1. Standard memberfinnegan
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    13 May '16 11:442 edits
    Originally posted by josephw
    [b]"I would try a philosopher, like the great Spinoza, who argued that there is indeed a reason for everything that exists:.."

    ...

    What exists is explained by its creator. Rational explanations for what exists comes from its creator. If not, then it's not rational.[/b]
    [b]"I would try a philosopher, like the great Spinoza, who argued that there is indeed a reason for everything that exists:.."

    So? That's just a no-brainer. I knew there was a reason for everything that exists before I knew Spinoza existed. What's your point?

    My point is that I do not have to sit on my toadstool thinking stuff up from scratch. I can instead read, consider and discuss the accumulated wisdom of others who have put a lifetime of thought into these questions and who were in turn well informed about what others have thought and said. Because there have been many competing voices over time, I have also learned to be selective about the weight I place on different sources of potential wisdom and to read their opinions critically and in the light of reason, in so far as I have developed that capacity. As Spjnoza said himself, if it was a simple thing to achieve wisdom then there would be evidence of that in the wisdom of the people around us; but we know instead that it is a long and difficult path which many fail to even attempt and many others make only poor progress.

    "To know a thing is to know its cause."

    What's that supposed to mean? We know we exist, but many do not know how or why.

    Your appeal to ignorance is not effective. There are many ignorant people. We are all born with limited insight and spend our lives learning - obviously that means that we know things late in life that we would not have understood even vaguely earlier on. There are also many insights which can only come to us after a huge amount of effort. Some cannot be achieved within our limitations. Some cannot be achieved without specialist training - for example, mathematics is fundamental to many scientific principles.

    "Others sharing this opinion have included Leibniz, Einstein and Godel but they came after Spinoza."

    Who? I prefer to go directly to the source of creation for accurate information.

    You claim to have a privileged access to divine guidance that is lacking for ordinary mortals. Should I abandon all my learning and all my ability to reason and instead submit to your authority on the basis of this claim? I confess that I am not persuaded.

    "Your argument that God, if he made mistakes through ignorance or acted irrationally through arbitrary whim, would not be God,.."

    I never said that. What I said was that "God doesn't make mistakes. If He did then He isn't God". One cannot even begin to think about God's nature without first understanding that God is omniscient. Once that is understood one never questions God.

    Well actually I did not misrepresent your statement and do not need to change my words in the light of this.

    What does it even mean to say one "thinks about the nature of God"? Is God's "nature" even accessible for us to think about? In my case, it means only that I question the claims made by mortals about their diverse and often confused notion of what they imply by the term God. You see, it is quite a clever trick but a dishonest one to pretend that you have the authority of God and that I may not question your opinions and your pronouncements. Many deeply religious people do indeed question God, not infrequently by addressing him directly, and it is hard to envisage how one might even begin to escape the oppressive authority of religious leaders without questioning. Look for example at the Protestant movement in the Reformation to translate the Bible into the vernacular languages of the people, and the fear of the bishops that once people form their own interpretations of the Bible then all hell would break loose - as of course it has done. No - your demand that one may not question God is open to a lot of debate even within the fold of the deeply religious.

    "...is one that Spinoza has also proposed. He considered it blasphemous to conceive of an irrational God."

    I would be more concerned about what God thinks about what one thinks about God.

    Yes. Imagine if that were possible. Would you understand what you observed?

    "It follows. of course, and you must agree, that reality is explicable."

    I've heard many explanations about reality. Most are inexplicable. If God is reality's author, then reality is defined by God.

    I fear that your concept of "inexplicable" is not universally shared. To say something is "explicable" does not mean that there is no possible level of scepticism that would be unable to find something to quibble about and you are of course typical of those who defend the claims of religion (indeed, the claims of a religious sub-group) by an astonishing display of extreme scepticism applied unilaterally to your rivals and not at all to your own wild and highly convenient claims.

    To say that "reality is defined by God" is an empty phrase, the rattling of an empty can.

    "To deny that anything is explicable is to deny that it exists."

    Illusions are inexplicable because they don't exist. Rational thought doesn't include false reality. Truth and lies don't mix.

    Rational thought has historically generated many very reasonable and rational theories about reality that have been falsified by later work.

    Apart from well intentioned mistakes, truth and lies mix all too readily in some quarters. That is why we need rational thought. That is why we must ask questions and not defer to authority. I assume even you will not claim that religious leaders never lie.

    "To be quite clear about this, it follows that there is a rational explanation for what exists and that all that exists is rationally explicable."

    What exists is explained by its creator. Rational explanations for what exists comes from its creator. If not, then it's not rational.

    Rational thought is only productive if you concede that God is rational, which takes you back to my opening argument. If God is irrational, arbitrary and whimsical, then rational thought will not resolve any useful questions whatever - everything will be a random mess that might as easily be different. If God is rational then we can use reason to establish our understanding of nature; explanations will be found through reason and not through God (though of course any divine help is always welcome to those who enjoy a good riddle).
  2. Subscriberjosephw
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    13 May '16 14:20
    Originally posted by finnegan
    [b][b]"I would try a philosopher, like the great Spinoza, who argued that there is indeed a reason for everything that exists:.."

    So? That's just a no-brainer. I knew there was a reason for everything that exists before I knew Spinoza existed. What's your point?

    My point is that I do not have to sit on my toadstool thinking stuff up from sc ...[text shortened]... rough God (though of course any divine help is always welcome to those who enjoy a good riddle).[/b]
    "You claim to have a privileged access to divine guidance that is lacking for ordinary mortals."

    I claim no such thing. After reading that I realize now that you don't understand anything I'm saying, or very little of it.

    I don't know how much cleared I can make it. I'm not merely claiming that there's an omniscient creator. I didn't invent God. You apparently delight in the musings of mortal men. Theirs is not the final authority. That's the missing ingredient in your world view. Without omniscience you're in the dark fishing without bait.

    By "claiming" to know there is no omniscient creator God one must needs be omniscient. Determinism/random dichotomy is palavering with the intent of covering the truth with a warm fuzzy blanket.
  3. Standard memberfinnegan
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    13 May '16 16:321 edit
    Originally posted by josephw
    [b]"You claim to have a privileged access to divine guidance that is lacking for ordinary mortals."

    I claim no such thing. After reading that I realize now that you don't understand anything I'm saying, or very little of it.

    I don't know how much cleared I can make it. I'm not merely claiming that there's an omniscient creator. I didn't invent God. ...[text shortened]... /random dichotomy is palavering with the intent of covering the truth with a warm fuzzy blanket.[/b]
    "You claim to have a privileged access to divine guidance that is lacking for ordinary mortals."
    I claim no such thing.

    Yet you wrote: " I prefer to go directly to the source of creation for accurate information. " If that is not a claim to have acccess to divine guidance then what is it?

    You apparently delight in the musings of mortal men. Theirs is not the final authority. That's the missing ingredient in your world view.

    Well I have access to the musings of mortal men and I have the opportunity to use my capacity for reasoned thinking. I do not make your claim to have access to divine wisdom. I ask questions while you say that you do not ask questions: that may be a missing ingredient in your world view: the fact that you cannot have a view without opening your eyes. .
    Without omniscience you're in the dark fishing without bait.

    No. Without omniscience I have to rely on reason. A lot can be achieved in this way, especially because we can all stand on giants' shoulders and benefit from the accumulated wisdom of many generations of rational people asking serious and sincere questions.
    By "claiming" to know there is no omniscient creator God one must needs be omniscient.

    In this thread I have made no such claim. I have rather claimed that appealing to God's wisdom is not explanatory of anything. This does not require me to be or to claim to be omniscient and I have never done that. Conversely, you have the illusion that claiming to know that there is an omniscient God gives you direct access to His wisdom. In effect, I am supposed to take it that you are omniscient, at least in your infallible capacity to tell me that I am wrong all the time without justification beyond appeals to God's omniscience, which are appeals to nothing at all.

    Telling us that God is omniscient is all very well but unless you are God that is outside of your grasp. You are not omniscient. If an omniscient God told you everything about everything and your head did not explode, you would have no capacity to comprehend what you had just been told. In Spinoza's terms, a finite person cannot grasp infinite wisdom - it is simply not a serious claim for you to make.

    I make none of the amazing and weird claims that you rely upon. I rely on reasoned discussion and the use of reason, while I make a discriminating choice of other sources from whom I can realistically hope to learn. It amuses me to refer to Spinoza today. I do not think Spinoza is omniscient. Tomorrow I may cite quite different sources.
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    13 May '16 16:491 edit
    Originally posted by josephw
    By "claiming" to know there is no omniscient creator God one must needs be omniscient.
    That is obviously false. Suppose there is an entity that knows everything except for one single fact (eg the position of one electron in the universe.) That entity would know whether or not an omniscient creator God existed without being omniscient itself.

    There is in fact no good reason to think a human could not know that an omniscient creator God did not exist. All that would be required is a sound argument that showed that such an entity was self contradictory. (and depending on the exact definitions of the words, I have actually done so in the past).

    The OP of this thread essential demonstrates that certain definitions of God popular amongst theists could not possibly exist - which explains the response from you and Suzanne and the lack of response from any other theists.
  5. Subscriberjosephw
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    14 May '16 11:03
    Originally posted by twhitehead
    That is obviously false. Suppose there is an entity that knows everything except for one single fact (eg the position of one electron in the universe.) That entity would know whether or not an omniscient creator God existed without being omniscient itself.

    There is in fact no good reason to think a human could not know that an omniscient creator God di ...[text shortened]... hich explains the response from you and Suzanne and the lack of response from any other theists.
    Is your post above perfect? Is it free of any error? Are you? Obviously not.

    Before you go and get all defensive about that consider how much you don't know, and then tell me again how you have ever provided a sound argument for the non-existence of an omniscient creator.
  6. Subscriberjosephw
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    14 May '16 11:13
    Originally posted by finnegan
    "You claim to have a privileged access to divine guidance that is lacking for ordinary mortals."
    I claim no such thing.

    Yet you wrote: " I prefer to go directly to the source of creation for accurate information. " If that is not a claim to have acccess to divine guidance then what is it?

    [quote]You apparently delight in the musings of ...[text shortened]... inoza today. I do not think Spinoza is omniscient. Tomorrow I may cite quite different sources.
    "Telling us that God is omniscient is all very well but unless you are God that is outside of your grasp. You are not omniscient. If an omniscient God told you everything about everything and your head did not explode, you would have no capacity to comprehend what you had just been told. In Spinoza's terms, a finite person cannot grasp infinite wisdom - it is simply not a serious claim for you to make."

    I, you, don't have to be omniscient to grasp the concept of the existence of an omniscient being. Why are you confounding this discussion with irrelevant statements about me having the capacity to know infinite wisdom?

    That's not the same thing as knowing the one who does have infinite wisdom though. And there's no way for you to know whether or not I do, except that you did too.
  7. Cape Town
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    14 May '16 11:15
    Originally posted by josephw
    Is your post above perfect? Is it free of any error? Are you? Obviously not.

    Before you go and get all defensive about that consider how much you don't know, and then tell me again how you have ever provided a sound argument for the non-existence of an omniscient creator.
    I have provided a sound argument for the non-existence of an omniscient creator under specific conditions.

    Is your post free from error? Are you? Obviously not.
    Now tell me again your criticism of my post was valid. You can't. Because to do so would proove your criticism false.
  8. Standard memberfinnegan
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    15 May '16 00:27
    Originally posted by josephw
    [b]"Telling us that God is omniscient is all very well but unless you are God that is outside of your grasp. You are not omniscient. If an omniscient God told you everything about everything and your head did not explode, you would have no capacity to comprehend what you had just been told. In Spinoza's terms, a finite person cannot grasp infinite wisdom - i ...[text shortened]... wisdom though. And there's no way for you to know whether or not I do, except that you did too.
    That's not the same thing as knowing the one who does have infinite wisdom though. And there's no way for you to know whether or not I do, except that you did too.

    Well that is a serious contribution to the discussion and now I am going to bed.
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