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Author | Topic: A Working Definition of God | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Mr. Ex Nihilo Member (Idle past 1368 days) Posts: 712 Joined: |
Dan's Clever Alias writes:
I know it might sound like I'm being a smart-ass here, but I'm actually trying to pay a great deal of respect to the claim of existence of God. Specifically, I'm stitting down and saying, "Okay, you say this 'God' thing exists. I'll take an inquiry into that seriously... so let's start with the basics. What are you telling me exists?" oh. Then why do you say things like this when we offer you an honest answer when we say God is love?
Dan's Clever Alias writes: God is Eliza Dushku? I knew it. As others have noted, she plays nasty so amazingly well it is almost scary. Plus, in connecting "God is love" with any roles that Eliza Dushku has played, are you not equating God with a person?
D'sCA writes: Imagine we walked into a room, and found a dead body. There's nothing on the body to indicate how it died. I turn to you and say, "We're looking for the person or thing that killed this man. I know what it is, and it's in this room." You say to me, "Well, what is it?" I respond, "It killed that man." Wouldn't you blink a couple times, and say, "Yes, you just said that. What is it?" Maybe. Or, if you are certain that a person is involved we might ask, "Is it a killer?" If you are sure that natural causes that resulted in the person's death, then we might ask, "Was it simply natural causes?" If you suspect both (and we are not sure which), then we might ask, "Was it a killer or natural causes?" But to answer your question, if you're looking for a raw definition of God, I would probably answer, "God is spirit." This answer, of course, would most likely be pursued with other questions -- which, with further clarification, would most likely mean that it would point to Christ (from a Juedo-Christian perspective). Depending on the nature of the further inquiry, one might even be able to determine if their inquiry was genuine or simply trolling. For example, if the answer "God is spirit." were then retorted with something intergalactically stupid like, "Great. God is a ghost...I knew it." or something else similar like this, I would most likely conclude that their inquiry is actually a sarcasm meant to poke holes in other peoples faith systems. And I wouldn't really waste my time bothering to explain it to them anymore from there. This message has been edited by Magisterium Devolver, 04-19-2005 01:45 PM This message has been edited by Magisterium Devolver, 04-19-2005 01:46 PM
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gnojek Inactive Member |
mike the wiz writes: God says not to murder, and certainly not harm any little ones. Let me guess, you were for the war in Iraq?
Soft dino tissue evidences that it survives millions of years, instead of being a falsification of MOY like it really is, which is apparently, logically - more important than a confirmation in science, yet you say "the dino is simply old according to my naturalistic - cell to critter philosophy." Shouldn't your law say that this falsification is much more important than confirmations like so called transitionals? Nice explanation of what God is. Also, the stretchy material inside the T rex bone was not the orignial material that was there mya. It underwent a different kind of mineralization/fossilization.
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mikehager Member (Idle past 6497 days) Posts: 534 Joined: |
"Witness Evidence"?
I give up.
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Dan Carroll Inactive Member |
Then why do you say things like this when we offer you an honest answer when we say God is love? Because, as I said elsewhere, that's so vague an answer as to be meaningless.
As others have noted, she plays nasty so amazingly well it is almost scary. Got'cher back on that count, my good fellow.
Plus, in connecting "God is love" with any roles that Eliza Dushku has played, are you not equating God with a person? Apparently. Perhaps it's too vague a definition if includes Eliza Dushku?
Or, if you are certain that a person is involved we might ask, "Is it a killer?" If you are sure that natural causes that resulted in the person's death, then we might ask, "Was it simply natural causes?" If you suspect both (and we are not sure which), then we might ask, "Was it a killer or natural causes?" And if I were to respond, "It killed that man" again, wouldn't it become a bit maddening dealing with me? Might you even respond by deciding that I was talking out my ass when I said I knew what killed him?
But to answer your question, if you're looking for a raw definition of God, I would probably answer, "God is spirit." Well what's that?
This answer, of course, would most likely be pursued with other questions -- which, with further clarification, would most likely mean that it would point to Christ (from a Juedo-Christian perspective). Well, that's considerably more specific. But all I know about Christ is that he's a human who performed super-human feats and spoke a lot about morality. Presumably there's something about God that makes him different from an Israeli Spiderman. So shall we keep refining?
For example, if the answer "God is spirit." were then retorted with something intergalactically stupid like, "Great. God is a ghost...I knew it." or something else similar like this, I would most likely conclude that their inquiry is actually a sarcasm meant to poke holes in other peoples faith systems. And I wouldn't really waste my time bothering to explain it to them anymore from there. Well, I'm terribly sorry about that. But if the definition you offer is vague enough that it could describe a ghost, then that's hardly my fault.
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mike the wiz Member Posts: 4755 From: u.k Joined: |
[qs]
Bible writes: 2:21-23 (in Context) Lamentations 2 (Whole Chapter)Matthew 18:10 [ The Lost Sheep ] [ (Luke 15.3-7) ] Don't be cruel to any of these little ones! I promise you that their angels are always with my Father in heaven. [ in heaven: Some manuscripts add, "The Son of Man came to save people who are lost."] Matthew 18:9-11 (in Context) Matthew 18 (Whole Chapter) Matthew 18:14 That's how it is with your Father in heaven. He doesn't want any of these little ones to be lost. Matthew 18:13-15 (in Context) The psalmist talks of his vengeance and strife. But God strictly says to not even be cruel to a little one (when God speaks), and to not even get angry with your brother or you are in danger of the commandment "do no murder". GOD says this in the flesh. Stop trying to pick out an odd OT psalmist's song when those scriptures are too old to be understood according to this age/society, and are relative to the woes of the person. You know I meant what God says, and not the psalmist's woes. Now also we have the commandment to "do no murder" which is surely what God says! Nothing will cause me to judge God, like you are trying to get me to do. If men do murder - then I trust them not because of the commandments of Christ, but if God does anything himself through supernatural means or literally, then I question him not. Here's the increase for my cause; The Lord says worship him, and have no idols. The world worships the rich and famous. (a perversion and sin against God, who is the only one who should be worshipped)and the vanity of man increases. Here's the increase for my cause; God says don't have idolatry. The world makes God in their own image, and says he should "evidence" himself, and he "should do this, that, and the other" according to how the world thinks God should be. (a perversion, and transgression against the second commandment, and making your own version of what God should be). This message has been edited by mike the wiz, 04-19-2005 02:01 PM
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Mr. Ex Nihilo Member (Idle past 1368 days) Posts: 712 Joined: |
gnojek writes: Unless all this was tongue in cheek, I see why you call yourself the devolver, since your post devolved very quickly into nonsense. That's a personal attack qnojek. Please don't do that again. Looking past the symbolic language, I think my point remains clear: God is the spiritual substrate upon which all else hinges. Like a wind that moves a sail, God's spirt upholds all creation. This means that God is sepatate from creation but yet can be deeply manifested within it and felt at specific points where he contact his creation. Because of God, all things exist -- without God, nothing would exist. In speaking of an "image" -- your modern definition of it does not capture the early Judeo-Christian defintion of it. It simply means that Christ as Son of God is the very pre-emeninant expresion of the Father's will in his creation. And furthermore, "first born" does not imply created or even born in the sense that we picture it within the biological sciences. Firstborn again reflects a pre-eminence in rank more than to priority in time. This can be shown in passages where the term 'firstborn' is used of the pre-eminent son who was not the eldest, e.g. Psalm 89:27, where David is called 'firstborn' although he was actually the youngest son. This message has been edited by Magisterium Devolver, 04-19-2005 02:09 PM
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Dan Carroll Inactive Member |
Crap, we broke Mike again. Someone get a screwdriver.
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mike the wiz Member Posts: 4755 From: u.k Joined: |
Okay.......I got that one. I admitt, I laughed, you got my inner-goon. ...*wiz* *pop* *smokes* Do you think I'm some kind of computerized refutation matrix?
That's probably your best one-liner yet IMHO.
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Dan Carroll Inactive Member |
*tips hat*
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Hi Faith,
This thread is accumulating messages so fast I'm going to reply to a number of your posts in a single message. From Message 46:
Faith writes: quote: I'm asking Percy specifically I believe. It's a question about what constitutes evidence basically. Objective evidence is what anyone can see, hear, touch, taste or smell. From Message 47:
Nothing of what you say is relevant to the point I was making, which was simply that if one follows a well established body of teaching it is not right to accuse the person of arrogance as if she made it up. And from Message 51:
I think it MIGHT be arrogance if somebody just made up their own God as so many seem to do, but if a person gets the idea from a well established teaching then it's not a personal idiosyncratic belief but something with a history and a social framework. No one is accusing you of making up the Christian God. But which is more arrogant? Promoting a God of your own making? That's just chutzpah. But believing you couldn't be wrong, now that's arrogance. From Message 48:
Let me rephrase it then. Do you "CHOOSE" TO BELIEVE THAT EVOLUTION IS THE TRUTH OR DO YOU BELIEVE IT BECAUSE YOU BELIEVE IT *IS* THE TRUTH? The idea was that saying that I CHOOSE to believe what I believe is tendentious. I don't choose to believe it any more than you choose to believe evolution is the truth. I believe it IS the truth just as you believe evolution IS the truth. I believe I have the best of grounds for considering it to be the truth. Same as with your taking evolution as the truth. It's not a matter of mixing terminology. But I don't think evolution is the truth, and I said precisely that in the paragraph following what you just responded to. Come on, Faith, get a grip. At least read the whole message before putting your fingers in gear. Just to save you the trouble of clicking on links, here's what I said in Message 30:
[text=black]You also use the word truth, and as has already been explained in the science threads, if truths are defined as eternal then scientific theories are definitely not truths because they are tentative, i.e., subject to change in light of new insights and/or new evidence. The theory of evolution is tentative and I therefore acknowledge that it could be wrong, but currently available evidence supports the theory and so, for now, I accept it as an accurate description of the natural world. I do not believe the theory of evolution, nor any scientific theory, represents truth.[/text] From Message 53:
I don't expect to convince anybody here of course, but I totally disagree. I have a LOT of evidence, and the evidence becomes more apparent to me daily, it's just not physical evidence. If by "physical evidence" you mean things that are apparent to the five senses, then you have no meaningful evidence. If you're aware of something but you can't make other people aware of it, then it is useless as evidence and cannot be considered evidence. From Message 58:
Meanwhile what a GREAT place for learning PATIENCE and FORBEARANCE and DYING TO SELF and AGAPE LOVE and all those virtues I don't have! Pateince, my child. Once you see the light of science these qualities will be yours in abundance. From Message 73:
God went to great lengths to prove His reality and His character. Miracles, pillars of fire and cloud, parting of the Red Sea, plagues upon Egypt, the passover of the Jewish firstborn, oh so many things God did to prove to us who He is. There is no evidence that God is the author of the Bible, and much evidence that men wrote it. There is no evidence for any of the stories you mention, or even of Jews in ancient Egypt. Getting back to the main topic, so far we have God is omniscient and omnipotent, and God is love. Do these definitions really seem adequate to the Christians here? --Percy
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mike the wiz Member Posts: 4755 From: u.k Joined: |
But believing you couldn't be wrong, now that's arrogance But it won't be her that's believing she can't be wrong. She's believing the bible isn't wrong.
If by "physical evidence" you mean things that are apparent to the five senses, then you have no meaningful evidence. That's arrogance! Because everything is evidence of God, which the bible said - well before science. Your problem is that you think science "owns" evidence and "owns" the universe. You have it wrong my friend God got to both first.
or even of Jews in ancient Egypt Actually, there is mention of the Jews in Egypt. I think they found a place of Rameses aswell. But as the link says, what they've found OF Egypt is remnants.
Wiz-link writes: forgotten that we are dealing with a civilization thousands of years old and one of which only tiny remnants have survived. What is proudly advertised as Egyptian history is merely a collection of rags and tatters." This sketchy archaeological record makes a document preserved from the Israelite slavery period even more astounding. Known as the Brooklyn Papyrus (because it is in the Brooklyn Museum), this document portrays Israelite names from the Bible as the names of domestic slaves: Asher, Yissachar, and Shifra. The document also includes the term "hapiru" which many scholars agree has clear historical affinity to the biblical term "ivrim," meaning "Hebrews." The Bible records that Jews built the storage cities of Pitom and Ramses. Austrian archaeologist Manfred Bietak has succeeded in positively identifying the city of Pi-Ramesse. This city he found dates exactly to the period of the sojourn in Egypt, and even contains many Asiatic (of Canaanite origin) remains at the area of the slave residences. see link Hey, I'm off topic but it seems all your side wants to do is refute our God, so fair game.
Percy writes: Getting back to the main topic, so far we have God is omniscient and omnipotent, and God is love. Do these definitions really seem adequate to the Christians here? But it's Christians who wrote these definitions in the NT. Didn't you read 1 John 4? This message has been edited by AdminPhat, 04-21-2005 01:38 AM
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
mike the wiz writes: If by "physical evidence" you mean things that are apparent to the five senses, then you have no meaningful evidence. That's arrogance! Because everything is evidence of God, which the bible said - well before science. Your problem is that you think science "owns" evidence and "owns" the universe. You have it wrong my friend God got to both first. That's a nice statement of your beliefs, but how are you going to support it without evidence or effective argument? If you're going to persuade anyone, at some point you're going to have to get practical. "Everything is evidence of God" is a meaningless statement. "How do I know there's a God?" asks the atheist. "Well, just look at this here pen," says the evangelist. "God made this here pen, there's your evidence!" Unable to conjure any evidence for your God, you're reduced to non sequiturs like "The evidence for God is all around us" and "God is everywhere and everything" and so forth. You'd think something that really exists would be a bit more apparent. Try to answer this question: How would the world be different if God didn't exist, and explain why in concrete terms. About evidence of Jews in ancient Egypt, I know you'd like to believe such evidence exists, and I know there are many sites around the Internet claiming that such evidence does exist, but it doesn't exist in any form sufficient to convince historians. The Brooklyn Papyrus mentioned by your link is described on the Internet in some places as a list of snake bite remedies and other places as a list of household slaves with semitic names. Given the consistency with which historians cite the lack of evidence for Jews in ancient Egypt, the possibility that it is a list of semitic saves seems unlikely. --Percy
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mikehager Member (Idle past 6497 days) Posts: 534 Joined: |
God is the spiritual substrate upon which all else hinges. Like a wind that moves a sail, God's spirt upholds all creation. This means that God is sepatate from creation but yet can be deeply manifested within it and felt at specific points where he contact his creation. Because of God, all things exist -- without God, nothing would exist. That's nice and all. Are you saying that the above is your opinion or are you saying that it is fact? If you are saying it is only your opinion, fine. Believe what you want. If you are saying it is fact, pony up with some proof.
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Mr. Ex Nihilo Member (Idle past 1368 days) Posts: 712 Joined: |
MD writes: Then why do you say things like this when we offer you an honest answer when we say God is love? DCA writes: Because, as I said elsewhere, that's so vague an answer as to be meaningless. It's not meaningless to descibe something as being love. Love has a wide variety of meanings and definitions -- it's just that love has so many meanings that further questions need to be asked to refine the concept more. When I speak of love, I'm speaking of a divine love that is willing to sacrifice itself in order that others may live.
MD writes: As others have noted, she plays nasty so amazingly well it is almost scary. DCA writes: Got'cher back on that count, my good fellow.
MD writes: Plus, in connecting "God is love" with any roles that Eliza Dushku has played, are you not equating God with a person? DCA writes: Apparently. Perhaps it's too vague a definition if includes Eliza Dushku? But I'm not offended if that's what the word love evokes for you in a physical sense. I think she's quite beautiful myself. But the point is: If one continues to request a simple definition of God without reference to people, then others may be confused when the one who requests these simple definitions always by default takes their defintion and proceeds to compare it to actual or fictional people. In addition to this, I would never devalue anyone faith's system. If, for example, you actually did worship Eliza Dushku as some form of divinity just like I worshipped Jesus as God, I wouldn't necessarilly say you were outright wrong. Instead, I'd try to find some common ground for which to engage a dialogue to contrast your beliefs with my beliefs in order to see what we had in common. Even the example of the Shadow King from the X-men wouldn't necessarilly be a bad place to start on a purely philosophical level. St. Paul certainly didn't seem to mind starting from a vaque perception of God when dialoging with others. For example, when he came across a certain inscription in Athens, he stated the follwoing as recorded in Acts:
Acts 17:22-24 NIV writes: Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. MD writes: Or, if you are certain that a person is involved we might ask, "Is it a killer?" If you are sure that natural causes that resulted in the person's death, then we might ask, "Was it simply natural causes?" If you suspect both (and we are not sure which), then we might ask, "Was it a killer or natural causes?" DCA writes: And if I were to respond, "It killed that man" again, wouldn't it become a bit maddening dealing with me? Might you even respond by deciding that I was talking out my ass when I said I knew what killed him? I could certainly see that if you are looking for a solidly material reason for his death. But we have at least establshed two different possibilities to proceed forward into inquiry.
MD writes: But to answer your question, if you're looking for a raw definition of God, I would probably answer, "God is spirit." DCA writes: Well what's that? Well...I suppose when one looks on the most rational and logical physical level, when one talks about a spirit they are usually refering to a mood or inspiration or even mentality that one operate in. For example, some would see this as the general atmosphere of a place or situation and the effect that it has on people; "the feel of the city excited him"; "a clergyman improved the tone of the meeting"; "it had the smell of treason" Others might see it as a fundamental emotional and activating principle determining one's character. Still others might state that a spirit is an emotional state: the state of a person's emotions (especially with regard to pleasure or dejection); "his emotional state depended on her opinion"; "he was in good spirits"; "his spirit rose".
MD writes: This answer, of course, would most likely be pursued with other questions -- which, with further clarification, would most likely mean that it would point to Christ (from a Juedo-Christian perspective). DCA writes: Well, that's considerably more specific. But all I know about Christ is that he's a human who performed super-human feats and spoke a lot about morality. Presumably there's something about God that makes him different from an Israeli Spiderman. So shall we keep refining? No problem.
Based on a reply I gave above, by Judeo-Christian definition, God is the spiritual substrate upon which all else hinges. Unlike a simple principle, however, God is sentient, holy and self-sacrificing love. I suppose the concept of the Logos, as re-defined within Christian theology, could deifinitely be applicable here. Similarly, like a wind that moves a sail, God's spirt upholds all creation. This means that God is sepatate from creation but yet can be deeply manifested within it and felt at specific points where he contacts his creation. Because of God, all things exist -- without God, nothing would exist. Coming back to the initial discussion:
MD writes: For example, if the answer "God is spirit." were then retorted with something intergalactically stupid like, "Great. God is a ghost...I knew it." or something else similar like this, I would most likely conclude that their inquiry is actually a sarcasm meant to poke holes in other peoples faith systems. And I wouldn't really waste my time bothering to explain it to them anymore from there. DCA writes: Well, I'm terribly sorry about that. But if the definition you offer is vague enough that it could describe a ghost, then that's hardly my fault. Yes. But you were the one who asked the question. If I were lost in a city and stopped to ask someone for directions, they might reply, "You need to go that way." or "You need to go North." If I were then to reply with something like, "Great! Now I can find my way to Santa Clause's home and visit his reindeer!" -- then I would probably be deserving their anger. Their anger would be even more deserved if they were in the process of refining these directions more clearly so that I could understand their inital "simple" statement more clearly. They would probably even conclude that they were not really interested in finding any directions in the first place and that they were not really lost at all -- or that they enjoyed being lost and bugging others for directions that they never intended on listening to in the first place. Kind of like a prank phone-call from the Jerky Boys. This message has been edited by Magisterium Devolver, 04-19-2005 05:36 PM This message has been edited by Magisterium Devolver, 04-19-2005 06:04 PM This message has been edited by Magisterium Devolver, 04-19-2005 06:06 PM
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mike the wiz Member Posts: 4755 From: u.k Joined: |
!" Unable to conjure any evidence for your God, you're reduced to non sequiturs like "The evidence for God is all around us" No. It's what the bible says before science. Not a non sequitur. Your authority is science. My authority is God, the bible God - who has been known of since 4000 odd bc. The bible says that the nature of the Godhead is revealed in the creation. Like it or not, from my perspective, all your logic and science will not remove evidence of God which is apparent in creation. You can define "evidence" on your own terms, but that's just a forced conclusion, from a naturalistic methodo perspective.
Try to answer this question: How would the world be different if God didn't exist, and explain why in concrete terms. It would be different because it wouldn't exist. This was my argument from "an argument from design" - that the chance naturalism stance is circular, even by your beloeved logic. For chance to happen - you need a place for it to happen in. Thus you always will = no explanation. The first cause is God because chance doesn't produce anything without a place first. So it's not chance -> place. It's Place [necessity for] -> chance -> occurences.
About evidence of Jews in ancient Egypt, I know you'd like to believe such evidence exists, and I know there are many sites around the Internet claiming that such evidence does exist, but it doesn't exist in any form sufficient to convince historians. The Brooklyn Papyrus mentioned by your link is described on the Internet in some places as a list of snake bite remedies and other places as a list of household slaves with semitic names. Given the consistency with which historians cite the lack of evidence for Jews in ancient Egypt, the possibility that it is a list of semitic saves seems unlikely Percy, I know for a fact the Hebrews are mentioned by Egyptian artefact and that they have found the lost city. It was even on discovery channel. Your side just simply ignore evidence when it suits you. I mean, do you want me to believe that you would accept any biblical happenings as true? Pa-lease.
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