(Post written by thewordofme of thewordofme.wordpress.com)
OK Guys and gals, after many many replies to the shortest post I have ever written…No one has been able to answer the questions. So, is there really a God or Jesus and is it possible for anyone to prove it?
I personally don’t think it’s possible, but I’m willing to change my position if I every come across convincing proofs.
Does God exist?
Did Jesus exist.
I think there are sources from different places that confirm a Jesus was brought to trial before and crucified by romans in the correct time period. I think its generally accepted as a fact that he did exist, though certainly the point of messiah and miracle worker are far more open to debate.
When it comes to a question of God(s) existing, your looking at millennia of philosophy that still lack a 100% yes or no. I wouldn’t know where to begin tackling that question.
I suppose we can’t really prove there was a Jesus in the same way that we can’t prove there was a Plato or Aristotle, but using objective (or the closest thing) sources from the same period that mention them does allow us the ability to say with a reasonable certainty that they did.
http://www.QuestioCunctus.com
Hi Prez ’24, thanks for writing
Yea, but was he God, or son of?
We have tremendous evidence of Plato and Aristotle…we even have their writings.
No one contemporaneous with Jesus…writing of Jesus…just many years later. Jesus never wrote a thing. Well Paul was saying he saw Jesus in a ‘beam of light’ on the road. But, he never wrote of the actual Jesus…he was just formulating the needed theology for a new religion–that Jesus never taught.
Their is no evidence whatsoever of God…just words. And those words are highly suspect because of their serious discrepancies in light of modern knowledge. It’s just in the last 200 years or so that-real science-has been able to uncover what has happened on this earth for the last 4.5 billion years.
Think of the history of the whole world, not just the Middle East, and think of a ‘God’ appearing suddenly to a small group of people around 1700 to 1500 BCE. Nothing at all– in the whole rest of the world. He never appears to anyone else on earth, just the Jews. And of course we just have their word on that.
We have to remember that these Hebrews, Jews or whatever you want to call them, had no concept that the world would change, and people would be able to challenge the myths they were writing about. That science would rear its head and be able to disprove the creation myths in the Bible, Babel, Adam and Eve, age of the earth. There are NO proofs of a God in the Bible.
And why, 3500 years later, is the religious world still so screwed up, and totally unable to come to some kind of accord?
And how is it that the Bible…if it is the real word of God, cannot explain the history of our planet, in believable terms?
Certainly we lack anything Jesus wrote but if it was indeed literate, its impossible to claim he never wrote anything; best one can say is that we don’t currently have any trace of such works. I’m under the impression that we do have some non-biblical sources for his existence, but I don’t personally know them. The popular quoted ones tend to be from people born 6 or more years after his crucifixtion so it is hard to know what their sources are(obviously not first hand).
To me the son of god isn’t particularly special, the virgin birth is obviously absurd, but if one wants to make the argument that we are all gods children, I can’t really fault him for saying hes the son of god since he was rather vocal about everyone being his brothers and sisters.
Oh certainly the step of Yahweh from tribal god to god of the Jews is an interesting event. I can’t recall if it was the Romans or Greek who first dealt with them but these ’stubborn jews’ were a bit of a thorn in their side. I think a bit of knowledge on how a number of philosophies blended to form Christian thought and the differences in practice of the religion with those of today would go a long way towards stimulating more agnostic or atheist thought.
I have little doubt your request for proof of god will remain unanswered, but I can at least venture a hypothetical as to why the biblical account of creation doesn’t fit as we believe it today. Assuming Yahweh is real and expressed the ideas to whoever recorded them, that person likely lacked an understanding to express the vision or knowledge in script to the extent we’d prefer. If your given the history of the world in one night, your probably going to abridge somethings when you scramble to record it; your also likely to hold certain points as important so most of the information may be overlooked. The other question is were these events real or more akin to fables. Eden and Babel strike me closer to fables, but perhaps its just the best a person could do to express the essence of the ideas that struck them.
If one wanted to be argumentative, Geocentrism isn’t necessarily wrong, its just a relative point of view (though it does complicate things like the speed of light and what not).
I’m not sure I can do it, given a single post. But I might make a perfunctory attempt. It might help with my later work.
So:
Posit first the law of energy conservation: neither matter nor energy (they are interchangeable, after all) can be created or destroyed, only changed in a closed system, and take that the universe, for the purposes of our discussion, is an example of said closed system (for our limited understanding of ‘closed’).
Let us then examine the human brain. Which functions, of course, via electrochemical pulses from neuron to neuron across synapses; every thought you have, every move you make, every memory you acquire and experience you enjoy not only has an electrochemical basis but also changes the ’signature’ of the brain function, right? Because consider that we begin with near enough to a blank slate, just electrical impulses across a lump of grey matter; our personalities, then, are more or less the accumulation of our memories and experiences, each of which subtly changes the energy to which it is added simply by virtue of the fact of existing, right?
And then consider death. Braindeath is the absence of energy in the brain. But because of that conservation law, that energy can’t just stop; it has to go somewhere.
It is, merely, I posit, one energy phenomenon in a universe in which there are infinite permutations, but all those permutations are, in fact, related; if matter and energy are the same thing, all forms of energy, and all forms of matter, are similar.
Jesus, for his part, was simply one man who perhaps achieved higher enlightenment than any of his brethren (remember, ‘Christ’ is a title, and an earned one, at that). He, like Siddhartha, grasped the fundamental nature of all things. Modern quantum physics/mechanics is bringing us closer, scientifically, to a theory these theologians sensed viscerally centuries ago.
So, Christianity and etc.= mostly bollocks, especially Eden et al.
But this God thing? Depends on your definition of God. If one posits god as the fundamental matter/energy (which has characteristics of both but is, phenomenologically, neither) of the universe, well, yeah, I think that exists, certainly. An intelligent, benevolent designer? No, of course not. Because ‘intelligence’ is a human concept, and whatever drives the universe, whatever forms it, whatever makes it up and perpetuates it, is beyond such silly human ideas as, say, ‘intelligent,’ or ‘moral,’ or ‘good.’
Hi For Prez’24,
You write:
“Assuming Yahweh is real and expressed the ideas to whoever recorded them, that person likely lacked an understanding to express the vision or knowledge in script to the extent we’d prefer. If your given the history of the world in one night, your probably going to abridge somethings when you scramble to record it; your also likely to hold certain points as important so most of the information may be overlooked.”
Isn’t this the word of God we’re talking about? Would God want the wrong word getting out? I don’t think anybody at any time in our history would not understand the concept of millions of years, or many millions of people, of different kinds, or colors, live all over this world (and, by the way, I’m not telling them about me) which is about X cubits or X stadia around. The only thing you can reasonably conclude is that it’s all made up.
The Old Testament was written about 700 to 400 BCE. Very learned people around then. The Hebrews became literate around 700BCE. Civilizations all around them were very intelligent, I see no reason they couldn’t accept God explaining the REAL STORY of the world to them.
But, instead we find what we would consider stupid stories and if there wasn’t an established hierarchy swearing up and down the stories are God’s honest truth, we would all have a laugh at the tall tales.
I always get a good laugh at evangelical fundamentalists trying to tell me Noah’s flood is true. Actually I get a good laugh at many of the stories…
Hi Will Entrekin, thanks for replying.
I understand what you are saying about the laws of nature, but we simply notice, watch, and record them. We can’t fully explain everything about them yet, but we will…we will not give up and say; well God did it, so we don’t need to explore any further. We also contradict the second law of thermodynamics.
Do you think that brain energy goes to heaven when we die? A soul maybe?
You write:
”So, Christianity and etc.= mostly bollocks, especially Eden et al.”
I pretty much agree with you.
You write:
” But this God thing? Depends on your definition of God. If one posits god as the fundamental matter/energy (which has characteristics of both but is, phenomenologically, neither) of the universe, well, yeah, I think that exists, certainly. An intelligent, benevolent designer? No, of course not. Because ‘intelligence’ is a human concept, and whatever drives the universe, whatever forms it, whatever makes it up and perpetuates it, is beyond such silly human ideas as, say, ‘intelligent,’ or ‘moral,’ or ‘good.’”
Yes, there may be a creator of some sort, but the Hebrew thing, and Paulist theology is pardon the word…Bullcrap…of the highest order.
twom
“I understand what you are saying about the laws of nature, but we simply notice, watch, and record them. We can’t fully explain everything about them yet, but we will…we will not give up and say; well God did it, so we don’t need to explore any further.”
You didn’t ask for full explanation, just for proof. I think the law of conservation of matter/energy is the foundation for such a proof. And I wouldn’t really say “God did it,” so much as “Stuff happens because of the driving energy of the universe.”
Note that “driving” doesn’t necessarily imply either intelligence or desire, merely catalysis.
“Do you think that brain energy goes to heaven when we die? A soul maybe?”
What’s heaven? Can you define it? If your definition is pearly gates, certainly not. But if you accept that the energy that ‘powers’ people’s brains while they’re alive changes with their experiences, which makes it unique to every individual . . . I mean, what’re you defining a soul as?
Certainly one would expect god to have complete control of the situation, but we can’t know thats the case. Jesus never raised a hand against a person to our knowledge (verbally abusive perhaps but never physically) and preached turning your other cheek, yet imbued with the holy spirit Peter finds cause to slay a man and wife for lying about a donation to the church (Act 5:1-11). Its hard to understand exactly how the divine hive-mind works, one would expect participants to have a generally similar attitude towards a number of subjects but it doesn’t appear to be the case.
Its said that Abraham existed somewhere around 1900 BC, so who knows how long the creation myths existed in oral form. Even if the original receiver understood them, they might have been simplified by later story tellers or specific parts omitted not unlike how the ‘canon’ books of the bible were chosen. I agree we shouldn’t hold these above any other mythology, but you can’t really prove one false anymore than you can prove god false.
Didn’t you make clear in the last post that you’d only accept direct empirical evidence for a supernatural God, which I pointed out was a fool’s errand? I’m not sure what you’re going for here…
Hi poppies, thanks for writing.
What possible evidence could you have, empirical or otherwise?
lol, are we really going to go back to this?
Please provide a description of types of proofs you’d find convincing, and I’ll do my best.
Hi poppies,–whatever you got. Of course you know someones word that such and such happened is not acceptable as proof by anyone…not just me,
Well, I’ve very little with which to work since you’ve been a bit evasive with what you’d find acceptable that’s not empirical. Nonetheless, I have an idea of something which may not be convincing to you (I’m convinced nothing will be), but could at least perhaps clear up why some rational people embrace theism. In order to craft the proof well, I need to know your thoughts on the following:
- What’s the purpose of punishment of human evil?
To get even
Thats a little blunt and arguably evil is rather subjective as well. Thievery and Mass Murder are both considered wrong, but you wouldn’t rank them of the same level of ill (even before accounting for circumstances leading to it). Revenge certainly drives a victim in most cases, but the purpose of punishment can also rest in trying to re-align the mental construct the violator has.
Okay, if you really think punishment is a sort of balancing of “scales of justice”, doesn’t that imply:
a. personal culpability for behavior, which is hard to justify within a naturalistic worldview (which most people think implies incompatible determinism), but makes sense considering accountability to a Creator?
b. that such “scales of justice” exist over and outside of man and can be affected by human action?
Prez and Poppies, thanks
All I care about is revenge and punishment.
Someone breaks the laws they get punished for it.
Someone kills on purpose…we kill them. Case closed.
Someone gets drunk and drives and kills a loved one…well so far the punishment doesn’t fit the crime…they get off too lightly in most cases.
There is no need for deep philosophical gymnastics about these matters.
The laws have been on the books for maaany years, enforce them.
I don’t see religion having anything to do with crime and punishment.
Poppies,
Regarding proofs…anything YOU think proves God and religion…I will listen. No need to get picky with the stuff.
I must say that I have been looking intensely for proofs for about three years now.
twom
twom, you’re missing something important by writing off these proofs as “philosophical gymnastics” (no offense, but I note that you’re just writing them off rather than clarifying any inconsistencies or contradictions).
To be morally consistent you have to believe that laws existed prior to the writing down thereof, otherwise if the Nazi’s had won WWII and succeeded in killing or brainwashing any opposition, then the laws they wrote would be just as valid as any other. Hopefully you don’t think this. Laws and rights have to be grounded in something objective, or else they are just subjective written opinions and might makes right (those who get to write are right).
Also, the mere possibility of vengeance implies that a scale of some sort becomes unbalanced when evil actions are perpetrated. Naturalism can offer no such scale. Further, this implies individual responsibility for actions, as I mentioned before. Naturalism offers only incompatible determinism.
I’m uncomfortable with the theistic implications of these concepts, but I don’t see how naturalism can offer anything but inconsistencies against them. I’m open, though, feel free to show me where there are formal issues in my thinking. Thanks.
Hi Poppies,
So, tell me, when did you quit believing and become a nihilistic literary assassin?
Simple request…show me proofs…whatever you have. twom
lol!
twom, I just offered proofs. The fact that you haven’t recognized that, much less described any error in the arguments presented, makes me think were talking past each other, that we’re on very different wavelengths. You seem like a nice person, I don’t want to waste your time, so I’ll sign off. Thanks again for the convo.
Actually I would side with the position of might makes right. Philosophies and Ethics likely developed along side us, the prevailing attitude is the one which refuses to sit down and shut up but also burrows through out cultures.
Its not particularly shocking that thievery, murder and dishonesty within a culture are looked down upon (Loopholes spring up when dealing with neighbor or competing cultures of course). So yes, its rather absurd to assume that before moses came down from the mountain and dropped the tablets in shock, all was complete chaos and anarchy. However, it by no means necessitates a god. Communities of animals have a rough hierarchy, and it likely developed as a way to protect the group.
As communities got larger we probably found that one or two people would ignore the golden rule because they were now able to do so and still remain within the community even if they sever a tie or two. Thus law would arise out of the attempt to impart fair and even justice to all. Now certainly there are further complications such as corrupt leadership and other bugs but we still haven’t fixed those either. The way I see it, law is an answer to a community to large for unavoidable adherence to an oral generalization/tradition. If anything its quite naturalistic to suggest it grew up with communities.
Everyone has their own sense of morals and ethics, its likely a composite of many different areas we observe, learn and associate throughout life. Religion, culture, conversation, community, education, parental figures, etc
Determinism if there really is any separation from Fatalism, builds out of those same factors. And these days its getting more common to suggest that the factors that have the largest impact are those learned in youth, finding it hard to replace or update even when seeing something better.
Hi Prez ‘24, thanks for writing
I agree
Hi FP’24,
I used to have much the same perspective on morality as you, until I came across several internal problems with my position. Here are some I see within what you wrote (if I misunderstood your position, or you see issues with my critique, please post back):
- Animals don’t display pure altruism, and humans do. Many behavioral researchers recognize this as a conundrum for naturalism. Accordingly, animals don’t offer a holistic comparison for exploring morality, and naturalism is wanting for an explanation of this behavior considered one of the most moral by most societies at most times in human history.
- The notion of imparting “fair and even justice to all” is at odds with “might makes right”, so your explanation conflicts with your view. Also, if morality evolved through social interactions growing in complexity, we would expect to see morality tightly wound with ruthless resource efficiency, which totally clashes with pure altruism and is therefore not explanatory.
Finally, regarding determinism: if it’s true, then the great majority of humans are in gross error that they can make free choices. How does one explain such utter misunderstanding about the subject one should know best (one’s own thoughts)?
Theres a question of if even humans display pure altruism. Most arguments for giving to charity or volunteering reward with a sense of satisfaction or virtuous superiority over others, assuming the person isn’t already doing it for an alternative motive such as school credit, or to escape a fine. I agree that animals are not a good place to look when it comes to self examination, but pact forming animals are a decent example of might makes right for the good of the small community. When you come to the question of self examination it probably arises out of the development of our ability to recall and predict, a valuable survival skill created a larger awareness of self than other creatures posses. It likely took more than a generation for us to actually form the question and the intervening period wouldn’t have been without trouble, but it would seem as though tradition served us quite well.
I admit that was a poor phrase, when i think of fair and even justice operated under a general oral tradition, I romanticise small communities of hunter gatherers. In this system, screwing someone else can be directly linked to your own standing within the group and as a result your survival or quality of life. After adding law and a considerable number of people, no doubt the focus of equal justice shifts. Aristocrats, Royalty, but rarely the commoner was the center of the system for centuries. These were systems of might makes right, justice wasn’t for all but but again failures of this nature aren’t as ancient as we’d like to suppose. Generally speaking the death of repressive law comes with an education of the masses (in rebellion before hand its usually only a change of the head, not the majority of the system). Certainly the idea of altruism has roots at least 2 millenia old, but I don’t know that any system has really managed to deliver upon the idea. It does seem as though we are continuing to move in a direction to best support the idea, but it could be its appeal to the majority of people, rather than a divine cog. In the same sense as the social contract.. you give up your right to kill, in hopes of not being slain by another. Achieving a high quality of life for everyone else hopefully means that at some point you or your offspring will also have a high quality of life.
I’ll start from free will and work down to determinism. Its logical that one does not contemplate every possible action they can take at any one time (ie Free Will). Two roads diverge at a yellow wood.. you don’t HAVE to go anywhere, you could go backwards or wander off into the woods themselves. Free will is more akin to the Norse sense of Wyrd. You’ll decide how to act based on your past decisions, knowledge, experience and your goals for the future. You’ve now taken a limitless fractal of options and limited it to those you would actually consider. Determinism is a stricter sense of Wyrd; It says no matter how much you debate an option, you were inevitably going to choose it based on the factors you account for. The debate creates the illusion of active choice. Your goals for the future also rest in your history, so that if it is possible to modify your outcome in determinism it rests with the knowledge, and experience you acquire before coming to choices. Freedom of choice seems completely logical when your staring at two movies, trying to decide what to rent because the results are so trivial you see no advantage to one over the other. You’ve still at some point decided there is a choice here, why not rent both? There are factors (money, time etc) that come in to play there as well but its besides the point. Regardless of which movie you pick you’ll feel the decision stands as proof of freedom to choose short of flipping a coin to decide. Now if the way to modify your choices rests in information gained before hand, is it that impossible that all your choices are some weird domino effect? I myself am not sure theres any wiggle room between determinism and fatalism, but no doubt the debate remains open.
Hi FP’24,
I’ll have to defer to the great majority of behavioral experts who agree that humans do indeed display pure altruism. Negative attestation from naturalistic philosophers alone should provide pause to anyone who would deny this. Also, discounting pure altruism because it can provide a pleasing mental state in the altruist is indefensible; we can surmise that all human actions are, at a fundamental level, chosen because the actor feels a pleasing mental state will result.
Regarding the rest of your post, I don’t know that much good would come from my analyzing it to death, but suffice to say I recommend that you be wary of unjustified leaps in reasoning.
Best to you.
I admit we do have purely altruistic acts, but i don’t think its anywhere near a regular happening. Charity in general I wouldn’t consider altruistic though some people could be definable as such. Most of what I’ve witnessed it tends to have other factors in its support, taking away a purely altruistic motive (can still be part of the motive, but then the action is no longer purely altruistic).
I also admit my theory on the development of law and morality is personal, but regardless of how it arose along side us, it still doesn’t necessitate a god.
Just because a delusion is popular doesn’t make it true.
I think the basis for fatalism/determinism is pretty sound even without a divine cog.
Again, FP’24, look at your assumptions carefully; your conclusions don’t follow from your premises. Just because a delusion is comfortable doesn’t make it true.
“Did Jesus exist.”
William Shakespeare is considered the greatest playwright of all time, someone whose works are quoted more than nearly any other. Yet there is much doubt whether “Shakespeare” actually existed, at least in the sense of a single person who wrote each of the plays and poems attributed to him.
There is a historically recorded Shakespeare considered to be the great bard — whose signature is found on a couple of documents — but there is much speculation of whether that person would have been capable of writing the works.
Now. Proving Jesus’ existence, considering the considerably longer period of time, is an even tougher nut to crack. And even if it could be established without a shadow of doubt, there’s still the matter that his significance and the words attributed to him were written well after those who knew him were no longer on the stage. And those who ultimitaly did the writing had their own agendas; hell, they were, after all starting a new religion, and that is an endeavor that always requires a lot of bullshit … to make it sound good so stupid people will actually buy it.
Just saying