Logically rationalize God

[ashlesha]

Inspired by this (I can delete if preferred):

I don't "believe" in god, I think that its existance is the most logical option.

If you're anyone so inclined, please provide logic in favor of the existence of God.

If you want to share your disagreement or opinion that there's no God, please make another thread! Your viewpoint is valid and your logic is probably sound, but that's not this thread's intention.

[mclane]

[mclane]

To put it simply: the structure of the universe cannot have happened randomly. It is a directed effort (it even goes against the second law of thermodynamics). I assume you're an atheist, could you provide some evidence as to god's non existence?

[ooo]

It is a directed effort (it even goes against the second law of thermodynamics).

why? seems like the entropy is ever increasing

[ashlesha]

To put it simply: the structure of the universe cannot have happened randomly. It is a directed effort (it even goes against the second law of thermodynamics). I assume you're an atheist, could you provide some evidence as to god's non existence?

I'm not atheist, at least not in a deliberate way (more resigned). Maybe agnostic, something like that.
I'm a wannabe religious person, hence the thread.

[Finaplex]

For me I always look at it from a evolutionary biological perspective nestled in an understanding of ecology. I also see some force, just on the periphery that is barely observed, yet always subtly present.

I used to be agnostic, then breifly a Christian, then an athiest, then back to agnostic.

See I don't think that random slow chance leads to the species diversification that we see today.

I don't think that the arrival of cell encasing and molecular gene replication could have developed and arrived on prehistoric Earth without some sort of unknown missing variables.

If it was as easy as chemicals and some lightening in a bottle they would have demonstrated it by now. No new life.

There is an idea flouting around that cells developed inside the latticed framework of certain types of clay. What this means was that LITERALLY life came from the dirt, molded from the clay...the same story as the Bible genesis story.

Lame logical people will explain this off as being just a neat chance, just random chance, that the story we tell ourselves about our origins could not possibly have anything real and insightful to say about the true investigated story, but wink wink I know better, because there are no coincidences.

They built a satellite, James Webb, that will be able to see further into the past time, sorry I meant into further distances, then Hubble ever could.

This means that we will be able to see time just after the Big Bang, within thousands of years. We will literally be able to see the beginning of the all macrocosm with our own eyes.

.........

I'm not sure I believe in God as He is portrayed in the personal God story. And I def can't beleive in the towering God in a cloud watching our moral failures and accomplishments, taking notes and dishing out just desserts.

I also can't believe in the God of man who picks and chooses who succeeds and who does not.

I can;t beleive in the God moving and shaping the elements as our raionality has firmly pierced these mysterys over the centuries.

Yet even still, to me, there is something going on beyond our ability to sensate it and I think that we won't be able to overcome some of the big hurdles in our current physics (the gravity issue for one, the micro particle exploration, I mean how many more are we going to find? the bimercural mind, the list goes on and on), without coming to terms with things that science has rejected for a long time. Necessarily rejected to escape dogmatism, but unnecessarily removes people's souls from spirit.

[Aeris]

How many years have humans been celebrating some kind of god, goddess, or any greater power? How many different worshiping ways have humans created to express faith? Each individual has a differing faith, and in a way, science can also be seen as a kind of religious thing as people will believe science holds the key to understanding the univers, sort of as religions do. There are so many, so if this higher power isn't true, it at least leads to the need people have for beliefs.
Spirits, gods, nature, the sun, demons, angels, and what not are all ways people have found to make sense of the world we live in, people are craving sense, to understand, they want to know why we are here. Some people think it's random and no higher power exist to lead the way, we have no proof of anything, beside a few people's very personal experiences. I guess we can all find proofs if we wish so.
For most people, religion seems to be more about where you were born, we tend to adopt what's around us, what we are told by the people who care for us as children. Of course, convertions happen.
In the end, I think religion, faith are personal matters that can bring people together if used on the basis of becoming a better person as each religion seem to contain some form of "thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" which isn't the best thing to tell someone who hates themselves... wth brain... anyhoo.
All I am sure of about faith is that it should come from within and not without, i.e. putting your life in some guru's hands, it's why the toughest part of any spiritual teaching is to know when to let the student down, like a bird pushing its young out of the nest so they can fly.

I am also looking for faith.

[Computer Loser]

-something can’t come from nothing, everything has an origin/purpose for existing

-therefore, something started the Big Bang

-things usually come from things “greater” (ex babies come from parents)

-If the universe was created by something “greater” it makes reasonable sense that entity would defy physics and logic to create a Big Bang out of thin air (God)

-It’s hard to replicate any form of speciation/adaptation in the lab even when directed with intelligent scientists (ex: we can’t breed different species no matter how hard we try due to genetic limits) but evolution assumes it happened by random chance through sheer force of nature given a long period of time (some bacteria floating around to complex organisms)

[gone]

St. Thomas Aquinas attempted to do this through his 'Quinque viae' (Five Ways) from Summa Theologica (w. 1265-1274):

The existence of God can be proved in five ways.

The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another, for nothing can be in motion except it is in potentiality to that towards which it is in motion; whereas a thing moves inasmuch as it is in act. For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality. But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it. Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is actually hot cannot simultaneously be potentially hot; but it is simultaneously potentially cold. It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e. that it should move itself. Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.

The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.

The third way is taken from possibility and necessity, and runs thus. We find in nature things that are possible to be and not to be, since they are found to be generated, and to corrupt, and consequently, they are possible to be and not to be. But it is impossible for these always to exist, for that which is possible not to be at some time is not. Therefore, if everything is possible not to be, then at one time there could have been nothing in existence. Now if this were true, even now there would be nothing in existence, because that which does not exist only begins to exist by something already existing. Therefore, if at one time nothing was in existence, it would have been impossible for anything to have begun to exist; and thus even now nothing would be in existence--which is absurd. Therefore, not all beings are merely possible, but there must exist something the existence of which is necessary. But every necessary thing either has its necessity caused by another, or not. Now it is impossible to go on to infinity in necessary things which have their necessity caused by another, as has been already proved in regard to efficient causes. Therefore we cannot but postulate the existence of some being having of itself its own necessity, and not receiving it from another, but rather causing in others their necessity. This all men speak of as God.

The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But "more" and "less" are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaph. ii. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.

The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.

[Finaplex]

Godel's Incompleteness, i.e., a system can't prove its own correctness or consistency within its own confines. Ergo, a lot of things we think aren't evidence for a god existing actually might be, and it's prohibitive to verify them one way or another.



The catch: when all else is equal, there's simply no positive reason to believe in a god, unless an individual has had an experience that can't be more simply explained by anything else. But anomalies of the mind happen all the time. There is little evidence for existence of a god that is not transcendental to physicality, that we can undeniably identify in the material world, and so our knowledge of what a god is can only be conferred by perceived transcendental experiences. However, since we know anomalies of the mind are common, we have no reason to believe a transcendental religious experience is not merely an anomaly of the mind's function, unless we are the ones experiencing it. We know of the existence of our own minds because we are them, and we experience both the physical and transcendental directly through them; but we hear of the transcendental experiences of others only through the conduit of physicality, and so the only way to give another person's transcendental experiences parity with one's own, is to also accept that physicality is just as real as the transcendental.
But most of the information we perceive in physicality is fairly self-contained to the physical world, and has far more visible connections to other objects within physicality than to the transcendental. The transcendental, our access to a god, is accessible only by tiny conduits from our physical experience, and since all our knowledge of the nature of god is thus dependent on the legitimacy of these conduits - that is, the condition that they are not simply byproducts of our experience in physicality - the odds of a god existing, on terms of the physical world, are likely very low.

An ascended mind may conclude that the grounds for physicality's legitimacy are in every way as shaky as those for the transcendent world's legitimacy, but for the average person, as a default state, physical experiences are harder to deny on a day-to-day basis than transcendental ones. If you've never had a transcendent experience, you can deny it without effort, but if you are experiencing pain from the physical world, it takes effort, in a vacuum, to deny it; you can deny it, but if you are passive, it will affect you whether or not you deliberately acknowledge it. For a few people, this may apply to the transcendent as well, but from what I know, this is not the case for the majority of people.
To have a Spirit stronger than one's Flesh, to acknowledge the primacy of God over the World beneath him, is a property of the privileged few among minds rather than the many, and the wise and experienced rather than the commoner. One may claim that they are entirely a child of God in this world, and that physicality is as illusory to them as God is to us; and we, having the common experience of physicality, may attribute his perceptions to a delusion of the mind. He may claim not to see us, yet we continue to see him. But conversely, if one claims they are entirely a child of the World, and no perception of God can reach him at all, what then? One may be rejected by God by no fault of their own as we understand fault, and yet, nothing they do may ever give them access to God. A child of the World cannot serve God or find refuge in God, and thus it makes no sense for him to live as if that God exists.

To put it simply, the question of God vs. the World is an issue of practice, rather than truth. Even assuming God does exist, he is a dead end for many that live, and for these people, no energy should be spent on him. To them, he is as good as a shadow, even assuming he is real; for many interpretations of his nature holds that he deliberately eludes the minds of many, and so a belief in him will never be pragmatic for the masses.



Arguments from the nature of the mind's ability to perceive the world can be made to defend the likelihood of a god, but they are hardly evidence of the existence of any specific god as past cultures knew him, that is, as the Abrahamic god or a Hindu god. On the other hand, arguments both from specific and nonspecific understandings of god's nature have been used by those that claim to understand him, as justification for fettering or persecuting those who will never be his children, in the physical world.
And that's just annoying.

I tip my hat to you. You win the forum today.

[Finaplex]

-

-It’s hard to replicate any form of speciation/adaptation in the lab even when directed with intelligent scientists (ex: we can’t breed different species no matter how hard we try due to genetic limits) but evolution assumes it happened by random chance through sheer force of nature given a long period of time (some bacteria floating around to complex organisms)

See I agree with this whole heartedly. I spend a lot of time outdoors because of my nature and my professional work and I can tell people nature is fucking treacherous when she is really bad. the heat, the UV radiation from the sun, the frozen gases in the air, the wild temperature swings, the drifting geology, its fucking brutal out there, just the abiotic forces.

You look around now and see all sorts of life forms clinging to the land and they make it look easy now...but you wind back the clock and early Earth was fucking brutal and I really don't think people are fully comprehending just how heavy and unlikely the cards are stacked against chemical compositional life forms surviving and thriving, let alone even getting up and forming. Like that primordial pond must have been fucking crazy to have survived and spread across the planet and it just blows logistical common sense to think that a slow march from scum to multi-cell could have even happened..it blows common sense to even consider that scum itself could have even formed. How the hell did RNA-DNA whatever fuck else people want to hypothesize survived, even technically logistically DO IT..?

That's what I want to know.

[Adam Strange]

See I agree with this whole heartedly. I spend a lot of time outdoors because of my nature and my professional work and I can tell people nature is fucking treacherous when she is really bad. the heat, the UV radiation from the sun, the frozen gases in the air, the wild temperature swings, the drifting geology, its fucking brutal out there, just the abiotic forces.

You look around now and see all sorts of life forms clinging to the land and they make it look easy now...but you wind back the clock and early Earth was fucking brutal and I really don't think people are fully comprehending just how heavy and unlikely the cards are stacked against chemical compositional life forms surviving and thriving, let alone even getting up and forming. Like that primordial pond must have been fucking crazy to have survived and spread across the planet and it just blows logistical common sense to think that a slow march from scum to multi-cell could have even happened..it blows common sense to even consider that scum itself could have even formed. How the hell did RNA-DNA whatever fuck else people want to hypothesize survived, even technically logistically DO IT..?

That's what I want to know.

Re: the bolded, Yes, what species is so ill-adapted to its environment? You'd think we came from some other planet.

-Adam "the Martian" Strange.

[Sol]

as the God mb said a "general image" of all forces which create Universe in every moment
a metaphor by an image
there is a religious state of unification with the God. God is felt as allmighty loving light. it's an image. religious people understand that what they see is only a representation in their perceptions and feelings. God itself is said as beyond human mind. they may belive it's real much because in this state what they ask they later may get. as example of questions - is asking about other times - people get visions about the future. as prophets were named those who used alike technics to answer the questions - as they never mistaked they were named as prophets, the ones who talk with God. but anyone may do the same. this state can be achieved in common preying - by emotional concentration on God as it's understood in monotheism

this should be clear enough for logical approach and atheists, meanwhile fits to religious view also: system of factors of the creation - what makes the universe in the different moments of the timeline, reason-consequence links of objective factors which are known and unknown + trance psyche states which represent this system from the start of the time

[Singu]

Well you can only logically rationalize the consistency of a premise, so it's kind of pointless. So if the premise is that god exists, then you're going to logically rationalize that.

Maybe a better way is to explain why god exists. Why would things that it's explaining would make so much sense if god did exist.

But you can't prove it either way.

So you might want to stop hiding behind "logic" and just admit that it's always going to be an uncertain belief. But another pesky thing is that a belief could also be wrong

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

Cuz the world has tempo and patterns and scientific laws governing it. It's not just some chaotic mess, or an interpersonal soap opera. Human emotion turns it into that way, or mixing the two- but the design and structure of the universe, that fits into logical temporal patterns- can be argued for the existence of a deity.

A wise person once said to me that, its good when you're bored. It's a very good thing. It means you are getting over your own adolescent emotion (but lets be fair and remember that hatred and arrogance are also emotions, not just feeling vulnerable) and you are joining the real world. And the real world is often just boring, logical and predictable. (If reality is either boring, depressing or terrifying- then we should celebrate when its boring, because that clearly is the best out of the three.) And because of this, you are now opening yourself up to life. You were probably deathly afraid of something because part of you wanted it to be romantic and make you feel good, and you avoided it because if the reverse turned out to be true, it would devastate you too much. But then you realized it most likely just fit some logical pattern, it wasn't about good or bad or about feelings- either way. So with this reasoning, people are in theory less held bondage by their own views- and develop a more clear mind to see things as they really are. I think we've all experienced that kinda, we were making something so big in our heads but then we faced it... it 'just was.'

Or maybe more eloquently speaking, the most divine and grandest of good human feelings probably comes from the most carefully woven threads of God's logic.

But it gets complicated cuz while the world does have those logical rules, as far as opposing personalities go- we all know there's gonna be draaaaaaama and emotional soup. I think many have tried to leave this world behind, but they find themselves getting sucked back into it- because logic alone only gets one so far. =p

[xerx]

The "prime mover" argument is logical—not empirical, but logical.

[Exodus]

Some good answers in this thread already. The universe needs someone or something to 1) originate it and 2) keep it in existence once it's there, with all its structure. Things change and we see that one moment they aren't, and the next they are. This isn't coming from us, so where is it coming from? Without God you're left without a fundamental explanation.

But you can't really get to faith based on logical reasoning. Ask Him to guide you, read some scripture, look for truth wherever you can.

[Tallmo]

Just some thoughts

- I think faith or "proof of God" easily gets in the way for getting closer to God. Then it's all about believing, and the emphasis is there, and it feels so constructed, artificial. Better to throw belief away and just admit that "I don't believe", and tell God to f**k off or something. Heresy can be good and refreshing. Then when belief is gone one might be able to experience things more clearly. And the religious instinct can come to life.

- I like the idea that reality is God. We are so used to reality that we don't see it that way, but reality is the ultimate authority over our lives, or over anything we do. It is also the great "Other", we don't really know what reality is, we just find ourselves in the middle of it. I think one could spend a lot of time meditating upon this trying to grasp it.

- As for traditional religion, Jung suggested that modern man can still hold on to Christianity if he learns to take it symbolically. You don't actually have to believe in fairy tales in order to be religious. The message can still speak to you and be a factor in your life.

[ashlesha]

Just some thoughts

- I think faith or "proof of God" easily comes in the way for getting closer to God. Then it's all about believing, and the emphasis is there, and it feels so constructed, artificial. Better to throw belief away and just admit that "I don't believe", and tell God to f**k off or something. Heresy can be good and refreshing. Then when belief is gone one might be able to experience things more clearly. And the religious instinct can come to life.

- I like the idea that reality is God. We are so used to reality that we don't see it that way, but reality is the ultimate authority over our lives, or over anything we do. It is also the great "Other", we don't really know what reality is, we just find ourselves in the middle of it. I think one could spend a lot of time meditating upon this trying to grasp it.

- As for traditional religion, Jung suggested that modern man can still hold on to Christianity if he learns to take it symbolically. You don't actually have to believe in fairy tales in order to be religious. The message can still speak to you and be a factor in your life.

I'm appreciative that people provided logic that I specifically, explicitly asked for, and I don't want to diminish that, but this post is the most helpful and meaningful to me. Thanks.

[WinnieW]

...please provide logic in favor of the existence of God

We humans are incapable of doing that.

Humans can't prove or disprove the existence of God.

Logic, rationality or the idea of God are constructions of the human mind.

A higher being can exist outside of human perception. What we perceive as real has it's limits by what our senses are capable of.

That lead us to the question: Are parts of the world we are living in not real because nobody is able to perceive all environmental parameters?

We can expand the ability our senses by using technical devices... but there are still sections of our world we don't have access to.
We humans are equipped with all abilities to survive in our environment... we developed additional abilities but gained no additional sensens.

Yeah, I've to admit I'm agnostic. I don't care about the existence of God.
And all rules we know are created by humans, not by a higher being.

[sbbds]

Human-esque (this includes, human-oriented) organization, as others have mentioned. I also happen to believe 'God' isn't just 'nature' or reality, but it's also oriented to humans and other close-to-human creatures, specifically, because:

I've also had at least one experience that was in favor of something big in my life in an incredibly specific lucky way, with statistically near-impossible chances of happening. This is something involving meeting others, so it's a shared experience in society lol. Everyone I tell this to is blown away by it. It's like I was looking for an invisible needle in a haystack, and I found it blindfolded with my teeth in a single grab, in terms of specificity and statistic chances. Can describe in PM if anyone is curious.

Other lower key uncanny things happen all the time to others I know and I.

To me this is sort of empirical, or as empirical as it'll get. Before I started having or noticing these experiences (when I was 17, and 23 for the bigger more specific one), I was more purely agnostic.

I also happen to believe that God is infinite (i.e. beyond "Big Bang"). The closest concept I guess would be infinite recursion.

[xerx]

If God exists, he's either a powerless wimp or an evil demon. There's too much crazy stuff out there to believe that an omnipotent God is some wise, benevolent entity.

[Computer Loser]

Lol. People claim they're all about science and rationality but when actually provided logical explanations they all close their ears/minds and say some variation of "you make your own meaning!" Which is why I can't take anyone asking questions about God seriously anymore.

Ultimately in the end people just choose to believe what feels good to them, even if it means making shit up like "you are god! reality is god!"

lol

[Dauphin]

To attempt to consider faith rationally or logically is to miss the mark entirely, as shown by Pascal and Kierkegaard. You can only understand faith by experiencing it. Believers and non-believers exist in entirely separate epistemological categories.

[Aeris]

I bought a book recently.
It's colorful, has pictures, is printed black on recycled (light brown) paper, there is an underlying grid but the content is dynamic, it has small subcategories that are fast read, it's on a spiritual topic I'm fond of; this book suits my tastes.
More so than show me novelty, it reminds me of many beliefs I used to hold dear yet forgot about because life, because people didn't like them. It resonates within, like an echo of a long lost truth. It has ideas I used to hold dear but became affraid of with time because of judgements. I really lost myself recently trying to define my existance to others, lol.
Of course, I don't agree with 100% of what's written in it, life is life after all.
It's not about any sort of god nor christianity, I'm unwilling to say what's the book's title or even it's topic, mostly because it's irrelevant. It's a reminder of the beliefs that make me feel love, and not just in the heart, also in mind and body. A way to feel whole and one with life. It flickers still.
I think certain people are looking for fusion through religion/spirituality, others a sense of community/belonging, others to have a safe haven, a sort of sanctuary... I think it's a matter of needs first and foremost.

I think God is an idea that has been abused and perverted by many, held as a weapon, spat out in hatred in the face of life. I'm quite fond of the line "the tao which can be named in not the eternal tao*" from the tao te king. It's a thing I can't explain, words become utterly small in the face of... it. It feels right, that is all. To use known words, if I had to describe my "faith" it would be agnostism, omnism, with a bias towards taoism.

I wrote the other day I was looking for faith, I guess I'm more looking for self-respect and stability about it.

* traduction of a traduction.

[ashlesha]

Lol. People claim they're all about science and rationality but when actually provided logical explanations they all close their ears/minds and say some variation of "you make your own meaning!" Which is why I can't take anyone asking questions about God seriously anymore.

Ultimately in the end people just choose to believe what feels good to them, even if it means making shit up like "you are god! reality is god!"

lol

I'm sorry you're mad because I ended up preferring faith based rationalizations? It's not that I'm closing my mind to the logic or find it unsound. It's just that it's still largely ignored, because, well, yeah, it's not what people are using, so must not be what I really need. It's not what differentiates believers, so what does? Faith. I'm probably trying catholic church tomorrow because traditional christianity "feels good to me" if its any consolation.

[Computer Loser]

I'm sorry you're mad because I ended up preferring faith based rationalizations? It's not that I'm closing my mind to the logic or find it unsound. It's just that it's still largely ignored, because, well, yeah, it's not what people are using, so must not be what I really need. It's not what differentiates believers, so what does? Faith. I'm probably trying catholic church tomorrow because traditional christianity "feels good to me" if its any consolation.

Lol. Shut up

[Computer Loser]

To attempt to consider faith rationally or logically is to miss the mark entirely, as shown by Pascal and Kierkegaard. You can only understand faith by experiencing it. Believers and non-believers exist in entirely separate epistemological categories.

To correct you it’s rationalize God, not faith. Logic and faith are separate, and you can use logic to help strengthen your faith. As Paul once said,

“Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have”

To illustrate further,

We need conservatives because sometimes we have to do what worked in the past. We need liberals because sometimes we need to try something new.

Similarly, both faith and logic have its place.

In general, having faith in something completely illogical is retarded.

But what I’m arguing is having faith in God is NOT unreasonable because it actually IS logical if you care enough to seek it.

The problem happens when people don’t even do the research and say it’s illogical or some dumb shit they pull straight from their ass and mislead the masses. It’s like no, you can’t do that in science class and you can’t do that with this either.

[ashlesha]

Lol. Shut up

I literally didn't do any of the things you're upset about in this thread except maybe not give the logic enough credit (with an apology since I asked for it), so I must have rubbed you the wrong way 6+ months ago. I could have opened the door to rudeness, but I don't remember it.

[xerx]

It's futile to use logic to justify the existence of God. While you can find logical explanations that are internally consistent, not one of them is empirical or empirically falsifiable, and using pure logic to make empirical deductions is impossible.

Religion has always been about raising certain emotions (both good and bad) in people—maybe the best mechanism humans have come up with, and it beats advertising to hell.

There's a great scene from the show Firefly where one of the characters tries to rewrite the bible to make it scientifically correct. The other character tells her: "It’s not about making sense. It’s about believing in something. And letting that belief be real enough to change your life. It’s about faith. You don’t fix faith, River. It fixes you."

 

[Computer Loser]

It's futile to use logic to justify the existence of God. While you can find logical explanations that are internally consistent, not one of them is empirical or empirically falsifiable, and using pure logic to make empirical deductions is impossible.

Eh I wouldn't call it futile.

Anything helps. It may not for person X but for person Y it may.

And yeah, impossible to empirically measure God so we gotta look at other stuff

Religion has always been about raising certain emotions (both good and bad) in people—maybe the best mechanism humans have come up with, and it beats advertising to hell.

For sure!!! There are different flavors, including guys like westboro that intimidates - works for some, hardly for most LOL

There's a great scene from the show Firefly where one of the characters tries to rewrite the bible to make it scientifically correct. The other character tells her: "It’s not about making sense. It’s about believing in something. And letting that belief be real enough to change your life. It’s about faith. You don’t fix faith, River. It fixes you."

Ahhhh… If only people could open their hearts and minds and give it a shot!

It will literally CHANGE everything, very hard to explain

And yes, the geeky science stuff comes together as well I promise.

I say this with nothing but love.

[cry]

It's illogical to believe in ONE God because everyone believes in a different god based on their own human morals and logic of how a god should work. It's almost like god sucks human dick so we can tell him what to tell us, so we feel better about ourselves and our own thoughts and decisions. He exists, but only as a form of ourselves.

[Hitta]

Ok, I'm going to ramble now.

I've used this thought experiment before and will again. A friend brings an object that you've never seen before. It is a completely novel object to you. Yet the moment you view it, you still have a flash bulb thought. At first, you think to yourself "This has curves here, this could be some sort of engine here. These could be nuts, bolts, screws... wings..." Essentially, you are taking what you already know and are applying it to this new object to give it definition. In the future, after examining the object enough using your already inherent rules, you may give it its own distinct category in your mind. You are pretty much already bridging that together from the moment you see it. Essentially everything in your entire life you've ever viewed though has undergone this same examination and categorization. You take what you already know, apply it to the novel object or idea so that you can contextualize the object in your own terms. Everything you see, every person you know... all just manifestations of the self... things that you've contextualized using what is already inherent within from the very beginning of your existence

So, let's hit the rewind button and go backwards to the moment of your conception. At the beginning of your existence, there had to be a self-learning, self-propagating ideal inherent within you in order to learn. The reality that you exist in now already had to exist in potential disorganized state within you.

So we’ve defined Hitta’s first postulate.
Everything that you interact with, everything that you encounter, all the people that you perceive, this entire thing that you call a universe, and possibly all things you perceive outside the constraints of this universe are , from the smallest to the most largest component, made up of the same syntax.

Now three possibilities arise from this:

A) You cannot experience the entire universe, therefore, every single individual lives in this own perceptual shell that is distinct from the actual universe. I simply do not buy this for some very logical reasons that I will go into one of these days. I actually think Kant dropped the ball here.
B) Your perceptual reality is the universe, you are the only being that truly exists, and therefore you are essentially living in a solipsistic domain. This would require that you created entire personalities inside of yourself. Why are these personalities not real in themselves? This creates a paradox about what is real and what isn’t, specifically if you are not referring to transcendental identities. Why aren’t you just a fake personality that exists within someone else’s perspective reality. In a way this is true in the end, it’s just that the perspective is the transcendent … which leads us to C.
or the one I am fairly certain to be the correct answer

C) Your perceptual reality is the universe, everything within the universe contains the perceptual reality that is the universe, and that all things within the context of the universe share all the identical perceptual components because everything within the universe is written with the same linguistic identity. Tl;dr version: Everything in the universe is the same exact thing and are just complete manifestations of a transcendental identity a.k.a. god.
So exactly how does this occur?
I am the complete manifestation of god. Kassie is the complete manifestation of god. So how exactly does this resolve? There is a duality that exists between the observer and what he observers. Both the observer and the perceptive reality that the observer observes both make up the two transfinite realities that cross together to create the infinite whole.

So to understand what is meant by transfinite reality, one must understand the absurdity of counting. Limits go to infinity but limits themselves can never actually comprise infinity, because they can only show infinity based on the limitations of the observer and the ability of the observer to categorize. For example, if I were to observe 3 chickens, this would require both the internal focus and definition of what is a chicken to actually observe. So, if I were to ask the question, “If I have 3 chickens and 3 chickens are removed, how many chickens do I have left?” The obvious answer would be zero chickens. Somewhere along the way though, perception became fixated on the definition of a chicken… so something is still inherently/unconsciously being added to the mathematical formula. This is how transfinite domains exist differently from the infinite. Transfinite domains can be limitlessly expanded, but they always require internal categorization to do so. Dividing by zero on the other hand, de-contextualizes the number system, as a zero point can really only be understand if categorization is inherent… dividing by zero removes the bounds on the categorization so that you have a unbound number system that exists across unbounded categories... a true unbound state aka infinity.

This is what is meant by transfinite realities in terms of people. You have two main realms that are seemingly limitless in expansion potential that exist over space: observer reality and perceptive reality. That are fixated by pseudo focal categories aka personality characteristics. When something is not present within the observer reality it must exist within the perceptive reality. You also have parts of the observer reality which interact directly with the perceptive reality. If you haven’t figured out what I’m discussing yet, I’m referring to the Conscious, subconscious, and unconscious. Conscious, subconscious, and unconscious are the way we orientate god into our own personal status. The entirety of god exists within but is layered all the way from conscious to very very deep conscious. Shared unconscious space is what actually defines the shared physical reality in which we live within. So, to answer the question, me and Kassie are both god that has been layered in an alternate form. The self even has very unconscious awareness of multiversal reality. As the entirety of everything is within god. Tl;dr version: God is essentially the thing that all things are made out of. God cannot be actually pointed to, but only displayed through the pseudo dualism. I am god, you are god, everything is god. God is a transcendent form that can only be expressed via pseudo dichotomies. In actuality, dualism is not real. A monistic duality exists instead.

[Hitta]

It's futile to use logic to justify the existence of God. While you can find logical explanations that are internally consistent, not one of them is empirical or empirically falsifiable, and using pure logic to make empirical deductions is impossible.

Religion has always been about raising certain emotions (both good and bad) in people—maybe the best mechanism humans have come up with, and it beats advertising to hell.

There's a great scene from the show Firefly where one of the characters tries to rewrite the bible to make it scientifically correct. The other character tells her: "It’s not about making sense. It’s about believing in something. And letting that belief be real enough to change your life. It’s about faith. You don’t fix faith, River. It fixes you."

 

Over reliance on empiricism leads nowhere.

[xerx]

Over reliance on empiricism leads nowhere.

yeah it leads somewhere.

[Hitta]

Observation cannot occur without a logical guide or ideal. It is always dependent on a priori definitions.

[xerx]

I'm not going to get dragged into a long discussion about the nature of science vs. philosophy, so I'll just say that a priori claims, or at least their conclusions, have to be falsifiable to qualify as scientific.

[Hitta]

I'm not going to get dragged into a long discussion about the nature of science vs. philosophy, so I'll just say that a priori claims, or at least their conclusions, have to be falsifiable to qualify as scientific.

But time and time again you fail at understanding that hypothesis do not have to be built from the bottom up to be true. For example, if my hypothesis were that Aliens exist, just because the hypothesis isn't falsifiable by modern means does not mean that the hypothesis isn't falsifiable overall. Not knowing how to create a falsifiable test is not an excuse for calling something non-falsifiable. Just because something isn't scientifically falsifiable by modern means does not make it wrong. I don't think you get how hard it is to create an hypothesis which perfectly layers the variables in a way in which creates falsifiability. Also, because something has been tested via hypothesis testing does not mean a causation has been established. And often times, the tests miss the laws that govern both causation and correlation completely, mainly because variables haven't been isolated correctly even though we base the foundations on our society that they have been.

[xerx]

But time and time again you fail at understanding that hypothesis do not have to be built from the bottom up to be true. For example, if my hypothesis were that Aliens exist, just because the hypothesis isn't falsifiable by modern means does not mean that the hypothesis isn't falsifiable overall.

That may be true, but you're not doing anything to produce these new empirical methods. Abstract word salads and subjective prevarications don't help you test your hypothesis.

[Hitta]

That may be true, but you're not doing anything to produce these new empirical methods. Abstract word salads and subjective prevarications don't help you test your hypothesis.

I don't see how a thought experiment followed by logical deductions on said thought experiment can qualify as "subjective prevarications". I gave three ways in which reality could be schemed based on these logical deductions, and then I depicted criteria in which option C could be fulfilled. I have my own logical deductions on why C is correct in which I haven't shared yet. It is rather jarring, however, how all your opinions seem to be clouded by your own conspicuous religiosity.