We are not indebted to god for oxygen, it is a completely naturalitic and emergent property of life on earth. How do we know about God's will when we cannot be certain that He even exists? Superceding morality, i.e. millions of years of altruism is the stuff that causes 9/11s - that is not what any God worth his name would want us to do.
Why do we need a God?
- Thread starter aaqucnaona
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We are not indebted to god for oxygen, it is a completely naturalitic and emergent property of life on earth. How do we know about God's will when we cannot be certain that He even exists? Superceding morality, i.e. millions of years of altruism is the stuff that causes 9/11s - that is not what any God worth his name would want us to do.
Do we get to damn God when he doesn't provide?
Big Chiller
Registered Senior Member
Just because oxygen is a completely naturalistic and emergent property of life on Earth doesn't mean that God didn't ultimately create it using God's Will, Power, and Knowledge just the act of creating is non-physical and so God can indebt people for it if God so wishes.
Well one would have to know what one is looking for when looking for God one cannot know about God only recognize.
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Ah trees and plants don't need you . Sorry to bust your bubble . They can do fine with all the other animals . Humans are not that old of a creature in the long run
I don't acknowledge any debt. If he wants my life back he can take it right now. I didn't ask for this.
If one cannot know about god, how would one know what one is looking for?
Big Chiller
Registered Senior Member
@gmilam
One cannot know details about God.
Hmmm, ok - so how would one know what one is looking for?
Big Chiller
Registered Senior Member
@gmilam
One would know what one was looking for by using definitions.
There are many definitions for the word "god".
Big Chiller
Registered Senior Member
@gmilam
One should look for the most exclusive definitions I think.
You think? Do you not know what you are looking for?
Big Chiller
Registered Senior Member
@gmilam
I've already found whatever I needed to find.
What'd ya find?
Big Chiller
Registered Senior Member
@gmilam
Whatever I needed to find to have a sustained and thorough belief in God by the grace and mercy of God.
Of course He could. Any God worthy of the title can do that, but the point is, just because He can doesn't mean that He did or that He exists. No one can even acknowledge that debt until those two things can we proven.
Sure. For example, Buddhism is founded on empiricism, but Buddhist notions of empiricism are quire different from the standard Western ones, as they involve first and foremost one's own empirical scrutiny of one's own mind and actions.
In that sense, Buddhist empiricism is turned inwards, while standard Western empiricism is turned outwards.
I think the usual definitions are enough, and don't actually require belief. As I sketched out above.
Of course.
However, there are things that come into existence only by our efforts.
William James used the concept of the two kinds of truths: truths of the observer, and truths of the will.
The truths of the observer are the ones that take place regardless of who observes. Atom bonds and how stars explode are such truths.
On the other hand, skills, relationships, business ventures are truths of the will: they don't realize unless one invests in them. Religious faith is a truth of the will.
Like I noted earlier, God, as defined by the usual definitions, cannot be found by a human.
This could be key - Why does it worry you whether you are a "fraud" in God's eyes or not?
Of course, we can only be grateful for that which we appreciate.
If one doesn't appreciate life, one can't be grateful for it.
That doesn't follow.
Either humans are material and everything about them is material; or this is not the case.
Why not?
Imagine you are travelling on a road, and there is a tree standing by the side.
All this is material... and there is no perceived problem in this scenarion.
Now imagine that same tree, that same matter, lying across the road in your path. This is now perceived as a problem, yet it is the same constituent parts.
Thus I conclude that it is not material existence per se, but the perception of certain arrangements of that matter.
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