in a memory bank.
For most of the time man has been on Earth, if he wished to see something, he had to be physically present. Stories told around campfires would create fantasized images. But beyond that, ancient man was fairly firmly rooted to the reality as interpreted by his own senses.
As painting developed, but, most important, as photography developed {spcostr} first still, then moving, then electronic man could be exposed to images of things he had not seen. We are even exposed to images of things that are, in fact, deliberate fakes. The conscious part of our brain knows that when we see a movie, we are seeing in costumes actors on a set being filmed. On the other hand, these images are stored in our brains, without a label that reads false image.
This is important when you realize that, during a lifetime, literally millions of false images will be stored in our brains. The further we get from the moment we first saw the false image, the more difficult it is to sort out what is a true image and what is a false image. For example, if I say Civil War, most of us will pull up images from the movie Gone with the Wind or images from the Public Broadcasting Service special about the war. None of us experienced the actual event. Our only visual images of it are from photographs, artwork and Hollywood sets. None of these captures the reality of the event in its wholeness.
Bear in mind, too, that we know nothing about the past except what we have been told in words, photographs and artwork produced by others. Suppose something that we have been told happened, in fact, did not happen. Suppose all the words we've read and heard and all the images we have seen in photographs were, in fact, deliberately chosen to deceive us. It's stunning, when you think about it, that 100 percent of our knowledge of the past is created in our own minds by words and images produced by other people, virtually all strangers. The same goes for much of our knowledge of the present.
We can be in only one place at one time and directly experience what is within range of our senses. Beyond that, we rely on words and images transmitted to us by strangers. Whether these words and images are indeed accurate reflections of the real things is difficult for us to know.
Let me suggest to you that most( Americans are living in a matrix created by a corporate elite that controls the news media, the entertainment industry, book-publishing, the government and most universities.
Thus Americans are bombarded with the same message: America is the most prosperous, the most free country in the world. This is the longest-running boom in history. All the economic indicators show prosperity. Globalism is good and inevitable.
Now, certainly many Americans know that they are not prosperous, and it must be disconcerting constantly to be told that they are. The probable result is that they feel that their failure must be their own fault.
Wake up, folks. Reality may be rough, but it's a lot better than illusions.
-- snooze button (alarmclock_2000@yahoo.com), January 10, 2000
Interesting book to read: "Illusions, The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah" by Richard Bach (author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull)"The world is your exercise book, the pages on which you do your sums. It is not reality, although you can express reality there if you wish. You are also free to write nonsense, or lies, or to tear the pages." ~Richard Bach
-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), January 10, 2000.
Interesting analysis. It reminds of the story of the cave in Plato's Republic. You all may know the story already. Many people are chained up in a cave in this story and all they do all day is watch images and shadows that are projected onto a wall. When the wise man tries to break their chains and lead them out into the sunlight and the real world, they kill him. Hard to believe that someone would be more interested in watching flickering images on a wall than living in a real world, but then the average TV watched in the USA is 28 hours a week and climbing...
-- BeerMan (frbeerman@juno.com), January 10, 2000.
Also, "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television" by Jerry Mander. Same concept. Great arguments. Book from the '70s.
-- Normally@ease (Oxsys@aol.com), January 10, 2000.
I've had similar thoughts for years based on Plato's Cave, the writings of the Emerson (Am. Transcendentalist movement), the book, "Illusions", by Richard Bach, lately the Matrix.As Don Shimoda tells the messiah-in-training, "That is your movie,...this is my movie". Emerson said it was illusions all the way down, and that the key to living was to learn to skate on the illusions rather than sink into them.
Isn't it grand to be awake?
-- Donna (moment@pacbell.net), January 10, 2000.
The "Allegory of the Cave" from Plato's Republic Book VIIThe world revealed by our senses is not the real world but only a poor copy of it.
I am impressed at how quickly we connected this post with Plato.
-- tc (trashcan-man@webtv.net), January 10, 2000.
bold off...I didn't know it was on!Parmenides and the Eleatic philosophers claimed that all change, motion, and time was an illusion.
-- tc (trashcan-man@webtv.net), January 10, 2000.
"The distinction between space and time is but an illusion, if only a stubborn one." - Einstein"Space and time are modes by which we think, not conditions in which we live." - Einstein
-- (@ .), January 10, 2000.
Related thought-- Ask an American if a human being ever walked on the moon, most will say yes. Ask same Americans if a human being ever walked on the water, most will hesitate. In neither instance do we have any shred of evidence to support our belief, only what we've been taught persuades us.
-- amnesia (few@bar.com), January 10, 2000.
Great post snooze button,Added to this is the intentional mind
control efforts of those who would
profit from these illusions. Much work
in this field has been done by the CIA
in their MKULTRA program where they used
drugs to enhance their techniques. This
was exposed in the Church committee
hearings in the early 70's. Sorry that's
1970's.
-- spider (spider0@usa.net), January 10, 2000.
The foot prints are evident in both cases.
-- Michael Erskine (Osiris@urbanna.net), January 10, 2000.
I don't think we should go so far to say that we shouldn't trust our senses or even what common sense tells us is true. It is true, however, that most things we know are by faith--faith in what someone else has told us. In most cases that person is trustworthy and can be believed.However, I have trouble giving credence to the media and Hollywood when over 85% of journalists and news reporters do not believe in God. Movies and TV are a great thing because you can create your own reality and make it look like natural consequences can be avoided.
-- BeerMan (frbeerman@juno.com), January 10, 2000.
snooze button,Oh no, don't get me started -- I could discuss this stuff all night!!
Anyway, so your message could be illusory as well -- right? Then what do we do? (Mona Lisa smile)
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 10, 2000.
snooze button,whoa dude, that was deep!
-- huh? (cooool@dude.com), January 10, 2000.
If you are not a reality, whose myth are you? If you are not a myth, whose reality are you?Sun Ra
-- Ishkabibble (ishman@home.com), January 10, 2000.
Snooze--can't tell where the article ends and your comments begin.(We ARE living a lie until we realize there is no time/space and that we are projections of the Eternal Divine.)
-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), January 10, 2000.
Thanks, snooze! And how serendipitous is it that I had just posted a thread of mine on Emerson's "Self-Reliance" to the prep forum yesterday:http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002HRV
I distinguish between consensual deceit and conspiratorial deceit. While conspiracies are real and have been so throughout history, it is very difficult to pull off explicit conspiracies that involve lots of people -- too many whistle-blowers.
Consensual deceit is easier (think of Maoism as an example-in-the- large). This, too, has to be distinguished from sheer error. For instance, while as a Christian I obviously consider myself the enlightened one (!), many certainly consider Christianity consensual deceit and some argued that it was founded on a conscious conspiracy by Paul and others. If Christianity is wrong, several elements might be mixed, but for hundreds of millions of people, it will be a matter or error.
By contrast, I believe the Clintons have enlisted the nation in a complicit (chosen) culture of consensual deceit about their own behavior and agendas (you may disagree, it isn't forbidden).
Flint, of course, argues that we have done the same thing on this forum.
Anyway, I'm not trying to start a flame war, but hoping against hope we might be a the beginning of a reasonably polite, old-time TB2K debate that sheds more light than heat.
These are vital, critical, profound issues. As the battle between truly free speech and controlled speech reaches its peak during this decade, with vast consequences on the other side, we must become incredibly more sophisticated about this than we have been -- worldwide. I'm not very hopeful but giving up would be fatal to authentic freedom for everyone.
The tough thing is that we are fighting our way together through a culture-induced and self-induced hypnotic trance THAT WE LIKE, at root. The matrix is not a perfect analogy but it is provocative, for that reason.
Help me out, guys. I have had thoughts of devoting the best of my energy over the coming years to this issue (and its related tech issues: encryption, certificates, etc -- the deep-down-dirty stuff where small code decisions may have huge cultural impacts).
-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), January 10, 2000.
The Matrix was a great movie. Luckily I am able to let it go after I watched it (twice). ;-)
-- H.H. (dontscrewme_2000@yahoo.com), January 10, 2000.
LOL Eve!Good point. I was just sitting here realizing that I am nothing but font. It is a humbling thought. =)
-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), January 10, 2000.
BeerMan,I find your disbelief in the media and Hollywood because 85% don't believe in God interesting. Isn't "God" an illusion? Have you ever seen her?
-- Evelyn (equus@barn.now), January 10, 2000.
This is amazing. Only minutes before I began reading this thread, I was thinking how so many people define reality as what's in the computer.I share the enthusiasm expressed above for Jerry Mander's writing, a fusion of profound thinking and clear expression. Another fine book of his, which expands on the ideas in the above mentioned title, is In the Absence of the Sacred, the Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations.
-- David L (bumpkin@dnet.net), January 10, 2000.
Big Dog,Interesting post...
Are you implying that "consensual deceit" (I never heard that term before) is a sort of semi-conscious evasion of the truth, where the evader is reluctant to investigate further, because he is semi-aware, or even subconsciously aware, that the conclusions he/she may reach would be psychologically too difficult to handle?
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 10, 2000.
Evelyn, I haven't seen you, but I do believe you're real.
-- BeerMan (frbeerman@juno.com), January 10, 2000.
snooze button,Thank you for starting this thread; we need more like it. And your post was very interesting.
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 10, 2000.
BeerMan,I'm glad you understand the unseen reality.
-- Evelyn (equus@barn.now), January 10, 2000.
Following snip from yesterdays thread The truth or lack of it.A general forum for serious discussion of events in the news. Reasonable leeway for all points of view will be tolerated but malicious or purposely disruptive posts will be deleted without notice. John Swinton of the NY Times, at his 1953 retirement dinner at the NY Press Club, gave the reason for the need of forums such as this in his following speech: "There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before 24 hours my occupation would be gone. The business of a journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell the country for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press. We are the tools and vassals of the rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."
-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 10, 2000.
Eve -- very good way to put it. It is a phrase of mine but not- copyrighted yet ;-)Of course, many times a cigar really is just a cigar. Oops. Well, let's try another one ... err ....
A primary reason I insist we need to wait until May with Y2K is that we are still too close to initial impact AND ongoing impacts to reflect seriously on Y2K as a "communication event". I am fully prepared (at least, I think so) to consider where I MIS- judged "official" honesty as well as missed additional official manipulation (so far as either can be determined, which won't be easy).
But I'm saying that Y2K, even a Y2K depression, is small potatoes compared to the battle for trustworthy speech that is underway. And, no, it isn't a new battle (see post above) but with such an ill- understanding of our technical magic (Y2K being case in point whatever happens and, heck, "cpr" believes the same but from the REVERSE standpoint), we are raw meat today not only for the manipulators but for the unintended impacts of unreflective "code".
(For those interested, a must-read on this last point is Lessig's "Code and other laws of cyberspace")
-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), January 10, 2000.
Very interesting. I would also point interested parties to the works of the late great Phil K. Dick, perhaps especially Time Out of Joint.
-- johno (jobriy2k@yahoo.com), January 10, 2000.
snooze button,Fascinating topic.
Your post above attempts to get us to quesiton our certainty of the reality of both consciousness and existence. You are asserting something that is arbitrary and asking us to disprove it. It is really the same as my stating to you that "there is a Coca-Cola factory on Neptune -- prove that there isn't".
It's really asserting something for which no evidence exists (a "negative") and saying that the burden of proof is on us to prove the "negative" is not true. It just opens the door for anyone to assert anything at all and ask someone else to prove it's not true.
And here's the kicker: Since you're questioning the validity of both consciousness and existence, you have to be doing the asserting from something other than consciousness and from somewhere outside existence -- which I'm sure is not the case.
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 10, 2000.
Eve:Are you a religous person? If so I have a question for you: Why did God create things they way he did?
I believe if you study this question long enough, you will realize that there is no reason for why they are the way they are. Any other conclusion results in a contradiction about the nature of God.
Your comments?
-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 10, 2000.
"I think, therefore I am...."Descartes
-- tc (trashcan-man@webtv.net), January 10, 2000.
Interested Spectator,I believe in God in a very abstract way; that is, as somehow the beginning of everything; although I'm Jewish, my belief is not Biblically based. If you're interested how that can be, I'll be glad to answer; I just didn't want to wander too far from your questions. I really don't wonder why we are -- I just accept that we are. And I am able in only an abstract way to think of God as a creator (and I'm not saying He's not) because it would start me thinking about the greatest "creation" of all -- God himself. Then you just take off into an infinite regress.
But I do wonder about the apparent contradiction between God as the beginning and God the infinite. If anyone out there can answer this one they get a big virtual hug and kiss.
I don't know...I hope I answered your questions ok.
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 10, 2000.
To all,By the way, there is some evidence for our (the forum posters) existence, although it is not conclusive. I mean, the messages themselves reflect that there are at least human beings behind them. And we can discern personalities, too. Further, in some cases people here know each other. I could go on, but hopefully you see my point -- that we are not just possible arbitrary constructs or illusions.
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 10, 2000.
I once posed a question to my daughter
when she was 8. She was prone to astute
questions and answers that always blew
my socks off. I asked Hotspur's query
"Why is there anything at all rather
than nothing?" The next morning she said
"I know the answer to that question that
you asked me yesterday." Amazed, I asked
"What is it?". She replied, "There isn't"
:-'
-- spider (spider0@usa.net), January 10, 2000.
Eve:Why do you see a contradiction between God the begining and God the infinite?
WRT to your comment:
"... because it would start me thinking about the greatest "creation" of all -- God himself. Then you just take off into an infinite regress. "
Not at all. Are you familiar with the mathematical concept of recursion? It is a concept that allows a value to be determined based on earlier values already determined.
For example there is a mathematical operation known as Factorial (not fractals that make the pretty pictures, although the concepts of recursion are similarly used there).
The factorial of 4 is 4 times the factorial of 3.
The factorial of 3 is 3 times the factorial of 2.
The factorial of 2 is 2 times the factorial of 1.
The factorial of 1 is defined as 1.
This last item is the key. If there was no end to the regression backwards, we could not begin coming forward and work out what the later factorials are.
Everything in the universe exists because of a cause and effect relationship. Any thing you wish to examine exists as an effect something else that existed before it. So you are right, you get the regression going back. *But* as in all recursions, the regression must stop so later "things" can exist.
WRT to the Factorial the "things" are the factorials of 2,3,4....
WRT to the universe, the "things" are the universe itself down to our own existance. We exist (and if we don't something does in which we are a dream) and therefore the recursion backwards had to stop at something that did not depend on a previous cause for its existence so that everything that followed could happen. The fact that we are here is proof that the recursion did stop at such a "something".
The underlying principle here is that the universe exists as it does as a result of a cause and effect relationship. Until someone shows me that is not the case, this should stop your infinte regression and should be proof to you that God is *not* the "ultimate creation" (as that is to reduce his status to the level of the created) but is rather the Creator that he is.
-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 10, 2000.
Interested Spectator,I am not Eve, but I would like to take a stab at your question, if you don't mind.
God created mankind as a free moral agent, giving them the ability and right to make choices. He wanted to create a being that would love and serve Him because they wanted to, not because He made them (which He could most certainly have done).
Things are the way they are because human beingss have excercised their rights as free moral agents, and chosen this way. John 3:19 "...Men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil."
-- Preacherboy (preacher@boy.com), January 10, 2000.
Eve:Thinking about your problem with understanding God as the begining and the infinte I think I understand your dillema. You are look at both from your own perspective and what your senses tell you is a physical begining and a physical infinite.
From my previous post, you can see that God is the begining. You must then understand the begining of what. He created the concepts and realities of space and time (and hence the universe). Therefore he is not subject to their limitations. He is outside of space and time. For him to be within or constrained by space and time he would mean that he would then be subject to the laws of the universe and in partiulcar space and time and therefore he could not have been their creator. He could not then be all powerfull. Therefore since he is not subject to time, the past, present and future are all the same to him. Similarly since he is not subject to space, he is not subject to the concpt of being localized at any one place, hence he is every where (i.e. infinite).
Does this help?
-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 10, 2000.
Preacherboy:You state:
"God created mankind ..."
My question stands, why did God create mankind? Your reason is that so we may love and serve him. He has no need of such things. So I ask you again, why did he create man. He has no reason to create man or make anything the way it is.
Infact the very concept of there needing to be a reason for anything is a concept created by God and therefore he could not be subject to that conecpt. If there was a reason, that compelled him to do what he did, then I submit that He would not be God as he had to capitulate and act as he did due to an external force namely the reason which he could not choose to ignore the reason and act independently as God is able to do.
Hence, I re-ask "Why did God create things they way they are?". The answer there is no reason. 2+2=4 because he chose it to be. It could have been equal to 5 had he chosen that, and the world would still be in perfect harmony.
You say:
"Things are the way they are because human beingss have excercised their rights as free moral agents, and chosen this way"
You contradict yourself - You earlier said God created man. Therefore the existence of man (one of the things that "are the way they are") was not due to man.
-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 10, 2000.
Interested Spectator,You're speaking about the impossiblity of traversing the infinite. Well, I agree -- I can't see how you could ever get to where we are today.
But if you speak of God as the Creator, yet Himself uncreated, are you presupposing that He Himself is infinite or that he somehow willed himself into existence out of nothing at a particular point in time in the past? If the former, then it seems that you fall into the same problem of traversing the infinite. If the latter, then you have to ask: -- what came before His appearance? And then back again we go into the infinite.
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 10, 2000.
Trashcan man, No, no, no...it's "I think, therefore I am...I think...." LOL BTW weren't you in the movie "The Stand"? Bumpetee bump... =)
-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), January 10, 2000.
Interested Spectator,My post above was only in response to your post that included the math analogy. Then I noticed more by you and others. I'll try my best to keep up, but I have other things I've got to get to, so please have patience -- my responses may start to come slower now for a day or two. But I'd love to keep this up -- so don't give up on me.
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 10, 2000.
The Bible teaches that God did not come into being at all. The reason for that is that He has always existed. God is eternal, unmade and uncreated, having no beginning and no end. The Bible assumes the existence of God... "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1).Here are some Biblical references which illustrate this truth:
Psalms 90:2 says "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God."
Psalms 93:2 "Your throne is established from of old; You are from everlasting."
Psalms 102:24-27 "I said, 'O my God, do not take me away in the midst of my days; Your years are throughout all generations. Of old You laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You will endure; yes, all of them will grow old like a garment; like a cloak You will change them, and they will be changed. But You are the same, and Your years will have no end.' "
Hebrews 13:8 "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever."
The truth of the eternal, infinite nature of God can be illustrated by what we call the principle of the First Cause. Here's how that principle is stated: everything that we observe around us has an origin. The chair I sit in was made in a factory. The metal used to make it was fashioned in a foundry, after having been mined. The mine was discovered by geologists. The geologists knew how to measure such things because of their education and instruments. The school from which they received their education was started by men and women with vision. They built their school with lots of hard work, money, and help from others. And it goes on and on.
The point is that everything is somehow dependent upon something else. Each and every thing has a cause; the cause of each and every thing has its own cause, and it just keeps going backwards. There must be a Being which was not caused at all, who is the ultimate "Cause" for all things. That Being is God Himself.
Consider these additional references to Jesus Christ:
John 1:1-3,14 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made... and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."
Colossians 1:16-17 "For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist."
God is eternal. He exists eternally in three persons... God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. He made us, and we are to live in worship and service to Him. He is worthy to be praised!
I hope that helps.
Miranda
-- Miranda (miranda@noe-mail.thanks), January 10, 2000.
Eve:As you long as you are looking for the creator of God you have not understood the essence of my recursion argument.
We exist, correct?
Then by definition the infite regress *has* to stop somewhere. It has to stop at something that is not created and hence outside of the universe and outside of the cause and effect relationship and not subject to the concept of creating things. There is *no* other option if we exist because *only* once the recursion stops *can* each subsequent cause and effect begin which finally results in you and I being here. If the regression continues infitely backwards as you suggest, then you and I can not exist. Your very own existence is the proof that the recursion stopped somewhere.
This is the nature of God, and if you truely believe in God then you should now be begining to fathom the True reality, His reality, which is outside of this universe. Any other concept you may hold about Him denies this fundemental fact and betrays that although you wish to believe in God, your "modern" secular upbringing has so conditioned your mind that even the mathematical fact that recursions must end, and hence God does exist since we exist can not be grasped by you. Perhaps it is that you are really afraid that the mantra of the aeithiest is that God can not be proven to exist can be shown to be false with this arguement and you finally once and for all now can know with absolute certainty God does exist.
This is one of the remarkable precepts of Islam. It has no contradiction between science and religion. It views both as mirrors to the same reality. Christianity has for thousands of years conditioned the people that the two are at odds with each other and that is why you are having trouble accepting that mathematically God can be proven to exist. This goes against everything you have been taught through out your whole life about science and religion being the antithesis of each other.
Consider carefully all of my posts in this thread again.
Miranda:
With all due respect, you contradict yourself. You say he is infite and then you say he exists as 3 persons. Something that is infinite is not divisible. If it is divisible then it loses is attribute of infiniteness as there then needs to exist a realm between the 3 entities to separate the entities so more than one entity must exist. Thus with respect to God, it would mean that this realm is a place where God does not exist if he was divided into 3 entities.
God is indivisible. He is One.
To divide him is to diminish his True nature make him subject to the laws of the universe where the concept of dividing things exist. He is outside the universe as I explained in my first post.
-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 10, 2000.
Miranda:Further to my last comment to you, trying to prove or explaining God's nature from the Bible is like trying to define a word by using the word itself. Those who raise questions about God have already chosen to ignore what the Bible says and are looking for "independent" answers to their questions. Hence I never use the Bible to explain anything about the nature of God, as there is no need to. This is because God exists, not because the Bible says he does.
Your explainations require one to believe the bible first. As you notice Eve is Jewish, so you will not make any headway with her by quoting the Bible. Similarly you will make litte headway with others who have questions about religion but find the Bible unsatisfactory as it requires blind faith to accept its answers.
-- Interested Spectator (is@the_rings.side), January 10, 2000.
Spectator,Faith is what is all about. I can't respond from a Jewish point of view or an atheist point of view. I can only respond with what I believe and what I know. Unlike you, I do trust and believe in the bible and there are many bases there for my belief in the trinity, which is one God. I certainly respect those who do not share that belief, but I rely on the Bible as the Word of God and the complete Truth, and it is there that I find my answers, not from "independent" means. I was under the impression that Eve and others just wanted to know where folks came to their conclusions about God being non-created, etc. I certainly wasn't expecting her to believe me.
Take care, Miranda
-- Miranda (miranda@noe-mail.thanks), January 10, 2000.
Miranda:You seem to feel that I am critisizing you for some reason. I am not and have no need to.
I am merely explaining and showing to those who do not believe in the Bible or have difficulty accepting its explainations that, with all due resepct, there is absolutely *no* reason to have "faith" or a "belief" that God exists. What I am showing is that one can *know* God exists as surely as one knows that if you let go of a ball it will drop to the ground.
Does it matter how one comes to realize that God exists as long as one realizes that he does exist?
The mantra of the aethiest and the "secular" person is that they require "evidence" that God exists, then they will "believe". You do not need to believe once you have evidence - you know. So here you are - the evidence you requested. Do you wish to continue with your "belief" that he does not exist.
Those who say what I state is false, must deny science, logic and mathematics and therefore deny the very foundation upon which they rely to state God does not exist. They do not provide arguement showing what I state is false. I would welcome such debate to uncover the Truth.
Until the "modern" era faith in the Bible was sufficient for the realization that God exists, now however that is not sufficient. To me this is progress as the same inquisitive nature that led the West out of the Dark Ages, that now will allows the thinking person (read scientists and the "secular" types) to *know* God exists rather than *believe* he exists.
Surely this can not be a bad thing for the world?
-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 10, 2000.
Miranda,I appreciate your contributions to our discussion. Although I don't share your belief that God is the God of the Bible, perhaps somehow our God really is ultimately the same.
With respect to the Trinity: This is one of the ideas that I just can't even come close to understanding. It seems like an internal contradiction. Perhaps it is something that cannot be explained and you just have to accept its truth on faith.
But your point about God somehow being the ultimate cause is something I can identify with, in a general way.
Interested Spectator:
You've posted a lot of interesting information lately. I'll try to do a separate reply soon.
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 10, 2000.
Interested Spectator:I think I understand what you're trying to say. You begin with the fact that we exist. You then postulate that therefore an infinite regress using the laws of space and time is impossible; that we have to stop somewhere.
I agree that this makes sense so far.
But then it seems that you accept, almost on "faith", the idea of a "super-existence" (which contains God) that is not subject to the laws of space and time, at least as we know them. I agree that in order for your "no infinite regress" thesis to hold, an idea of this sort would appear to have to be a necessary part of it.
Even though your position has a sort of "logic" to it, I just can't shake the idea that this "super-existence" seems an arbitrary construct. And how could such a universe even be imagined, with no space and no time, at least the way we understand them? Can you even begin to get a picture of such a place? By the way, since the concept "picture" implies two or three dimensions, and since those dimensions are building blocks of space and time as we know them, I suppose a "picture" of this "super-existence" is impossible, in any case. Does that bother you?
Finally, how do you deal with the idea of this "super-existence" (and God within) itself being infinite? Would you not then have to come up with a "super-super-existence" containing another, even greater God within that? Then we get yet another infinite regress of another sort -- layers of super-universes (with their endlessly Greater Gods) piled atop one another with no end.
Please don't take offense at any of this -- I think this is the first time I've thought about a "super-existence" (containing God) in any real detail, although I'd certainly heard of the idea before; I'm just brainstorming here.
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 10, 2000.
Perception is reality. That is true on an individual scale ("Wow, 25,000.00 a year is great money", as opposed to "$25,000.00 wont keep me in toilet paper!"). The same is true on a larger scale. What we perceive things to be are how they are. Many times, reality is created by self-fulfilling prophecies and by how we choose to intepret cerrtain events.That simple. I see a computer glitch and say "no big deal", others see it and think the world is ending!
-- DAVID (tdavidc@arn.net), January 10, 2000.
Eve:I can take no offence from one who questions what I say and you have nothing to appologize in advance for. On the contrary I respect that you wish to learn and perhaps come to a new understanding, and if you in any way find my explainations offensive it is I who have the obligation to appologize.
Answering your questions as you posed them (your statments in brackets):
[I agree that in order for your "no infinite regress" thesis to hold, an idea of this sort would appear to have to be a necessary part of it.
Even though your position has a sort of "logic" to it, I just can't shake the idea that this "super-existence" seems an arbitrary construct.]
It can not be arbitrary, it is an irrefutable fact of logic and mathematics. For a recursion to stop there must be something external to the recursion to make it stop. A recursion can not stop itself from within. This is an impossibility. To be able to do would result in contradiction as the recursion would stop immediatly (on the first iteration or step backwards to its begining) resulting in nothing, since we are the result of a recursion with visible results the recursion we exist in could not have stopped by itself.
To deny the existence of an external force to stop the recursion is to deny the cause and effect cycle of the universe and its foundation in mathematics, science and logic (the only constants in the universe). Philosphy is not equal to science, logic and mathematices as philosophy is merely opinion packaged under a different name.
To understand this from another perspective, *if* you already "beleive" in God, and are looking for "confirmation" to *know* God exists then by definition if you do not take God out of space and time, you have made him subject to its laws. He then is no longer omnipotent as he must conform to space and time. God is not and cannot be limited if he is God. To not accept that God is outside space and time is to say they existed before he did, and that "popped up inside it". Well then he didn't create the universe and what you call God is not God. Space and Time are created by God. Therefore he existed *before* they do. Which leads me to your next question:
[And how could such a universe even be imagined, with no space and no time, at least the way we understand them? Can you even begin to get a picture of such a place? By the way, since the concept "picture" implies two or three dimensions, and since those dimensions are building blocks of space and time as we know them, I suppose a "picture" of this "super-existence" is impossible, in any case. Does that bother you?]
Because you do not understand, do not assume it does not exist. It was that kind of thinking and arrogance (forgive my harsh tone here, but being a pubic forum I automatically direct this discussion to a wider audience and wish to be emphatic towards them) that plunged the West into the Dark Ages.
Some native tribes in the jungles of South America use drums to communicate with each other. They only understand what they physically can sense. They have no concept that going right *through* them are the radio waves of the entire world all around communicating with each other. They do not have any frame of refrence from which to understand this concept. And they never will until shown otherwise. *But* that does not deny the existence of the radio waves. The natives can choose to *believe* the radio don't exist (because that is within their comfort zone), and they are welcome to keep the illusion that only what they can sense exists. What they *believe* has no bearing on reality. Just as people may choose to *believe* God does not exist or *believe* that a reality without space and time can not exist, because these concepts are within their comfort zones, but their *beliefs* has no bearing on reality.
I am not asking you to believe in God. I am telling you to know that God exists. If you wish to believe that he exists or can only exist in some limited way that your mind can comprehend then I say that you have belittled God to your level and you are not searching the for the Truth. May I ask why do you assume you should be able to understand the nature of God? There is no contradiction in *knowing* something exists but not being able to understand it. Science is full of examples of phenomena that can be observed but can't be explained.
You are trying to describe God with physical means. How can you ever succeed in such a task since he created the means you try to measure or describe him by. If he can be "measured" by them then such concepts of measurement had to exist before he did.
Again you must understand that any attempt to quantify or measure God is to make him subject to the laws of the universe and bring him down to the same level as the Created.
As I said earlier this is the nature of God, and you should now be begining to fathom the True reality, His reality.
As the Muslims say: He is Everywhere. He is All. He is Indivisible. He is One. (capitals deliberate)
WRT to the super-super-existences they can not exist once you accept the irrefutable fact the infinite recursions stop with something outside the recursion.
-- Intersted Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 10, 2000.
David:Do you percieve 2+2=4 or do you know 2+2=4?
Know, I hope.
Do know God doesn't exist or believe God doesn't exist?
Believe, I hope.
Do you know that in mathematics a recursion must stop with an outside force or believe it?
Know, I hope (or will learn about recursions and then know it).
Can you explain to me how we can know recursions stop with an external force yet refuse to accept that they apply to the cause and effect relationship of the universe.
Seems to me that back in the Dark Ages, science was trampled on because the universe could not be explained by religion. Then someone said that's stupid the religion as explained contradicts the evidence of science and we emerged into an enlightend age. Now it seems that religion is trampled on because it can't be explained by science. One day people will realize that's stupid the religion if *understood properly* *does not in any way shape or form* contradict science and both are actually in perfect harmony with each other. For anyone who thinks this is not so, please explain to me *why* science and religion (correctly understood) *must* be *contradictory* on even *one* point. When people understand there are no contradictions between religion, science, logic and mathematics we will emerege into a more enlightened age. Until then seems like the dark ages mentality has gone anywhere, but is now just moved over into the scientist's brains.
I challange you to find me a contradiction between *religion understood correctly* and science. I guarantee if you study Islam and the Koran you'll find there is no contradiction between even one scientific discovery and Islam. Does this mean Islam is the only "relgiion understood correctly". No. All it means that Christianity and other religions are correct as long as they do not contradict science. The reason is because there can only be one God (if you'd like me to present a *proof* of this I'll be glad to do so) and therefore only One Reality, so therefore he will be the same for all religions. Similarly there can only be one science for us (which will encompass all discoveries made and yet to be made) and that will be the same for all religions. So if the religion is in contradiction with science then the interpreation of the precepts of the religion as laid down originally is incorrect, assuming the original precepts are not incontradiction with science.
-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 10, 2000.
Spectator:I am not real interested in getting into a long drawn out religous discussion. You probably know much more than I about that subject as i am not a particularly religous person. Not an atheist but not a bible thumper either.
All I was pointing out was that people have blinders on based on their particular point of reference. Be that a relgous point of reference, a technical point of reference or a point of reference that has conditioned them to be skeptical of what they are told.
How they interpret, react to and deal with a problem or perceived problem or predicted event is innevitabely going to have a lot to do with how serious they perceive that problem or predicted event to be.
That is on the indiviidual level. On a more global scale, if most don't perceive that something is a problem, it is generally not a problem. If they perceive that it is, it becomes that usually through their own making.
Example: Many of the people here are convinced the world is coming to an end because a computer in the XYZ mining company froze up on New Years day and it took three days to fix. Many will say it is the begining of the end. Further proof their position was right. Those who beleive similarly will start looking for rural properties, quitting jobs (if they haven;t already done so) and bunkering in.
If a significant percentage f the soceiety feel that way, then things will start to crumble.
Then there are the others who say "damn computer, better fix it" this is annoying but it is not a big problem. If a large percentage beleive this, then we go on down the road.
The perception of the problem creates the reality for the individual and in many cases, the masses.
That's all I was saying.
-- DAVID (tdavidc@arn.net), January 10, 2000.
I beleive it was FDR who said "We have nothing to fear but fear itself".
-- DAVID (tdavidc@arn.net), January 10, 2000.
David:[All I was pointing out was that people have blinders on based on their particular point of reference. Be that a relgous point of reference, a technical point of reference or a point of reference that has conditioned them to be skeptical of what they are told.]
Correct and you'll get no argument from me.
[I am not real interested in getting into a long drawn out religous discussion. You probably know much more than I about that subject as i am not a particularly religous person. Not an atheist but not a bible thumper either.]
Just FYI, I regard debate as an exercise in logic not religion. The fact that logic proves God exists is merely a consequence.
Wheather or not one then changes one's life based on understanding this fact is really not of interest to me, although I find the mindset of those that deny what the logic proves as very similar to the few that still *believe* the world is flat, (evidence to the contrary).
However just as the reality is that the world is round (and this was only accepted once it was proven to be the case), and most now *know* that to be the case, I know that there will be a day when few who still *believe* God does not exist and most who will *know* that he does because that is simply the reality because this has been proven, although it has yet to be accepted, because of the prejudices held by most, just as you state.
-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 10, 2000.
Well ofcourse everything we receive via any media is chosen by someone to influence our opinion. That has never been the danger, given sufficient reporters with separate agendas. The situation becomes dangerous when a preponderance of reporters have the same agenda.The task of controlling the press then is to ensure that all reporters have the same agenda. Now that agenda may be something as simple as not wishing to retract a story already published or as complicated as shared belief structure engendered by an educational failure somewhere in the system. It may be something as simple as a shared hero or as complicated as a social current against which swimming is undesirable.
so... try to get more than one independant source.
-- Michael Erskine (Osiris@urbanna.net), January 10, 2000.
Geez... you all are fast. This entire thread has developed this evening?!?With repsonse to Eve's Paradox: "But I do wonder about the apparent contradiction between God as the beginning and God the infinite."
This can also be resolved by using the season metaphor. Each year has 4 seasons: spring, summer, winter and fall. The question of when the year begins and ends has been debated over the ages. Currently the begining is January 1st. Why not December 22nd, 25th, or even March 21st? Where ever the true begining of the year isn't really the issue at hand. The point is that most would assign a beginning and an ending to the year. this is a circular infinity. Like God, the year exists as well as a beginning and an end.
Interested Spec: Your really going tonight!
So you ask, "why did God create mankind?":
From an evolution-system viewpoint, one might consider God as the eternal system circular in nature, if you will, like the seasons of the year. As evolution of the universe unfolded, the system became more and more complex: new species of particles, atoms, molecules, organisms, planets, and stellar bodies evolved out of the ultimate-organism (god). Eventually, since the system is circular, that which evolved out of the system was identical to it's creator. ["God created man in the image of himself"] The complete circle was inevitable. Through the infinite complexity and depth of time, a mirror image of the "whole" formed. [Some theorists may say, "Out of chaos birthes order."] IMHO, this identical form birthed out of the system in the form of man, who christans call Jesus. So to answer your question from a pseudo-science viewpoint, Man was an inevitability, just as spring follows winter.
-- circle (loopy@z.z), January 10, 2000.
Geez... you all are fast. This entire thread has developed this evening?!?With repsonse to Eve's Paradox: "But I do wonder about the apparent contradiction between God as the beginning and God the infinite."
This can also be resolved by using the season metaphor. Each year has 4 seasons: spring, summer, winter and fall. The question of when the year begins and ends has been debated over the ages. Currently the begining is January 1st. Why not December 22nd, 25th, or even March 21st? Where ever the true begining of the year isn't really the issue at hand. The point is that most would assign a beginning and an ending to the year. Like God, the year exists as well as a beginning and an end. This is a circular infinity.
Interested Spec: Your really going tonight!
So you ask, "why did God create mankind?":
From an evolution-system viewpoint, one might consider God as the eternal system circular in nature, and if you will, like the seasons of the year. As evolution of the universe unfolded, the system became more and more complex: new species of particles, atoms, molecules, organisms, planets, and stellar bodies evolved out of the ultimate-organism (god). Eventually, since the system is circular, that which evolved out of the system was identical to it's creator. ["God created man in the image of himself"] The complete circle was inevitable. Through the infinite complexity and depth of time, a mirror image of the "whole" formed. [Some theorists may say, "Out of chaos birthes order."] IMHO, this identical form birthed out of the system in the form of man, who christans call Jesus. So to answer your question from a pseudo-science viewpoint, Man was an inevitability, just as spring follows winter.
-- circle (loopy@z.z), January 10, 2000.
I was invited here this evening from a thread I posted on TB2000. I skimmed through most of these posts, but I apologize, it's late. Simple riddle for ya, maybe some of ya have heard this one...Joe, John and Harry are traveling to LA. They stop half way to get a hotel room. The guy at the desk says the room will be $30. They each chip in $10 and go on up to their room. About 20 minutes later, the desk clerk realizes that he overcharged the group $5 as they were having a special room rate promotion. He gives the bellhop $5 to take up to the room. On the way, the bellhop ponders.."I can't split $5 evenly between 3 people, so I'll keep give them each a dollar back and I'll keep $2 for myself." NOW, HERE'S THE RIDDLE....If each guy chipped in $10, and each got $1 back, and the bellhop kept $2, Where did the OTHER dollar go?????????????? $9 times 3 (Joe, John, Harry) = $27 + $2 (bellhop)= $29!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-- Vern (bacon17@ibm.net), January 11, 2000.
We are all TV CAMERAS connected to GOD. GOD imputs the reality in front of us, we record it, each through the UNIQUE LENS OF OUR SOUL. GOD scans our souls like we flick channels with a remote control. You've heard how at the end of our lives, our life flashes before our eyes...this is OUR MEMORY BEING DOWNLOADED. The best we can do for GOD is to MAKE MEMORIES!!! Happy LIVING!!!
-- INever (inevercheckmy@onebox.com), January 11, 2000.
The error is one of perception in the riddle, and is Int. Spect.sAt the point of discovery of the error in billing and the announced refund, each man had therefore then paid only $8.33i for the room. 3x8.33i=25+5=30, since the refund was due but no yet recompensed.
Upon refund each man had paid $9.33i for the room and the bellhop kept the 2 bucks for the t(r)ip! The facts are, that they had a room and a buck extra each,(that they didn't have when they left the office).
Therefore they were probably happy at their windfall, but had still been ripped off because they had paid (nearly) $28.00 for a $25.00 room and the bellhop is a thief. Just the facts.
-- Michael (mikeymac@uswest.net), January 11, 2000.
Circle:I asked why did God create things they way they are? The issue of why man was created was one poster's reply. That is not my original question however, and I simply went on to explain that the poster's reason was not logical.
My question is provided with an answer and that is there can be no reason for why God created things the way they are, which I go onto explain why this is the case. I would be interested in your comments to my answer. (The question is re-phrased slightly differently later in my response to the poster about why god created man).
WRT to your own hypothesis, the universe can not exist as a circular event in and of itself. You must answer the question where did the circular system come from. Since it exists it is therefore the result of some action. You must explain this "first" action and this first action by defition can not be part of the circular system (for the reasons given above with respect to recursive systems requiring a force external to themseleves to stop the recursion). Although your system is ciruclar, its creation by an action by definition thus becomes part of a recursive system. To avoid the question of where did the ciruclar system (or any other type of universe for that matter) come from requires you to prove every action in the universe as not being governed by a cause and effect relationship which we currently observe in every aspect of Nature.
I don't believe you can and hence you require a begining that is outside of the cirular system to create the cirucular system. In finding what is the nature of this "begining" you will arive at my answer in my earlier posts above.
Since this is the case, the rest of your hypothesis can not hold. In particular your explaination of God as an evolving circular system no longer holds as God has to be the creator of the circular system (i.e. the "Begining" as I call it in the previous paragraph) and is outside of it.
Notwithstanding this, an evolving omnipotent God (he must be ominpotent to create the circular sytem to begin with) is a contradiction in itself. I could "pick" appart each element of your hypothesis (such as God created man in his image, and that what evolved was identical its creator) as being contradictory however, since your fundemental premise is contradictory, there is no need to because as you yourself say you are answering my question from a pseudo-science point of view. However if you would like me to show you the contradictions I would be pleased to do so tomorrow.
With all due respect, having to explain God's existence with pseudo-science (which is nothing more than opinion) belittles him to a level below man which requires his fellow man to explain himself with a respectable practice known as Science. This is becauset man wishes to in reality who he is and not some opinion of who he is. As I said above this is the kind of thinking that led the West into the Dark Ages, and it was reasoned, rational thought based on solid and sound Science, Logic and Mathematics that brought the West out of that period.
Just as I said above with respect to Bible, that God exists because he does, not becuase the Bible says he does. Similarly, God exists not because pseudo-science hypothesises that he exists. He exists because he does. And that existence should only be explained with Science. Nothing less. To do so is to bring to the 21st century the same flawed thinking and superstisous beliefs that existed during the Dark Ages.
I refer you to all my earlier posts for you to understand that what I say, namely the existence of God can be proven completely and logically without requirement of any faith what-so-ever (except that the logic, science, and mathematics that have been empircally proven as correct are indeed correct). And, furthermore that this universe was created by him and that he is not constrained by the laws of the universe.
One need not believe these to be true statements but know them as facts, just as surely as one knows a ball will fall if it is dropped. What you choose to do with these facts is upto you and of no interest to me. My only interest is in the debate. That the debate produces these facts as self evident is as interesting to me as had the converse been shown.
If however you have evidence to show what I state as incorrect (which I believe would require refuting logic, mathematics, and science) or that my reasoning is flawed, I would welcome your input as I my objective is to uncover the Truth.
Vern:
Welcome, thank you for the riddle. I'll think about it and post my answer here tomorrow.
Good night all for now (need some rest for the grey matter). I'll be back tomorrow morning and then in the evening (have some real work to do tomorrow :) ).
-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 11, 2000.
Omigod, I want to respond to everything. but I just can't keep up!!!Interested Spectator,
A couple of questions for you, then:
Since you postulate God as being somehow outside of existence, He is then outside of nature. If he has no nature (which would include a spiritual nature), He couldn't exist. What do you think?
I'm not clear yet (I could have missed something) -- Are you postulating God as being the beginning but not infinite Himself?
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 11, 2000.
Hi, DAVID,Thanks for your contributions.
Just take care that you do not assign consciousness as primary over existence/reality. The only ways reality can change are through natural occurrences or actions by living things. (I'm not referring to the belief that God can alter things, just for the moment)
Consciousness or perceptions alone cannot affect reality.
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 11, 2000.
Hi, Circle,Glad you could join us -- cool thread, eh? I think it started yesterday morning.
I don't see how your calendar example becomes an analogy, because the calendar is just a man-made convenient construct to track, organize, and mirror real physical changes. The beginning was probably an arbitrary choice, but they had to start somewhere. You could say it has no real beginning or end, but I don't think that matters -- the whole thing is self-contained, in any case.
But I can't make the jump from here to your assertion about God. Can you explain this further?
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 11, 2000.
To all:I need to let you know that I'll be really busy for the rest of the day and evening, so I may not be able to post much more until sometime tomorrow, but I'll try to sneak something in.
I love your interest in this, though -- keep 'em comin'!
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 11, 2000.
Interested Speculator:Aristotle came to this paradox also. What was the original initiator? I must say that the entire eternal system was the original initiator, because it is eternal. By definition, eternal means lasting forever. This is ultimately a philosphical catch-22, something that happens along all lines of thought once you reach the edges. To answer paradoxes, I look to God. The answer can only solved by faith.
BTW, I used the lable pseudo-science, because I am taking a leap of faith in my model of the universe. Because I using "faith", my reasoning cannot be taken as pure science. And since science will never be able to solve paradoxes, your question is unsolvable. That's the nature of analytical practices, when you reach edges that continue to infinities, if those infinities don't connect a solution is never made. You must recurve your thought for the true answer. The end must curve back to the begining. The choice to recurve is faith. A leap of faith always must be taken to truly understand.
-- circle (loop@infinity.net), January 11, 2000.
Hey Eve,Yeah, good thread!
About the year analogy. First, the year is not really a human construct, if you consider it simply as the earth's cycle around the sun. That cycle and its consequences, result in what we call seasons. They vary from place to place and from hemisphere to hemisphere. But if you take a seasonal cycle in a specific region, say Maine, you will find a non-arbitrary beginning and an ending to the cycle. Personally, I choose conception as a beginning which can be compared to the begining of winter when the new seeds and plants begin their incubation for spring birth. I agree this is slightly abitrary, because different species have different life cycles, etc. My main point is that God is the apha, the omega and everything inbetween. God is in us and in everything, was the origninal initiator and will be here in the end. This is faith and as I replied to Interested Speculator, cannot ever be fully recognized through science and reasoning, because reasoning ultimately takes one to a paradox. No paradoxes are solved without faith. Neither science nor reason will ever prove God, but analyzing nature's metaphors may allow those of us who are already overloaded with knowledge to reduce our leap of faith. That's why I look to God through nature for answers. God can be compared to, not equaled to, the yearly season, as well as any other metaphor. Another metaphor that can be applied could be the spectrum of light. Light comes in all wavelengths, from the most dense, blues, ultraviolets, gamma rays, etc; to the most broad, reds, infrareds, radiowaves, gravity?, etc. In this way, if we compare the spectrum of light to God, the wave (or particles) of the ultimate blue is the beginning point, because light starts out fast as a blue then loses energy over time due to interference with other waves or bombardment with other particles. The ending waves can be compared to the reds, radio waves, etc. (BTW, scientists have never and will never find the most dense, nor the most broad frequencies of light. Again, I believe this is due to the infinite nature of a circular system.) And on a note to Interested Spectator, just like the rainbow, one can see the colors of the rainbow, but you will never be able to prove that those "invisible" wavelengths exist. Today, our technologies can see and prove some of these wavelenghts but only to a limit. Thresholds exist in all sciences and all reasons. There will always be other parts of the spectrum that will be unknown. Only faith says that these frequncies exist.
-- circle (loop@infinite.net), January 11, 2000.
Eve:You say: [I'm not clear yet (I could have missed something) -- Are you postulating God as being the beginning but not infinite Himself?]
WRT to your last question, I have explained in my response to your begining and infinte question God can not be limited by space and time since he created those things and therefore he existed before them and therefore is automatically inifinte and present in all time periods and aware of what has, is and will happen for all time periods.
Circle:
There is no paradox, so don't claim there is one. You may not understand there is no paradox. Philosophy and opinion are not needed and are what has confused generations of people into the concept that they must have "faith". You are entitled to keep such beliefs but your explaination why they are correct have not refuted my explainations. I have *shown* in my explainations that where yours reasoning is contradictory and provided an alternate explaination that covers all you wish to explain but is not contradictory. Therefore, until you do prove why my explaintion is false your explaination of the true reality is simply a theory proven wrong.
You say some parts of the spectrum can never be proven and we must only have faith that they exist. This is the mantra of those who hold relgion above science. It was the mantra of the people and clergy that put the West in the dark ages, rephrased it says if we can't explain it, it must be "magic" and can't be explained and therefore never sought to query and learn and push the boundaries forward. Obviously the more things change the more they stay the same. Science has renedered such beliefs obsolete a thousand times over as it has explained time and time again beliefs thought to be unexplainable. It will continue to do so for the spectrum you call unexplainable.
I do not hold religion correctly understood as "superior" or above to science nor science as "superior" or above to relgion correctly understood. I view them as identical equals. They are both mirrors of the same reality; they are equal. I have never seen any proof to establish either as "superior" or different from the other. Please explain to me why they should ever contradict each other, or why they are even different. Just as an example I see no conflict or contraditiction between religion and evolution and Creation of the Universe and would be glad to explain you why this is the case.
What I have shown is that He must exist using simple logic. No opinions or belief needed. The beliefs exist on the part of those who do not *know* he exists (because they do not understand the proof) and therefore *believe* he does not exist. Others do not understand the proof but *beleive* he does exist. Once you understand the proof you do not need to *believe* either, you *know* he exists.
Eve:
[Since you postulate God as being somehow outside of existence, He is then outside of nature. If he has no nature (which would include a spiritual nature), He couldn't exist. What do you think?]
You are missing the simple point here. Let me see if I can help with a series of questions and the answers you should feel yourself. If you do not agree with my answer, re-read this entire thread again. All the information needed is here now. There is set of questions for those whou *believe* God exists and want confirmation of his existence so you may know he exists.
Recursions are not an infinite regression? True. If they were, the recursion could never start as there would no begining.
To stop a recurssion from being and infite regression and a force external to the regression is needed? True. Otherwise the recurrsion will stop on the first step backwards and then immediatly come forward and only every have one step.
Firstly this establishes that WRT to the universe, something that existed but was not created needed to exist to create the universe.
If you can not agree that such a something exists outside Nature then I ask the following questions (and this is to address your question Eve).
Do you agree God is omnipotent? If you already believe in God, Yes. If you don't already believe then explain how the force that stopped the recursion above is not ominpotent when it created the universe (including all matter physically in it, space and time), but was not created itself.
Assuming you are now satisfied with a Yes answer to the previous question continue, therwise lets discuss about Gods' omnipotence a bit further to establish it as a fact as well.
Since God is omnipotent, the laws of Nature can not apply to him. If they do then he is restiricted and contained by them. Then he can't be ominipotent because he can do what he wants *as long as* he does not violate the Laws of Nature. This would mean the Laws of Nature existed before him and the contradicts the fact that he created them as we alrady established above.
Therefore he is an entitiy that exists outside of Nature. Re-read my analogy about the drummers and the South American native tribes. This is your dillema explained completely.
I repeat my earler comment again (slightly modified):
This is the nature of God, and if you truely believe in God (or now know God must exist) then you should now be begining to fathom the True reality. His reality. A reality which is outside of this universe. Any other concept you may hold about Him denies his fundemental nature and reduces him to the level of the created or subject to the laws of the universe and hence not ominipotent. Also any other concept you may hold about him betrays that although you wish to believe in God (or know that he exists), your "modern" secular upbringing has so conditioned your mind that even the mathematical fact that recursions must end with an external force, and hence God does exist and exist outside of the Universe since we exist can not be grasped by you. Perhaps it is that you are really afraid that the mantra of the aeithiest is that God can not be proven to exist can be shown to be false with this arguement and you finally once and for all now can know with absolute certainty God does exist. And that he exists how we who had first believed he exists. That is Ominipotent and outside of Nature.
As I said the Muslims say God is One.
When the say One the meaning is very signficant. It is not only the obvious meaning that there are not two gods (if that was all they would have said there is only one God). The One refers to Oneness in any sense you can possibly think of - indvisibility, infinitness, the one and only ultimate the reality, uniqueness (hence outside of nature where things are not unique -- hydrogen atoms are always hydyrogen attems), and so forth.
You need to re-read everything I have posted in this thread, and stop thinking that God must and can only exist in a way that you will understand him. You can not understand the nature of God with our brains as they are created by him along with the rest of the Universe and so our frame of reference is limited to the Universe, and he is outside the Universe. The fact that we can not *understand* him does not contradict that we can not *prove* he exists and must exist as I say. Do *not* confuse the issue of *understanding the nature* of god with the issue of *proving his existence*.
Look forward to your response.
-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 11, 2000.
Eve:Re your comment to DAVID: Exactly.
-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 11, 2000.
Interested Spectator; I appreciate very much your additions to this thread, as well as everyone else's.However, you wrote, "Christianity has for thousands of years conditioned the people that the two (faith and science) are at odds with each other and that is why you are having trouble accepting that mathematically God can be proven to exist. This goes against everything you have been taught through out your whole life about science and religion being the antithesis of each other. "
I think it is a hasty generalization to assume that *all* Christianity is at fault for separating faith and reason. It is true that in the history of certain branches of Christianity (after the middle ages), there has developed a certain trend to separate the two, so we arrive in the situation we are in today, where those who claim to be true scientists do not believe in God, and those who cling to their religion say that they will believe it no matter what science presents to the contrary. However the two actually go together very well. In fact, "deprived of reason, faith has stressed feeling and experience, and so runs the risk of no longer being a universal proposition. It is an illusion to think that faith, tied to weak reasoning, might be more penetrating; on the contrary, faith then runs the grave risk of withering into myth or superstition. By the same token, reason which is unrelated to an adult faith is not prompted to turn its gaze to the newness and radicality of being." --Pope John Paul II in "Fides et Ratio", (1998) The Catholic Church has always maintained that reason is not contrary to faith.
St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that the light of reason and the light of faith both come from God, hence there can be no contradiction between them. St. Thomas lived from 1224 to 1274, long before the "Enlightenment." Here is also one of his proofs of God's existence by reason:
In the world of sense we find that there is an order of causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or one only. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.
Circle, Your reasoning does not "work" as long as you make God a part of creation or even the whole of creation, because then you have to say that God created himself, which is impossible. God the Creator is totally separate from creation, he transcends the entire universe, and he has always existed. And, if he is omnipotent, he has to be One.
Aristotle actually had a proof for God's existence which was very similar to Interested Spectator's; he called this first cause the "Unmoved Mover"
-- BeerMan (frbeermanj@juno.com), January 11, 2000.
Vern:Each person in the hotel room paid 9 dollars for a total of $27. Of that $27, 25 dollars go the the hotel and two to the bellhop. You cannot add the bellhop's amount again to the total 27 since it is already part of it.
-- BeerMan (frbeerman@juno.com), January 11, 2000.
Interested Spectator:About paradoxes: Paradoxes are a result of reason. They only exist as a byproduct of science, math, logic and reason. God is real. Paradoxes are real too, but only in the Reason of Man.
I'm not saying that science is real, I'm just saying a leap of faith must be asserted if proof can be found. The leap for me is simply believing that when you reason your logic to the edges, the edges return to the same point: recursive or as I like to call it the Wrap-Back Factor. That is a leap of faith, unless you look at metaphor. I put my faith in metaphor, because I've reasoned too many times to the edges. I've dug a very deep hole only to have "faith" in what is beyond. Maybe I'm speaking too abstractly, but that what happens at the edge of reason, it becomes abstract ad infinitum, out of which only "faith" can resolve. This is okay in my eyes.
About science vs. religion: I believe all thought leads to the same basic ideas. There is an evolution to thought, science and reason. Science and religion are there for the same, as you state. But I still hold that Man's mind an technology has a threshold in its ability to reason. Therefore, man will never be able to reason all the way to the edges of science, philosophy, religion, etc. E.g. The more powerful the particle accelerator, the tinier the particle produced. The further we look into space, the more we find. But if you use Metaphor, which is not based in logical reason, you can find patterns. These patterns are sometime associated with science, but more so with art, poetry, and spirituality. I cannot prove that science and reason is unprovable, but this metaphorical circularity to God is where I place my faith. Say you were to prove God through simple logic as you state you can. But now what you are going to do is to put the cart before the horse by having faith that certain spiritual outcomes will occur. You are going to ask yourself to believe that eternity exists after you die. Even if you prove it, you know as well as I do that the Chaos Theory states that in chaotic systems you can never determine the outcome X distance in time, because the complex system finds self-arranges itself. Knowing this in science, you still must have "faith" that the chaotic system will take you to eternity instead of dumping you by the side of the road. So, even if you *prove* God, you still must have faith in this consequence. (This whole example is dependent on the belief that your logic proves that God is eternal and you are part of God and thus eternal also.)
...Good job BeerMan! I was tring to find both the Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas points, but my brain couldn't find them. Still, the problem with "proving" the unmoved mover concept is what if it goes to infinity in all directions. Then a unmoved mover doesn't need to exist, because a new cause can be found for each result, to infinity. (Personally, this is what I believe, but that is where the flaw in the logic.) We must put faith in even the unmoved-mover idea.
BeerMan and I. Spectator: Another way to explain my point is through the ecosystem metaphor. Begin with a lichen. A lichen is an organism that exists as a whole and is composed of algae and fungi communities. Lichens, plants, and animals are composed into forest ecosystems. Forests, grasslands, civilizations, rivers, and oceans are organized into the collective bioshpere. The bioshpere, atmoshere, and lithosphere are grouped into the collective Earth. Earth, the planets, astroids, comets, particles, waves and the Sun are collected into the Solar system. Our sun is organised into a stelar ecosystem within the Galaxy and so on. Each collection of parts makes a whole, until the ultimate collective organism can be distinguished as God. In this model, God is the whole and all that it contains (Would you consider your kidney a part of you?). And even if you were to start deleting parts of the universe, a galaxy here, a quasar there, God would still be the collective whole. In this model, and where I put my faith, is that even if all the parts of God were to be deleted, God would still exist, because something must come from something. And therefore that something, God, must have existed eternally (my faith) for this "logic" to be sound (BTW, this is the fundamental flaw with the Big Bang Theory, i.e. something comes from nothing).
As you can see, I use similar logic to each of you, only I have determined that I must make a tiny leap of faith: a) with respect to science, mathmatics and reason: infinity circles back on itself (the Wrap-Back Factor) b) with respect to spirituality: God is eternal.
Those are my leaps, without them the logic becomes paradoxical.
-- circle (loop@infinite.net), January 11, 2000.
What was the question again?
-- Squid (ItsDark@down.here), January 11, 2000.
Squid,Obviously the original question has been ever so slightly obscured. If I recall correctly, the discussion moved quickly from socio-political deception to what is reality, to whether controlling forces exist, then to the validity of the existence of an ultimate controlling force, or God. From then on the question has been turned inside out in many ways: Is there a beginning or an ending to the universe as a function of time or space? Does God exist externally, internally, or both with respect to Nature? And Is God provable through science, logic, and reason?
Did I miss anything?
-- circle (loop@infinite.net), January 11, 2000.
The basic argument for the existence of God is based on two things:1) You can't get something from nothing and a thing cannot be the cause of itself. Therefore everything that exists must have a cause.
2) There cannot be an infinite regress of causes because we would never get to the point where we are today: that this universe does in fact exist.
Thus, there has to be an uncaused cause that has created everything and is also outside of the system. There has to be something that started the whole thing in the first place. This is God.
We have a hard time thinking of infinity because we are finite. However, God exists outside of space and time because space and time are parts of this creation. So we can say that God is unchanging, everywhere, and in every time.
I do agree, Circle, that there are things that we can only know by faith and not by reason alone, such as "God is someone who loves" and "There are three persons in one God." The existence of God can be known by reason, but for most it is a matter of faith, because the proofs by reason are quite difficult. I'm not sure if I fully understand them myself.
-- BeerMan (frbeerman@juno.com), January 11, 2000.
To All Fine Minds on this Promising Board -Clearly we are faced in some of this thread with a problem of semantics and conceptualization. Numbers and geometry have provided for centuries the easiest language for understanding Hypostatic degrees.
Absolute Reality, that which transcends and is immanent in all and everything, first hypostatic mode is for want of better words Beyond Being represented by the irreducible, simplest and most essential sign...the point no dimensions =zero.
Thus God (Supreme Being) is the first manifestation of Beyond Being (Godhead, to use an ancient term) the number one, the one and only God is the first manifestation of being.
The human degree or Son for the Christian is the 3rd degree of EXISTENCE.
1)Beyond Being - 2) Being - 3) Existence
Beyond Being is the NOTHINGNESS ( Nihilo ) which is precisely also (The All-Possibilities) or Plenum.
The Big Bang theory comes close to this metaphysical explanation and that is probably why science still resists it.
DESIGN is obvious and inexplicable in the cosmos, but this opens another line of exploration and will have to wait as will the supreme irrefutable miracle of the unicity of our subjectivity which clearly justifies the concept of humans being made in the divine image and likeness. One God reflected in the uniqueness of each creature he manifested ex-nihilo from the plenum.
The subject on this thread is far to deep and immense to be able to do it justice easily and penetrate the veils of various established concepts.
Peace and Goodness to All.
-- Arthur (ArthurRex@Camelot.Grail), January 11, 2000.
Arthur........I have to ask, why does it say, "let Us make man in our image?"
-- Patrick (pmchenry@gradall.com), January 11, 2000.
The poor have it.
The rich need it.
It is more evil than the Devil.
It is greater than God.
What is it?
-- a (a@a.a), January 11, 2000.
The answer to your riddle 'aaa' is nuttin', zip, zilch, the null set, the distance between space, the 'r' in Washington, the logic in faith, the good outside God.
-- Michael (mikeymac@uswest.net), January 11, 2000.
Beerman-Of the original $30.00, the bellhop steals 2 bucks, which then means that $28.00 has been paid out of pocket by the group. Agreed? Which means they each paid $9.33~. I would post the formula proving that .999~ equals 1, but I don't remember it, I couldn't conjure it on this format, and I still don't quiiiiite believe it, even after all these years. {g}
So many good *fuzzy logic* points in this expose, but, so many points have been missed in this thread , that it is difficult to arrange. It reminds me a bit of the arguments for/against dialectical thinking.
There seems to be a gigantic time warp in some of the discussion. For example, what is relationship, in the term of mans existence here as a sentient being, and the proposed age of the universe in terms of today's reckoning of time passage (why now?)?
With some trepidation, I would offer the following; At some distant point, a conflagration broke out between beings that we call angels. Through the 'sides'chosing process, fully 1/3 of all the legions of spiritual beings were set aside. This left an inharmonious state in the realm. The Godhead, saddened by the hole left in paradise, chose a plan by where the hole would be refilled by beings of spirit that had made a "CHOICE!". They will attain a place in the reformed PERFECT paradise through trial-by-temptation, and choice. Once that exact number of beings is reached, the call home will be announced, the chaff will be discarded, and the gate (chasm) sealed forever.
In my limited ability to rationalize the unfathomable logic of God, the reason of man's mind, and seemingly irrefutable facts (i.e; the age disparity of man to universe, and no, I don't think it exists because we think it does), this seems a most plausible explanation by me and for me.
In other words "THIS IS A TEST, ONLY A TEST, BUT ONE THAT I HAD BETTER NOT FAIL!!" Actually, I cannot fail, it is just who I am.
IS- 1 billion, 6 billion, or 1 ?illlion similar, but wrong answers, can not confuse the (b)rightness of Him! No theurgy meant here, only the reflections of one of Gods rillstones.
-- Michael (mikeymac@uswest.net), January 11, 2000.
Michael,Each person paid 10 dollars for a total of $30.
of that 30 dollars: 25 went to the desk clerk 2 went to the bellhop 3 were returned to the hotel patrons.
In the end they paid a total of 27 dollars ($9 apiece) 2 dollars from that amount going to the bellhop.
Here's another one: There is a ship tied up in the harbor with a ladder going down the side into the water. Each rung on the ladder is a foot apart; the lower two rungs of the ladder are in the water. If the tide is coming in and the water level goes up at the rate of 6 inches per hour, how many rungs will be underwater after 4 hours?
-- BeerMan (frbeerman@juno.com), January 12, 2000.
To all, I've just now got free, so I will read and post my replies tomorrow.Thanks for the many contributions.
-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 12, 2000.
I think I am, therefore I am -- I think (?).
-- Lois Knorr (knorr@attcanada.net), January 12, 2000.
From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, CaliforniaWhy is a bicycle better than a Fararri?
-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), January 12, 2000.
Hi all:Well I've read through all the replies (I must say that this far more intelectually stimulating the endlessly debating why either a polly or doomer are stupid. Although the only reason I'm still on this board is to see what happens on Jan.31 may be we can morph the forum into something else when y2k dies down).
I am replying as I read the thread, so if I provide an answer to an issue that has already been given, please excuse me, as I don't know that as I draft by reading from top to bottom.
Beerman:
[I think it is a hasty generalization to assume that *all* Christianity is at fault for separating faith and reason.]
Point taken. When I made the statement I meant in general terms and was not as precise as I should have been to avoid misunderstanding, and you are correct.
[... where those who claim to be true scientists do not believe in God]
I always find these words interesting, in that although they portray a fundemental fact that the "secular" person states he does not believe in God because such beliefs are essentially irrational, fatalistic, ridculous etc. he nonetheless has a belief, and that is that God does not exist. He does not state he *knows* God does not exist. So although he accuses those of "believing" in God with faith (i.e. without proof) as irrational, he does exactly the same for his own belief as he as chosen it without proof as well. Lay that one on your "secular" friends the next time you have this debate with them.
[Pope John Paul II in "Fides et Ratio"]
Could you clarify what this quote means to you? I'd like to comment on it, but am afraid I may not have understood it correctly and would like to be sure first.
[The Catholic Church has always maintained that reason is not contrary to faith.] Then how does the Catholic Church reconcile the differences between science and many of the precepts of Christianity and passages in the Bible? Do you equate science with reason? Scientific discovery is the end result of systematic reasoning.
[St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that the light of reason and the light of faith both come from God, hence there can be no contradiction between them.] Ah, exactly as I know. Similar to what I said: both mirrors to the same reality. So tell me what did he do when scientific discoveries contradicted the Bible during his time? His proof of God's existence is essentially the same as what I state, in a nutshell because we are here, an analysis of the causes that led to us being here will always result in a first cause that required no cause before it.
I haven't studied Aristotle's philosophy too much. I find it far to complex for what is actually elegantly simple. Sort of like the old astronomers trying to use many convoluted circlular orbits to explain the very elegant and simple law Keppler, I believe, discovered.
Circle:
[I'm not saying that science is real, I'm just saying a leap of faith must be asserted if proof can be found.]
I disagree completely with both parts of this statement. Please explain to me in where in my proof a leap of faith is needed.
[The leap for me is simply believing that when you reason your logic to the edges, the edges return to the same point: recursive or as I like to call it the Wrap-Back Factor.}
Recursion does *not* wrap back. It is a mathematical concept that has as start and may or may not have an end. Get rid of your fixation to seeing everything in circles when examining information provided by others by polluting the argument with your own ideas. Examine the argument as presented and without adding novell elements of your own. This is completely out of line in debate. You require faith because your proof of God is contradictory. Your's is a theory like music of the spheres: it has merit until proven wrong. It is proven wrong because what I present, explains everything you attempt to and without contradiction and without faith.
[About science vs. religion: I believe all thought leads to the same basic ideas. There is an evolution to thought, science and reason. Science and religion are there for the same, as you state.]
I do not state they are are there for the same, I say they are not contradictory and are mirrors to the same reality. They have completely different purposes. Just as a beautiful painting and a beautiful mathematical formula have different purposes they are both beautiful.
[But I still hold that Man's mind an technology has a threshold in its ability to reason. Therefore, man will never be able to reason all the way to the edges of science, philosophy, religion, etc. ]
The first sentence is your opinion therefore you can not make the conclusion you do in the second sentance. The second sentence is also therefore your opinion.
As I have mentioned, I only discuss the issue here for the logic and reasoning in the debate. I choose specifically not to bring opinion into the debate so that we don't end up like the rest of TB2000, that is why I have not addressed, nor care about theology when proving God's existence or answering my original question "Why did God create things the way he did?" (which is a far more profound question than you can possibly imagine if you study it long enough on strictly logical grounds).
[But if you use Metaphor, which is not based in logical reason, you can find patterns. These patterns are sometime associated with science, but more so with art, poetry, and spirituality.]
You are confusing too many items. By definition a pattern is something that is regular and therefore can be explained with science and mathematics. No metaphors needed to understand patterns. There is no need to use metaphor. Metaphors are substiutions for reality. Why would you use metaphor to explain what is real (i.e. any item in the universe). You must Use the tools that explain reality. You may use metaphor to help those who don't understand the explaination without metaphor, but the true explaination that describe reality does not need metaphor to be able to be given.
[But now what you are going to do is to put the cart before the horse by having faith that certain spiritual outcomes will occur. You are going to ask yourself to believe that eternity exists after you die.]
You are stating that if I prove God exists then I'm going get other things mixed up (i.e. cart before the horse) and therefore I can't prove God exists. You now confuse theology with proof of God's existence. Why should I ask myself this question just because I prove God exists? The two are unrelated to each other and are independent of each. Just see: You may be curious about what happens when you die, but then again you might not. Please explain how my curiosity about the afterlife invalidates my proof about God's existence.
[Even if you prove it, you know as well as I do that the Chaos Theory states that in chaotic systems you can never determine the outcome X distance in time, because the complex system finds self-arranges itself.]
Excuse me, but please explain to me how you have come to determine that simple recursion is a a chaotic system?
[This whole example is dependent on the belief that your logic proves that God is eternal and you are part of God and thus eternal also.]
I don't follow, your example or my proof?
[BeerMan and I. Spectator: Another way to explain my point is through the ecosystem metaphor. Begin with a lichen. A li...]
Instead of giving us so many varieties of your theory, why don't you explain to us where I am wrong in my explaination and explain to us how your whole circle came into being to begin with? You must answer these questions with out any contradictions if your theory is to have any possibility of validity.
[... In this model, and where I put my faith, is...]
Also explain to me where my theory where faith is needed, and if you don't find any, explain to me which do accept in life, what is proven or what you think you'd just like to believe for the sake of it?
[God would still exist, because something must come from something]
Wrong, read this whole thread over, you're logic is flawed because you do not attempt to explain why something must come from something. You just state it as though it is fact. Please prove this. As I said my proof explains everything you choose to do without faith and only proven mathematics and logic. So I pose my question above again about what you do accept in life?
[BTW, this is the fundamental flaw with the Big Bang Theory, i.e. something comes from nothing].
Wrong. Who said the Big Bang said somthing came from nothing. It says there was a something that Banged and set the universe in motion. The question is where did the something that banged came from? That is where the scientists falter because the abandon their own tools of mathematics and logic simply because they don't like what the conclusion they provide. So they are scientists until their prejudices are manifest with their own tools, then they rant and rave like idiots about others having delusions.
[As you can see, I use similar logic to each of you, only I have determined that I must make a tiny leap of faith]
Sorry, but you're not using logic. Logic requires no faith. You use faith to show your arguements are correct.
With all due respect, I find your explaintions similar in vein to the astronomers of the past, that keep adding circle after circle to try and explain something very elegant and simple. I urge you to try and understand a very elegant proof that gives us everything, without contradiciton and without faith and thereby learn to go to the next level. By definition, logical proofs do not require faith or any leaps that are conviently added to overcome contradictions.
I urge to you consider what I have posted in this entire thread carefully. It may take many re-readings before you see the "light" but you will then see that the search for the True Reality must not be clouded in faith, for then many "reasonable" explaintions will be put forward all of which contradict each other but none of which explain the Truth since the Truth only requires one explaination and that explaination can not contain contradictions by defintion. In courts for example, when the truth of a matter is ascertained, all evidence is consistent with it and no matter what other explaintion or even false evidence is given, it will have to contradict the truth since the other exlainations are simply that other explainations, but not what actually happened.
None-the-less, although we disagree strongly on the issue, I respect you greatly for the thought you have put into these matters and obvious importance these issues are in your life. Such deliberations and thoughts in themselves, wheather right or wrong, are good as they reflect a desire to search for the Truth and just as all may not have success in this world, all may not find the Truth, but from a theological point of view, I know that the search itself is righteous and pure in the eyes of God.
Squid:
The original question is "Why did God create things the way he did?". Eve posed a dillema she had about how can God be both the begining and infinite. To explain that I needed to explain how God exists oustside space and time. This required a proof of Gods existence.
Beerman:
I agree with everything in your next post except the following statements:
[I do agree, Circle, that there are things that we can only know by faith and not by reason alone, such as "God is someone who loves" and "There are three persons in one God."]
There is no need for faith to know that God is someone who loves, or any other aspect of what is collectively known as "relgion". In fact faith never got most people to believe anything, it was the miracles performed by the Chosen Ones (i.e. the prophets, messengers and so forth) that convinced most people (which were the ones that believed nothing). These miracles were irrefutable to those who observed them. The people then *knew* God existed and what the chosen one said was true. This itself shows that even God expects you to *know* the things he wishes to teach you and the reason is simple, once you know something to be true, it can not be taken from you by anyone trying to convince you that you are incorrect or are misguided. Tell me just how many people are going to make any headway in convincing you that 2+2 is not equal to 4?
But just to answer your particular question, to know God loves you you have to prove that God exists, then you know he exists. The next step is to prove that his revelations are indeed his revelations and are unlatered or tampered with by man. You then only need to read them to *know* God is someone who loves.
WRT to There are three persons in one God, please see my earlier comments on this point.
Arthur:
You are providing opinion and theolgy to explain I am not sure what. I have nothing against either however I disagree with your comment:
[The subject on this thread is far to deep and immense to be able to do it justice easily and penetrate the veils of various established concepts.]
We engage in a very simple subject (although not my original one) and that is a logical proof that requires no faith that God exists. Not an attempt to explain his attributes or comphrend him, but just that he exists. This is a very simple task and was done in my first reply.
Patrick:
["Let Us make man in our image?"]
Do you believe in evolution? If so, what does "make" mean to you? And then, do you take "image" literally and to mean physical image?
Michael:
[IS- 1 billion, 6 billion, or 1 ?illlion similar, but wrong answers, can not confuse the (b)rightness of Him! No theurgy meant here, only the reflections of one of Gods rillstones.]
I'm sorry, but I don't understand this at all.
Eve:
You still here?
-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 12, 2000.
I think,therefore I am,I think?---Cardboard box Eddy While princes and the kings discuss what's real and what is not,it matters not inside the gates of Eden.--Robert Zimmerman
-- cardboard box eddy (struckdumb@suregettinheavy.com), January 12, 2000.
Interested Spectator:Hi again!
Let's assume for the moment that you are able to prove mathematically through your recursion argument that there had to be a cause outside the known universe that caused the universe.
How do you get from that to a proof that that first cause is God? Even if you can show that the first cause was God, how can you prove that that God presently exists?
I do want to reassert that I believe in God in a very abstract way. I also want to state that I believe that the existence of God cannot possibly be proved through reason; to me belief in God is based on faith, although I conduct all of the rest of my life through the use of reason.
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 12, 2000.
To all:To those who are not aware, we can continue the discussion after the thread drops off the end, through clicking on "New Answers" at the top, then scrolling down to this thread, etc.
We may not solve the existence and nature of God, the beginning and end of the universe, the infinite, the meaning of nature versus existence, the problems of time and cause and effect, and the truth of Christianity, Islam, Judaism and the other faiths in a hundred posts, but maybe we could do it in two hundred! So let's go for it! (but let me get some more coffee first)
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 12, 2000.
Hi, Patrick,I believe you're referring to certain Old Testament references to God where He speaks of Himself in the plural. As I recall, the Christian response to this is that these are early indications of the Trinity.
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 12, 2000.
This discussion has a long history. William of Occam (aka Ockham) took it up in the 14th century and got himself into deep trouble with the Church.In Joseph Campbell's Creative Mythology, (the last volume of his tetralogy, The Masks of God), he writes:
"...to imagine a creation (causality) and creator (First Cause) of the universe is only to project the categories of human experience and reason beyond their field; that is to say, to become in a rather refined way as guilty of anthropomorphism as any savage."And that exactly is what the Invincible Doctor, William of Occam, demonstrated in his own brilliant way in the early fourteenth century. By simply stating in so many words that there can be no abstractive cognition where there has not first been a perceptive cognition, Occam disqualified the application of concepts to the mystery called 'God.' Concepts are functions of the mind, i.e., of individual minds. They may be derived from and signify perceptions, perceptions of things in the field of space and time; or they may derive from and signify acts of the mind, the minds of thinking individuals; but in no case can they signify entities other than those in the mind or those perceived. The concept 'dog,' for example, is in the mind and signifies certain perceptions of creatures of a certain likeness outside. It cannot be assumed to signify some metaphysical quidditas, 'whatness,' or general substance DOG, as an idea in a 'divine' mind somewhere else, of which all the living and dead individuals classified by analogy as 'dog' are representations. 'Dragon,' 'angel,' and 'God,' on the other hand, find no referents outside of the mind. 'Essentia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem: Beings or essences are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.'"
More recently, the theoretical physicist David Bohm has written
"...if we regard our theories as 'direct descriptions of the world as it is', we will inevitably treat these differences and distinctions as divisions, implying separate existence of the various elementary terms appearing in the theory. We will thus be led to the illusion that the world is actually constituted of separate fragments, and...this will cause us to act in such a way that we do in fact produce the very fragmentation implied in our attitude to the theory." (in his Wholeness and the Implicate Order.)
-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), January 12, 2000.
"to be, or not to be, that is the question" ----- William Shakespear
-- hzlz (mph@netbox.org), January 12, 2000.
Tom,Re William of Occam's comment: Absolutely beautiful!
Interested Spectator,
Can you reply directly to this?
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 12, 2000.
I am wondering if there is a confusion--existance therefor creation? Because there exists a singularity it therefor is the creator of all that follows?
-- John Q (hmmmmm@home.com), January 12, 2000.
Circle,Thanks for your elaboration. You have an interesting perspective. I'm not able to go as far as you in explaining God, though. In any case, it appears we agree that the existence of God cannot be established through reason.
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 12, 2000.
BeerMan,Hi, thanks for being a part of this. Since you seem to feel that the existence of God can be established at least partly by reason, can you take a stab at my last post to Interested Spectator? Thanks,
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 12, 2000.
One would expect (though it is not logically certain) that the existence of 'God' or 'Creator' would deliver a universe whose patterns as discovered mathematically/scientifically would be compatible, AT LEAST, with inferring, if not proving the Creator's existence.However, the sheer otherness of that Being (if only the distinction between things 'created' and things 'uncreated' -- and, otherwise, we are looking at infinite regress) or Cause raises millenia-long questions as to how anything certain beyond the mere inference of the Creator's existence can be made ... not to mention how useful such an inference is to created beings.
Biblical thought (Jewish, as well as Christian) posits that the only means (but the sufficient means) for the Creator to make Himself known to creatures is through specific revelation-communication of His nature and purposes to them through a series of authenticated documents and direct communications. These communications are accompanied be varying authentications (though, by the nature of the case, they are not scientifically verifiable).
As for the use of 'science' itself in this respect or, even to some degree, mathematics, these are human endeavors that are driven intensely by finiteness. It is not trivial in this respect to compare Einstein with Newton. True, much that is Newtonian appears still to be thoroughly validated, though extended and transformed by Einstein. In turn, Einsteinian thought and its experimental validations point to something 'real', even though quantum theory turns quite a bit of it inside-out. And so it goes.
The fundamental nut is not so much whether 'something' uncreated exists. A surprising number of scientists are noodling towards this, based on a fresh reading of cosmic design and related matters, including mathematical ones that I doubt anyone on this thread (and certainly not myself) really understand.
The fundamental nut is whether or not this 'Cause' has a specific intent and purpose for us and how we would discover that reliably (not completely or perfectly, but reliably).
Personally, I have found a sensitive understanding of the biblical position on that to be the most credible one and my personal experience has validated its position quite remarkably over 27 years.
-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), January 12, 2000.
Tom Carey, Interested Spectator et al. -What a wonderful thread! This is why I keep coming back to TBY2K. So many excellent points to address, where to begin...
First, Tom Carey makes the excellent point that "Beings are not to be multiplied unnecessarily." However, in a very real sense, the existence of God is necessary. If God does not exist, then the Universe came into being through random and chaotic forces and man's apparent ability to reason was produced by these random forces. But if the forces that produce man's reasoning ability are random and chaotic, what guarentee do we have that the results of reasoned processes will not also be random and chaotic? We return to the original problem of how order could arise from disorder. To put it another way, if the universe has not been endowed with some inherent structure, then why should the movements in the mind of a confused ape correspond to reality? It seems to me that saying that God does not exist is tantamount to intellectual suicide. If I cannot say that reason corresponds to reality, then I have no way to think at all. So from a purely utilitarian standpoint I am forced to accept the existance of God.
Interested Spectator, I agree with your defense of the existance of God. However, your insistance on one God, indivisible, seems incorrect to me. IMO, the Christian Trinitarian view of God seems to be the most correct. Here's why.
The key is to understand God as a creator. Any creative act can be divided into 3 separate parts. First, the creator conceives of an idea. The idea as it exists in his head is perfect. Next, the creator attempts to execute his idea to the best of his ability in his chosen medium; be it paint, words, or even computer programming. Finally a spectator views the finished work and through the work comes to an understanding of the original idea.
Now, when you are reading a book, what is the book? Is it the original idea of the author? Or is it simply the words as they appear on the page? Or is it what you get out of the ideas as presented in the book? In reality, a book is all three things, hopelessly interwoven. You cannot separate the one from the others without losing (not loosing) the other things.
It is the same way with God. One God, but three distinct parts. The first is God the Father. He is the motive force, the planner, the source. The second is God the Son. He is the "the Word made flesh", the human incarnation of God. Finally, there is the Holy Spirit, who is the method whereby we communicate with God and come to a greater understanding of God.
Finally, there seems to be some great confusion as to the cause of the Dark Ages. There seems to be some idea that Christianity caused the misery and rejection of reason that occured during that period of time and that it was only with the reacceptance of reason and scientific methods that we were able to fight our way out of the Dark Ages into the modern world.
This is a wonderful story, its only drawback is that it simply isn't true. With the collapse of the Roman Empire, various barbarian and pagan tribes began to conquer all of Europe. Christianity declined in power and importance and was reduced to a few monastaries scattered throughout Europe, but concentrated mostly in Ireland. The monks of Ireland made copies of the ancient learning of civilization (Christian and non-Christian) and eventually spread it back to the whole world.
The Christians preserved the knowladge and culture of the world against the barbarians. It seems rather hard to say that Christianity wants to take us all back to the Dark Ages when its the only thing that got us out of them. Religion might exist without science, but it is a simple historical fact to say that science in its present form could not exist without religion.
On a final note, there seems to be an idea that science and religon are incompatible. Most of the arguments are of the type that science "proves the bible wrong".
Anyone who has read the Bible should be able to see how ridiculous this statement is; its like saying that science has proved Shakespeare wrong. eg when Shakespeare wrote that sleep "knits up the ravelled sleeve of care" he was not knowladgeable of the latest scientific advances which have demonstrated that "care" is a mental concept and has nothing to do with knitting. Many of the passages in the Bible are difficult and obscure. It is not always immediately obvious when the words are meant litarally or figuartively. Understanding the Bible is a humbling task and many intelligent people disagree about what it all means.
And when people say that science and religion are incompatible, I believe it is our duty to find and resolve those differences. There can be only one Truth, one reality. And on a more minor note it is my conviction that the Christian worldview most perfectly conforms to that reality.
-- John Ainsworth (ainsje00@wfu.edu), January 12, 2000.
"...to imagine a creation (causality) and creator (First Cause) of the universe is only to project the categories of human experience and reason beyond their field; that is to say, to become in a rather refined way as guilty of anthropomorphism as any savage."What he said.
Interested Spectator, I find your recursion argument a variation on a well argued theme - one that stems from the human need to provide a "why" when there is only guaranteed a "how."
Science can increasingly describe how the universe was created. In the language of science, how == why. But most people seem to not see it that way, and that perception is based on the projection of their emotional motivations on the universe; "There must be a "why" the universe was created, because there is a "why" for almost everything I, myself, do." The recursion concept has been brought up many times before, in slightly different forms, simply to try to account for this missing "why".
It could be that the universe is ultimately just a closed system of increasing and decreasing entropic cycles. This system can be described very nicely in the languages of math and physics without needing a creator. When the "why" gets thrown in there, seductive and warm sounding as it is, things like your recursion theory start to make sense because the view of the universe becomes corrupted by our anthopormorphic projections based on our perceptions, our senses, and our emotional needs.
Now, that being said, we are very, very far from being able to describe in detail the entropic-cycle model of the universe I mention above. So you could maintain there is still a lot of room for God, as they say, in the details. Until the "how" is really described and mathematically proven, I'd say your recursion viewpoint is as valid as any other position I've seen.
On that note, one possibility that I find rather depressing is the speculation that the universe is not only more complex than we can currently describe, it is more complex than we can possibly ever describe. You cannot teach calculus to a chimp, no matter how hard you try - maybe we just don't have the wiring/intelligence to every be able to fully grog the universe from a scientific standpoint, at least without evolving or modifying ourselves physically over a great span of time. I think I first saw this idea proposed in Scientific American by a physical theorist, forget who, and it always bugged me. You'd like to think that we as a species might be close to some big answers, but there's always a possibility that's not in the cards.
Anyway, great thread, glad I stopped in here...
-- Bemused (glancing@the.absolute), January 12, 2000.
John,Welcome!
The first section of your post on order versus randomness was beautifully put, and for the most part I agree.
However, your comment on the Trinity leaves me wondering: If Jesus was the human incarnation of God, who did he pray to at Gesthemane? And who did he cry out to on the cross? (I don't have a Bible with me, but it started, "Eloi, Eloi...")
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 12, 2000.
Bemused,Hi! Thanks for stopping in.
Please keep in mind that Interested Spectator's recursion argument, assuming it can be proved, only gets to a first cause -- I think you still have to make a leap of faith to get from there to God.
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 12, 2000.
Eve -- Whereas today's ambitious minds tend to enter technology or science fields, there were entire centuries where those minds focused on just these questions. After exhaustive (and exhausting) thought, the church generally decided that the trinitarian question could not be resolved rationalistically (which is not the same as reasonably).They concluded that Christ's deity and humanity were both perfect- whole within him but distinct. Fundamentally, they tried most (all?) other possible solutions to the dilemma of denying/mixing/exalting either the divine and/or the human against each other and found all of them to be radically contradictory to the scriptural data.
Consequently, Jesus in the garden, acting truly (that is, not in a "seeming" way but actually) AS man on our behalf, and emptying Himself of His rightful claim (in that sense and respect) to divine power/being, prayed to His Father - God AS Father. This doesn't mean He stopped BEING God at that moment but that He acted distinctly as man.
Hidden in these declarations are millenia-long Jewish and Christian convictions about the independent integrity of the human with respect to the "divine" (boundaries: something Eastern thought disputes), though, of course, most Jewish thought finds trinitarianism idolatrous (along with Islam).
-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), January 12, 2000.
Eve -Glad to be here.
I had to go back and check the bit you are talking about in Mark. It says: Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?
Who was he calling? In the next verse, it says that some people there think he was talking to Elijah. And if I understand your point, you're saying that it's ridiculous for God to talk to himself. It's just unnecessary, right?
Here's a traditional Christian understanding. When Christ was dying on the cross, he took on all of the sins of the world. When this transfer took place, Jesus, the perfect incarnation of God, became imperfect and separated from God. God rejected God. And in his pain and shock at the rejection by God, Jesus cried out. And, strangely enough, I believe that in that instant God knew what it was like to be an atheist. The knowledge that he was totally alone and that no divine being was out there to save him.
-- John Ainsworth (ainsje00@wfu.edu), January 12, 2000.
Hi all:We seem to be attracting quite a crowd here and the volume of material is increasing greatly. The problem is that I only have a limited amount of time to dedicate to this board, so I will respond at the end of each day to all the posts between my own.
I have many comments to all that was provided since my post last night, so don't worry you'll get the replies you ask for.
-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 12, 2000.
John, that is not a traditional Christian understanding of Christ in Gethsemane whatsoever, not even a little bit.You can disagree (that's different), but don't call it traditional.
The classic even-till-today orthodox Christian understanding (held by Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Christians alike) is that Jesus NEVER became "imperfect", even for a minute or "symbolically" or "spiritually" or any other such thing -- that is precisely what believers spent over a century trying to articulate, which they finally did with the teaching about the the trinity.
-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), January 12, 2000.
I am still wondering how so many people were decieved in this y2k plot and why? In down to earth simple answer.Where was the whisel bloweres?Maybe there will be more cases like this. I can't go along with we lucked out.Luck is what you make it.
-- still (wondering@2323.com), January 12, 2000.
Eve, Eve, Eve, what have you done (for those who don't know she invited the world to join us in aother thread)? :)Well now that the cat's out of the bag, let me weigh in with some ground rules since I initiated the debate and also seem to be the one under primary attack here (from both camps: believers and non-believers - what was I thinking:)), as it appears I am the only one defending my position (that one can indeed proove God exists, and that such a proof exists and therefore one need not believe God exists but know that he exists) from all manner of quotes from time immemorial, rather than any new fresh thinking along these lines to re-examine the past statements and put them through a new lens of scrutiny, except possibly from Eve who asks questions rather then re-hash history, allow me to set down a few rules for the thread:
1. The thread's topic is can one proove that God exists?
Very closely related and almost identical (I don't want to committ that it is identical as I have not thought about it sufficiently to make a concrete statement) is the issue that one needs faith and not pure logic and science to know/believe that God exists.
2 We will not debate theology as that is not germane to the discussion, since it requires faith to begin with.
3. We will not debate the nature of God as that is not germane to the discussion. Being able to prove something exists is not dependent on understanding its nature. (Notwithstanding this, I'll not hesitate to take some jabs at the concept of the trinity :), although I'd much prefer to discuss that one issue in a separate thread)
4. Any who wish to weigh in, should provide arguments, and also answer questions directed to them by previous argument. Otherwise this is not a debate but a monologue, as previous issues are not addressed but ignored. The conclusion can only be that those to whom the question is posed choose not to answer under the assumption that they have been "check mated". I.E. "No comment" is not an acceptable response in debate.
I might add a couple of more ground rules, if they strike me.
I am also going to state that I am not asking for consensus on these, and *if* we find the thread's "noise" level, of every other debate that gets started by those who don't wish to follow these rules, gets out of hand those who wish to continue to debate with me the specific topic under discussion, are welcome to join me *in a new thread that we will start at that time*.
-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 12, 2000.
Just to clarify my last post, and to give appropriate credit where it is due so not to have people think I'm re-writing history, Snooze button started the original discussion about the media, but the current debate the thread is in was started by me.
-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 12, 2000.
One last clarification, Eve started a new thread to invite the world to join us *here*. :)
-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 12, 2000.
BigDog -I said _a_ traditional. I certainly don't pretend to know all of the various controversies and resolutions to the controversies. I've grown up Protestant and that was what I remember hearing. And as for Catholics holding not this view, I took the understanding pretty much straight from Orthodoxy< /a> by G. K. Chesterton, a Catholic apologist (among other things) in the early 1900's. (do a Ctrl+F search on Gethsemane and you'll find the part I'm talking about)
That being said, I don't disagree with you that Christ was all God and all man. However, I see very little way to reconcile what you say with Isaiah 53:6 or 2 Corinthians 5:21.
Oswald Chambers writes more about it here
I'm not trying to jump all over your beliefs here. As I said earlier, the Bible is a very difficult book to understand, and I don't pretend to know what it all means, that's just what these things seem to be saying.
-- John Ainsworth (ainsje00@wfu.edu), January 12, 2000.
Interested Spectator -Sorry about that last bit, I'll follow the ground rules. BigDog, if you want to talk more about this, I'll join you on another thread.
-- John Ainsworth (ainsje00@wfu.edu), January 12, 2000.
John, Big Dog, et al,Please don't leave us!
Interested Spectator,
I beg to differ.
First of all, I don't see one debate; I see many going on simultaneously. And I see no point in limiting it to anything narrower than philosophy and religion. People do seem to be doing a very good job of recognizing this and limiting the discussions to those areas. I see us as here to enjoy ourselves, not to have to conform to a tight debate structure.
Further, many sub-topics tend to tie in to each other in suble ways; so let us please keep it all in one spot.
I hope you understand.
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 12, 2000.
John,I'll try to reply to your last post about the Trinity soon, but I need to tell you now that I do not in any way regard anything in this entire thread (other than intentional off-the-wall humor and other stuff) as ridiculous, including the Trinity. People have spent much time and thought into coming to their opinions, and the Bible can be interpreted in ways not obvious to me; I respect those things.
Please be more careful in rephrasing my (and others') comments!
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 12, 2000.
Eve -I didn't take what you said to be insulting, sorry if it came back that way. I was just using ridiculous rhetorically. Did I understand the question right though?
-- John Ainsworth (ainsje00@wfu.edu), January 12, 2000.
Int. Spec. -I agree with the point of your argument, but to play in a very real sense the devils advocate...Why should the universe conform to the rules of mathmatical regression? It is no answer to say that the universe has a fundamental order, because that presupposes design, and design presupposes God. Furthermore, even mathmatics itself is suspect since Godel showed that there is no way for mathamatics to demonstrate that it is non-contradictory.
Also, by your argument you have set up two possiblities for the existance of the universe. By saying that God is the source for all the universe, aren't you just a priori assuming what you set out to prove?
Finally, by what authority do you reason? Why should the movements of your mind correspond to any reality? If God does not exist then your mind was formed by random and chaotic forces. Garbage In, Garbage Out. The only reason for your logic to have validity is if the universe is logical. This presupposes a design etc. etc.
More if I can think of them.
Anyway, I have to say that I think belief in God is a reasonable and necessary thing, but it still requires faith. Faith can be reasonable and necessary though, like having faith that the car in the other lane, coming right for you, won't swerve across the double yellow line and hit you. You have faith, but reasonable faith in a common instinct for self-preservation, and in the certainties of experience.
-- John Ainsworth (ainsje00@wfu.edu), January 12, 2000.
John,Thanks for clarifying your use of that word. Sorry, I didn't mean to rake you over the coals on it; I guess I'm sensitive about some things. And you seem to have gotten my point on the Trinity, but I can't respond yet, as I'm going to be busy for awhile now, today. I'll try to get back to you, and others, this evening if I can.
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 12, 2000.
EveThanks for alerting some of us to this thread. Fascinating! unfortunately it is getting a bit bulky :o)
In all this "speculation" there is very little discussion on the noticeable observations on what the effects of "God" are in regards to the "logic' of there being a God. I for one do not need faith to believe in "God" (I prefer higher intelligence).
It appears that there is a "timescape" as well as a "landscape" identified by Chaos Theory. From whence does this "timescape" come from? These are even more important than whether there is a God or not. The idea is to get out of the box and look at the infinite, cause that is where you will find the "mind of God".
The trouble is that the "infinite" doesn't come easy in this JIT day and age.
Otherwise I thought that I would add a few comments on the above discussion.
Interested Spectator
Just a comment about Factorial, I noticed you used whole numbers which is common in Quantum Physics in describing properties of fundamental particles but in the case of Quarks, they are measured in fractions. A weird little universal oddity. Don't really know if the "Factorial" definition would apply to this.
Interesting site and a pictorial view of Particle Physics
The Standard Model of Fundamental Particles and Interactions
As to where "God" may "reside" one might want to consider a Black Hole, a condensed star that "falls" out of our universe and can't be measured or defined. If it is not in our universe where is it?
The Factorial representation seems to correspond to General Systems theory of processes in that the previous level (like light) is integral to the next level (quantum particles, atomic structure, molecular structure)
As far as the trinity goes it would be most commonly observed by looking at earth man and spirit. Earth - all the physical properties, Man - all life, Spirit - that which is universal and infinite.
While logic has its place I do believe it is limiting, as "God" is an artist (the creator) one must also view the discussion subjectively, concepts such as love can't be quantified (as many other concepts can't) once you move past the point of measurement, logic is only for Vulcan's.
If one views "God" as an artist and we are works of art then you have to apply conditions that are very subjective yet very real to humans. One would be to let your creation stand on its own, you don't "own" it or control the final outcome or the evolution of the creation will be unnatural.
To put this in another view, as an artist I have no control of my& nbsp; evolution, it controls and teaches me, as soon as I control it, my art will not involve the creation of myself. In some manner this may mean that as well as God creating ourselves we are also in the process of evolving "God" to a higher level.
Having been an artist for 23 years it would be hard to apply proof to this apparently subjective statement but it is reality in my world view.
The objective (logic) and the subjective (meaning) have to coexist, one can't really cancel the other out as they are both involved with the universal whole.
And to those folks that like to look at a deeper meaning and the edges of science check out
Welcome to the Online Course in Systems Theory, Self-Organization, and Constructivism!