What would you do if parts of Revelation come true?

[gwprod12]

God's rules apply to God. God is capable of anything, including proving itself to mere mortals. The fact that the human construct of the scientific method clearly prohibits God from doing this has no bearing, as God is all-powerful. Thus, to prove God's existence, God must necessarily force the skeptical to believe in him. Which negates free-will.

 

Science applies to man. As does logic. God may be able to defy logic, but people have free-will to evaluate evidence in a symbolic way. So, while God is capable of both doing and not doing concurrently, human beings arent, and the scientific method denies God for this reason.

 

Since God is a "undetectable, transcendental being with unlimited powers, he necessarily exists in a state where all conditions are consistent with his existence." Agreed. Also, if a man is convinced that everything outside of his body is an illusion, then nothing observable is inconsistent with this statement. Tautology. And the anethema of scientific inquiry.

 

I have never claimed that seemingly magical occurences deny the existence of powerful beings. I have never denied powerful beings. Let us assume that extremely powerful beings do exist and are capable of powers limited only by the rules of the universe (which may or may not be correct in our understanding). The fact that powerful beings exist does not necessitate that God exists. One may infer that if God is an extremely powerful being, extremely powerful beings are known to exist, and God is not known not to exist, therefore God may exist... which means what? God may exist without those provisos. The fact that birds definitely exist and can fly, and Pixies are thought to fly, and Pixies are not known not to exist, does not give credence to the notion that Pixies exist. It only gives credence to the notion that Pixies do not not exist. They might. Or might not.

 

So, powerful beings evincing themselves apon us would negate the theory that powerful beings do not exist. But who is claiming for a fact that powerful beings or God does not exist? No one that I can see. Powerful beings evincing themselves apon us would be evidence supporting of the theory of powerful beings. Who is denying powerful beings might exist? No one that I can see.

Powerful beings evincing themselves apon us is not evidence that one of them is God, or that God exists, however. By necessity, the creator of the universe must work with lesser materials than make up himself, therefore the creator of the universe is not a native of the universe, and is outside of the universe. A being outside of the universe has no predictable qualities, so therefore cannot be positively identified. Thus, all events and objects are necessarily evidence that God exists, and necessarily evidence that God does not exist. Again, tautology.

 

In order to find evidence for a God, one must create a theoretical model for God. In order to create a theoretical model for God, one must have at least one hypothetical premise that is inconsistent with God existing. No such premises are possible. Therefor God is unprovable. Of course, God's nonexistence is equally unprovable.

 

This is unabashedly not my belief system. As a rational person, I see that God is neither provable nor disprovable. My irrational belief system is predicated apon the idea that God does not exist. Your irrational belief system is predicated on idea that God does exist (I assume, maybe I'm wrong). All belief systems are irrational, as they have nothing to do with reason.

 

To more concisely address the point: If God is all-powerful and created the scientific method, God can determine whether or not people are able to use it to prove God's existence. Again, this negates free-will entirely. Now, one might say that God definitely exists if free-will is an illusion and the universe is scripted. For the universe to be scripted it must be finite. Finite things have beginnings and ends, thus necessitating a beginner and an ender. That still isnt very good reasoning, but it's better than I've seen so far. This also goes to the heart of the argument about the earth being 6000 years old but appearing billions of years old. Free-will is nonexistant if human beings are merely a God's puppet playthings, to be told lies as truth.

 

I didnt read the box part, so I'll address it now. If existence is in a box, and God is on the other side peering in (but we cannot peer out), how could we know anything about God in order to prove his existence? Now, you may say "God might pluck one of us out of the box and show himself". But never having perceived the outside of the box, how is anyone to know that they are, in fact, on the outside and not merely being lied to by Q or Satan?

[james2mart]

God's rules apply to God. God is capable of anything, including proving itself to mere mortals. The fact that the human construct of the scientific method clearly prohibits God from doing this has no bearing, as God is all-powerful. Thus, to prove God's existence, God must necessarily force the skeptical to believe in him. Which negates free-will.

 

Science applies to man. As does logic. God may be able to defy logic, but people have free-will to evaluate evidence in a symbolic way. So, while God is capable of both doing and not doing concurrently, human beings arent, and the scientific method denies God for this reason.

 

Since God is a "undetectable, transcendental being with unlimited powers, he necessarily exists in a state where all conditions are consistent with his existence." Agreed. Also, if a man is convinced that everything outside of his body is an illusion, then nothing observable is inconsistent with this statement. Tautology. And the anethema of scientific inquiry.

 

I have never claimed that seemingly magical occurences deny the existence of powerful beings. I have never denied powerful beings. Let us assume that extremely powerful beings do exist and are capable of powers limited only by the rules of the universe (which may or may not be correct in our understanding). The fact that powerful beings exist does not necessitate that God exists. One may infer that if God is an extremely powerful being, extremely powerful beings are known to exist, and God is not known not to exist, therefore God may exist... which means what? God may exist without those provisos. The fact that birds definitely exist and can fly, and Pixies are thought to fly, and Pixies are not known not to exist, does not give credence to the notion that Pixies exist. It only gives credence to the notion that Pixies do not not exist. They might. Or might not.

 

So, powerful beings evincing themselves apon us would negate the theory that powerful beings do not exist. But who is claiming for a fact that powerful beings or God does not exist? No one that I can see. Powerful beings evincing themselves apon us would be evidence supporting of the theory of powerful beings. Who is denying powerful beings might exist? No one that I can see.

Powerful beings evincing themselves apon us is not evidence that one of them is God, or that God exists, however. By necessity, the creator of the universe must work with lesser materials than make up himself, therefore the creator of the universe is not a native of the universe, and is outside of the universe. A being outside of the universe has no predictable qualities, so therefore cannot be positively identified. Thus, all events and objects are necessarily evidence that God exists, and necessarily evidence that God does not exist. Again, tautology.

 

In order to find evidence for a God, one must create a theoretical model for God. In order to create a theoretical model for God, one must have at least one hypothetical premise that is inconsistent with God existing. No such premises are possible. Therefor God is unprovable. Of course, God's nonexistence is equally unprovable.

 

This is unabashedly not my belief system. As a rational person, I see that God is neither provable nor disprovable. My irrational belief system is predicated apon the idea that God does not exist. Your irrational belief system is predicated on idea that God does exist (I assume, maybe I'm wrong). All belief systems are irrational, as they have nothing to do with reason.

 

To more concisely address the point: If God is all-powerful and created the scientific method, God can determine whether or not people are able to use it to prove God's existence. Again, this negates free-will entirely. Now, one might say that God definitely exists if free-will is an illusion and the universe is scripted. For the universe to be scripted it must be finite. Finite things have beginnings and ends, thus necessitating a beginner and an ender. That still isnt very good reasoning, but it's better than I've seen so far. This also goes to the heart of the argument about the earth being 6000 years old but appearing billions of years old. Free-will is nonexistant if human beings are merely a God's puppet playthings, to be told lies as truth.

 

I didnt read the box part, so I'll address it now. If existence is in a box, and God is on the other side peering in (but we cannot peer out), how could we know anything about God in order to prove his existence? Now, you may say "God might pluck one of us out of the box and show himself". But never having perceived the outside of the box, how is anyone to know that they are, in fact, on the outside and not merely being lied to by Q or Satan?

 

 

Free will is not the only thing guaranteed by the Bible. Sovreignty is also guaranteed. So God is sovreign, yet we also have free will? Assuming the Bible is correct on this, then we must assume that sovreignty and free will both coexist. This is not fathomable in this world, or, persay, the box. God knows what is going to happen, but we are going to do what we choose to do. In essence, God ultimately makes this choice, but we feel like we made it. Many different protestant sects differ on this theology. Some believe full sovreignty (Calvinism) and some believe 100% free will (southern Baptists).

 

Honestly, I am fascinated by this.

 

So lets say that you're standing outside one day, and a bolt of lightning on a sunny day writes on your lawn "I am God." What would you think?

[killbot1000]

Free will is not the only thing guaranteed by the Bible. Sovreignty is also guaranteed. So God is sovreign, yet we also have free will? Assuming the Bible is correct on this, then we must assume that sovreignty and free will both coexist. This is not fathomable in this world, or, persay, the box. God knows what is going to happen, but we are going to do what we choose to do. In essence, God ultimately makes this choice, but we feel like we made it. Many different protestant sects differ on this theology. Some believe full sovreignty (Calvinism) and some believe 100% free will (southern Baptists).

 

Honestly, I am fascinated by this.

 

So lets say that you're standing outside one day, and a bolt of lightning on a sunny day writes on your lawn "I am God." What would you think?

 

 

I think theres a subtle difference between "what will be MUST be" vs "what will be WILL be"

 

The difference is that the first sentence indicates that you cant avoid your fate.

 

The second sentence indicates that you WONT avoid your fate

[gwprod12]

Free will isnt free if the choice is being made by someone else. That's obvious. If God chose that I would not believe, how can I then be punished for not believing? In this case, God must be evil.

 

If a lightning bolt cut a swath saying "I am God", I would assume it was a practical joke by someone with more knowledge of electromagnetism than I have.

 

If you heard a voice saying they were God, and told you to go to the mean old dean's house and worship a silver sphere, would you automatically assume it was God? Probably.

[LifeDroidGenesis7007]

We have the power to shape our future, if all of us believe the world is fated to end, then it WILL end. Don't be stupid, believe the world will be ok, work toward that goal and it will be.

Just believe!

[consolation]

Just believe!

 

You utter w*****: I followed your advice and jumped off a tall building trying to fly. You shall receive my medical bills in the mail.

[trav1085]

I voted for athiest, I don't believe in god. I'm in the religion of scientology. (absolute truth). That's all I'll say, it's illogical that there could be a god and there is no proof (the bible, just some text). At least evolution and absolute truths provide us with something be can be sure of (well, not for how the universe started, big bang is nonsense, how that created)

[gwprod12]

Actually, the big bang isnt nonsense. LOL.

[LifeDroidGenesis7007]

Actually, the big bang isnt nonsense. LOL.

Wait, did somebody just say that the big bang was nonsense gwprod???

 

You utter w*****: I followed your advice and jumped off a tall building trying to fly. You shall receive my medical bills in the mail.

Actually, I'd rather believe that the medical bills don't exist, so good luck sending me invisible papers! WANKER!

[gwprod12]

Yes, I think Trav did. I had written out a huge defense for the theory, then I erased it and thought "why bother".

 

Maybe a little explanation. From the background radiation in the universe and the distribution of matter, it's fairly easy to see that all energy once pooled together in one place. From observations of solar phenomena like our sun, we know that there is a threshhold of gravitational containment in energy states. For instance, the sun's fusion process has enough power to keep the sun from collapsing under it's own gravity. When the sun transitions to helium fusion, the energy released will not be sufficient to maintain the sun's size as it is; the core will shrink exponentially, while the mantle increases exponentially. If all of the matter in the universe coalesced together, the mass would be too great for any energy liberating reaction to counteract, and the mass would shrink into a singularity very quickly. The leading theory, if I recall correctly is that there is a level of energy compaction at which point stability cannot be maintained, causing a burst outward, creating the universe (until this point, the universe had no length, width or breadth) creating a very large space where energy could pool into matter, creating the universe as we know it today.

 

In short, scientists are fairly certain all of the energy of the universe was originally in one place and that it burst forth. It's unclear how this happened, however.

[3nigma]

Free will isnt free if the choice is being made by someone else. That's obvious. If God chose that I would not believe, how can I then be punished for not believing? In this case, God must be evil.

Who's to say? Are you? Who says that maybe a God didn't already pre-determine such things? And if that were indeed the case, who is to say if that would then be what would constitute as "evil"? What is evil? You are dipping back into your objective morality. In addition, you are applying your own rules to a being that is above your rules.

If a lightning bolt cut a swath saying "I am God", I would assume it was a practical joke by someone with more knowledge of electromagnetism than I have.

LoL. With a sentence like that, I formally resign from this forum. There is no reasonable and logical debate here, just mindless banter.

If you heard a voice saying they were God, and told you to go to the mean old dean's house and worship a silver sphere, would you automatically assume it was God? Probably.

Actually, it is the 100% exact opposite. Christian teachings deliberately address this topic, and it is quite the contrary. Educate your ignorance, you will come across as a little more dignified.

You utter w*****: I followed your advice and jumped off a tall building trying to fly. You shall receive my medical bills in the mail.

Okay, maybe I'll stick around the forums, just for this fun stuff .

In short, scientists are fairly certain all of the energy of the universe was originally in one place and that it burst forth. It's unclear how this happened, however.

God did it .

 

Uh oh, what have I stirred up now...

[3nigma]

God's rules apply to God. God is capable of anything, including proving itself to mere mortals. The fact that the human construct of the scientific method clearly prohibits God from doing this has no bearing, as God is all-powerful. Thus, to prove God's existence, God must necessarily force the skeptical to believe in him. Which negates free-will...Science applies to man. As does logic. God may be able to defy logic, but people have free-will to evaluate evidence in a symbolic way.

How do we know if free-will is indeed even part of the equation? Some Christians argue for free-will, other Christians argue that there is no free-will, strictly predestination. It may sound "evil" (as you noted in one of your other posts, how God could predestine someone to not believe in him), but who are we to dictate what is and is not evil? Then we get back into objective morality. But the deity in question gets to pick if free will does or doesn't exist, and if that is or is not evil. Not us.

 

All of your belief system is founded on certain core philosophies that in actuality cannot technically be correct.

I have never claimed that seemingly magical occurences deny the existence of powerful beings.

You have not claimed that seemingly magical occurrences DENY the existence of powerful beings, no. But you certainly leave as little room as possible for anything to ever in any way ever correlate to such, even with lightning striking from the empty sky carving letters into the earth beneath you. But you're right, it still COULD be super electromagnetics beyond all comprehension.

I have never denied powerful beings...But who is claiming for a fact that powerful beings or God does not exist? No one that I can see. Powerful beings evincing themselves apon us would be evidence supporting of the theory of powerful beings. Who is denying powerful beings might exist? No one that I can see.

I certainly don't assert that you claim or believe those things. In fact, I would go as far to say (dare I?) that I understand your beliefs better than you understand your beliefs.

 

As creative, original, and 'logical' as you think you are, you're just a statistic bloc.

Let us assume that extremely powerful beings do exist and are capable of powers limited only by the rules of the universe (which may or may not be correct in our understanding). The fact that powerful beings exist does not necessitate that God exists. One may infer that if God is an extremely powerful being, extremely powerful beings are known to exist, and God is not known not to exist, therefore God may exist... which means what? God may exist without those provisos. The fact that birds definitely exist and can fly, and Pixies are thought to fly, and Pixies are not known not to exist, does not give credence to the notion that Pixies exist. It only gives credence to the notion that Pixies do not not exist. They might. Or might not.

In our particular conversation as a whole, the over-arching theme is "God / deities / powerful beings" as one category. It is not a conversation as to whether unknown powerful beings exist in contrast to God or if they corroborate God or not. Rather, it is a question of "does God/deities exist, and if so...". You mistakenly are contrasting the two, when in this particular conversation, they are one and the same. "Powerful beings" refers to the hypothetical God or Gods, and "God" is monotheistically refering to "powerful deities," both in the hypothetical. We just offer both options of monotheism or a pantheon, to appease the hypothesis. I hope this makes sense, and is not misunderstood.

By necessity, the creator of the universe must work with lesser materials than make up himself, therefore the creator of the universe is not a native of the universe, and is outside of the universe. A being outside of the universe has no predictable qualities, so therefore cannot be positively identified. Thus, all events and objects are necessarily evidence that God exists, and necessarily evidence that God does not exist.

There you go again. Applying your own made-up-rules onto a deity. And 'round and 'round we go .

To more concisely address the point: If God is all-powerful and created the scientific method, God can determine whether or not people are able to use it to prove God's existence. Again, this negates free-will entirely. Now, one might say that God definitely exists if free-will is an illusion and the universe is scripted.

Or, God could have it not able to determine his existence, deliberately to make it contrast to an element of "faith." Or not. Maybe you're a sock on his hand.

I didnt read the box part, so I'll address it now. If existence is in a box, and God is on the other side peering in (but we cannot peer out), how could we know anything about God in order to prove his existence? Now, you may say "God might pluck one of us out of the box and show himself". But never having perceived the outside of the box, how is anyone to know that they are, in fact, on the outside and not merely being lied to by Q or Satan?

My box metaphor wasn't a "deistic" picture of the universe as a box and God looking in. I was using the metaphor as casually used in language, such as, "think outside of the box." What I meant was, you cannot "put God in a box" of logic that is "merely mortal" (let's agree not to chase down that rabbit hole, "merely mortal," I just use the phrase for conjecture). I simply meant to say that "God is a deity, we are the ones in HIS box," so we can't presume to try and apply our smart little thinking methods and our "box" onto a deity.

 

There are too many assumptions that all of these arguments are based on.

 

1) Free will - it may or may not actually exist

2) Deity/ies in question being unmeasurable

etc.

 

You can't approach the question from your own experiential standpoint. We have to start from an "I do not/possibly cannot know" standpoint. I know that you say that this is your standpoint, that you "always leave room for the possibility of God." But your cornerstone points that you balance your methodology on are actually contrary to what you say. In addition, you don't *actually* leave room for God, it just helps the *technicality* of your belief system to *say* that you allow it, because you technically *should*. But you don't, really.

 

-3nigma

[gwprod12]

I dont have anything to say to this, except that reason is good. So is education.

 

PS. You can read whatever you want into what I say. If it pleases you to believe that my reason indicates that there is no God, do so. It is not my belief that there is an equal likelihood of God. But my belief does not override my reason. I know, as a reasonable person, that there is as much equal likelihood of God's existence as it's none-existence. Nowhere have I attempted to prove that God does not exist, because it's impossible to prove either way. That is my point. Unless you're asserting that God must necessarily exist, I see no problem.