Before God..

[Someday]

I'm not asking anything special to go along with my views. You on the other hand, would want me to first assume the theistic position to be correct, then debate from within that.

I have never once asked anyone on this forum that is not already a believer to believe in God. The rest of your post is based on that false assumption and is not addressing what I am saying at all.

Blessings

[friendly hardline atheist]

Originally Posted by Someday

I have never once asked anyone on this forum that is not already a believer to believe in God. The rest of your post is based on that false assumption and is not addressing what I am saying at all.

Oh come on, I'm not saying you're trying to convert people, but that if anyone wants to go along with the reasoning that you're outlining, that they would have to make an assumption. No, I wasn't accusing you of proselytizing. Buh.

[Someday]

Let me try again. The teapot Russell refers to is a material thing. God is spirit. Two completely different things. Science could detect a teapot out there if there is one to be found. Science is not capable of detecting a spirit any more than it is able to detect my own self awareness. A self awareness that I assure you exists. Science cannot prove my self awareness is real. In fact, many would say it is not real. Personhood for them is considered only as what they call animal identity.

I don't ask you to believe in God. Clearly you have had no worthwhile experience to believe in. Face it, others have. Experiences that are not repeatable in a lab, cannot be duplicated in a controlled situation. They are beyond the scope of science to investigate. My personal experiences are of such stuff. This is evidence for me, and for many many others of all walks of faith. This is the form of evidence that is not available to the strict materialist like Russell. We might not have figured God out exactly, but is that reason to give up the pursuit?
You have your standards of evidence. Good. Don't expect everyone to agree with you, and I will do the same in that regard.

[Gareth]

Scientists seem fairly comfortable with the notion that time has a beginning. Einstein postulates that time is part of the fabric of space and that space itself does not exist without the presence of matter to fill it.

Bearing this in mind it is quite possible to postulate that there was never a point in time during which God was non-existent. If God is the one who created matter and therefore the fabric of space-time and therefor time itself, then he must have an existence outside of any frame of reference that includes time as one of its dimensions.

So for as long as time has existed, so has God.

[The servant]

Originally Posted by Gareth

Scientists seem fairly comfortable with the notion that time has a beginning. Einstein postulates that time is part of the fabric of space and that space itself does not exist without the presence of matter to fill it.

Bearing this in mind it is quite possible to postulate that there was never a point in time during which God was non-existent. If God is the one who created matter and therefore the fabric of space-time and therefor time itself, then he must have an existence outside of any frame of reference that includes time as one of its dimensions.

So for as long as time has existed, so has God.

Hi Gareth
“God has always been.” And if we were to cease to exist God would still be, He is eternal, we try to understand and compromise with our intellect, but we can never come up with the answers, because we are only formed from the radiations of God.

Peace and Light

Peter

[friendly hardline atheist]

Hi Someday,

The line between convincing someone of the validity of your reasoning and expecting them to adopt that reasoning can be a fine one. I readily believe you when you say you weren't trying to convert me. But even just to go along with your reasoning, I do see the necessity to make assumptions that I would call wild assumptions that are certainly not required for the naturalistic world view.

For one thing, there is the assumption that there is anything beyond the physical world. Thoughts, experiences, memories, etc have very clear connections to the physical world. While it's far from understood, your self-awareness example involves thinking that leaves plenty of detectable traces inside your brain. Not so for that spirit (that we agree on).

Rather than anything traceable in the physical world, you hold up personal experience as a reason for believing. You wrote

Originally Posted by Someday

Clearly you have had no worthwhile experience to believe in. Face it, others have.

Do you accept personal experience in all cases? Just think of the wackiest things done because 'the voice told me so' or any other really stupid nonsense. I suspect that cases of personal experience you would not believe would include plenty of things done by those who call themselves christians.

So don't expect me to be convinced by something that you yourself wouldn't find convincing in plenty of cases.

So where does that leave us? There is no physical evidence for the teapot, nor is personal experience of one to be considered as carrying any weight. There is no physical evidence for god, nor is personal experience of god to be considered as carrying any weight.

So what is to stop me then from putting belief in god on the same level as the celestial teapot?

greets,
Peter

[Someday]

Thoughts, experiences, memories, etc have very clear connections to the physical world. While it's far from understood, your self-awareness example involves thinking that leaves plenty of detectable traces inside your brain.

This is true of the ego mind. I think we have had this conversation in the past on this forum. Let me ask you this: Have you ever stepped back from your thoughts? Have you ever withdrew and witnessed yourself thinking? By this, I mean watching your own ego brain in action, not as a participant, but as an observer?

100 year old George Burns said “when you get to be old enough, you get to be you again”. What George meant is that with age comes perspective, and towards the end of our physical lives the ego comes to accept its demise. The ‘becoming you again’ is a reference to becoming aware of the authentic self, and you will find many older people speak like this.
Do you know of any instrument of science that can detect the observer?

Prove to me that you are aware of your existence at all. You described mental functions and synaptic firings and such. Can you prove to me that your physical mental processes make you self aware? If there is a teapot in your head, an MRI or X-RAY will find it. What will reveal You, the observer of your own thoughts?
Or must I make an assumption? Must I assume you are aware of your own existence without scientific evidence? It's safe to say then, since I can't prove it....you must surely not be. Perhaps I'm the only self aware being in the universe.

Do you accept personal experience in all cases? Just think of the wackiest things done because 'the voice told me so' or any other really stupid nonsense. I suspect that cases of personal experience you would not believe would include plenty of things done by those who call themselves christians.

I always try to give the sane, average person the benefit of the doubt here. The insane, mentally deranged person may very well hear or experience something legitimate, but in their insanity they may be warping it. Of course sometimes they are just insane.
I am not one to say every experience is understandable by the one that has it, including my own. That's why we are in pursuit. We don't throw out such evidence, we seek to understand it. Others will toss it because it is outside of their box. That's fine. Don't expect me to stay in the box.

I can think scientifically, logically and so forth. To say that is the only way is simply not true, and I believe it is confining. In my work, I confine my thought to what works in that atmosphere. Should I always think that way? I am not my work, I will exist even if my work does not.

Blessings

[friendly hardline atheist]

Originally Posted by Someday

This is true of the ego mind. I think we have had this conversation in the past on this forum. Let me ask you this: Have you ever stepped back from your thoughts? Have you ever withdrew and witnessed yourself thinking? By this, I mean watching your own ego brain in action, not as a participant, but as an observer?

100 year old George Burns said “when you get to be old enough, you get to be you again”. What George meant is that with age comes perspective, and towards the end of our physical lives the ego comes to accept its demise. The ‘becoming you again’ is a reference to becoming aware of the authentic self, and you will find many older people speak like this.
Do you know of any instrument of science that can detect the observer?

Prove to me that you are aware of your existence at all. You described mental functions and synaptic firings and such. Can you prove to me that your physical mental processes make you self aware? If there is a teapot in your head, an MRI or X-RAY will find it. What will reveal You, the observer of your own thoughts?
Or must I make an assumption? Must I assume you are aware of your own existence without scientific evidence? It's safe to say then, since I can't prove it....you must surely not be. Perhaps I'm the only self aware being in the universe.

Oh boy. I assume you won't be too surprised if I don't spend much time on that.

Originally Posted by Someday

I always try to give the sane, average person the benefit of the doubt here. The insane, mentally deranged person may very well hear or experience something legitimate, but in their insanity they may be warping it. Of course sometimes they are just insane.
I am not one to say every experience is understandable by the one that has it, including my own. That's why we are in pursuit. We don't throw out such evidence, we seek to understand it. Others will toss it because it is outside of their box. That's fine. Don't expect me to stay in the box.

If you are that open-minded to things based on personal experience, then I refer you to those (endless millions) who claim to have had experiences that tell them things that go against (at least part of) the beliefs you hold to be true. Different, mutually exclusive religious ideas are a big enough problem for believers without personal experience (never mind rolling out 'others have some truth', because depending on the religion, that 'some' can at most be very, very small). But in your discussions with Jon you have sometimes claimed various different sources of documents etc, i.e. some form of corroboration. If you believed them to be true, then I supposed that would give some confidence. But if mere personal experience is to be taken serious, then what would you say against person X or Y who tells you that what you believe is very wrong, and that they know this because some very profound, unmistakeable personal experience told them so?

greets,
Peter