I have explained the proof of God's existence point by point. The proof has been ignored. I'll restate it:
1) finite beings exist
2) a finite being needs a cause
3) an infinite being must exist.
David Roemer
Why do I get the feeling that logical mental gymnastics doesn't exactly qualify as proof of God?
The objective meaning that life has is that we should obey the Ten Commandments and hope for salvation when we die. I believe this and am summoning everyone to believe for the following reasons: 1) historical Jesus, 2) proof of God's existence, 3) people who don't believe give bad reasons for not believing.
That believing is a matter of faith is not something to be indignant about. Just the opposite. It means I am not criticizing you for not believing. Naturally, if you don't know what Jesus said and did and don't understand the proof of God, I have grounds for criticizing your character.
People who say or think religious people are "unenlightened" say irrational things like, "Humans have natural rights."
The reasons you say the proof of God is "logical mental gymnastics" is that you think you have to make a decision about God's existence. And you think the proof is supposed to persuade you that God exists. In my opinion, the only decision that has to be made is whether or not to believe in revelation. We know God exists from the method of inquiry called metaphysics. Metaphysics leads logically to the existence of an infinite being. Calling the proof "logical mental gymnastics" is an admission that the proof is logically sound.
David Roemer:The reasons you say the proof of God is "logical mental gymnastics" is that you think you have to make a decision about God's existence. And you think the proof is supposed to persuade you that God exists. In my opinion, the only decision that has to be made is whether or not to believe in revelation. We know God exists from the method of inquiry called metaphysics. Metaphysics leads logically to the existence of an infinite being. Calling the proof "logical mental gymnastics" is an admission that the proof is logically sound.
Well, no, not exactly. I said logical mental gymnastics not in admission, but as an indication of how I feel about trying to prove the existence of something simply through reasoning. I mean, we can argue back and forth all day about whether pink unicorns have battles in my backyard while I'm sleeping, and maybe come to some sort of conclusion, but until we actually observe such an event occurring (or even find unicorn blood and a broken unicorn horn), I'm not sure we can say as a fact that unicorns are actually duking it out in my backyard, or by extension that God exists.
Metaphysics and science are two different methods of inquiry. Science deals with observations and metaphysics deals with concepts like free will, the conscious knowledge of humans as opposed to the sense knowledge of animals, and human speech. We don't observe free will. We know we have free will because we can make ourselves the subject of our own knowledge. In science all concepts are defined. In metaphysics concepts are comprehended.
Comparing God with a unicorn is perfectly reasonable. A unicorn is a mental being. It only exists when a real being is thinking about the unicorn. God is a real being, and we know God exists just like we know mental beings are not real beings.
David Roemer:I have explained the proof of God's existence point by point. The proof has been ignored. I'll restate it: 1) finite beings exist 2) a finite being needs a cause 3) an infinite being must exist. David, for the nth time, this does not prove the God of the Bible's existence. Furthermore, I'm not sure whether it even proves that an "infinite being" must exist. If we assume arguendo that an "infinite being" does exist, then aren't we necessarily part of that infinite being? Otherwise, it isn't infinite? The keyboard is mightier than the gun. Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem. Voluntaryism Forum | Post Points: 35
David, for the nth time, this does not prove the God of the Bible's existence. Furthermore, I'm not sure whether it even proves that an "infinite being" must exist. If we assume arguendo that an "infinite being" does exist, then aren't we necessarily part of that infinite being? Otherwise, it isn't infinite?
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
Oh he "explained" how it proves the God of the Bible exists. "The historical Jesus", and "we give bad reasons" prove it. Given that the latter is simply an arguement out of ignorance, that leaves the former. Good luck getting him to prove the divinity of Jesus of Nazereth.
When I say you can prove an infinite beings exists, I mean it in two senses: 1) It is a formal result in metaphysics, just as the Pythagorean Theorem is a formal result in geometry. 2) As a criticism of the character of people who do not know the proof or pretend that they do not know the proof.
In the West, the infinite being is called God. I believe and have reasons for believing and am summoning you to believe God is the primary author of the Bible and the Koran. I do not claim to be able to prove such a thing. I am not criticizing liberals for not believing in the Bible. I am criticizing liberals for thinking they are more "enlightened" than people of faith and for causing the horrors of the 19th and 20th century.
I just read Pat Buchanan's two books about World War I and II. A good way, I would like to suggest, to understand what happened is to think of Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Churchill, Stalin, and Hitler as being children. They were not mature and rational people.
Out of all those, only Stalin wasn't a Christian and Hitler was at least raised Catholic.
But anyway, have you read the Koran? Don't you feel the Koran may contradict the Bible? How would one God say two different things?
According to Thomas Aquinas, the important decision is whether to believe in Jesus. Doctrines are of secondary importance. The incarnation and the trinity are doctrinal matters. Muslims and Jews have different beliefs about who Jesus is.
My post is not about theology, but about political economics. Liberals believe that human beings as human beings have rights. This is nonsense. One way to see this is that some liberals advocate socialism and others advocate laissez-faire capitalism. The idea of "human rights" is an empty page that people use to write down what kind of government they want. As the saying goes, people who don't believe in God believe in anything.
The one who has the best claim to being a Christian in my list of villains is Woodrow Wilson. My guess is that he was what is called a liberal Christian. Wilson was a Darwinist and a racist. He followed Jesus' teaching about peace on Earth and goodwill, but not Jesus' teaching about life after death. If anyone can cite a book or reference that proves I am wrong to say Wilson and Stalin were soul mates, then I will have to rethink my ideas about liberalism.
When God communicates himself to mankind, He communicates with complete perfection. People believe exactly what God wants them to believe. There are parts of the Bible which teach the old time belief that life ends in the grave. By the time of Jesus, Jewish people believed in life after death and the Bible reflects that belief.
Except there are many athiests, agnostistcs, etc. who don't believe in some universal inherent "natural right", but instead arrive at libertarianism/capitalism via other means.
That human beings have rights is just one example of liberal/atheistic irrationality. The other absurd idea is wanting the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Murray Rothbard wants a government that maximized utilities. Any expression of concern for the welfare of mankind makes no sense.
According to the Bible and the Koran, our purpose in life is to get to heaven. If we work for the government, we should be just and virtuous. Liberals have the idea that our purpose in life is self-realization and that governments should advance the welfare of its citizens.
The truth is that we can achieve self-realization in many ways because we have free will. The goal of self-realization has no value at all in helping a person decide what to do. Likewise, governments have the problem of deciding how to promote the welfare of its citizens. A knowledge of economics makes it clear that no government at all maximized utilities. But why maximize utilities? Was it good to allow no-fault divorce and abortion? What about the suffering of all those children from broken homes?
David Roemer:The idea of "human rights" is an empty page that people use to write down what kind of government they want.
That's the first thing you've said that I agree with. It's just one more example of people getting tricked by reification (a.k.a. slick use of nouns). And if you change "government" to "governance" this applies just as well to natural rights, natural law, and other such objective ethical notions often associated with libertarianism.
I still don't think this has anything to do with belief in God, although you could make the case that people are hardwired to want to place blind faith in something that seems "objective" and requires us to do something without asking why, and that that is why natural rights and other deontology theories have been so persistent. Hence, in a way, people not believing in a god leaves some kind of "life philosophy" void in them that is often filled with, variously, the State, natural law, scientism/"skepticism"/"rationalism"*, or something else. However, one can still adopt some kind of life philosophy (even quasi-religious, if it comes in useful**) without accepting any organized religious ideas. In other words, one can still have "religion" without organized religions such as Christianity or Islam (which have definite downsides).
*Come to think of it, this would explain quite a lot of the odder behavior in this triplet.
**Here I refer to the purported fact that religious people are happier, have less stress, and so on. Such a life philosophy could be useful in that sense, even if it were unproven or "irrational" (whatever that word is taken to mean).
Why anarchy fails
Oh, I do agree with you. Woodrow Wilson was not just the most evil American President to have existed, but perhaps one of the most evil men to have walked on this earth.
AJ:although you could make the case that people are hardwired to want to place blind faith in something that seems "objective" and requires us to do something without asking why, and that that is why natural rights and other deontology theories have been so persistent. Hence, in a way, people not believing in a god leaves some kind of "life philosophy" void in them that is often filled with, variously, the State, natural law, scientism/"skepticism"/"rationalism"*, or something else.
The author of man is the author of revealed religion. The fact that humans need religion is one of the reasons to believe in the Bible and the Koran. Some liberals fill their need to get a meaningful life without getting involved politics.
However, liberals have another source of psychological discomfort. They delude themselves into thinking that they are intellectually superior to people of faith. They prop up this delusion by seeing dangers to mankind that no one else sees. For example, overpopulation, shortage of fossil fuels, and global warming.
According to Pierre Duhem, an historian of science, modern science began in the 13th century when the Bishop of Paris condemned certain propositions of Aristotle as heretical. Aristotle said, for example, that a vacuum was impossible. The theologians saw no reason that vacuums could not exist, so could see no reason why God could not create a vacuum.
Because they believed God created the universe, they believed the universe was intelligible. This inspired Christian scientists to study the physical universe and discover the heliocentric system and the laws of physics. The reason science did not develop in the East is that they did not have this conviction that the universe was created by a personal God and was intelligible.
The Roman Catholic Church had a better understanding of heliocentrism than Galileo. The Church realized it was just a theory. Galileo did not understand this.