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Perhaps you've made up your mind, but that doesn't negate the reality that the existence of God has been debated for thousands of years. It seems a little disi

Perhaps you've made up your mind, but that doesn't negate the reality that the existence of God has been debated for thousands of years. It seems a little disingenuous to say that there is no definition of God. Google will even give you one if you search for: define God. Wikipedia holds that "In Classical theism, God is characterized as the metaphysically ultimate being (the first, timeless, absolutely simple, and sovereign being, who is devoid of any anthropomorphic qualities)..." What kind of definition could possibly satisfy your requirements though? Can you give an example? If you're going to limit your thinking to so-called "scientific" or materialistic terms, then let's take an example definition from science. What was the definition of oxygen before it was discovered? How about dark matter? In any case - it's not true that all major religions define God as unknowable and untestable. Take a look at the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna explains that God can be known through meditation. Lastly, "rational" means nothing more than "based on or in accordance with reason or logic". It's completely reasonable and logical to debate revealed knowledge.

richmarr 12y ago
> It seems a little disingenuous to say that there is no definition of God. There's no useful definition. Defining something as being 'metaphysically ultimate' doesn't describe any of its properties. > What was the definition of oxygen before it was discovered? How about dark matter? Both oxygen and dark matter were hypothesised based on observations. The definitions suggested by those hypotheses were then tested (dark matter still hasn't been discovered). Through what experiment are you intending to discover God? > Krishna explains that God can be known through meditation. Define "known" in a way that bridges that context and this discussion and I'll buy you a Porsche. > It's completely reasonable and logical to debate revealed knowledge. No, sorry, revelation is faith, not knowledge. 'Revealed knowledge' is an oxymoron.
- topherreynoso 12y ago
  What you're describing could easily be said about gravity. If you really start pressing physicists on this subject it gets muddy really quickly, even the definition (don't just tell me what gravity does or the effect it has, tell me what it is). One of the going theories involves gravitons, a massless particle with a spin-2 boson. Many physicists posit that the graviton itself is unobservable. In that sense its "properties" are very difficult, if not impossible, to really nail down. That does not change the fact that gravitational force is experienced and responsible for a great deal of work in the universe. We observe a force, we hypothesize about it based on those observations and we try to build tests for those theories. That's my point with the free will, mind-body problem, substance dualism argument. We observe free will, we build rules for our civilization around it, each of us can observe its existence. Admittedly, some people are willing to throw it out, argue against it, claim that we have no "free will" that it is merely action and reaction, we can only do what we are biologically programmed to do (that destroys most civilization's systems of rewards and punishment, btw) and I would say that most people, based off of their observable experience with their own minds and actions are unwilling to accept such a notion. Some people try to explain it away by saying that it's nothing more than randomness, like the kind we observe in quantum mechanics. I would say that most people are not inclined to equate "randomness" to "free will" either. If you observe free will and accept its existence you now have a great deal of work to do in order to explain it, hypothesize about it, test it, etc. especially if you are only accepting materialism in the traditional sense. This, like many scientists have in the past when observing strange matter (anti-matter, neutrinos, gravitons, etc), leads many people to decide that there must be some other "force" or "power" outside of the observable material world in order to make sense of one's ability to think, act, react freely.
  - richmarr 12y ago
    > What you're describing could easily be said about gravity. We can observe gravitational lensing. We can measure the differences between gravitation force exerted by the Earth. We can calculate gravity well enough to slingshot probes across the solar system to other planets. Sure, we don't know its fundamental cause but we can define it by its effects. You cannot do that with "God", or gods, or gaian omni-spirits. > We observe free will How?
- topherreynoso 12y ago
  Meditate on free will for a while with our friend Krishna and when you "know" that materialism can not be reconciled with free will, I'll let you know where you can send my porsche. :) The smartest people I know are at least agnostic, recognizing that something else is going on but struggling with the ability to identify it. I don't trust the atheists, to me it means they haven't thought about it enough or they think we're all bio-robo-zombies (sounds like a good B movie). If you think we're all bio-robo-zombies, I get worried that you might be a bio-robo-zombie. And I'll be damned if I'm gonna trust a bio-robo-zombie with this decision. (See what I did there? Oh, come on that was pretty good. ~sigh~... this is why no one invites me to parties)
  - richmarr 12y ago
    You seem to be mistaking me for an atheist.

richmarr 12y ago

> It seems a little disingenuous to say that there is no definition of God. There's no useful definition. Defining something as being 'metaphysically ultimate' doesn't describe any of its properties. > What was the definition of oxygen before it was discovered? How about dark matter? Both oxygen and dark matter were hypothesised based on observations. The definitions suggested by those hypotheses were then tested (dark matter still hasn't been discovered). Through what experiment are you intending to discover God? > Krishna explains that God can be known through meditation. Define "known" in a way that bridges that context and this discussion and I'll buy you a Porsche. > It's completely reasonable and logical to debate revealed knowledge. No, sorry, revelation is faith, not knowledge. 'Revealed knowledge' is an oxymoron.

topherreynoso 12y ago
What you're describing could easily be said about gravity. If you really start pressing physicists on this subject it gets muddy really quickly, even the definition (don't just tell me what gravity does or the effect it has, tell me what it is). One of the going theories involves gravitons, a massless particle with a spin-2 boson. Many physicists posit that the graviton itself is unobservable. In that sense its "properties" are very difficult, if not impossible, to really nail down. That does not change the fact that gravitational force is experienced and responsible for a great deal of work in the universe. We observe a force, we hypothesize about it based on those observations and we try to build tests for those theories. That's my point with the free will, mind-body problem, substance dualism argument. We observe free will, we build rules for our civilization around it, each of us can observe its existence. Admittedly, some people are willing to throw it out, argue against it, claim that we have no "free will" that it is merely action and reaction, we can only do what we are biologically programmed to do (that destroys most civilization's systems of rewards and punishment, btw) and I would say that most people, based off of their observable experience with their own minds and actions are unwilling to accept such a notion. Some people try to explain it away by saying that it's nothing more than randomness, like the kind we observe in quantum mechanics. I would say that most people are not inclined to equate "randomness" to "free will" either. If you observe free will and accept its existence you now have a great deal of work to do in order to explain it, hypothesize about it, test it, etc. especially if you are only accepting materialism in the traditional sense. This, like many scientists have in the past when observing strange matter (anti-matter, neutrinos, gravitons, etc), leads many people to decide that there must be some other "force" or "power" outside of the observable material world in order to make sense of one's ability to think, act, react freely.
- richmarr 12y ago
  > What you're describing could easily be said about gravity. We can observe gravitational lensing. We can measure the differences between gravitation force exerted by the Earth. We can calculate gravity well enough to slingshot probes across the solar system to other planets. Sure, we don't know its fundamental cause but we can define it by its effects. You cannot do that with "God", or gods, or gaian omni-spirits. > We observe free will How?
topherreynoso 12y ago
Meditate on free will for a while with our friend Krishna and when you "know" that materialism can not be reconciled with free will, I'll let you know where you can send my porsche. :) The smartest people I know are at least agnostic, recognizing that something else is going on but struggling with the ability to identify it. I don't trust the atheists, to me it means they haven't thought about it enough or they think we're all bio-robo-zombies (sounds like a good B movie). If you think we're all bio-robo-zombies, I get worried that you might be a bio-robo-zombie. And I'll be damned if I'm gonna trust a bio-robo-zombie with this decision. (See what I did there? Oh, come on that was pretty good. ~sigh~... this is why no one invites me to parties)
- richmarr 12y ago
  You seem to be mistaking me for an atheist.