TruthSeeker said:
I know what you are saying. But the fact is that altough the argument itself is complex, the truth is not. The fact is that God is SO simple that He requires from us a great deal of thought in order to understand Him.
Hello Seeker,
Perhaps my innate density has some bearing on the matter, but you are using many words and concepts and assertions with which I have no experience.
1) You are asserting a 'fact'. I know of no such facts.
2) You use the word (concept) 'truth'. I don't know what that might be either.
3) You describe this 'truth' as not complex.
4) You posit some kind of 'god' of which I have no experience
5) Anthropomorphise it as a 'he'
6) Describe 'him'! as 'So simple'..
7) You have 'Him' requiring something of us (does 'he' speak to you directly?)
8) Because 'he' 'needs' our understanding? More anthropomorphising?
Thats a lot of 'givens' that you are expecting me to swallow, and move on from there. I'm sorry, but I cannot do that unless it is understood that we will be playing a pointless fantasy word/mind game with no basis in (at least MY) 'reality'. Is that what you are proposing?
Let me see if I can continue nonetheless...
God is not impossible to define, though once you define Him you lose His definition. Ever studied taoism?
"The Tao that can be defined is not the Tao."
"The Tao that can be spoken is not the Tao."
"The Tao that can be understood is not the Tao."
"The Tao that can be conceptualized is not the Tao."
Are you relating the 'Tao' to your 'God'?
It seems that the same thing can be said of god.. according to the 'scriptures of the believers'. Are you writing your own scripture?
To me, your first sentence here is a contradiction. 'He' can be defined, yet once defined, the definition slips off of this 'teflon god'?
Definition is only possible with 'material things' that have 'attributes'. The advanced 'goddists' all seem to agree that their 'god' is beyond our pitiful mentalisms, concepts, thoughts. That 'it' has no attributes! The complete Sikh scriptures, the Shri Adi Granth, a compilation of the writings of the line of their gurus is all about what this 'god' is NOT and there can be nothing positively 'attributed' to 'it'. One reason, among many, is that 'if' 'god' 'exists' beyond 'time', then then 'it' cannot 'exist' as such, as 'time' is a prerequisite of 'existence' in the omniverse. And 'time', too, is an illusion. Our mind is linear in that it exists within the 'fiction of time' and cannot possibly conceive of that which is 'beyond time', beyond 'the illusion of linearity'. The existence of this 'god', if the traditional 'beliefs' are valid in some way, can never truly be known. Actually, NOTHING (much less this transcendental 'god') can truly be 'known'. All must be based on some 'assumption'. I can assume nothing and remain intellectually honest with integrity.
God is so simple that once you define Him, you lose His definition.
"Who borrows the Medusa's eye
Resigns to the empirical lie!
The 'knower' petrifies the 'known;
The subtle dancer turns to stone!"
Definition is petrification and death. 'All' of this 'life' is in states of transformation, constantly, and to attempt to 'define' something is to imprison it in a moment of 'time' to ease our understandings of the world around us. Names and definitions are fallatious ways to understand that which cannot be easily (if at all) understood. That is why I am nameless. I will not have my life turned to stone for your (generally speaking) convenience.
So I ask, if definition is 'shown' to be false the moment it is attempted, why do you condone a definition only to find it 'ludicrous'?
I find that 'naming things' is merely buying into the illusion that there is any quantitive or qualitative differences extant between 'anything'! That 'things' are individual, seperate chunks of matter seperate and unique from each other. I don't buy into the illusion deeply enough to base my understanding and 'life' around it. It is all 'make believe' to me. It is only 'real' within the 'illusion'. I make believe that there really is a banana for me to ask for at the store that is different from any of the rest of this dream universe dream stuff... One either lives one's understanding, honestly and authentically, or one is a liar, a hypocrite or deluded.
nameless said:
Throughout history, people have been trying to glue sequins on, paint with simple and complex colors, create stories of, KILL FOR, live for, die for, attach 'qualities to' a huge 'black hole' (unknown, as 'it' is impossible to 'know' as our 'knowing apparatus' is rather temporal and limited) in order to 'prove' it's 'reality', in order to 'desperately prove' an emotional 'belief'?
Well, that's a rather pessimistic view of something that has been so widely and wildely discussed throughout the history of philosophy.......
Just because something is 'believed' by many is not evidence of 'existence'. That is a cognitive fallacy. Numbers of believers is not 'evidence'. And, yes, people throught history have been suckered by their senses and mind to believe that the illusion, via ego, is 'reality' and thusly become 'deluded'. THEN they try to validate with conjured 'evidence' or violence (remember the emotional aspect?).
I don't feel like a 'pessimist', but would probably appear to be to an 'optimist'. Both being deluded and lost in their fantasies. If anything is 'real' to us, it is HERE/NOW, not some imagined future or past which has no 'existence' at all outside mental gymnastics on the fiction bars. I am neither. Perhaps a realist?
I'm talking about a philosophical approach combined with scientific hypothesis.
Sounds like a fast track to the deepest possible understandings to me... All disciplines lead to Rome? I have found that they do!
Well, i want to actually find evidence for my belief. And as long as I don't, then I might as well be agnostic.
Now that makes sense! Emotional 'beliefs', by their very nature, are not founded upon evidence, but emotional need. Then one spends time trying to validate that emotional belief. If you wish to embrace agnosticism (a poorly constructed word when thought about) because of a lack of evidence, why not skip the emotional claptrap and head straight towards the intellectually honest approach. Ahh, yes, the 'emotional need' for 'belief'.. That is more than I wish to go into here, though. That, I guess, is part of the 'healing' that we are doing throughout our lives. Either healing our minds and emotions, or compensating for them (not healthy, but better than madness and violence).
What is the problem with trying to find evidence for such ancient beliefs?
I find no problem. We have to do something while here (or not). Perhaps, over time, as your attempts fail to find 'evidence' for the common groundless emotionally needy fantasies known as 'beliefs', you will be led deeper, eventually, into a less deluded understanding of what 'might be' and what 'isn't'.
But you cannot find evidence for the abscence of an entity or any form of object, for that matter.
True. It is not possible to prove (evidence) a negative. You can only evidence that which has 'existence', something for which there IS evidence. No one can 'prove' that invisible pink unicorns are not following me around. That is a logical fallacy to think that a negative can be 'proven' or 'evidenced'.
I do hear that asked often (to 'prove' a negative) here by folks with a bit less 'training' in logic.
I'm not saying that pink unicorns, or god, for that matter doesn't exist, I'm saying that we can never 'know' for certain if they do or not. No evidence or experience, for me, anyway, so until then, well, I'll just never know. I have no need to 'believe' in something. I can accept not knowing that which cannot be known. In the interest of intellectual honesty.
Maybe that's exactly why I used poetry
Poetry can certainly speak of that which prose is incapable.
*__-
