Posted on 04/12/2013 10:59:53 AM PDT by EaglesNestHome
Thank you, everyone in my previous post, who gave well thought out, articulate answers to these important questions of life (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2998030/posts )! Now, in philosophy class, we are exploring these questions in even more detail, and with an additional assignment of follow-up questions:
What do you believe, regarding ultimate reality? God? Matter? Something else?
Do you believe in God? If so, why? Why are you here on earth, and where are you going, for eternity?
If you believe in God, what is the most convincing evidence, for you personally? Is there any possibility that you may be wrong about the existence of God? If so, what are the consequences of being wrong, and believing in a God who doesn’t exist?
If you do not believe in God, why not? If you do not believe in God, is there any possibility that you might be wrong—no matter how small the possibility? If you are wrong, what are the consequences of being wrong?
What is truth; Are moral values absolute or relative? Are at least some moral values absolute? If so, where do these absolute moral values come from? Is the possibility of evil necessary, in order for human beings to be allowed free will?
I’ll start. I believe in God as the ultimate reality and first cause of the universe. I believe in God because of the convincing evidence of Christ’s perfect life, given for me, as well as the evidences of my own personal experiences. In addition, I find further support in my belief, from considering cosmological arguments; Everything which begins to exist requires a cause--the universe did not come from nothing. Why am I here? My answer is that I am here to have a love relationship with God and serve him by serving others. I can only have a relationship with God, through accepting Christ as my Savior. Where am I going? I have accepted Jesus as my Savior, because I cannot save myself. He is my King, and I will eventually join Him in His Heavenly Kingdom. Without Christ, I cannot save myself, because I am guilty of what the Bible calls sin—anything less than perfection. Not one of us can honestly claim perfection, yet if God allows anything less than perfection into heaven, it would be just as bad as earth. That’s why we need a Savior, Christ. (If you don’t know what I mean here, it is all in the Bible; a good place to start is reading the book of John.) What is truth; is there such a thing as moral values that are absolute, for all people? Yes, we all know instinctively that there are moral values that are absolute—every one of us will draw a “moral line” somewhere—usually when it comes to those people that we love. Each of us knows how we would like to be treated by others, although we may have a hard time recognizing when we don’t treat other people right. For instance, which one of us would not object, to the idea of someone breaking into our house and stealing all of our children’s toys? Clearly, there are moral absolutes, such as stealing is wrong—at least when it comes to our own property! (Some people could argue that it is okay to steal if your children are starving, but not if you want a new electronic gadget—but these are exceptions.) Not one of us can claim to be perfect, and yet we all know that certain things are wrong. Ravi Zacharias, in Addressing the Problem of Evil, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9b0PJDDof4 , eloquently and lovingly affirms the philosophical case that the question of evil; the recognition of the question of evil reveals the obvious existence of moral good. Zacharias noted that "When you say something is evil you assume something is good...a moral law...a moral Law Giver." C.S. Lewis also presents a well-reasoned explanation, here: In Mere Christianity, Book 1 (http://www.truthaccordingtoscripture.com/documents/apologetics/mere-christianity/Book1/cs-lewis-mere-christianity-book1.php ), Chapter 1, C.S. Lewis states that "human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in." Without the possibility of evil, there cannot be free will, to choose to do evil or good. If we were not allowed free will (the possibility to do evil) and our Creator forced us to do good, then the resulting (forced) good would be an evil. It is clear that this idea of good and evil is in all of us. Stories of good and evil are the mainstay of classic literature. This moral argument points to the existence of a Creator, who I have experienced as the risen Christ.
Heinlein summed it best for me:
“The most ridiculous concept ever perpetrated by H.Sapiens is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of the Universes, wants the sacharrine adoration of his creations, that he can be persuaded by their prayers, and becomes petulant if he does not recieve this flattery. Yet this ridiculous notion, without one real shred of evidence to bolster it, has gone on to found one of the oldest, largest and least productive industries in history.”
Dont be offended. You asked for opinions. If you’re lucky you get about 80 years on this rock. Be kind, fall in love, raise a family. Or not. Most of all, decide for yourself.
In the end, all is dust.
That is a very Platonic interpretation of Jer 1:5. The next step is to say we knew the Forms in Heaven, forgot everything because of sin, and throughout life are remembering what we forgot.
I can’t remember if Augustine followed this logic... I have read Confessions and The Trinity, and he does lean more toward Plato and did not like Aristotle at all, but I am not sure if he went as far as a pre-existence of the soul in Heaven. Certainly Roman Catholics have not held that since Aquinas reconciled Augustinian and Aristotelian philosophy.
The reason humanities (as compared to science) has hardly progressed at all in the milleniums that man has existed is because the terms it deals with are either not defined or vaguely defined.
Define for me what God is and I’ll tell you if:
1. he exists
2. he doesn’t exist
3. I’ll take a wild guess
4. I have no clue
And that is true of all the other terms you bring up.
Note that in asking your questions, not only have you not defined your terms, you have also omitted choice 3 and 4 in the list of possible answers.
For most of the questions you pose the best answer is 3 or 4, given our current state of knowledge
Asking about beliefs doesn’t get to the ultimate factual answers, only to someone’s opinion.
And by that I don’t mean to minimize beliefs, because they constitute our world view, through which we filter all our sensual input and thoughts, and which guide us in making the thousands of decisions we make each day. So beliefs are extremely important.
And so which beliefs are the best to hold? The ones that correlate best with reality as provided by our senses and rational mind and the ones that lead to a happier life in the long run.
Just as an example of how a belief that doesn’t reflect reality can cause untold human misery, consider the belief that everyone is equal or that everyone should be treated equally or be given equal opportunity. This is the belief of socialists and progressives. If you wonder what progressives are “progressing” toward, it is equality. Think of all the death and misery that such a belief has caused humanity. (The USSR, China, Cuba, Eastern Europe, NK). And now it’s encroaching in the US as well, as the reference to equality in the declaration of independence is exploited to push for “forced equality”.
The REALITY is that people are not equal, and you can force such an outcome only with tyranny and misery. The better solution is to accept and even embrace the reality that people are NOT equal and make the most of the differences by allowing them to flourish through freedom and individual compassion.
To help me make the point, I’ll leave you with this short story from Kurt Vonnegut:
http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html
Perfect answer, now if we could just recall the question...!
For example, If A then NOT B. "If your God is all powerful, could he create a stone so large that not even HE could move it? If he can't create such a stone, he must not be all powerful."
There are all kinds of variations on this--perhaps the professor wants to show how superior he is with logical arguments, but they are moot from a theological standpoint. As Christians, we have faith, which cannot be expressed in logical terms.
Good thanks for clarifying, but I didn’t take to mean that the question was precisely coming from you, rather the professor or the lesson material. In your revised format, then it’s all open to discussion from several points of view of course. I have to believe that man/intelligence/soul came from something beyond man himself, it did not evolve solely from an insect form. This is where God comes into the picture, as brought to us in the Bible.
some paragraphs would be nicer than one run-on paragraph
God is the Ultimate Reality, the All in All, expressing as, through, in, and around all that exists.
Do you believe in God? If so, why? Why are you here on earth, and where are you going, for eternity?
Yes. While there is a nonzero probability that all the factors necessary for life as we know it to exist on this planet, the chance of that happening was so minimal that it might as well be zero -- so some driving force made it this way. Call it The Thing Itself. Whatever The Thing Itself is, that's God.
Each of us is here on Earth for a unique purpose and when we have completed that mission, we move on to the next phase of life.
If you believe in God, what is the most convincing evidence, for you personally? Is there any possibility that you may be wrong about the existence of God? If so, what are the consequences of being wrong, and believing in a God who doesn’t exist?
Possibility? Yes, extremely minimal. I discussed the best evidence above.
No consequence to being mistaken about that, as I see it.
If you do not believe in God, why not? If you do not believe in God, is there any possibility that you might be wrong—no matter how small the possibility? If you are wrong, what are the consequences of being wrong?
I don't see much in the way of consequences for those who don't believe in God either.
Yes—the questions in the assignment are open to interpretation, and the vocabulary terms (including the definition of God) may be defined differently, depending upon your worldview as well as various backgrounds. I see no reason to limit discussion, as long as it is honest and respectful, but if a term is confusing, it does make it difficult to share a common frame of reference. So at the simplest, Lewis says this, about coming to a logical conclusion that “God” exists:
“Do not think I am going faster than I really am. I am not yet within a hundred miles of the God of Christian theology. All I have got to is a Something which is directing the universe, and which appears in me as a law urging me to do right and making me feel responsible and uncomfortable when I do wrong. I think we have to assume it is more like a mind than it is like anything else we know-because after all the only other thing we know is matter and you can hardly imagine a bit of matter giving instructions. But, of course, it need not be very like a mind, still less like a person. In the next chapter we shall see if we can find out anything more about it. But one word of warning. There has been a great deal of soft soap talked about God for the last hundred years. That is not what I am offering. You can cut all that out.
Note -In order to keep this section short enough when it was given on the air, I mentioned only the Materialist view and the Religious view. But to be complete I ought to mention the In between view called Life-Force philosophy, or Creative Evolution, or Emergent Evolution. The wittiest expositions of it come in the works of Bernard Shaw, but the most profound ones in those of Bergson. People who hold this view say that the small variations by which life on this planet “evolved” from the lowest forms to Man were not due to chance but to the “striving” or “purposiveness” of a Life-Force. When people say this we must ask them whether by Life-Force they mean something with a mind or not. If they do, then “a mind bringing life into existence and leading it to perfection” is really a God, and their view is thus identical with the Religious. If they do not, then what is the sense in saying that something without a mind “strives” or has “purposes”? This seems to me fatal to their view. One reason why many people find Creative Evolution so attractive is that it gives one much of the emotional comfort of believing in God and none of the less pleasant consequences. When you are feeling fit and the sun is shining and you do not want to believe that the whole universe is a mere mechanical dance of atoms, it is nice to be able to think of this great mysterious Force rolling on through the centuries and carrying you on its crest. If, on the other hand, you want to do something rather shabby, the Life-Force, being only a blind force, with no morals and no mind, will never interfere with you like that troublesome God we learned about when we were children. The Life-Force is a sort of tame God. You can switch it on when you want, but it will not bother you. All the thrills of religion and none of the cost. Is the Life-Force the greatest achievement of wishful thinking the world has yet seen?”
Lewis goes on to explain how he came to believe in the God “as brought to us in the Bible,” as you also say (and I agree!) Those who claim that God is unknowable should consider His autobiography, written in nature, in His Word (the Bible) and in His children. Thank you everyone, who has taken time for a thoughtful response!
Philosophy was one of two classes I liked in college - the other being english lit. it may not have been an official part of the curriculum, like studying the different schools of thought - but we discussed things like this after the boring stuff was done. ‘God is dead’ was popular back then - and we would drag the professor to lunch after class to continue the arguments.
dont have time for all your questions, but I know God exists. It became real for me the first time I looked into the eyes of my first child. That was the day I left the Catholic church because I KNEW babies were automatically granted the right to see the face of God, while the rest of us burned off those sins in purgatory.
I might not be able to describe God, but I know Him when I see Him.
Yes—I know what you mean, about knowing God exists. I think I truly believed in God, and in the existence of the soul, the day I watched my beloved grandmother pass away. I cannot exactly describe this (and I was only a teenager at the time) but I could tell the moment her soul left her body. How tragic, to not believe that we can live forever, with Christ! How amazing, that our Creator would lower Himself to become a man, so that we could know Him!
Aristotles fine Ontological Proofs answer these Questions.
Yes.
The older I get the more I marvel at the complexity of The universe and in particular ,life.
How could something such as the mitral valve in our hearts 'evolve'?
Even more basic.
Let's say an organism somehow rises out of the primordial soup.
It has to multiply. At some point male/female.
Wouldn't not only a male whatchacallit have to be viable but also a female.?And the ensuing mating of egg/sperm, The spiral helix somehow uniting. Really
What are the chances? astronomical.
even a single human cell, the more we learn, is more complex than could ever pop into existence
I thought the ultimate question was, “How may roads must a man walk down?” lol. ...stupid rats.
I thought the ultimate question was, “How many roads must a man walk down?” lol. ...stupid rats.
No, the original question was, “What do you get when you multiply six by nine?”
When all that should suffice for anyone with half a brain is Voltaire's observation,
"If God did not exist, Man would be constrained (compelled?) to invent him."
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