Spirituality
21 Sep 16
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Originally posted by DeepThought
A typical argument against an infinitely old universe is that with an infinite amount of time having had to elapse before we could reach the present, time would never have reached now so the universe must have a finite age. This is a necessary step in arguing for a creator as one has to establish that there was a point of creation. It seems to me that this must apply to God as well. If God is infinitely old then he would never have got round to creating the universe. So the same problem exists for God.
A picture is worth a thousand words.
The Bible expresses a paradox in the appearances of God. That is that God is very ancient yet not old. It is communicated symbolically.
In Daniel we see One called the Ancient of Days. The description of the hair is noted here.
" I watched Until thrones were set, And the Ancient of Days sat down.
His clothing was like white snow, And the hair of His head was like pure wool, His throne was flames of fire." (See Daniel 7:9)
The clothing as snow signifies freshness. Though God is the Ancient one extending back eternally He is ever fresh, ever new, like the freshly fallen snow.
Here is the paradox presented - God is eternal yet God never gets old. God is the Ancient of Days yet God is ever fresh.
The throne of fire upon which He sits reveals His authority is of holiness. He is apart from all other things that exist. And He is absolutely righteous. Do not think God's eternality and God's righteousness and rightness are separate matters. They are very closely related. He is eternal, He is ancient but not old, but living and fresh. And He is absolutely distinct from all other things which exist - "holy".
The same symbols are used for God incarnate, died, and resurrected as the Son of Man in Revelation 1. Notice how the Ancient of days in Daniel is seen again in this Jesus.
"And in the midst of the lampstands One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment reaching to the feet, and girded about at the breasts with a golden girdle.
And His head and hair were as white as white wool, as snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire;
And His feet were like shining bronze, as having been fired in a furnace ..." (Rev. 1:13-15a)
God is now a High Priest and the Son of Man He is divine and human. His feet of bronze as having been fired in a furnace show that in incarnation He has been tested to the uttermost in the most extreme trials of difficulty. He was a man of sorrows, well acquainted with grief and was even under divine judgment (bronze is usually a substance meaning judgment).
He as a man has walked through the furnace of human trial and been under God's judgment upon sin on our behalf.
Now to the head and hair. The white hair signifies great age as in (Job 15:10). Jesus Christ is the Ancient God. Now in the Song of Songs His hair is black not white, which signifies His unfading and everlasting strength.
White wool issues from the nature of life. And white snow is from the sky, from heaven. Here as in Daniel the ancientness of Christ is out of His nature and not out of His having become old. His hair as white snow also meaning His ancientness is not of earth or the earthly realm. His ancientness is heavenly.
You do call yourself DeepThought. So I think you should consider these deeper symbols of God's revelation, the Bible.
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21 Sep 16
Originally posted by FetchmyjunkGod is so great He can work His wonders without existing.
Is the universal statement "God exists" universally true or false?
The way I see it God either exists or he doesn't exist. So the correct answer is either 'true' or 'false'. There is no other option.
21 Sep 16
Originally posted by FetchmyjunkWhy can the universe not be eternally old? You make these assertions without justifying them. You then blithely insist that God is "by definition" infinitely old without addressing the same problem, whatever it is, as applied to God. You haven't addressed the rest of my argument either. I suggest we go through one point at a time. Why can the universe not be infinitely old?
The universe couldn't have been expanding for ever. It must have had a beginning and requires a cause. God by definition is eternally existing, and therefore has no beginning and thus requires no cause.
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21 Sep 16
Originally posted by sonshipThere is actually a point to it. Belief in the existence of God is sufficient to drive believers to carry out the agenda they ascribe to God. The provability or disprovability or unprovability of the existence of God is irrelevant and not really important.
That's incoherent. You're saying God exists and doesn't exist at the same time and in the same way.
Why fall back on this bitter sarcasm ?
21 Sep 16
Originally posted by twhiteheadSo if you as a human being with the partial knowledge that you posses cannot know that no gold exists in China, how can you seriously claim to know that no God exists in the entire universe, and still keep a straight face?
No, it isn't.
[b]No one with the partial knowledge possessed by humans knows that.
It is irrelevant whether or not an actual human is possessed of such knowledge. There is, after all, gold in China and we are only talking hypotheticals. It remains that case that only partial knowledge is necessary and the correct answer is B.[/b]
21 Sep 16
Originally posted by FetchmyjunkThere's stacks of gold in China and that is easy to verify [1]. So you are asking twhitehead to verify a counterfactual. Essentially one's methodology would be to make an exhaustive search and give criteria for no gold. The threshold would be that there should be no exploitable gold, since the context is economic exploitability rather than some sort of ontological claim, and I think that that would be provable. The difficulty with the existence of God is that there seems to be severe consequences to not believing in the existence of God, so Pascal's wager leads us into the territory of proof beyond any doubt whatsoever and we enter the domain of Russel's teapot.
So if you as a human being with the partial knowledge that you posses cannot know that no gold exists in China, how can you seriously claim to know that no God exists in the entire universe, and still keep a straight face?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_China#Metals_and_nonmetals
21 Sep 16
Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Is the universal statement "God exists" universally true or false?
The way I see it God either exists or he doesn't exist. So the correct answer is either 'true' or 'false'. There is no other option.
Is the universal statement "God exists" universally true or false?
The way I see it God either exists or he doesn't exist. So the correct answer is either 'true' or 'false'. There is no other option.
There are other options.
For example, if some version of theological noncognitivism is correct, then utterances like “God exists” are generally neither true nor false, failing to be even cognitively meaningful. Of course, whether or not theological noncognitivism is plausible is another matter. But, even if theological noncognitivism is false, thus failing to provide that such utterances are generally neither true nor false, there could still be particularist conditions under which specific instances of such utterances fail to be cognitively meangingful. Presumably, there could be contextual instances in which such utterances are neither true nor false, such as when, for instance, there is no meaningful or clear definition of ‘God’ in play.
Those issues aside, though, it is clear that this thread is just another example, in an ancient line of examples, where some theist introduces special pleading for the case of God that is the equivalent of their stomping their feet like a petulant child whilst yelling “you cannot prove a negative!!!”
Well, problem is, you sure can prove a negative (both in spirit and in letter). See for instance this short and simple, but insightful, essay on the topic:
http://departments.bloomu.edu/philosophy/pages/content/hales/articlepdf/proveanegative.pdf
It nicely exposes your protests here for what they really are: just some shamefully selective skepticism, amounting to nothing more than special pleading for your cherished articles of faith.
21 Sep 16
Originally posted by FetchmyjunkIts very simple:
So if you as a human being with the partial knowledge that you posses cannot know that no gold exists in China, how can you seriously claim to know that no God exists in the entire universe, and still keep a straight face?
1. There is actually gold in China.
2. If there was no gold in China, the fact that I would not be able to know that there was no gold in China has no bearing on the fact that I know there is no God.
Merely assuming that your questions somehow demonstrate that I shouldn't be able to say it with a straight face is simply not good enough. Your questions demonstrate no such thing. In fact your questions demonstrate your remarkably poor reasoning.
Or do you actually believe God is an atom of gold in China?
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21 Sep 16
Originally posted by twhiteheadIt may be an attempt to be clever, as is usually the case with atheists. .
It isn't incoherent, nor bitter sarcasm. Its a clever observation.
But it appears to me a violation of the law of non-contradiction.
God cannot be nonexistent and existent at the same time.
The great power of God is irrelevant here. .
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21 Sep 16
4 edits
Originally posted by JS357
There is actually a point to it. Belief in the existence of God is sufficient to drive believers to carry out the agenda they ascribe to God. The provability or disprovability or unprovability of the existence of God is irrelevant and not really important.
There is actually a point to it. Belief in the existence of God is sufficient to drive believers to carry out the agenda they ascribe to God.
A few believers being "driven" to carry out an agenda they ascribe to God doesn't prove much. Do you long to generalize to ascribe such a characteristics to all Christians in a grand blanket statement ?
Does it mean that if you become a believer in God you too will lose all self control and act in the same way ? I don't have that fear.
The provability or disprovability or unprovability of the existence of God is irrelevant and not really important.
Someone objected to me characterizing your observation to "bitter sarcasm". This follow on has done not much to alter that view.
Some believers do argue for rigid infallible proof of God's existence.
I am not sure if one can have absolute proof of anything unless one is omniscient, which none of us human beings are.
Not all thiests do demand to be able to furnish proof. Some like myself, are happy to know we are probably on the right track to believe the evidence points to God existing.
And in the meantime, if you stay with my thread on God on the Inside you might see how man can have a strong internal witness to God being touchable, experiential, subjectively approachable.
That is for another discussion. God is not happy to have people simply nod, "Yep, God must exist" if they are completely void of an subjective loving relationship with "the Father".