Or perhaps an experiment, an artificial neural network, by a highly powerful but otherwise indifferent creator.

Again, you are stating that God is (by implication) transcendent, but not immanent. From even the old testament we find there was a notion of God’s immanence. The world itself is in a sense a veil which may hide the -image- of God in the world. Satan’s power, for instance, works to do this. In this way, obscenity is a kind of under-appreciated wickedness. It takes the beauty which is concealed in plain sight and mars it beyond recognition.

But interestingly, one’s notion of God is completely merged in most cases with one’s notion of Man. Those who say that God is only transcendent tend to hold that man is an ‘observer’ as though he is or can be totally neutral or impassive. Despite the separation, the reflection is clear (Even if it is operating the other way.) What people see in man they tend to project onto God.

Thats not an assumption, it is a demonstrative fact.

If you believe that reality consists of just atoms and quarks, this would be true. Otherwise, you have no way to prove me wrong.

The thing I find so fascinating about militant atheism is that it asserts the most irrational claim of all: that you can measure the meaning of life with a bunson burner and a yardstick.

Does life require a formula for meaning? Science improves our lives by helping us manage nature and making the world more predictable. Meaning is left to the individual.

I thought I’d get at least one taker between the bunson burner and yardstick comment and the science as a soulless tool comment. Go figure.

instead of being part of the fabric of reality itself

Or perhaps an experiment, an artificial neural network, by a highly powerful but otherwise indifferent creator.

You assume that we are “momentary observers” instead of being part of the fabric of reality itself.

RiverCocytus on October 26, 2007 at 2:54 PM

Thats not an assumption, it is a demonstrative fact.

Hitler sought a higher good too, and Hitler was sure it was good, and decent and right.

I do believe Hitch is wide open for evangelizing because he is a man driven by faith. I just have to get him over the speed bumpand.

Mountains crumble into the sea, while the mosses that grow upon them continue. The mosses are frail and easily destroyed, and the great mountain nigh invulnerable. How much more for the moss which can shape the mountain by its will?

RiverCocytus on October 26, 2007 at 1:09 PM

Neither moss nor mountain are invulnerable, they are temporal, even the universe is temporal. Time itself is temporal, having a fixed beginning it therefore logically has a fixed ending. That mountains rise and fall changes not one bit reality.

That moss lives on the rock of that mountain changes not one bit reality. The physical laws which raised those mountains care not one bit whether the moss exists or not, nor the physical laws which law that lay that mountain low again care that the moss exists.

The moss like the mountain are mere manifestations of reality. They are but temporal manifestations of realty at that. Their having been here, their being here now and their one day no longer being here will not affect reality in the slightest.

Reality is not perception, nor is perception reality. Reality is, that which is. Before the universe existed, was there no reality? No, before the universe exploded into existence reality was that there was no universe. In order for reality to be that the universe did not exist reality had to exist to prove that the universe did not exist.

When the universe has ceased to exist will reality likewise cease to exist? No, for reality will indeed be that the universe no longer exists. Yet again reality will be forced to exist if for no other reason then to prove that the universe no longer exists.

If than reality existed before the universe and shall exist after the universe has ceased to exist how shall the mere existence of the universe or anything that exists within the universe alter reality. Obviously then it cannot.

The existence than of anything is not proof of reality, but that reality is the proof of the existence or none existence of everything. Therefore man as such – humanity if you will, is essential only to humanity, his inability to affect reality is manifest in his existence in reality but not aside from reality.

Man, humanity if you please, perceives reality, reality however is not perception. Reality testifies to mans existence, as it will one day testify to his non existence, man does not testify to realities existence, he can only acknowledge realities existence.

How you ask can reality testify to anything? Because that is precisely what reality is. Reality is precisely and exactly that which is. If all is non existent and there is nothing that exists reality will in fact be that nothing exists except for reality, and the reality that does exist will be that nothing exists.

This is the very fabric of reality, that it exists independent of existence. The universe as we know and observe it is overlaid upon this basic reality. The physical laws of the universe which did not exist prior to the existence of the universe care not one whit whether humanity approve of their existence.

Nor is humanity capable or even entitled to approve or disapprove of those laws. Long before man existed electrons orbited nucleus to form molecules, and long after man has ceased to exist shall they continue doing so. Man gets no say in the reality of this, it simply is reality.

Regardless, you can hate sin and the flesh, but you cannot hate humanity – mankind – and also love God.

That this is a true statement I do not dispute, but it bears no relevance to mans role in the universe. To perceive man as anything other than a momentary observer of reality is misanthropic. To suggest that our extremely limited ability to manipulate mere temporal manifestations of reality constitutes any capacity to influence reality is megalomaniacal insanity.

how does your worldview (atheism) account for the very foundations of morality and ethics?

Any syllogism with a normative conclusion requires a normative premise.

I’d use “All men are created equal” as a jumping off point. It is a principle asserted by men as a foundation for this particular government. Granted that’s only about 230 years ago, but societies have been evolving as leaders and the governed adapt to what yields the greatest productivity. Civilizations as early as Sumeria were able to have laws and economies in a polytheistic culture. They seem primitive compared to the United States in 1776 or 2007, but mankind has figured a lot out, by necessity, in the past 7,000 years.

If you assert a logical case for the existence of God. I was curious about the following?
–Why would God need you to imagine him or even given you the mental tools to imagine him?
–Allowing that there is a supernatural creator, what is the logical case that he is the God of the Bible?

We can talk later.

RiverCocytus on October 26, 2007 at 2:12 PM

Thank you.

We can talk later.

RiverCocytus on October 26, 2007 at 2:09 PM

May I please discuss this issue with you later? I have to go to work right now. Could you bookmark this thread, and we will make progress later?

This is a very crucial point above, and it is the main reason why Eastern Orthodoxy and “mystery” is leading many people to heresy.

Are you denying that logical statements apply to God?

Q: does logic itself apply to cognitive statements that we as humans make about God? Yes or No?

Logic’s correctness relies on the clarity of the terms on which it operates. Language is at its basest material, so logic is clear on material things: “The blue ball is five feet from me.” As we ascend towards God the feeble language of man becomes insufficient; it is not that logic ‘does not apply’ but rather is unable to be used. It would be like trying to cross space with an ocean liner. If you could get water enough up there, you could pull it off.

A: Again, paradoxes are literally ‘beyond words’. Had we the terms to accurately use we might be able to deploy logic. In their stead, we must rely on paradoxical and circular statements to ‘outline’ the thing which we cannot describe directly.

But neither is a specifically Christian thing. In fact, the path of the true martyr is to lay down one’s life so that in death, the enemy is humiliated and God glorified by the power of such faith.

However, there are more things we are called to do under the sun than all go to our deaths, I believe. Pacifism to me seem like giving up — and I’m hard pressed to find an argument for total pacifism that does not resort to wishful and fantastic thinking.

For myself I would not mind death, but if others are in my care I will not stand down while they are slaughtered. I love my nation, and I would not see her spit on and demolished if I still had strength in my bones.

To read your writings, I need my dictionary out!

JiangxiDad on October 26, 2007 at 2:00 PM

Thank you for your kindness.

A good sign of a thinker is the ability to communicate clearly. And I am not anywhere close to that level.

That is why I try to point many people to the fine and very clear writings of Gordon H. Clark. Everyone will benefit from him.

As a Christian philosopher, Gordon H. Clark has all of the good points which I personally lack, and he has none of the
bad points. Seriously, Gordon Clark is a very fine scholar.

Are you denying that logical statements apply to God?

Q: does logic itself apply to cognitive statements that we as humans make about God? Yes or No?

Sorry for the evasions. I believe Reality is ultimately mysterious. I think that existence, for instance, physical existence, has a mathematical inertia; that is, its natural tendency is to be mathematical. But reality is ultimately more than this. Does that explain what I mean?

RiverCocytus on October 26, 2007 at 1:44 PM

I would like for our conversation to center on epistemology.

I am not claiming that I or anyone else knows exhaustively the attributes of God Himself, or the meaning of life itself in an exhaustive, infinite sense. Nor am I denying the existence of mystery, assuming we have defined “mystery” properly and Biblically.

My argument is limited to what can we know about reality?

Yes, there is mystery in reality. There are non-rational aspects to reality, we are persons. We are not Vulcans as our mutual friend doriangrey did a very good job of pointing out earlier.

Suppose you didn’t believe that “atomic” energy came from the splitting of the atom. Yet, you see the energy created.

My recent interest in Christianity comes from the energy it can create, to be used as a weapon against radical Islam. (I’m curious about it’s underpinnings and philosophy, but secondarily.) I rarely see the thrust in these religious threads about using Christianity to beat the enemy.

That’s why I asked JayHawPhrenzie, an atheist, whether he saw any use for religion.

You may say, “neither”, and deny the meaningfulness of the question, which I take is your answer.

In my own humble opinion,

I believe that reality is mathematical. But because I believe mathematics is further reducible to logic, I believe, ultimately, that reality is fundamentally reducible to logic.

This is not to deny the importance of, or fact of physical existence, or contingency claims, or the meaningfulness of science. This is not to deny the importance or relevance of science or the enterprise of scientific inquiry.

It is only to suggest that answering the previous logical disjunction “opens the door wide open” to clearly discussing why the Christian theist favors one set of presuppositions, and why the atheist favors a different set of presuppositions.

I believe that reality is ultimately logical, because I believe in the truthfulness of John 1:1 in the New Testament.

Which do you say reality is, ultimately?

Neither, and yet both. Existence surely is physical mathematics.