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Replies: 16
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Ultimate Clemson Legend [98431]
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I thought I'd figured this out on my own.
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Nov 14, 2024, 7:33 AM
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For a long time it's been my position that everything in this world was created and modeled after some spiritual truth. From understanding our relationship(s) with things in the world around us we find a frame of reference to comprehend their spiritual counterparts. I thought that was my original idea.
Romans 1:
"20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:..."
The context of this is damning.
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Rival Killer [2978]
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Re: I thought I'd figured this out on my own.
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Nov 14, 2024, 8:26 AM
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Yea, it seems like there has to be something outside this world. Hard to imagine everything just happening to exist and thrive the way it has.
This verse is just another way of putting forth the old 747 after a tornado argument. Or another way to put it, if you walked up on a sandcastle on the beach you wouldn't assume that a wave washed up and just left it that way. Someone had to create it.
I can get down with that argument. When I look at the world and all it's complexity, hard to imagine it just coming into existence. Seems there has to be something more.
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Ultimate Clemson Legend [98431]
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So playing the devil's advocate...
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Nov 14, 2024, 8:40 AM
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I'm going to quote someone who was so unimportant to me I don't remember his name. 'Given enough time and enough space anything can happen.'
I'd love to know how much time and how much space is required before I consider that.
No I got to go clean up the shop. That should keep me out of trouble for a few hours.
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Rival Killer [2978]
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Re: So playing the devil's advocate...
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Nov 14, 2024, 10:48 AM
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I can see that argument as well, and that is what the evidence shows...slow and gradual change from simple to complex, but that doesn't mean someone or something didn't set it all in motion.
This is why I hate when someone immediately labels someone who questions one particular version of god as an atheist. No, maybe they just aren't convinced by your particular world view. I've had this many times from friends and family members when discussing religion, as if it's either their version of "god" or Naturalism.
And side note you get that within Christianity itself. What if I believe in Jesus' message, but not that he rose from the dead? Does that count as faith in Jesus? What if I don't believe in the modern version of hell? What if I don't believe the bible is god's word? That it is tainted, but some spiritual truth through Jesus can be found?
"God" I guess should be defined as simply a supreme being. It doesn't have to be Yahweh. What if there is a creator, but no god? What if the creator is a flawed, imperfect being, and not supreme to us? And if it's possible that a "supreme being" exists, is it not possible that virtually ANYTHING exists?
Anything that the mind could conjure up, or something beyond our comprehension, could in fact exist.
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Top TigerNet [31417]
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Re: So playing the devil's advocate...
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Nov 14, 2024, 11:12 AM
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A lotta good thought in there.
I've come to think that religion can be a la carte to some degree. It doesn't always work though. For instance, if one believes in redemption from sin, then one kinda has to believe in sin, ya know?
But one could certainly have a creator that intervenes in some ways, but not others. Or, has some attributes, but not others.
And this was particularly intriguing to me:
"And if it's possible that a "supreme being" exists, is it not possible that virtually ANYTHING exists?"
That leaves the door open for a creator god, who just creates, and an intervening god, who just intervenes. All sorts of possibilities.
A movie that really had an impact on me as a younger guy was one of the Star Trek films. I forget which one, but some space prophet got a message from a self-described 'supreme being' in deep space. he called himself God. So, the Enterprise sets off to find God in deep space, with this prophet onboard.
And they find him. Except that it's not God. It's just a super powerful space being with the ability to communicate across long distances and confound simple-minded humans while he does it.
Which then raises the question, how can one tell the difference? Unless one is all-powerful themselves, how can they discern what all-powerful even means?
Unless I'm a good plumber myself, how do I know what a good plumber is, aside from someone telling me they are one?
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Ultimate Clemson Legend [98431]
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That was Syboc, Spock's half-brother.
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Nov 15, 2024, 7:55 AM
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You'd have to learn a bit about plumbing to recognize good plumbing. You'd have to observe someone's work to say they are a good plumber.
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Ultimate Clemson Legend [98431]
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My view is that no one can actually understand what hell is until they are...
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Nov 15, 2024, 7:48 AM
[ in reply to Re: So playing the devil's advocate... ] |
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saved and walk with God for a season. Would you miss your wife if you never knew her? My concept of hell is much more terrorizing that the traditional concept. IDK about fire licking my stones but the fear of God being absent from my life, or rather me being outside His presence and without his indwelling spirit terrorizes me. I can not look where He is not. I can not dwell on the concept of none of God with me.
Do you think that those who have never known their father misses him? Most of us have tasted the horror of having a parent die. It changes who we are.
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Walk-On [76]
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Re: I thought I'd figured this out on my own.
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Nov 14, 2024, 11:10 AM
[ in reply to Re: I thought I'd figured this out on my own. ] |
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I definitely see both sides of the argument.
It does indeed seem crazy that this "just happened" and there must be something that started it. 100% agree.
But I also see the argument: "Well what started THAT".
Either way, it's mind-blowing. Either something always existed (crazy) or something came from nothing (also crazy).
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Top TigerNet [31417]
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Re: I thought I'd figured this out on my own.
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Nov 14, 2024, 11:35 AM
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Well now...philosophy. I always figured Paul was a pretty smart guy. 88, too.
What he's getting at there, I think, is sort of an ontological, or 'being', argument. Basically saying, "One can see God by the works he has created."
I like the Muslim version of that, which made me laugh the first time I read it: "Need proof of God? Look out the window."
What that all tries to do is validate, or explain, one thing through another. In science, it was the first rationale for Black Holes. We could see galaxies swirling around something, but we couldn't see the 'something.' Steven Hawking explained it this way:
"Suppose you walk into a dark ballroom and see lovely ladies in the white gowns swirling to the music. Now, they could all be dancing alone. But their particular movements makes you think there must be something more. And sure enough, when you turn on the lights after the music ends, each lady in white has a male dancing partner, dressed in a black tuxedo, which you couldn't see in the dark."
So, you used one provable thing, "I see ladies in white gowns," to discern something that was not immediately provable, "dancing with partners in black tuxedos."
The Greeks formalized that way of thinking, so far as I know, and that might be where Paul got it from. Their version (one of them) was, if you chisel a cube out of stone, it can get pretty close to being a perfect cube. Or, if you eye a drop of water, it can be pretty close to a perfect sphere. But it will never fully be so. There will always be imperfections, and in the material world, it will never quite be 'perfect.' Yet, in your mind, you can envision a perfect cube, or sphere, or anything, really. Why?
Why can we imagine perfection, yet never actually experience it, unless it does exist, in some alternate way that we don't have full access to?
Later medieval scholars would work that simple argument into the Ontological explanation for God's existence. The mere fact that you can image the idea of a perfect God means it has to exist, in some sense.
There's tons of branches and alternative ideas off that kernel, but that's the root of the study of being.
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Ultimate Clemson Legend [98431]
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Nah, I didn't figure out anything on my own.
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Nov 15, 2024, 8:05 AM
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All I know about God comes from His Word. It's simply brought to life in my heart. Both the Bible and the understanding of it are gifts from God.
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Commissioner [1229]
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Re: I thought I'd figured this out on my own.
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Nov 15, 2024, 8:44 AM
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A lot to unpack here....
I like the use of the word "frame". Because that's how all of us view the world, through our own frame. And everyone's frame is different is some ways. They may be similar, shaped through experience or what have you, but different.
As we continue to explore the complexities of the universe, we believe that we broaden our frames. We can gain a new understanding of the universe. And, given enough "time and space, anything can happen". Including chaos. But there is a specific unchaotic thing that has happened or we would not be here. If the earth wasn't where it is, just by a little, we wouldn't exist. If the moon wasn't where it is, If Jupiter, with it's massive gravitational pull, etc. etc. We would not exist to ask these questions. I really don't want to believe that this is all just random. Ah, the luck of the universe. Yay us.
So, while we believe that we are expanding our frames, I think we are tightening them. Our inability to understand or comprehend the overall at once. We break it down and focus on one particular thing. And we conform it to our own particular frame.
On the plumber analogy. I know a bad plumber when the house is flooded. And I can deduce that this particular plumber doesn't know any more about plumbing that I do. And what does that say about God?
I don't know.
As for God the father. Outside just a discussion on semantics, I would have no understanding of God the father if I never had one. But, I would know that I must have had one at one time. So, God the father concept goes south rather quickly. I can understand why people would have trouble with that.
It works for me. I had a great father. And without really being able to put my finger on it, I understand the concept of God the father.
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Top TigerNet [31417]
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Re: I thought I'd figured this out on my own.
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Nov 15, 2024, 12:15 PM
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>But there is a specific unchaotic thing that has happened or we would not be here.
Chaos and order are real bug-a-boos. I've thought about them a lot. I don't have any answers, lol, but I have thought about them an awful lot.
We speak about our frames-of-reference, and I think chaos and order may be completely referential as well. That is, the only difference between the two is our perspective, or, our frame.
We tend to think of order and chaos as qualitatively different...that order requires intelligence, or design, say, and chaos does not. But I'm not so sure of that. Order may be chaos, only from a different perspective.
Consider this painting:
or this sculpture:
One could stand in 1000 places in that stairwell, or in that field, and from only one perspective does one see a circle, or a face. So does that make the circle 'special' in any way? Only the fact that we say its special makes it special. It's simply 1 of 1000+ possibilities.
Or suppose I splatter yellow and blue paint droplets randomly about. Is where they touch and make 'green' evidence of design, or is a seemingly 'ordered' result at the micro-scale (green at the edges of contact) simply a random occurrence from a 'chaotic' action at another, higher level (splashing paint across the room)? How special is the 'green', really? Green will say very special, because it's green, of course, with a green frame-of-reference.
From our celestial observations, we see our seemingly 'ordered' solar system, but other solar systems (along with ours) seem randomly scattered throughout our galaxy. The galaxy seems to have an ordered form, a spiral...but then entire groups of galaxies seem to be randomly scattered throughout the universe. And one could reverse the same principle down at the atomic level.
There seem to be alternating 'levels' of order-chaos-order-chaos, and so on on. But does it reveal anything other than our own interpretations and perspectives? I just don't know.
Order?
Chaos?
>So, while we believe that we are expanding our frames, I think we are tightening them. Our inability to understand or comprehend the overall at once.
Yes, I agree with this. But I think it's a simple human limitation. We just don't have the computing power see all things at every level all the time. Even something simple, like numbers, gets quickly out of hand for us. I can easily imagine or visualize 1 or 2 items. Even say 10 or 15. But I simply cannot grasp or visualize a million apples, or a billion bananas, or a trillion pears.
We do abstraction and simplification exceptionally well. I think we have to; it's our only way to comprehend complex things. I can see the sun as one big yellow ball, but if I try to imagine the billions of atomic explosions happening on its surface, simultaneously, I just can't do it. I must abstract and simply it.
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Commissioner [1229]
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Re: I thought I'd figured this out on my own.
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Nov 15, 2024, 1:16 PM
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I understand what you're saying regarding order and chaos. Maybe a poor choice of words on my part.
But still, the earth is x-number miles from the sun, the moon x-number miles from the earth. Variation in either of those and life would not exist on this planet. Or, our planet could have been obliterated so many years ago had Jupiter not been where it is intercepting meteors, comets or other plants.
Point being, we can offer many reason HOW these things happened. But not why. I suppose the how is good enough for some.
Some will say God created the universe in 7 days, as the Bible tells me so. Others will contend that it was the big bang because science tells me so.
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Top TigerNet [31417]
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Re: I thought I'd figured this out on my own.
Nov 15, 2024, 2:25 PM
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>Variation in either of those and life would not exist on this planet.
The tolerances required for human life is rather amazing. Add to that the fact that human life can only exist in a band so many miles on either side of the equator, in an atmosphere of x density, and only above water. That makes the tolerances even tighter.
Non-human life can live in water, but then their exclusion zone includes the atmosphere. Different, but no less restrictive. As to other forms of possible life, that might open the tolerances up some on other planets. But from our current perspective we do seem incredibly rare, if not completely unique.
If one reverses their perspective though it's a little less amazing. That is, those tolerances seem less incredible if the perspective is not that we are 'lucky' to be alive IN our conditions, but that we are a 'product' of our conditions.
I heard an amazing talk by a physicist once who proposed that life, like mold, might just be inevitable. Where one has water, one will have the other, eventually. It's kind of disturbing to think of one's self as mold, lol, but the idea of 'inevitability', given certain conditions, rather than a 'miracle,' was interesting.
Einstein once asked, "Is God limited by his own rules?" It's a fantastic question. The root of it being, why do we have a Sun if God can just lighten the sky or darken it like a light switch? Why do planets orbit; why can't they just sit still in space? Why doesn't gravity just work independent of mass?
Once one is into the realm of seeming 'miracles,' why does one need Laws of Physics and Nature at all? or to reverse that, what is a miracle at all, except an outcome counter to the expectations of physical Laws? That's a real mind bender.
>we can offer many reason HOW these things happened. But not why.
That does seem to be the ultimate dividing line between science, and religion.
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Commissioner [1229]
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Re: I thought I'd figured this out on my own.
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Nov 15, 2024, 3:08 PM
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The miracle being, not that life exists, but there is a life with the ability to question it's own existence.
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Top TigerNet [31417]
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Re: I thought I'd figured this out on my own.
Nov 15, 2024, 3:14 PM
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Yes, that is a whole other engaging topic. I'm alive, yet so is a tree. We both are 'born', both will die, both can reproduce, yet I perceive than I am qualitatively different.
I am conscious and perhaps have a soul, though I can detect neither in a tree. So does it not exist, or am I just not able to perceive it? We went for all of human existence unaware of X-rays and radio waves, yet they were there all along, from the beginning of the universe, long before man. We just didn't have the tools to detect them when we finally came along.
So, what else might be there that we cannot detect?
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Top TigerNet [29031]
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Re: I thought I'd figured this out on my own.
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Nov 16, 2024, 1:32 AM
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After the age of accountability, none of us have an excuse for anything. But, Christmas is coming.
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