Religious Beliefs

fife

Yesterday when i went home i decided that i didn't want to do my errand that i had plan because i was thinking about looking at definition. I decided to go back to my old philosophy books because i remember i theory that maybe of interest in this thread. in philosophy terms this is called an ontological argument. I won;t get into all of the background but basically what it tried to do is prove god's existence. the first principle is that we first really define what we mean by god.

the definition that Anselm (who is the philosopher who came up with this idea) uses is that "god" is that "which nothing greater can be conceived"

the argument goes on for a while but i am really more interested in its definition. this definition really follows the line of thought that I have seen posted here. it makes god characteristics subjective while at the same time as proving "gods" existence. with this definition, god, can be a "religious god" " a "big bang theory" "crack" "beer". anything that can be conceived as the greatest.

I have some issues with this theory but wondering what other think about it?

redrock

The ontological argument is an interesting one but one that I find flawed (listen to me... tackling the big philosophers!). Though again, depending on the defintion of god, the argument is different. Anselm's definition is very different to say, Descartes. Descartes' god is perfection (though he was also into this argument). Perfection can be many things, not just 'god' (as most people here would understand a god). Anyway, whatever definition of god, I feel that this argument uses the 'absence of evidence' theory - it's a priori. Starting off with Anselm's definition of god, ("which nothing greater can be conceived"), he works on the fact that if you can't conceive anything greater, then it must exist. No research, no nothing. Layman's words to explain my thoughts, I'm afraid.

EmBleve

The Waiting Trophy Man wrote:

EmBleve wrote:

Re: the waiting trophy man:

did not address the issue of proof."

***Lastly, I said faith was ignorance and that believing in an outdated concept and in a superior being that controls our destiny was foolishness. I did think about it before I said it and after I said it I didn't regret having said it - and I still don't. ***

I was paying attention, I know what you said, and I can post comments anywhere I like just as you can. Essentially you called anyone that has 'faith' (in accordance with your definition) ignorant, and you assumed that anyone with said faith believes in a superior being that 'controls our destiny' (which is not part of my personal beliefs, and is not part of my definition of 'faith'-I take responsibility for my own destiny) is foolish. I'm not dealing with you anymore because you are a drag.

EmBleve

pandora wrote:

God is personal no wonder we don't all have the same version!

Fear the number one killer of love. Lets put them away and learn to love each other
and try to understand we are not really different at all.

yes. And the Golden Rule are certainly words to aspire to.

fife

redrock wrote:

The ontological argument is an interesting one but one that I find flawed (listen to me... tackling the big philosophers!). Though again, depending on the defintion of god, the argument is different. Anselm's definition is very different to say, Descartes. Descartes' god is perfection (though he was also into this argument). Perfection can be many things, not just 'god' (as most people here would understand a god). Anyway, whatever definition of god, I feel that this argument uses the 'absence of evidence' theory - it's a priori. Starting off with Anselm's definition of god, ("which nothing greater can be conceived"), he works on the fact that if you can't conceive anything greater, then it must exist. No research, no nothing. Layman's words to explain my thoughts, I'm afraid.

While I agree that the argument is not great. i do find some faults in your posting. the first issue is around your statement around " perfection can be many things, not just "god" (as most people here would understand a god)" I agree that many people here (and when i say here ,I mean the world not the board) do not follow this line or thought but i am not looking to prove that people believe of god is the right one. I am trying to prove god existence.

the second issue i have is your assertion that " he works on the fact that if you can't conceive anything greater, than it must exist" in reality, would you not say that existence is greater than non-existence? is 1 million dollar in reality not better than 1 million dollars in your imagination? I would.

redrock

fife wrote:

While I agree that the argument is not great. i do find some faults in your posting. the first issue is around your statement around " perfection can be many things, not just "god" (as most people here would understand a god)" I agree that many people here (and when i say here ,I mean the world not the board) do not follow this line or thought but i am not looking to prove that people believe of god is the right one. I am trying to prove god existence.

.

Before you can prove god's existence, you need to agree what god is/which god it is and why you are calling it god. Or you make your own assumption and you start your investigation based on this assumption (which many philosophers have done with different starting points). But then your investigation will only be valid for your base assumption. If you take Decartes (and others) and his 'perfection' argument. What is perfection? What are the criteria? Can anything deemed perfect be a god? If, potentially, ALL agree that something is perfect, then I think one could possibly prove that 'god' does exist in this 'something' . But there are way too many assumptions to be made and what are the chances that all are in agreement? . Infinite parameters, really. Then one works on probabilities. At the moment, it would seem there is evidence of absence when it comes to god, but this is the god as in christian religion/teachings, whatever. So really, doesn't prove/disprove anything as it hasn't been universally agreed that this entity as described is 'the' god.

fife wrote:

the second issue i have is your assertion that " he works on the fact that if you can't conceive anything greater, than it must exist" in reality, would you not say that existence is greater than non-existence? is 1 million dollar in reality not better than 1 million dollars in your imagination? I would.

[/quote]
Definitely - primacy of existence!

Godfather.

By the time most of you find the answers to Gods existence it may be to late, Gods love is free so why wouldn't everybody want it ? is it pride or are some people just so smart that they can only believe what they have decided is the truth , it's everyones own choice to make so roll the dice if thats your game.
Imagine standing in front of our Lord and Savior on judgment day and knowing up to that very second you didn't believe, pretty scary thought.

Godfather.

redrock

Godfather. wrote:

By the time most of you find the answers to Gods existence it may be to late, Gods love is free so why wouldn't everybody want it ? is it pride or are some people just so smart that they can only believe what they have decided is the truth , it's everyones own choice to make so roll the dice if thats your game.
Imagine standing in front of our Lord and Savior on judgment day and knowing up to that very second you didn't believe, pretty scary thought.

Godfather.

Scary to you, maybe. But for those who don't believe in a judgmental and punishing/rewarding god who will decide if you live an afterlife in bliss or oblivion, it really doesn't matter. It's your fears brought on by your beliefs. You say god's love is free - so is his wrath.

ed243421

Godfather. wrote:

By the time most of you find the answers to Gods existence it may be to late, Gods love is free so why wouldn't everybody want it ? is it pride or are some people just so smart that they can only believe what they have decided is the truth , it's everyones own choice to make so roll the dice if thats your game.
Imagine standing in front of our Lord and Savior on judgment day and knowing up to that very second you didn't believe, pretty scary thought.

Godfather.

bout as scary as santa not getting me a gift for the last 30 years

if god's love is free
how could it ever be to late to find him?
interesting how his love expires upon your death

Godfather.

ed243421 wrote:

Godfather. wrote:

By the time most of you find the answers to Gods existence it may be to late, Gods love is free so why wouldn't everybody want it ? is it pride or are some people just so smart that they can only believe what they have decided is the truth , it's everyones own choice to make so roll the dice if thats your game.
Imagine standing in front of our Lord and Savior on judgment day and knowing up to that very second you didn't believe, pretty scary thought.

Godfather.

bout as scary as santa not getting me a gift for the last 30 years

if god's love is free
how could it ever be to late to find him?
interesting how his love expires upon your death

odd coming from you Ed, gifts don't always come in box's with bows Ed you know that
if you're waiting for Santa to bring you the gift you've been waiting for you're in the wrong line.

Godfather.

The Waiting Trophy Man

EmBleve wrote:

I'm not dealing with you anymore because you are a drag.

Thank god, lol. You can be a real fruit loop.

Godfather.

redrock wrote:

Godfather. wrote:

By the time most of you find the answers to Gods existence it may be to late, Gods love is free so why wouldn't everybody want it ? is it pride or are some people just so smart that they can only believe what they have decided is the truth , it's everyones own choice to make so roll the dice if thats your game.
Imagine standing in front of our Lord and Savior on judgment day and knowing up to that very second you didn't believe, pretty scary thought.

Godfather.

Scary to you, maybe. But for those who don't believe in a judgmental and punishing/rewarding god who will decide if you live an afterlife in bliss or oblivion, it really doesn't matter. It's your fears brought on by your beliefs. You say god's love is free - so is his wrath.

as you wish.

Godfather.

EmBleve

The Waiting Trophy Man wrote:

EmBleve wrote:

I'm not dealing with you anymore because you are a drag.

Thank god, lol. You can be a real fruit loop.

And proud of it! That's why my friends and family love me. Thanks.

pandora

EmBleve wrote:

The Waiting Trophy Man wrote:

EmBleve wrote:

I'm not dealing with you anymore because you are a drag.

Thank god, lol. You can be a real fruit loop.

And proud of it! That's why my friends and family love me. Thanks.

I was just thinking the same thing! Bravo for fruit loops.... the colorful, imaginative, endearing,
and way sweet one in the bunch!

The Waiting Trophy Man

Looks like the religious nuts are running the asylum!

pandora

The Waiting Trophy Man wrote:

Looks like the religious nuts are running the asylum!

your avatar looks like the mad scientist

BinauralJam

Paul David wrote:

BinauralJam wrote:

Paul David wrote:

I think we're all just a big alien ant farm of a much superior race. that would make aliens our god. which makes Fox Mulder our saviour.

Even if we were, and my own beliefs are closer to this than i'll go into, wouldn't God still be God?

I seriously want to know what you mean. I'm interested.

Oh Boy, i stuck my foot in it this time, O.K. then: I think the Universe is filled with intelligent life and Earth has been visited continuously be various alien lifeforms. I think there is a missing link in evolution because aliens took the one animal (Chimp) that came closest to a genetic match to there own and added/created a new race of being's (us), i don't mean modern humans but smart monkey's that began to use tools and develope speech and over the course of time became us. As we began to write things down and keep records we developed religon, we were probably already praying to God but until we tried to define God it didn't mean a whole lot. But then we went Apeshit with religon and started letting it rule our existence so they stepped in again (probably after much debate amonst themselves) and kidnapped a young women in Eygpt in the middle of the night and inpregnated her with a half alien kid that would grow up to do some miraculous things and pass along the idea of Peace, Love and Understanding. Good Plan, but it backfired, we killed the poor dude!
So they went and got his body and went back to the drawing board, in the meantime we developed a new religon based on this guy's teachings and the aliens thought "Not a complete loss" until that religon got so big it decided everyone in the world would be better off if they beleived in it too, whether they wanted to or not. Fast Foward to the 1940's, we developed Nuclear weapons waaaaaay before they anticipated (because Albert Einstein was a genetic anomaly, his brain was bigger than your average man) and the aliens got very concerned and started visiting much more often to determine if we were about to blow the shit out of ourselves, which would explain the increase of UFO sightings around the world. (it's Not Hollywood's fault)

But what this all has to do with God is, God created the Universe or Multiverse and the seeds of life and then that life evolved and started to create it's own life, us. But just because we were not created in God's image, doesn't take away from that fact that God is God. Even if we have no concept of what that is/means.

Which is why i'm Agnostic and why i pray to God. I don't need the Dogma and i dont need a middle man, but if i had to choose a middle man i would choose Carl Sagan, he's intelligent, articulate and has a hypnotic voice that would even catch God's attention.

Did i mention i'm a big fan of Star Trek

JonnyPistachio

BinauralJam wrote:

Paul David wrote:

BinauralJam wrote:

Even if we were, and my own beliefs are closer to this than i'll go into, wouldn't God still be God?

I seriously want to know what you mean. I'm interested.

Oh Boy, i stuck my foot in it this time, O.K. then: I think the Universe is filled with intelligent life and Earth has been visited continuously be various alien lifeforms. I think there is a missing link in evolution because aliens took the one animal (Chimp) that came closest to a genetic match to there own and added/created a new race of being's (us), i don't mean modern humans but smart monkey's that began to use tools and develope speech and over the course of time became us. As we began to write things down and keep records we developed religon, we were probably already praying to God but until we tried to define God it didn't mean a whole lot. But then we went Apeshit with religon and started letting it rule our existence so they stepped in again (probably after much debate amonst themselves) and kidnapped a young women in Eygpt in the middle of the night and inpregnated her with a half alien kid that would grow up to do some miraculous things and pass along the idea of Peace, Love and Understanding. Good Plan, but it backfired, we killed the poor dude!
So they went and got his body and went back to the drawing board, in the meantime we developed a new religon based on this guy's teachings and the aliens thought "Not a complete loss" until that religon got so big it decided everyone in the world would be better off if they beleived in it too, whether they wanted to or not. Fast Foward to the 1940's, we developed Nuclear weapons waaaaaay before they anticipated (because Albert Einstein was a genetic anomaly, his brain was bigger than your average man) and the aliens got very concerned and started visiting much more often to determine if we were about to blow the shit out of ourselves, which would explain the increase of UFO sightings around the world. (it's Not Hollywood's fault)

But what this all has to do with God is, God created the Universe or Multiverse and the seeds of life and then that life evolved and started to create it's own life, us. But just because we were not created in God's image, doesn't take away from that fact that God is God. Even if we have no concept of what that is/means.

Which is why i'm Agnostic and why i pray to God. I don't need the Dogma and i dont need a middle man, but if i had to choose a middle man i would choose Carl Sagan, he's intelligent, articulate and has a hypnotic voice that would even catch God's attention.

Did i mention i'm a big fan of Star Trek

you can get a "fuck yeah" from me on that one.

BinauralJam

Nice, Thanks Johnny!

redrock

BinauralJam wrote:

.... but if i had to choose a middle man i would choose Carl Sagan,.

Sagan would be an unfortunate (or not really useful middle man) as he did not believe in a god!