"Why won't God heal amputees?"
- Thread starter lkh
- Start date
"God cannot escape from the need of that darned existence stuff ....even conceptually."
The flaw is your thinking that God is somehow dependent on, subordinate to, or separate from the concept of existence.
God is Existence itself, God cannot cease to exist, God is eternal, no beginning, no end.
The material world is such that we can imagine an object existing in time and space, then alternatively, we can imagine the same object no longer existing in time and space. This is because the material world is spatial and temporal.
God is neither spatial nor temporal, God is unlimited and eternal.
So any concept of God needing some foundation of a pre-existing "existence" upon which He exists, the way material objects require material time and space to exist, is flawed thinking.
The flaw is your thinking that God is somehow dependent on, subordinate to, or separate from the concept of existence.
God is Existence itself, God cannot cease to exist, God is eternal, no beginning, no end.
The material world is such that we can imagine an object existing in time and space, then alternatively, we can imagine the same object no longer existing in time and space. This is because the material world is spatial and temporal.
God is neither spatial nor temporal, God is unlimited and eternal.
So any concept of God needing some foundation of a pre-existing "existence" upon which He exists, the way material objects require material time and space to exist, is flawed thinking.
Quote from stu:
I don't want to pick you up word for word on every point, as I think the core of what is being argued might be more to the point, but can you explain what you mean by this :
Now I don't see how you can support a position where you say one minute how something can't be done, only to then say it can be done, to say again taht it can't. !? No I didn't I left the former supreme being where It was. It is not demoted.
How is Existence greater than God because God depends on it? Is oxygen greater than you because you depend on it? Are thoughts greater than you because you need them when thinking? I don't think (ha) you define thoughts as greater or existence as greater that way, even though you are dependant , as God is , as we are on existence. ?? I am a little surprised though I will admit, how you started out with such a mix up, to end up with such a coherent analysis of my argument. But I suspect, - only my personal bias mind you - that ideas of God fogged things up enough so that I could - couln't - could........although there is just one thing..no.. I will not spoil your excellant synopsis. Conceptual then. God is self-extistent - conceptually God exists by means of (self) existence.
God cannot escape from the need of that darned existence stuff ....even conceptually.
So if God's eternal presence is manifested as, say, an eternally expanding and collapsing universe and nothing more, then atheists and theists could theoretically both be correct at the same time, depending on how you slice it. Maybe there are enough quark shifts in each big crunch to make the new bang's results vary each time, keeping the G-man entertained. Maybe he only intervenes in every eighth universe, or when he is bored.
This hypothesis making just as much sense (if not more) as the one suggesting that God intervenes regularly and deliberately in people's lives (the statistical evidence of which seems to be nil, imagination notwithstanding).
And thus the value of long-winded semantic slugfests over slippery terms like existence is... what. I'm not seeing it.
From a limited perspective, from a relative perspective, there are limited and relative truths.
The 6 blind men who each described the elephant, were speaking the truth of their own limited experience.
"suggesting that God intervenes regularly and deliberately in people's lives (the statistical evidence of which seems to be nil, imagination notwithstanding)."
Statistical evidence? Unless you know the entire story, how could you possible reach "statistical" evidence?
The 6 blind men who each described the elephant, were speaking the truth of their own limited experience.
"suggesting that God intervenes regularly and deliberately in people's lives (the statistical evidence of which seems to be nil, imagination notwithstanding)."
Statistical evidence? Unless you know the entire story, how could you possible reach "statistical" evidence?
What, no LOL?
And that, my liege, is how we know the earth to be banana shaped.
Non sequitur.
Defend your claim that we have statictical evidence that God does not intervene in people's lives.
Defend your claim that we have statictical evidence that God does not intervene in people's lives.
One, you misquote what I said. It is a distinct lack of statistical evidence for a positive assertion--that God intervenes in meaningful ways. Not the other way round.
Two, I have no desire to wade into the semantic relativist kiddie pool with you. My post was a tongue-in-cheek wake up call to others on this thread, who are already in it.
Lack of statistical evidence of a positive assertion does not falsify the assertion.
The concept of "time" only exists in ones mind, because we observe our experiencing of 3 dimensional existence linearly.
Otherwise time itself does'nt exist. as an example, Space can be bent so that the linear experience ( "time") of moving from point A to point B becomes a function of how much you can bend the space between points A and B.