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Author | Topic: We know there's a God because... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Say there were no Bible, no Qur'an, no Bhagavad Gita, no religious texts of any sort. How would we know just by examining the world around us that there is a God?
For myself, I would approach this question by asking what differences might exist between a world created by God and another world that came about in the absence of a God. Which would be expected to have more wars, more prejudice, more disease, more disasters? Certainly we seem to have enough of these to suspect the possibility of an absence of God in this world. I'm interested in how others might approach this question, and what answers they think are suggested. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
But the only change I'm postulating to the real world is that all religious texts (and the knowledge contained therein) do not exist. The world is otherwise just as we find it today. Would there be no new miracles, no new fulfilled prophecies, that men could observe and conclude that there must be a God?
--Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
I've read all your posts and I think I understand what you're saying. You didn't respond to my question about new miracles and new fulfilled prophecies, but I think that would be part of what you mean when you say "God finds you."
So would it be correct to say that it is your view that unless God overtly provides us evidence that he exists that we would not otherwise know about Him? --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
iano writes: In terms of knowing he exists in an "as sure as night follows day" kind of way then the answer is yes. He has to provide you with clear evidence of his existance before you can know a) he exists b) get to know something about him. Note the evidence only need be sufficient to convince you. Well, what if we lowered the bar a little and didn't ask for completely certainty. Just by examining the world around us, is there anything that would lead people to suspect that there is a God? What about the argument from design? --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
CTD writes: We seem to have established that there is ample evidence available in the world for even the underprivileged souls who lack access to the scripture to discover that a Creator exists. You mean this has been established in this thread? I don't think so. The opening post asks the question, "Say there were no Bible, no Qur'an, no Bhagavad Gita, no religious texts of any sort. How would we know just by examining the world around us that there is a God?" Can you answer this question? Iano appears to disagree that such evidence exists. He believes that unless God reveals himself to you that it isn't possible to know he exists with certainty. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Hi Rob,
First I'll reply to this post as Percy, then I'll reply to the rest of your posts as Admin.
Rob writes: When you can explain all of the details of how a world, and life specifically, could come into being without a God, then your question will be meaningful. How do you tell the difference between a God-created world and life, versus a natural world and life where we lack sufficient evidence and intelligence to explain how they came about?
Furthermore, in a world without a god, I wouldn't expect wars and disease to be a problem fo you. Those things would simply be the natural course of all things. So if in a Godless world we should expect wars and disease, since wars and disease are exactly what we do have, then isn't a Godless world the natural conclusion? --Percy PS - I think it's great that you can spell empirical now, but you somehow managed to misspell for!
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Percy Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Rob writes: Not necessarily, it may just mean that mankind has crucified God... But the OP asks what you might conclude from examining the world around us in the absence of religious texts. Is that what you would conclude, that God exists and that mankind has crucified Him?
... so as to stay in control as god himself And not only conclude God exists and was crucified by mankind, but that we had done so in order to "stay in control as god himself," despite being buffeted by wars and disease. I'm not following the logic. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
When typing a message into the message box, look at the links to the left of the box. One of them is for dBCodes help. Click on that.
--Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Rob writes: Percy:But the OP asks what you might conclude from examining the world around us in the absence of religious texts. Is that what you would conclude, that God exists and that mankind has crucified Him? So now you are asking me to make systematic studies of a world that does not exist? The OP asks you to consider a hypothetical question, and I'm interpreting responses as if they were addressing this hypothetical. If you'd prefer not to address the hypothetical because it doesn't seem to make sense or seems flawed in some way then you only need one post to say that. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Rob writes: think that (hypothetically) in a world with no religious texts, we would live in a world without logical thought or consiousness. In which case... I wouldn't be thinking at all. Just to make sure, so now you *are* addressing the hypothetical? Or is this just another way of saying the hypothetical makes no sense to you? If you former, then am I correct to summarize your position this way: that the mere fact that you're conscious and can think indicates that there must be a God. If so, then what is it about your examination of the world around us that would lead you to this conclusion? --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Rob writes: As to your summary, it doesn't indicate that there 'must be a god', it indicates that we would have philosphical discussions about all this, and the religous texts that we do. Having religious texts is not what was posed by hypothetical question in the OP, which is what I just finished being very, very clear about in my last two posts. Now I combine that with what you say next:
As to your question... aren't you the one who said that would be off topic? I don't know what your problem is, but I don't care, and a smilie face doesn't make it all better. Given your history it doesn't take much to suspend you, and I'm not going to wait. See you in 24 hours. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
If I'm reading Chiroptera correctly, I think you may be missing the point. You think he's equating depravity to Christianity, while what Chiroptera is actually saying is that the Industrial Revolution was driven by motives normally deprecated by Christianity, such as greed and avarice, and that these were the driving forces behind the Industrial Revolution, not God and Bible.
Chiroptera is also right to note that this is off-topic, unless the Industrial Revolution is how we know there's a God. --Percy
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