your post truly made me think… You went beyond the typical rigamorale.
I think this is subjective, and should be subject to skepticism. To me, saying that there is a greater purpose is raising the human position higher. It’s the height of egotism.
let me put forward an example I used before. Let’s say that we have two people. One person believes in the type of god you do, the other is a secularist. Both are presented with a situation where they have an opportunity to help someone. Both people help that person. The secularist believes in helping out others… “it could be me in that boat someday!”. The deist, states “God loves all of us equally.”, “It’s important to help others to raise the purity of the soul.”
Are both acts equally selfless? Both in a way have a hint of selfishness to them. The secularist is concerned about a future time when he could be needy. The deist is concerned about purifying the souls of man. (or something similiar.)
Sense and goodness are of utmost importance to me… let’s consider life like legos (an analogy I’m fond of.) to me god is one of those damned blocks that are amorphic and can’t have anything stuck to them. We try sticking reason to it, but it falls of. There’s no reason to believe in god, there’s no reasonable proof for god. We try sticking time to god, but the god block melts the time block as they are completely incompatible. We try sticking on the block of faith to help us believe and the faith block helps the god block change into something more useable. Then we stick the reason block on on the faith block. And from there we attach other things important to us.
First and foremost, reason and god are only joined by faith. Faith is anti-reason.
God has a mind? It seems to me if god had half a mind, he’d still find the stuff in the bible objectionable.
yes, god provided the sacrifice. All was good. Again your missing the point though… what kind of god, tests you by telling you to sacrifice your son for him?
Maybe the kind of god who sees you send your other child (Ishmael) out into the desert (certain death) with nothing but a flask of water – because your wife told you to – while you still have God’s promise that that second child (Isaac, “the one whom you love”) will give you descendants someday.
(In addition, St. Paul says Abraham had faith that God could raise his son from the dead: a type for Christ.)
:D/ Yeah, what he said. (A very different argument!)
My position would be that free will happens if there is a spiritual order, and if there is only a material order it seems our actions would be bound by determinacy. I think that position is compatible with his argument.
Always gratifying to know that my ramblings are somehow able to achieve a status higher than “typical rigmarole.†A lucky stroke no doubt.
I would think the opposite. One becomes quite humbled when one begins to seriously contemplate the idea of a Creator, something much larger than oneself, much larger than mankind. Humbled further upon considering the idea of being a creation of this Creator, belonging in a very real sense to Him, and therefore at His mercy and at His service.
I can imagine if one were an atheist then, yes, claiming that there’s a greater purpose would seem egotistical. Mainly because there’s no legitimate reason to believe in a greater purpose if you’re an atheist. Egotism would be the only explanation. But believing in God, and therefore a higher purpose to the universe, and mankind’s role in it, seems to follow fairly logically, no?
I won’t argue about the subjectivity however. Yes, it is subjective to say that a higher purpose is a positive thing. Maybe for some it’s a negative thing. Maybe it’s scary as hell. I don’t know. I can only speak for myself.
I have no problem with this. Yes, I would think there’s a hint of selfishness in both motivations. This idea of selflessness is problematic for me. I’m not sure being a deist (I think we want to actually use the word “theist” here, don’t we?) necessarily equates to selflessness. I’m not sure it should quite frankly.
No reason to believe in God? But I see evidence everywhere I look. And the great philosophers of the ages have argued this very point. We’re not going to solve it here, Scythe. If, as an example, we take one piece of evidence, namely love, then it seems to me that one’s choice is either to believe that it is “here†for us to tap into, something larger than ourselves, something apart from ourselves, something important and somehow meaningful, something palpable and significant - or one believes that love is nothing more than chemical processes in an individual’s brain, separate and apart from anybody else’s reality, triggered by electrical impulses, the end result of centuries of evolutionary processes and genetic mutations.
The issue has been debated from Plato on down. One makes one’s choice as to which scenario is more reasonable and which scenario strains reason. I have made my choice in the matter. But, again, my purpose here is not to make a claim that my way of thinking is any more reasonable. I have no interest in “winning†people to my side. I would just suggest to you that my life has been quite different since I made the choice I made.
But remember, my original reason to post on this thread was merely to introduce the idea that perhaps God is not so anthropomorphic in nature as what Mr. Kebop seemed to imply when he started the topic. That’s all I really wanted to throw out there. Atheists often tilt at straw men. A being (I hesitate to even use that word) with the ability to create something as vast and wonderful as the universe will necessarily be a bit tough to pin down. Doesn’t mean God doesn’t exist. Just means that maybe we need to be careful as to what descriptions we use.
i agree with that completely, i was speaking of God as a clockmaker to dispel the idea that the world was deterministic, and speaking of him anthropomorphically because that is how many people view God and it is easier to explain to them that the world is not deterministic in this way.
in my personal opinion God (if he exist) would be something so impossible to describe or worship. God…impossible to begin to describe, anything you say is simply bound within the human condition, what makes you think that you are fit to begin to interpret God? God would have to be completely non-anthropomorphic; so then we say God is simply this ‘spiritual’ essence (or whatever you say to describe him), but when we begin to describe immediately becomes anthropomorphic because we are talking about how God relates to humanity.
and if you say God can be determinstic…i simply dont believe it to be possible, God is not anything like humans, he is obviously above us.
We can accept the idea that a ‘creator’ (in the anthopormorphic sense) is not possible, but for some reason we still believe that we are creations of God and he loves us or some bullshit.
i still believe its possible that there is a God, because im open to allota possibilities, but i really have a hard time believing in God.
the only God there could be to me is God in the sense that He is literally the entire, infinite universe. and that we are actually part of God, we interact with God everyday.
some religious people would say “Yes, of course, we are all part of God, yes we are interacting and experiencing God.”
well yeah that may be true. but God…its exactly what you see, God is not your omnipotent buddy. he is simply the chaotic universe that you live in.
Ah, but this opens up a host of possibilities does it not? Being a part of God, interacting with God, experiencing God, all of this might just hint perhaps at a kind of partnership of sorts, especially when one considers this idea of a chaotic universe. Perhaps one can postulate a purpose for mankind here…
Hi, scythekain. Sorry I haven’t responded. I wasn’t sure I had enough substance to…
First, my comment was meant to point out that just because some effect in the brain is materially the firing of synapses, does not immediately tell us whether the agent cause is within us or without us.
As to your common sense weekend, many of those things might actually be possible someday – at least they aren’t intrinsically self-contradictory. But, yes, they are not likely, which is what I think of the view of God in that cult you were raised in. At least, I know of at least one Catholic philosopher who argues that God is not a physical body. newadvent.org/summa/100301.htm
(Did you make good gas milage to the unicorn farm?)
yes it does, and i have though about these possibilities for awhile. like a cause and effect system where humans take action and the universe responds.
but why would the universe [god] respond to human actions? how does morality play into all of this?
the only so called ‘purpose’ of humanity brought up by most religions is that man must follow the rules and if they do then they get into heaven.
that is not a purpose.
that is shit.
So if indeed the universe is God then what difference does it make what i do here on this earth, how would my actions determine my afterlife?
what other purpose could the universe have for humankind.
it would be really cool if you had even a shitty answer to the whole universe’s purpose for mankind, even if you just had a stupid theory it would be interesting to see what you have to say about that.
You’re in luck, Mr. Kebop. For I am the master of shitty answers and stupid theories.
Purpose, eh?
What’s the purpose of a rose?
What would happen if we began to contemplate the universe as something that just is? Not a means to an end, but an end in and of itself. What if we stopped considering purpose in our lives and began to consider living? What would change, do you think?
Angels fly because they take themselves lightly – G.K. Chesterson
Sure what we do makes a difference. It makes a difference to our lives. And living is an end in and of itself. Living is creating. Maybe that’s the ultimate truth. We are creative instruments of the one great Creator. There is something of God in you. There is something of God in all of us.
You have a brush in your hand, Mr. Kebop. Best set about painting your canvas.
Maybe. Maybe slaves to chance and random events. But free in how we react to events and in how we govern ourselves.
(oops…by your definition that sounded preachy again. Damn. Here I am freely conveying my opinion on a philosophy board when apparently I have no right to do so. Sorry. I’ll go away).
I didn’t say you haven’t the right to post your opinions. Say what you will. I just wish you could explain me what your “god” is when I am astonished at how profoundly you “believe” in him…
I’m a panentheist. I believe the universe is an extension of God. How I came to so profoundly believe this is a long and tortuous story the details of which I have no interest in sharing. My only interest in this thread was to put forth the idea that there might be different ways other than anthropomorphism to consider God.
I’m a panentheist. I believe the universe is an extension of God. How I came to so profoundly believe this is a long and tortuous story the details of which I have no interest in sharing. My only interest in this thread was to put forth the idea that there might be different ways other than anthropomorphism to consider God.
the details of which should be important if you really think your “belief” is something deserving of respect.
But since you clearly have no real understanding of it, but is demonstrating that same old need to believe in something even if this “something” is just a set of words…
and I doubt sincerely that you yourself also do not conceive god anthropormorphously…I love freedom, my god loves freedom too…
