Do you KNOW God does not exist?

[viole]

Well, in my eyes people assign a meaning to words, which merely convey information.
What is the -ism in atheism? What does an atheist follow? What is the doctrine? What are the goals? And so on and on.
Sorry, I disagree that the term "atheist" is necessary. It's demeaning. Like a-horoscopist or a-racist.
There are human beings and some believe super-natural things exist. So I object to being called a name for not believing what others believe without having a rational reason to beleive it.

Well, I kind of agree. In a sense the label atheist seems to concede that there is something to be taken so seriously to deserve a label against it. For instance, people would laugh if I declared myself a-fairist or a-bigfootist, even though God and fairies have the same objective evidence of existing, and therefore share the same epistemological status with God.

Alas, as long as so many people believe in Jesus and not fairies, I don't see how we can renounce that label. For sure, it makes it clear hat we do not belong to that club by means of just one short simple word.

Ciao

- viole

 

[`mud]

"How do we know ?"
Good question...
is the gnosis in one satisfied when the quest for knowledge ceases.
Subjective or objective..makes no difference what knowledge one gains.
If the knowledge is gained from man's words, it becomes suspicious.
And....in the sense as Paineful's statement, his god doesn't speak,
from where does the 'knowledge' come ?
I'll agree to a point, we probably never will know, it doesn't speak,
the 'whole truth' will never be known,
one's gnosis is on it's own, choosing it's own free will.
His 'God' and his 'Truth' really have no control at all.
NuffStuff
~
'mud

 

[Blastcat]

God = the whole Truth at the end of the road we travel in the pursuit of the Truth. But, of course, we only know some of the Truth. Ergo, we don't know the whole Truth/God....and probably never will.

So, now we have degraded our KNOWLEDGE of God to just being able to know SOME of it.
You can't know all of it. So, the things you don't know.. might contradict what you know.
You just don't know those things.

God might be way more EVIL than you can probably know.
God might be an ALIEN, but you just don't really know. You only have the partial image the aliens provide.

God might be SATAN after all.. and Yahweh a small, insignificant loser. For all you know.

You just don't know.
BUT you "know" some stuff.

You may ONLY know what you were MEANT to know.
Makes sense to me.

God is hiding his true nature to you.
And you THINK that your partial "knowledge" is the full picture, but of course, it can't possibly be the complete picture.
Only when you die, apparently, are you going to know the full picture.

OR ARE YOU?

What if you die, and STILL only get a partial picture?
How would you know?

IN any case, by your own admission, whatever you say you know about god , I will take as AT BEST partial knowledge.
NOW, that doesn't even BEGIN to address the RELIABILITY of what you call "knowledge" of god.

Since you don't know EVERYTHING about god, it's possible that what you DO know doesn't reflect AT ALL any "true nature" of this god.

The whole Truth, God, is everything that exists, including the natural law that controls it, whether it's associated with a super-consciousness or not. And Truth, btw, includes both objective knowledge, and subjective beauty, with justice and love in between.

So, if you EQUATE god with "everything that exists, we already have a fine word for that.

Are you calling god the UNIVERSE?

Because we have a word for the universe. It's the universe.
Why change the name of the universe and call that God? What PURPOSE does that accomplish other than making a bad argument for the EXISTENCE of god. Changing one word for another isn't proving the first word.

WE KNOW and ACCEPT that the universe exists. What is in QUESTION is if a god exists.
Calling what we are trying to PROVE exists by a word for what DOES exist doesn't help the case.

it harms the case.
Playing with words to make a case is lame.

As to subjective truth.. we don't need a god to explain any of that. People think up ideas. We respond to what we are programed to call beauty. No god required.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

How do you know Whole Truth equal to God?

People are saying all the time, What is God? Who is God? What is It's nature? Does It even exist? The latter meaning does a sentient super-consciousness/power exist? We can say with all the certainty we can muster that the revealed God's don't exist due to a total lack of evidence, leaving us with either no sentient God or a perfectly hidden God. Either way, that ultimate knowledge, that ultimate Truth, that compilation of all that is, is for us, God.

This requires accepting the possibility that our God may not even be self-aware. But It's still our God, our entity of all-encompassing existence and worth.

How do you know Whole Truth/God is everything that exists?

That's the only way to define God that works, the ultimate what is, rather than the manufactured, "revealed", myths our religions have given us, or the void that atheism and nihilism present. We could just keep referring to the ultimate Truth as the ultimate Truth, but that doesn't account for the mystery of it all--a bigger version of the similar mystery of how these bags of skin and bone muster a self-aware consciousness on our own.

A pencil exists in my pencil box, is the pencil a manifestation of God?

If the ultimate Truth, if (since) God is everything, then yeah. But even more (less) than that, the (empty?) space that quanta are suspended in...everything. Everything "before" the Big Bang, and everything through the Planck spacetime smallest divisions of the universe gaps, into that ultimate (infinitely?) indivisible aether in which the universe is suspended. An aether stretching from infinity to infinity in all its infinite dimensions--which subsume the infinite single dimension of time and three dimensions of our universe.

Is everyone and everything we see a manifestation of God? How do you know?

You may ask, how I know this? I don't. I'm simply looking at the portion of the Truth we possess, that evidence/knowledge, and looking where it indicates. I'm sure I'm probably at least partially wrong, but I'm just as sure I'm not completely wrong; unless this is all just a cosmic joke, by me on my solipsist self--in which case you are just me talking to myself. That's the ultimate reminder to work with what we have, while at the same time never taking ourselves too seriously.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

"How do we know ?"
Good question...
is the gnosis in one satisfied when the quest for knowledge ceases.
Subjective or objective..makes no difference what knowledge one gains.
If the knowledge is gained from man's words, it becomes suspicious.
And....in the sense as Paineful's statement, his god doesn't speak,
from where does the 'knowledge' come ?
I'll agree to a point, we probably never will know, it doesn't speak,
the 'whole truth' will never be known,
one's gnosis is on it's own, choosing it's own free will.
His 'God' and his 'Truth' really have no control at all.
NuffStuff
~
'mud

Re: what I just posted above.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

So, if you EQUATE god with "everything that exists, we already have a fine word for that.

Are you calling god the UNIVERSE?

It's a lot more than that, since we can't account for what came before the universe, what caused it, what the universe is expanding into, and what if anything is beyond or through its minimal divisions, the Planck spacetime "gaps".

 

[Pudding]

People are saying all the time, What is God? Who is God? What is It's nature? Does It even exist? The latter meaning does a sentient super-consciousness/power exist? We can say with all the certainty we can muster that the revealed God's don't exist due to a total lack of evidence, leaving us with either no sentient God or a perfectly hidden God. Either way, that ultimate knowledge, that ultimate Truth, that compilation of all that is, is for us, God.

This requires accepting the possibility that our God may not even be self-aware. But It's still our God, our entity of all-encompassing existence and worth.

Either way, that ultimate knowledge, that ultimate Truth, that compilation of all that is, is for us, God?
What do you mean?
Where is the evidence that Whole Truth is equal to God?
Where is evidence for this God's existence?

That's the only way to define God that works, the ultimate what is, rather than the manufactured, "revealed", myths our religions have given us, or the void that atheism and nihilism present. We could just keep referring to the ultimate Truth as the ultimate Truth, but that doesn't account for the mystery of it all--a bigger version of the similar mystery of how these bags of skin and bone muster a self-aware consciousness on our own.

I still don't know how do you know Whole Truth/God is everything that exists.

You only give an assumption theory that without evidence.

If the ultimate Truth, if (since) God is everything, then yeah. But even more (less) than that, the (empty?) space that quanta are suspended in...everything. Everything "before" the Big Bang, and everything through the Planck spacetime smallest divisions of the universe gaps, into that ultimate (infinitely?) indivisible aether in which the universe is suspended. An aether stretching from infinity to infinity in all its infinite dimensions--which subsume the infinite single dimension of time and three dimensions of our universe.

You may ask, how I know this? I don't. I'm simply looking at the portion of the Truth we possess, that evidence/knowledge, and looking where it indicates. I'm sure I'm probably at least partially wrong, but I'm just as sure I'm not completely wrong; unless this is all just a cosmic joke, by me on my solipsist self--in which case you are just me talking to myself. That's the ultimate reminder to work with what we have, while at the same time never taking ourselves too seriously.

I cannot understand your meaning.
Where is the evidence that God is everything?

 

[Blastcat]

People are saying all the time, What is God? Who is God? What is It's nature? Does It even exist? The latter meaning does a sentient super-consciousness/power exist? We can say with all the certainty we can muster that the revealed God's don't exist due to a total lack of evidence, leaving us with either no sentient God or a perfectly hidden God. Either way, that ultimate knowledge, that ultimate Truth, that compilation of all that is, is for us, God.

You have knowledge of the truth based on a total lack of evidence.
You have knowledge of the truth based on NO sentient god.
You have knowledge of the truth based on a perfectly HIDDEN god.

Impressive. How did THAT knowledge of the truth happen?

This requires accepting the possibility that our God may not even be self-aware. But It's still our God, our entity of all-encompassing existence and worth.

Impressive. How did you find THAT out?

That's the only way to define God that works, the ultimate what is, rather than the manufactured, "revealed", myths our religions have given us, or the void that atheism and nihilism present. We could just keep referring to the ultimate Truth as the ultimate Truth, but that doesn't account for the mystery of it all--a bigger version of the similar mystery of how these bags of skin and bone muster a self-aware consciousness on our own.

Wow, as long as it "works" for you , it's also real.
Other people might disagree that this is the ONLY way to define god in a way that works. There ARE other religions. There ARE other very bright people thinking things up that "works" for them.

Fiction also "works" for some people. Is fiction real?

If the ultimate Truth, if (since) God is everything, then yeah. But even more (less) than that, the (empty?) space that quanta are suspended in...everything. Everything "before" the Big Bang, and everything through the Planck spacetime smallest divisions of the universe gaps, into that ultimate (infinitely?) indivisible aether in which the universe is suspended. An aether stretching from infinity to infinity in all its infinite dimensions--which subsume the infinite single dimension of time and three dimensions of our universe.

You seem to KNOW a lot about what happened before the beginning of the universe. WOW.. how did THAT knowledge happen to you?

You may ask, how I know this? I don't. I'm simply looking at the portion of the Truth we possess, that evidence/knowledge, and looking where it indicates. I'm sure I'm probably at least partially wrong, but I'm just as sure I'm not completely wrong; unless this is all just a cosmic joke, by me on my solipsist self--in which case you are just me talking to myself. That's the ultimate reminder to work with what we have, while at the same time never taking ourselves too seriously.

OK.. you don't know.
Thanks for telling us what you don't know about.

 

[outhouse]

We can say with all the certainty we can muster that the revealed God's don't exist due to a total lack of evidence

No.

It is all the evidence that shows he was man made, and that all mythology in theology that helps us determine exactly without a doubt how the mythology formed and evolved in different cultures.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

No.

It is all the evidence that shows he was man made, and that all mythology in theology that helps us determine exactly without a doubt how the mythology formed and evolved in different cultures.

"He" was man-made. You're still thinking like them. What religion came up with a non-interventionist god? The idea doesn't serve any purpose but the Truth.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

Either way, that ultimate knowledge, that ultimate Truth, that compilation of all that is, is for us, God?
What do you mean?
Where is the evidence that Whole Truth is equal to God?
Where is evidence for this God's existence?

I cannot understand your meaning.
Where is the evidence that God is everything?

Truth is everything.

 

[outhouse]

"He" was man-made.

Defined by men who combined two gods into one. Its not even up for debate, it is the truth of what happened in early Israelite cultures.

Yahweh was placed into power by governmental control by a King who was loyal to that one god.

 

[outhouse]

Truth is everything.

Then why keep fighting it?

 

[Thief]

"How do we know ?"
Good question...
is the gnosis in one satisfied when the quest for knowledge ceases.
Subjective or objective..makes no difference what knowledge one gains.
If the knowledge is gained from man's words, it becomes suspicious.
And....in the sense as Paineful's statement, his god doesn't speak,
from where does the 'knowledge' come ?
I'll agree to a point, we probably never will know, it doesn't speak,
the 'whole truth' will never be known,
one's gnosis is on it's own, choosing it's own free will.
His 'God' and his 'Truth' really have no control at all.
NuffStuff
~
'mud

Are you equating 'knowing' with 'being sure'?

You might not have the proof and then others say you don't know....for lack of proof....
but you can still be VERY sure.

 

[Shad]

The whole Truth, God, is everything that exists, including the natural law that controls it, whether it's associated with a super-consciousness or not. And Truth, btw, includes both objective knowledge, and subjective beauty, with justice and love in between.

Internal contradiction. Subjective truth is only true to the person in question which may not be true to others. Thus is can not be a universal truth which renders it useless in conjunction with objective truth. My truth cancels out your truth leaving only an opinion which is believed to be true by a person in question. Subjective truth can only be agreed upon but this does not grant that the reasons are the same. If the reasons are different the conclusion can also be vastly different. For example a Christian can claim a path to truth via Jesus leading to God. A Jew will not accept this reasons but will have an alternative path to God. While both are paths leading to what appears to be a shared conclusion the difference in paths modifies the conclusion thus a different form of God and "Truth"

 

[Thief]

Internal contradiction. Subjective truth is only true to the person in question which may not be true to others. Thus is can not be a universal truth which renders it useless in conjunction with objective truth.

Some have truth that many others will never know.

 

[Shad]

Some have truth that many others will never know.

And some can claim they have a truth that they can not prove. It is a great exercise in rhetoric but meaningless once the sophistry is exposed.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

Then why keep fighting it?

Because all lies are man made, Call me a dreamer, but I just can't help tilting at windmills, even if the cause is lost.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

Internal contradiction. Subjective truth is only true to the person in question which may not be true to others. Thus is can not be a universal truth which renders it useless in conjunction with objective truth.

Beauty is Truth, but beauty is also subjective.

My truth cancels out your truth

So.....beauty cancels out knowledge, and knowledge nullifies art?

Please, do me a favor, blow my brains out and put me out of my misery. My head is bloody from this brick wall already. Truth doesn't matter here, only being strong on the other side.

 

[Shad]

Beauty is Truth, but beauty is also subjective.

Subjective truth is not actual truth, it is believed to be true which is not the same as to be actual true.

So.....beauty cancels out knowledge, and knowledge nullifies art?

No subjective views cancel each other out as soon as one person hold a different view. Person A thinks a painting is beautiful, Person B disagrees. Thus truth is relative which is useless. This subjective truth forms a contradiction as soon as more than one view is included. At best you can have an agreed upon truth but not a proven one. This be default does not make it a factual truth. It become probability and a consensus.

Please, do me a favor, blow my brains out and put me out of my misery. My head is bloody from this brick wall already. Truth doesn't matter here, only being strong on the other side.

It happens when you are overwhelmed by sophistry. I was merely exposing it.