Question for theists

Post Reply New Topic

Nice dragon.

Has the idea of a 'religious experience' been brought into this discussion yet? I myself have had a few spiritual experiences in my few short years, and trying to explain these experiences to someone who has never had one is nigh on impossible. I know as evidence goes it's weak, but the point I'm trying to make isn't really about spirits or anything, but more that you have to shift your perspective somewhat.
Take the dragon in the garage for example. Allegorically, it says that we can go to a certain place and find God (might as well drop the metaphor, I'm rubbish at this). But I think that it's fundamentally flawed at this point. In order to experience God or spirits or whatever you think you've seen, you have to understand that they're everywhere. Our universe is the garage, and it's entirely possible that we're the dragon.e dragon.
Secondly, you can't expect these metaphysical manifestations to make themselves known if you don't want to see them. If you don't want to watch a movie, then you aren't going to see it, are you? Likewise, remaining closed on the subject isn't going to make these things suddenly reveal themselves (Yes, I am aware that there are some staunch atheists suddenly converted to religion by experience, but I'm speaking in general terms, God knows my writing is difficult enough to follow anyway).
It's all well and good questioning evidence for God and that, but at the end of the day, unless you've felt it, you're always going to be unsure. And I think that's unsettling for a lot of atheists, even if they don't realise it.

To answer your opening question, I suppose the atheistic answer is to say that there wouldn't be so many wars and bizarre goings on all over the world, but I think that's dangerously one-sided. There wouldn't be spiritual movements all over the world, either. No Gandhi (which so many people seem to enjoy quoting), No Mother Teresa, no St. Patricks day (for the drinkers out there), and no reason to gang up on people with spiritual beliefs differing to yours. All of these things and way more (I'm not doing a huge list, I have work soon) have all been directly influenced by God. Whether or not God is real is another matter entirely and that's down to you being open to the possibility etcetera, but there would be a lot of good things missing from the world as well. So you can moan all you like about Catholics and bloodthirsty Muslims or whoever gets your goat, but the fact of the matter is a lot of love would be missing from the world as well.

There, if you can chew your way through all of that, then I'm impressed, I'm crap at writing. No wonder I failed my philosophy exam. If only I could have spoken it.

There is no dragon. I'm sure. What a ret*d analogy.

What is a divine purpose?

Although here seems to be a problem with spelling (as is pandemic at this site) it is a fish-like mammal with wings.

I thought McCartney vocalized about Odobenus rosmarus, not Phocoenoides dalli, and that was well before he and Linda were incognito as avian appendages?

Sounds a lot like this world.

If I'm presented with compelling evidence that there is a diety, I'll gladly convert. But that doesn't mean I'm an agnostic. Not by a long shot.

None. If God exists, It has hidden Itself. If God does not exist there would be no signs of It anyway. Result is the same in either case.

ruveyn

that made me chuckle
"it"

Differences in the world? Here's a list that I can think of.

No afterlife, no matter what the intuition would suggest to us.

Moral and teleological feelings would correspond to nothing at all, and this would contradict our intuitions about such things.

There might not be a plan to actions in the real world(depending on whether classic or open theism is assumed) which would be a big issue to someone who sees "really big coincidences", nor would prayer work under most theism and theists assume it generally works under non-laboratory conditions.

Arguably, the theist could also argue that a world without a God would not have such a good case for Christ's resurrection(only applying to Christian theists) as they would consider the time frame between the writing of the gospels and the death of Christ to be too short for mythology to consistently emerge, and lying on the matter to be absurd given the potential loss of creating such a lie and Jewish cultural problems with resurrection generally precluding this from occurring.
-----------

Finally, the theist might argue that the world as we know it, is impossible without God.

For one, they might argue that the universe cannot eternally exist due to the problems of an infinite past or infinite time for that matter, and instead argue that at some point an external being had to create the universe, because of the problems of infinite chains of causation and infinite amounts of things. Of course, such an argument requires a denial of the infinitesimal as anything but a mathematics conception, rather than anything that corresponds to the real nature of time.

Secondly, the theist might argue that the laws of physics are too tolerant of the formation of life(the gravity is not too strong or too weak, bonds between atoms can exist, etc) and based upon what limited information we have, a God seems likely to explain this kind of outcome, as there is no reason why such complexity would emerge without a desire to have it.

Thirdly, the theist might argue that the concept of God demands the existence of God, which can be expressed by Alvin Plantinga, who used the modal axiom S5(which is often accepted in advanced logic).

1. It is proposed that a being has maximal excellence in a given possible world W if and only if it is omnipotent, omniscient and wholly good in W; and
2. It is proposed that a being has maximal greatness if it has maximal excellence in every possible world.
3. Maximal greatness is possibly exemplified. That is, it is possible that there be a being that has maximal greatness. (Premise)
4. Therefore, possibly it is necessarily true that an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being exists.
5. Therefore, it is necessarily true that an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being exists. (By Axiom S5)
6. Therefore, an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being exists.

Based upon this logic, God cannot not exist, unless Plantinga's theoretical God is either incoherent, or unless the logic proves too much. But it is an argument that the very nature of reality demands the existence of deity.

Finally, there is the transcendental argument for God, which argues that things such as logic, the constancy of physical laws, ethics, etc, do not make sense without the existence of a deity. As without a deity, why would physical laws or logic be constant?


Does this work as a set of differences? You and I might dispute the validity of some of these things, but these are all arguments used(or a set of them, there are more arguments used than I provided of course)

Do you claim to know there is no god? Do you allow for the possibility that there is something you do not know?

I'm certainly not saying that you must allow for a Jesus or a Buddha or whatever, I think it's rather easy to write off the world religions of today. However, to claim to know the intangible seems arrogant to me.

Atheism = Lack of belief
Agnosticism = Lack of balls

I won't lose sleep on nights about if there perhaps is a dragon in my garage, be assured.

That's rather flippant compared to what I expected from you.

I did not say there was a need to have any fear.

We're in the crazy philosophical realm where, really, anything is possible. I compartmentalize this alongside the real-life day-to-day world, there is every ability and every reason to have different layers of philosophy and reality.

Atheism = overcompensating for the fact that the important parts are grossly under proportioned relative to those balls.

if i had to choose, i'd rather have a dragon than God. Dragons wins in awesomness <.< (And at the very least, almost all cultures know something that ressembles a dragon... ) Gods are just meant to be an ideal one cannot ever reach. <.<

well, I can assure you that no matter what belief system anyone has, men will still have their testicles, not to mention that women who are either atheists or agnostics do not have testicles unless they are transexuals, hermaphrodites or whatever it makes them different than our current concept of being a woman.

Anyway, what is atheism exactly and what is agnosticism exactly? Can they be seen as completely separate things or to be related somehow?
I do accept the concept of agnosticism=negative (weak) atheism to some extent, and well, there is the issue about the level certainty that seems it was discussed here, so in that end, I can say I have no basis to be certain about any ontological position about the existence of an entity people often call God, but still find these aspects interesting, and my testicles are still there, believe me, they are not gone by some act of magic or the sort.