Lack of Divine Intervention

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I completely agree with Death Rabbit and NonSequitur. That's exactly the kind of thing I would've said if I was any good at putting my thoughts eloquently into words.

 

On the topic of belief vs knowledge:
This brings up an interesting question. What is the difference between belief and knowledge? Can knowledge only be obtained through scientific, measurable meathods? I'm hoping to get real answers here.

On the topic of the infinite nature of God:
The meer word infinite is a one-dimentional term, meaning that it inherrantly defines only one variable. Length can be infinite without hight being infinite. More than one characteristic can be infinite at the same time, but saying one is does not mean that all are. The only way you could claim God as being infinitely infinite is to do just that, to say He is infinite in the number and type of characteristics that are infinite. On the other hand, we can say that God is infinite in some characteristics but not so in others.

@HB:
But can that satisfy you as a reason why I believe?

@BA:
No, no, no. Just because you don't believe something doesn't mean it is nonsense. Gnarff put it better than I can. I'm growing to believe that you actually have very little idea of what a true christian is.

@NonSequitur:
But the very statement that you don't know AND NEITHER DOES ANYONE ELSE denotes that you believe you know something, even if it is just that the subject is unknowable.
Also, I don't believe that quantifiable evidence is the only way to achieve knowledge. I believe it is the most common one by far, but by no means the only one. I think this may be the source of many of our arguements.

@Drew:
Comprehention of the infinite does not equate to control of the infinite. Your minor in philosophy just failed you miserably. Humans can comprehend plenty of things we can't control, so what makes you think that comprehension is equal to control or that comprehension of the infinite would make you a god?

@NonSequitur again:
No, the divorce of proof to others from religion means that WE can't prove it TO YOU, not that it hasn't been proven to us.

@DR:
You may not have, but plenty of other people, even on this board, have said it.

Lol. Actually, I've been trying to tell you all that I know, not trying to convince you all that you should know, too, or that you must believe. I think our problem here comes down to the difference between belief and knowledge again.
As for your experience, well, I went to church for about 13 years only because my parents took me, too. I've been there and done that, and THEN God spoke to me. The 13 years didn't prove God to me, God did.

[ April 19, 2006, 18:56: Message edited by: Blackthorne TA ]

 

Because no human can comprehend the infinite. I can comprehend one million. I can comprehend 250 trillion. I, and no other human, can wrap my head around infinity. That's why we call it infinity. If you think that you can comprehend the meaning of "infinite" answer me one question. How large would a stack of infinity bricks be?

How is it possible to know and understand the thoughts of a being capable of understanding infinity? Man's understanding of God is a tempered by his own limited understanding of the universe. God (if he/she/it exists), being both omnipresent and omniscient (as Christians believe), transcends all such limitations. To God, no concept is beyond comprehension. We cannot understand the infinite. God is infinite. A dog, with its limited understanding, will have far better luck trying to understand what it is to be human than a man could trying to understand what it is to be omniscient. One of the other things about limitations.......our limitations also prevent us from understanding the full extent of our limitations......so we are likely far more limited in our understanding of the world around us than we know.

[ April 19, 2006, 19:48: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

NOG: how does this infinity business fit in with the Bible story of the forbidden fruit in the paradise?

 

That's a pretty slippery slope of logic, Nog - but let's give it a try. Here goes:

I happen to know that you wear women's panties. I mean I KNOW it. God told me. It's not a matter of belief for me - it's just a fact. I can't prove to you that you wear them, and you can't really prove to me that you don't. The evidence is pretty strong, as far as I'm concerned. Whether you accept or believe it or not doesn't make it untrue, for your agreement or belief is not required for this to be the case. Why? Because I KNOW it's true. Furthermore, it isn't my job to convince you to accept the fact that you wear women's panties, I'm just telling you what I know.

By applying your own logic, Nog, you must wear women's panties. I'll bet you look adorable in them, too.

You really want to tie yourself to that string of logic? Because it's got more holes than James Brown's rubber.

[ April 19, 2006, 23:21: Message edited by: Death Rabbit ]

 

But the key words in Religion are "Thy will, not mine, be done". It is about losing your own concerns and worries in the service of others and God. In the process of obedience, it is hoped that you will seek to lose your desire to sin, making the fit more comfortable. The trouble is where people walk into church, and expect it to be about them. When I was younger, I fell away from the church, much as you did. It wasn't until I realized that it was about God that I began to feel comfortable with religion.

Again it comes down to faith. We've left the area where scientific proof is available about the first post, didn't we?

And my frustration sets in where I can't word it better, or give you a better answer. I keep trying, but It doesn't always work.

I've found a number of them lacking.

Exactly. It is impossible to have a full knowledge of God, but the fact that you understand the concept of infinity (or eternity, and no, that's not the length of my posts) equates to us understanding the concept of God.

Therefore we concern ourselves with what we have been given. But I also think that science also tries to dabble in the infinite, therefore the same shortcomings there may apply.

Actrually that's just a small part of the story, but it can be viewed under closer examination to appear huge. This examination and discussion would be like putting a cell under a microscope. Something small looks bigger so that you can examine it more closely...

Point made, but there's a difference. We're serious, but you are just poking holes, calling our testimonies of these events into question.

 

I assume this is directed to a specific group of people and not to just anyone who disagrees.

The members of this board have many different view points on a lot of things; not just religion.

But on religion we range from the Atheist (Capital A intentional) to the exceedingly devout, convinced Christian of Mormon, Baptist or some other denomination.

My religious background is different from DR's but his post is eloquent. Many of us come from a strong religious background but have chosen to move away from what we feel are the constrictions of organized religion.

There are contradictions in the Bible, both old and new testaments, that have never been explained to my satisfaction. Please, please, please don't waste board space trying to explain them to me. Experts tried and failed.

Good one, BTA.

 

I can only give you my assessment, but here it is.

Belief requires nothing more than itself. You can believe anything; it is "truth" of an entirely subjective sort. Belief does not imply objective truth, fact or anything other than personal conviction.

Knowledge requires some sort of objective evidence, the truth and veracity of which can be tested. Unsupported objects will fall. A large stone will be heavier than a feather. The terms we assign these known things (gravity, weight, density, et cetera) are unimportant - what matters is that we know they will happen because they are observable, testable phenomena.

But hey, that's just my interpretation. Others may feel differently.

/me braces for inevitable

You're reading way too much into this, NOG. What I said is that even if I concede that I may be wrong and you may right, there is absolutely no way of knowing who - if anyone - is right. You're misreading my statement to be a repudiation of all explanations that have been offered. It's not. Rather, it's an acknowledgement that even if one or more of them is right, nobody can prove which ones those are.

Agreed about the sources of information - after all, my background is in qualitative research. I ain't no hard scientist or statistician concerned solely with numbers, figures, chi-squares and electrovalencies.

Of course, the difference there appears to reside in our methodologies. Mine has been based on testable theoretical frameworks and methods that can be assessed and criticised, and the conclusions drawn from the data and the theoretical assessment is what is most important (rather than the framework itself). Yours appears to be based on your own convictions and the tenets of your faith.

Just to be perfectly clear - I'm not attempting to imply anything untoward, only stating that there is a difference in how we are gathering and presenting our qualitative data.

I can't tell you what to believe, and I don't presume to. I've only tried to make it clear that your standard of proof is inadequate for many others, and that your insistence that you "know" is an insult to the intelligence of others. As I said earlier, maybe I draw the line between "belief" and "knowledge" someplace different to you.

If it's good enough for you, that's great - truthfully, I'm happy for you, that you believe that so strongly. I'd like to believe the same - it's a beautiful thing, if it's true - but I couldn't call it truth except on a personal, subjective level, which would make it a belief, not knowledge. But please, don't expect others to accept that you know the truth unless you can come up with something better than your own experiences and a book.

 

Gnarff, are those viewpoints invalidated for ALL people because YOU find them wanting? I find your viewpoint lacking in a number of ways, but all that means is that Mormonism doesn't meet MY needs. I'll never try to say that it's not a valid system of belief for you and the many other people who hold it. It would be like my saying that any pizza topping other than sausage, mushrooms, and onions is invalid and cannot be sold.

I have never yet tried to tell you that you couldn't hold whatever beliefs you want and live in accordance with those beliefs, and I never will. Why can you not do the same for me?

 

Well of course the wise rabbit is using a ridiculous example, and you and NOG are serious, but that was the entire point. You see, DR was using a common literary device in that he was metaphorically speaking. In other words, he doesn't really think that NOG wears women's panties. He used that as an example to show YOU how WE feel when you say you "know" something to be true even though you have no evidence to back it up, and you expect us to believe it. DR probably doesn't believe that NOG wears women's panties, and DR also probably doesn't believe in the healing powers of emperor penguins, but when you you say you just know and that you are absolutely complete right, well, that sounds to us about as reasonable as the women's panties and penguins arguements. (Hmmm..that women's panties and penguins comment can probably be quoted out of context to ill-effect, but whatever.)

 

Of course we're poking holes - and you're handing us the ice pick to do it with. By providing such flimsly explanations and impossible standards, it almost seems like you WANT us to try to poke holes.

@ Aldeth,

Sounds like the dreaded Chewbacca defense, doesn't it?

 

Belief VS Knowledge:
Ok, so, as I see it, we have 4 definitions of knowledge here:

1.) Degree of Certainty. The difference between belief and knowledge is simply a degree of certainty. I believe that Christ will return in my lifetime. I have even seen some evidence that suggests it, but this is far from conclusive. I will readily admit I may be WAY off on this, thus I believe.
I know gravity works on Earth. I would bet my life on it. I am VERY VERY certain.
I think this is what most people usually mean when they say they know something.
By this definition, you yourselves have said that I know God is real, but only by this definition.

To be edited...
Sorry, computer problems.

2.) Absolute Fact. By this definition, you only know something if it is true, otherwise you only believe it, no matter how much evidence there is. While ideally this is a great definition, it doesn't work in real life. We cannot prove (at least to each other) what is absolutely true, so knowledge becomes a term reserved only for philosophical discussions such as this.
However, by this definition, you can't say that I don't know, because you don't know the absolute truth. You can only say that I only believe I know and that you don't believe I know. I hope I didn't lose anyone on that.

3.) Repeatable evidence. By this definition, only that which is scientifically repeatable can be known. This is a working definition, and by this definition I only believe in God. The problem, however, comes in how much human 'knowledge' is based on unrepeatable events. If we use this definition, large portions of the medical field are lost simply because different people respond to the same treatement in different ways. Two men in similar health undergo the same surgery and it goes the same way. One recovers, the other doesn't.
Psychology is almost completely eliminated by this definition (as far as knowledge is concerned) simply because you can never have two identical people. No matter how close we get to identical, there will still be differences, and those differences will cause different reactions to the same stimulus. Even the same person at different points in his/her life may well react differently to the same stimulus.
Iff you are willing to concede that medicine doesn't know a whole lot and psychology actually knows very little, and actually that a lot of other fields of science, even physics, don't know as much as most people think they do, then you can use this definition.

4.) Evidence, not neccesarily repeatable. This definition says that you can know something if you experience evidence for it yourself,but this raises questions about how much and how to verify it. Does a halucinating man know there are voices talking to him and a 6' tall blue rabbit in his garage? By this definition, yes. Again, here you cannot say I don't know because you can't prove I don't have evidence. On the same note, anyone can claim to know anything and claim evidence and we can't say he's wrong, so this has only limited use.

If anyone has any better ideas, please bring them up.

[ April 20, 2006, 20:10: Message edited by: NOG (No Other Gods) ]

 

But even as certain as you are, it's still possible that you're wrong. Certainty and inaccuracy are not mutually exclusive. Which is the point of ALL of this. I could accept you admitting the POSSIBILITY that you're wrong, while maintaining the CERTAINTY that you're right. But you've seemed unable to do even that much thus far, hence 7 pages of frustration.

 

@DR:
I may or may not have said it here, I'm honestly not sure, but I have said on other threads that there is the possibility that I am wrong. I just said on the Science vs Religion thread that if you could find Jesus's body and prove to me that it was him, I would probably become the staunchest atheist on this board.

 

I completely disagree with 3. That's EXACTLY how science works and EXACTLY how medical studies work. It's true that two patients may react differently to the exact same treatment, but it's ridiculous to say that it isn't repeatable. Scientific and medical studies are conducted on thousands of patients/test subjects and if 95% react one way and 5% react the other way, it doesn't mean that the results aren't repeatable. It means the treatment works on 95% of the population and doesn't work on the other 5%. If ten other studies are done, and all come up with the same 95:5 ratio, it's a highly repeatable study.

NOG, let me ask you something. How much background do you have in science? As DR, Nakia, Rally, and myself have shown we have a history in a particular faith and therefore have some basis to argue from. We have credentials for lack of a better word. I was an altar boy. I went to church every weekend for 15 years straight. I attended a Jesuit University. I'm not some loon with no knowledge of Christianity, and I'm just wordering what your scientific credentials are?

 

It doesn't invalidate them, but I do find the deficiencies and have been challenging them on those perceived shortcomings.

Ultimately, it's a case of letting people believe what they will, but on varied issues, I defend my views. the more they contradict mine, and the more important these points are, the more resistance I get...

I have never accused you of that. I'm just trying (not doing very well, I admit) to advocate my own beliefs.

That's the problem of this whole thread--the fact that the spiritual cannot be scientifically understood and used to our benefit. That is simply not possible. Faith and spirituality are something personal, and the only research would be in studying the religious teachings, interviewing the faithful for their trestimonials, and self directed personal experimentation.

Taken out of context, it would probably get responses like WTF?

We'd like you to earnestly try replicate our experiences. We want you to understand that any answers you get won't fit the "scientific" model you seek. In University, I was introduced to a concept I believe was called Phenomenology. The study of experiences. That is the only evidence you will find of God.

 

@Aldeth:
If the medical field is so heavily based on repeated experimentation, why do doctors say the number one predictor for the survivability of patients being treated for many types of cancer is their outlook? The variables involved in many aspects of medicine (though by no means all) and almost all of psychology are too fluid for us (at our current level of understanding) to control.
The human brain is the best example of this, in my opinion. A dozen people can have the exact same head injury that damages the brain in the exact same way.
Two of them recover completely. The brain doesn't heal, but it works around the problem.
Three of them suffer limited long-term memory loss
Two of them experience a chain reaction of brain cell death and suffer severe brain damage outside of the original area.
Three of them slip into comas, which they recover from after varying and seemingly random periods with varying levels of brain damage.
Two of them die flat out. They don't even make it to the ambulances.
One man can have his Brocha's area damaged and never again be able to formulate either spoken or written word, though he can comprehend what is said to him.
Another man, who is experiencing sever seisured starting in one half of the brain and spreading through the Corpus Collosum to the other, has a hemispherectimy, an experimental procedure where the entire half of the upper brain that starts seising is removed. He never suffers significant deteriation of cognitive functions and the motor functions he loses are recovered 90% within one year.
We know that things happen. In many cases we even know what happens, why, and how. These are instances of scientific, repeatable knowledge. In many other cases, however, we can only witness how people react to traumatic events (mental or physical) and hope that (God forbid it should ever happen again) the next people will respond the same way.

As for my scientific background. I have no formal medical training, only limited psychological training, and noticable, though not significant training in chemistry and physics. I am an Engineer In Training (EIT) in the state of Virginia. Most of my understaning of these other fields come from friends and family. My father is a practicing, liscenced psychologist and my girlfriend is graduating with a bachelor's degree in psychology this May. My mother is a geologist working with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. A close family friend is also our physician, a medical doctor liscensed to practice in Virginia.

As far as theological training, my brother is earning his Doctor's in Divinity, my father earned his graduate degrees in psychology from a seminary program (Rosemead if you would like to know). My brother and I proof-read his weekly Bible-studies for about 10 years, which pulled from numerous texts besides the Bible itself. We have regular debates on the validity of evolution, the validity of several new theologies, and issues such as "Can God make a boulder that is so heavy He can't pick it up?" We have a lot of fun.

If anyone on this board is a liscensed medical doctor and sees any mistakes in my writing, please point them out, I am eager to increase my knowledge, but don't discount me just because you don't agree with me. I do know something of which I speak.

As far as my understanding of scientific method and the impacts thereof, I think I can safely say I have a better understanding than most people (not necessarily most people on this board) simply because I realize that it isn't absolute fact and these results may someday be proven wrong. A working scientific theory is our best guess concidering the information at hand, and it rarely points directly to the conclusions scientists draw from them, though those conclustions are usually logical and realistic.
For example, I'm sure all of you have been taught at some point or another that the Sun is powered by intense fusion reactions deep within the core. How do we know that? Well, we know the rough ammount of energy it is putting out, we can figure out the approximate mass, we know the surface is made up of hydrogen and helium, and we can see the radiation being put out thanks to our space program. This does not mean we have witnessed fusion. We have only witnessed the products that we would expect from fusion. That does not mean that fusion is the only posibility, just the most likely one we know of today.

 

The best example for your opinion, yes; the best example for the whole of modern medicine, no. Yet again, the brain is the one part of the human body that we know the least about. Using that as an example of modern medicine would be like using Jerry Falwell as an example of modern Christianity: an extreme that does not represent the majority and certainly not the whole.

Because it was noticed (and studied) that there was a direct correlation between the patient's attitude and how hard their body worked to heal itself. As it is again an aspect of the brain, we don't know exactly what the process is, but it does work in a reproduceable manner. Well, not exactly 'reproduceable' since you wouldn't actively produce the same set of conditions (i.e. illness) over and over again, but you know what I mean; repetitively observable, perhaps.

I'd also like to submit that psychology, the science that you have the most background in (yourself, your girlfriend, your mother), is not really the most exact of sciences (again because of our poor understanding of the brain), and it may be coloring your outlook on the other sciences. To put it another way, comparing psychology to medicine is just as ridiculous as the example I gave earlier, and is even worse than comparing the brain to the rest of the body. We may know only the tiniest bit about the way the brain works, but we know even less about the way people's minds work.

[ April 21, 2006, 20:45: Message edited by: Felinoid ]

 

Genesis 3:22

Maybe people had different ideas of God (or gods) and man's mental faculties back when this stuff was written. It's still in the holy book, however.