another theistic proof

alas, you decided. you did. it’s all you. nothing else. your mind. that’s it. outside of your mind, that concept does not exist.

-Imp

It’s as if you said that what I do not think of does not exist. There is a reality in itself that I discover, and don’t create. If it holds true for the material world, why cannot it hold true for the logical world? There is some strange world, out there, and necessity is its stuff. :sunglasses:

but it exists outside of language

-Imp

Imp,

“but it exists outside of language”

You are coming perilously close to arguing Negative Theology here. :slight_smile:

Dunamis

Haha I was wondering when someone was going to use this phrase. The thinking man’s insult. :sunglasses:

Regards,

James

James,

The thinking man’s insult.

Only when offered to an athiest’s argument (I assume Imp is an athiest). It might otherwise be considered a compliment.

Dunamis

assumption is the mother of all fuck ups…

there is just as much evidence for the existence of god as there is for the non-existence of god… none…

I remain an agnostic… once more to paraphrase soren, “of that which one cannot speak, one should remain silent…”

-Imp

Imp,

there is just as much evidence for the existence of god as there is for the non-existence of god… none…

Awsome. So you are arguing Negative Theology.

Dunamis

define negative theology

-Imp

edit: if you mean : from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology

Negative theology, also known as the Via Negativa (Lat. for “Negative Way”) and Apophatic theology, is a theology that attempts to describe God by negation, to speak of God only in terms of what may not be said about God. In brief, the attempt is to gain and express knowledge of God by describing what God is not, rather than by describing what God is.

Adherents of negative theology hold that God, by definition, is that which is utterly beyond this universe and outside the bounds of what humans can understand. Rather than producing straightforward, positive assertions about the nature of God, it speaks by way of negation. Examples of the kinds of statements made by those adhering to negative theology include:

One should not say that God exists in the usual sense of the term; nor should we say that God is nonexistent. We can only say that neither existence nor nonexistence applies to God, or that God is beyond existing or not existing.

no, we can’t even say that

One should not say that God is One, but rather one can say that there is no multiplicity in God’s being.

no, we can’t even say that

One should not say that God is wise, but we can say that God is not ignorant.

no, we can’t even say that

God is not a creation (i.e. God is uncreated).

no, we can’t even say that

God is not conceptually definable in terms of space and location.
God is not conceptually confinable to assumptions based on time.

no, we can’t even say that

In other words, God’s essence cannot be spoken of, and may be described as ineffable. It can only be compared to what it is not. In this view, it is not necessary or even possible to know the essence of God; knowledge of God is true knowledge, when it is limited to what is revealed, and does not presume to venture beyond this.

no, we can’t even say that

In the apophatic view, any description of the nature of God which makes “positive” statments about what God is runs the risk of being false, idolatrous, and even blasphemous.

why would I care?

It is worth noting that the apaphatic tradition is often allied with or expressed in tandem with the approach of mysticism, which focuses on a spontaneous or cultivated individual experience of the divine reality beyond the realm of ordinary perception, an experience often unmediated by the structures of traditional organized religion.

mystics can go fly as well…

That you can only speak of God, by that which cannot be said. It is aligned with mysticism. God lies outside of conception.

Dunamis