The Topos of Historicity

Prologomina for any Future Discussion Of the Historical Jesus




History is Probablity



"Topos" is a Greek word that means "location" or "seat." Where is the location of historicity? What is the exact ponit at which one can say "this is historicity?" But there is a more fundamental question implied in finding the topos of historicity, and that is "what is the crucial point at which historicity takes on theological meaning?What aspects of being histoircal are so crucial that, if other wise proven to be not histoircal, the Christian faith would cruble?

All history is probability. No one can empirically prove an "historical fact," for that would require being able to repeat the experiment or to otherwise witness the event for oneself. Obviously history by its nature as part of times arrow does not allow either of these options. Thus history is a non-empirical social science. WE can't go back in time and watch George Washington cross the Delaware, but we can assume that he did so because we have documents that refer to it which contain eye witness testimony and which we have no good reason to doubt.


For this reason history is a matter of documents. Those we call "historians" were writing in the time of Christ, such as Tacitus and Josephus, but they were not professionals nor academics. History as an academic social science has only existed since the 19th century. As a science history still has a ways to go and it will never be the sort of science that one might find in sociology or biology. The major theorists of an academic discipline of history writing in the late 19th century, set forth the model that history is a matter of what can be documented from the past. For this reason history is primarily a matter of documents, but that means that there are huge cracks in our understanding that can never be filled. For that reason historians assess the nature of historical "fact" as a form of probability. George Washington probably did exist and he probably did cross the Delaware to fight the Hesseians at Princeton (and other places) but that is no more an empirical fact that Christ resurrection from the dead. The probably of Washington crossing the Delaware is much higher historically speaking than that of the Resurrection, but it is no more certain in an absolute sense. Yet when all historians agree to it we can place a very high degree of confidence in it and we speak of it as a "fact" because we assume that it is one.


The problem is that when one attaches religious significance to a document some certain group of people will decide that this is intrinsically to be doubted. What these people don't understand is that 90% of what we know about the ancient world comes to us from documents that one could doubt for the same reasons that atheists usually doubt the Bible (because they are recorded in religiously polemical documents).

Consider the case of Jospehus. Most atheists assume that Jospehus is an authority to be trusted and few people anywhere would assert that he didn't exist. This is because we have no reason to suspect that he didn't, and he is our basis for knowledge of about 80% of what happened in the first century. But one could argue that Jospehus didn't exist, or that most of his writings were made up. Using the same criteria that Christ myther's use for deciding that Christ didn't exist or that 90% of what is reported about him was made up, one can make the same kinds of arguments. First, Josephus' writings must have been controlled by Christians from an early period because we have no texts with totally lack the bits about Jesus. If that was made up then certainly Jo's works were controlled by Christians from the earliest times. Now secondly, Jeosphus gets wrong the year that the Roman legions of Vespasian left Palestine, but Jo was there so how could he get that wrong? It must be that his works are made up! The whole of Jospehus works were made up to advocate the Jewish-Christian cause and that explains the passage where he says he got his friend off the cross before sunset, that was put in there to show that Joseph of Aramethia could do the same with the body of Jesus. Why else does he use the name Jospeh so much like the name Jospheus?


Of course I'm being sarcastic. None of these arguments hold water and no historian would accept them, but they cannot be disproved! It's just that historians don't waste their time with BS conspiracy theories or silly assertions. It is also the case that since Josephus forms the bulwark of our knowledge about that period, historians are not eager to lose his testimony. The point is that the same criteria could be used to dislodge Jospehus as have been advocated to dislodge the New Testament (minus the textual proof of redaction, but there some evidence of redaction in some of Jospehus, consider the Slavic and Arabic manuscripts)!


The point is that in deciding the nature of historical fact we cannot let such things as "this document is a religious polemic" decide the matter. We have to assume that the presence of a document is enough to tell us something about the situation under which is was written, and that knowing something about who wrote a document and why, tells us something about the situation. Just being able to point out that a document is religious and is written for religious reasons, even polemical ones, is not enough to assume that the document is forgery or that it has not historical merit or information in it.

Thus we cannot rule out the historicity of the Gospels based upon these criteria. We have to formulate more specific textually critical reason for rejecting the documents of the New Testament. Now of course such reasons exist and are talked about among textual critics, But they don't just blindly rule them out merely because they are the New Testament.

Thus, we have to accept a certain probably about the historicity of the New Testament documents which can be established by textual criticism, but the basic assumption has to be that there is some basis in historical fact, that the writers have some connection with a tradition and that they understand themselves to be in that tradition. We cannot assume that they are engaging in pernicious motive or just making things up. After all, any history could be the result of such a plot but if one assumes this than one doesn't have scientific examination of what happened in the past. To have that one must assume that some things form the past can come to us form those who set out to record at least their understanding of what happened.

Not Historical but History making>


The category "history making" is not one used by historians. It is the brain child of German Theologian Jurgen Moltmann from the University of Tubengin. The reason for it is not to "make something true" as has been charged. It is not to over come a dirth of hard evidence, as has been charged on certain message boards. The reason for the category is to overcome a cheat, to get around a cheating argument by European intellectuals. The Marxists historians argue that since history is founded upon naturalistic principles and upon documentary hypothesis (as set out by Marx in The German Ideology) one cannot do history on the basis of the supernatural. Thus the resurrection could never be an historical question because it can never assumed by historians that it happened.


This is true, but it's still cheating in a sense. Because it means that no matter what the truth of that event it can never be understood in the way that Christian doctrine would assert because it just can't be part of history (remember history is not what "really" happened but the interpretation of the documentary trail of what happened).


So Moltmann says "OK we will just change the rules. Instead of grounding our understanding in the category of 'historical nature' we will ground it in the category of 'history making.'" The belief shaped history in the sense that history was shaped by the tradition which understood itself to be witness to the resurrection. Thus it is not the historicity of the event itself that we seek to prove. This can never be proven, it can only be embraced as an act of faith because we cannot go back in time and watch it happen. But we can embrace a certain probabilistic sense of it happening and we can understand it as the self identity of a community which went on to shape history as a result of its understanding of that event. There had to be, therefore, some kind of event for the group to have some kind of self understanding in relation to the event. That means that the arguments about the resurrection must become an attempt to assess the probabilities of various theories as to the nature of this event which prompted such a self definition among the community.


What matters is not history but the history making aspects. That is, it is not an historical question, Was Jesus the son of God? Did he raise from the dead? These are not things that can be proven historically, they are not part of history because they involve transcendence of the naturalistic framework under which history is assumed. That does not mean that I don't believe them, but it does mean that proving them is less important than living them. Should anyone think this is not sufficiently intellectual to justify the brain power it takes to grasp it, it's probably not, but just trying actually doing it. The point is that there is no intellectual shame in an existential encounter with the object of ultimate concern. So that is what really matters, that the teachings bestow Grace, that the church understood itself as the recipient of Christ's teachings (and with no small amount of confirming evidence form history) and it doesn't matter that it isn't "proven" or that the resurrection isn't considered historical. It is history making, history was shaped around that concept and around the churches understanding of itself as the guardian of Jesus' teachings.


Historical fact Vs Historical perspective


Since historical facts are probability in the fist place, the nature of any historical fact is not a matter of absolute proof but of the best evidence forming a degree of confidence in a probabilistic assertion. This means that naturalistic ideology will exclude the possibly of the resurrection a pariori, it also means that we can bring back in a certain probability based upon the category of the history making self understanding of the group.


But it also means that what matters more in terms of the resurrection is not historical fact but historical perspective. This is an observation only a theologian could love. It is not a view point of an historian, but since my first love was theology, I embrace it as a tenet of theological understanding. The historical persecutive I have cultivated tries not to impose the category of "fact" upon the claim of the resurrection, but to create spaces in which the claim can be held as a tenet of faith based upon its history making character. That means, I think it really happened, but the question is how to talk about it really happening when it is to be considered so improbable? Well, that is purely an ideological matter and depends more upon metaphysical assumptions to rule it out rather than any real historical evidence that would rule it out. Through the metaphysical assumption I make I rule it back in, but not as imposed "fact," rather, as the thing with which I fill the spaces created by the history making nature. In other words the history making concept is how we fill the cracks left between the probabalistic assertions of inductive reasoning.

Topos


Now what does all of this mean? It means first of all that I don't have to prove the resurrection in order to hold it as a doctrine and a tenet of faith. It also means that I can ground its true theological significance in the symbolic value of its transforming aspects without proving it as "fact" because for me it is an existential fact. I am transformed by it, thus for me it is a fact, if not a historical fact, then an existential one.


Nevertheless, I think the evidence does point to it as an actual fact, a literal resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead, but the important thing about that is its theological significance as a symbol. The fact that I think it really happened, although important, is only secondary in terms of having to prove things. I can prove that the affects of believing it are real.


That also means that I don't have to worry about all the details of the New Testament documents being in place. I assume that these documents were not written by those whose names they bare, and I assume that many of the details, are out of place chronologically and perhaps are only suggestive of the actual events. None of that matters in terms of transformative value.


Thus, the real topos of historicity is not in the stories and not in the documents but it is in the tradition which preserved the documents. The leaders of that tradition chose the documents based upon their connection with the original group withwhom the deposit of Christ's teachings were fist entrusted, the Apostles. Thus, we can assert that there is in some sense an historical core to the documents even if we are in the dark as to the exact nature of that core.


What ultimately matters is that the documents themselves are not understood within the tradition as literal epistemology but as a means of bestowing Grace. If Grace is bestowed to the reader then this is all that can be asked in terms of the reason for their preservation. This is all that need be accomplished.*


Nevertheless, we can come at this with an historical persecutive and ask what the documents do tell us about the history of the situation. That Jesus really did die on the cross that that his teachings really were indicative of the Kingdom of God puts a force behind the symbolic value that increases the efficacy of that, and that makes them indicative of a truth which can be demonstrated within a reasonable field of historical probability.


The historicity of Jesus is important, but the question is, what is important about it? Is it really so important to know that on a certain day Jesus did and said this or that? Or is it important to know that we have a generally accurate perception of the kinds of things Jesus did and the basic core of his teaching available to us? I contend that some historical elements are more important than others..

The Topos of Historicity"Topos" is just a fancy Greek term used in arts and hummanities circles for "place," or "location." I bring this up because I think what is most important is the understanding of and acceptance of the Tradition itself. I think the tradition is the safe guard of the historicity. This means that rather than some sort of historically empirical proof (of which there is no such thing) that Jesus really gave the sermon on the mount, the important thing is that the tradition loaded those teachings into its understanding of Jesus from an early period and to be a member of the community means to accept that teaching. This is so because this is what works. To accept Jesus, to accept God's grace through the mediation of Christ's atonement is transformative and offers a power for living which resolves the basic human problematic. The proof of that is in actually doing it, actually receiving it, not in historical arguments.




The Theological Lodown:


As I have said before, I believe that there is one universal experience of the Divine that stands behind all religions. The individual God figures in reach religion don't matter because they are preceded by this experience which is more basic, and they are created by cultural construct through which this experience must be flitted. But that is what happens when man tries to reach out to God mostly unaided. What happens when God decides to make one clear unmistakable statement that demonstrates exactly who he is and what he wants? Perhaps the best way to do that would be to come and tell us himself. That's what I believe happened with Jesus.


Now that still leaves problems of the ambiguity of language. But what is unambiguous is the actions. Not only are the actions of Jesus reflective of the divine in such enstances as forgiving the woman caught in adultery or in healing the sick and so forth, but they are unmistakable in his atonement on the cross. This is a statement of God's solidarity with humanity. That God would be willing to die for the sins of humanity and to die as one of the lowest in the social order demonstrates that God is on our side and is willing to identify with our lot, which is what solidarity is all about. Now never mind the fact that "it didn't hurt cause he was God" and silly arguments like that. The point is that it is a clear expression of God's willingness to identify with us. The only problem is that we have to return the favor and identify with him. It's still a search that can only concluded in the heart. So we must still make a decision and place our solidarity with God through giving our lives to Christ (Romans 6). But it works both ways and all we need to is examine the case to see that. Once having done that we receive transformation and we resolve the problematic involved in being human and that's what really matters because that is a lived experience and can be seen by anyone, it is not a matter of empirical evidence or of demonstration in an "objective" way. I'm not saying the history doesn't matter, and I do believe the historical stuff form the Gospels.


But what matters more than proving it as history is what it means to accept it as history. It doesn't mean being able to prove it (and in fact nothing in history is proven in the way that it is in science--all history is probability in a sense). What matters about accepting the history is understanding what it does for one to accept it. When one finds that this is the case and it does actually mediate transcendence one can find that the claims are at least true. They may or may not be true in a literal historical sense (and I think most of them are) but they are true in a transformative sense. If one is transformed than it would seem to be the point, the whole point involved in why would want to investigate religion in the first place. How to choose a tradition. Now as I have said, it is not a question of which religion is true but of which has the efficacy (I am speaking phenomenologically here--not theologically). That means, all religions mediate transformation to some degree, but some do so better than others. Human sacrifice for example is a less efficacious method, because it involves the necessity of cruelty and murder, and a grace oriented religion is more efficacious because it is more accessible to all. There are two such religions and two only: pure land Buddhism and Christianity. We can compare those two later. But in my view that is the reason to prefer a particular tradition, and to prefer the tradition with which I identify; because it mediates transcendence through Grace, which means one need not be good enough to merit God's favor. That makes it more accessible and in a sense it may make it more transformative. As Jesus said "he who has been foreign much loves much. We can open a new one to do the historical stuff (and don't worry, I will).

____________ *For a discussion transformative value (or Sacramental rather than epistemological understanding of the Scriptures) see Canon and Criterion in Christian Theology, by Willam Abrham, Oxford, 1998/2002.

For discussion of History making see Jurgan Moltmann, Theology of Hope,New York: Harpers, 1967

In anticipation of New Year

I hope you all had a wonderful christmas. I did. went to my Nice's house for dinner. Truekey, stuffing all the trimings, saw some relatives, it was nice. This essay I ran backin the fall, in Septerber, but i run it again because it's focus on the 60's and how that has affected my life is relivant as we approach a new year.

Confessions of a Child of the Sixiteis.



Confessions of a child of the Sixties

I just saw a pretty good show about the 60's. It was on PBS, and it covered a lot of international student events that one doesn't often see, such as the massacre of students in Mexico City in Oct. of 68, and the May '68 in Paris. The old image are still evocative for me. I wonder if these young people today (I sound like a real old foggy) will know or understand what it means to me to see the wild umkept hair of Bob Dylan and hear that sand paper whine screeching out "the Time they are a'Chang'n?" Or to see the jet black hair of Joan Baez and hear the most hauntingly beautiful voice of that decade. Those two images alone encapsulate the whole sixties thing for me. I literally cried at the images of MLK's funeral, Bobbie Kennedy dying on the floor of the kitchen, thousands of people spontaneously lining the tracks on the journey taking his body back to Washington. Scenes of the Police riot in Chicago the summer of '68. It's hard to relate what scenes of that time do to me. I was a child but I sat glued to the TV the whole time and watched the police beat the crap of people just wanting to stop a war (while they alternated with the story of the Russians invading Checoslovokia, it was not wasted on me that hese two events were two versions of the same thing, the iron curten version and our version). They beat reporters, they beat passers by, and all the while the naive crowd of idealistic politicos chanting "the whole world is watching, the whole world is watching." Of, how could I not mention images of Woodstock? While young people revaled in wild abandon, stoned out of their minds, great music, trying to make their dreams concrete in reality and settling for the greatest party the east coast ever saw.

I guess anyone under 35 would be mystified by my attachment to all of this. But in my youth these images said to me "you are part of something, something is happening, your generation is gong to end things that have been wrong for thousands of Years.' I never got to take part in it. I longed to grow up and become a protester and be part. I did join other protest movements, I was a political activist for most of a decade. But I never got to do it in the 60s. I only went to one actual anti-veitnam protest. But somehow, I was part of it. It was my generation, my time, my older siblings so to speak and I was part of it in my heart and I supported them everyday fervently. It was exciting to know that I was part of a history making epoch that change humanity, hopefully for the better, forever.

I think we did change it for the better, also for the worst. I think Dylan was ahead of us all really, because he knew better than to attach himself to an ideology or a party line. So many of us were caught up on that and sold out our dreams, ironically, in the attempt to secure them and to live out their meaning. We sold them out by taking ourselves too seriously. Over the decades one learns to forget, to keep quite, the younger people dot' want to hear it, they can't relate to it. They dont' know what it is. They don't know what my music meant to me. They could never understand why their music sickens me. They could never understand what mine does for me. They don't care, and I don't care. But then I have to hand it to them, its their time. Every new generation must fight its own daemons and define itself against what came before and where it wants to wind up. So I let them have their time. I try not to be the old curmudgeon who railed against my long hair, and just let them have their thing, whatever I think of it.

But it's not so easy because it opens up a long and deep wound that's been there since my conversion to Christ. The ultimate dilemma: I see the show, I know that's who I am. I'm the child of those days. I am the veteran of those Chicago streets, even though I wasn't there physically, I was there in spirit. I am the remnant of that movement. I am the result, the product, the artifact of that time. And that spirit of those days tells me I am my own seeker. I am still looking for myself, and I wont find it in the group. young people can't understand it at all; the kids of today have come full circle, they are creatures of the group; but not me. I will not find myself among the group. I am liberal, will always be liberal. My most sacred basic core values include setting captives free, stopping war, protesting injustice, supporting equality between all people. That's who I am and I can't sell that out.

But I am also a child of God. I found Jesus, I know he's real. I know the power is real. i can't ever deny that, or deny what he did in my life. Whatever psychological theory or psychologizing fad comes along to explain my conversation exoeruebce, however a product of my dopamine one thinks it to be, I know it was real and that it was more than just chemicals in my head, and I can't ever Denny that. But that belief, that relationship, that finding of God is not done in a vacuum. It's a social thing and it comes with a history. I don't always approve of that history. Nevertheless, the history of the social side of the faith I embrace. I can't ignore it set myself apart form it. Therefore, I belong to the church and I have to belong to the church, but that is very probemlatic.

I don't always like the church. I sometimes spend a great deal of my time laughing at large segments of the church. I am sometimes embarrassed by large segments of the chruch.Not so much because so many Christians supported right wing causes, since there are also a lot of left wing Christians, but because as a true faith I should be seeking reconciliation with these guys. I should figure that our mutual faith is more important and should bring us together more than my half and baked and dimly conceived value system sets us apart. But sometimes I can't do that. Sometimes that value system is awfully clear to me. The conservatives were so frightened by the sixties. Those who were set in fear by that decade see no distinctions between any of the elements that mark that time. Beetle hair cuts just lead inexorably to orgies in the streets. The Turtles song "so Happy Together" leads with utter finality to the nations current drug problem, such that any aspects of the sixties scares the pants off of them and must be attributed to Satan. These are the guys who play records backwards to hear those evil hidden satanic messages like "we go GA lm NOC." How diabolic can you get!

These guys are all over the church. These guys think they own Christianity, and anyone who doesn't toe their party line is just hood wincked by Satan. Most of the time I try to treat them with benign neglect, but how can I really ignore them when, if they had their way, they would crush out of existence ever vestige, not only of the time I hold so dear (my youth) but also the values, the very core meaning that that time holds for me? How can I Ignore them when they hate and fear everything I'm about? Somehow I have faith that Christ really does unite us, but it's hard sometimes to get through an election while I watch otherwise intelligent rational fellow Christians turn beautiful organizations into right-wing political groups; I really do know that they don't want to hear any counter views. I see them build fenses around their doctrines so that their pet interpritations of doctrine become sacred and one dare not disagree.

Eventually it begins to ware on my actual faith. I start to consider alternatives. Then, after so much argument and dispute about religious matters, I just think "what's it all for?" I have been tempted to chuck the Nicene creed. I defiantly think "If I had to follow the OT, say Jesus hadn't come before this century, I would rather be a pagan." But what I do? I try to retreat to rationality and faith. I say, "what is the real source of my discomfort with OT, with Nicene creed?" I rethink the doubt and consider the options within a framework of keeping the faith. I realize most of the time its an emotional reaction, not a doctrinal crisis, but a theological crisis nonetheless. But the stark contrast is always there; I am a child of the sixties and so much of the church will always be the anti-Semites. On the other hand I know there is something good about that. Something about being able to see through the mistakes, the over stamtetns, the sentimentalities of youth.

Once I met a cult leader who was trying to impress me enough to get me into his cult. He told me "I am the ideals of your youth." I told him, "then you really are a fool." He took his groupies and left the place immediately. Whale I can't renounce the values, I understand that the way they played out in terms of emotion and sentiment was largely a problem with being young. For example, I'm glad the left take over rally. I want more restraint on capitalism, but I really don't want a worker's state. I think the system we have now could be so fine if people cared about clearing up the abuses of power. The kind of radical weather underground stuff I admired in Junior high was just insanity. While no singer has ever come along to truly replace Joan Baez and no song writer could replace Dylan, the subsequent generations have had their guys, some of them have been great; one of them is even a Dylan.

So finally I guess I have to just realize that this is just one of those irresolvable tensions that I'm going to have to live with. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time; right to be marked forever without he curse of the 60s. But while we have changed the world for the better, in many ways, I can understand why the more convective elements in the church are so afford of it. After all, that same movement that spawned liberation movements of all stripes changed the values of the country such that Americans and first world people will never look at sin the same way again. The church is forced re define sin, and to ponder problems of reconciliation with sinners in new ways. No generation before ours understood itself as made up of sensual individuals. Sentuanlity was a curse and something to keep quite. I don't think people will ever see it that way again. That is both good and bad. Good because God made us to be sensual people, and no where in his word does he say that's bad. But it is bad by soncqeunce because people not only want to throw off the surplus guilt of feeling sinful for having sexual urges, but also throw off the concept of sin and just do as they please.

The Sixties was like the garden of Eden all over again. If you eat this fruit, you will know good from evil, and knowing means you will experience both good and evil, you learn fits hand what's its all about; starting with estagement form God, and culminating in estrangement from each other, and from nature and the world around you, and even from the motive force of your being (labor becomes a curse). The first couple ate it, and so did we (although I guess we smoked it). Both times, all hell broke loose. I can understand why such a large segment of the church wants to go back to the good old days when kids were named things like Beaver, Wally, and Lumpy, and no problem of youth was so great that a good apology to Miss Launders wouldn't fix everything. I guess I'll just take this dilemma to the grave with me. It's my Mark of Cain form our own little fall in the sixties.

Merry Christmas!

MerrryChristmas!

Love: the Basis of Everything.

I don't feel very loving right now, but I don't have to feel any way to talk about love, because love is not merely a feeling. A lot of people think that love is just the special way of feeling about a person, or the warm fuzzy that comes from being with a certain person. Love is much more than just a special way of feeling. It is also a value, a commitment, a sense of orientation toward others, a philosophy, a way of being in the world (an existential engagement).




There are degrees of love and kinds of love. The Greeks called sexual and romantic love Eros From which we get our word "erotic." The kind of love friends feel they called Phileo or "brotherly love" (as in "Philadelphia"). The highest form of love they called Agape. That is usually the kind of love the Bible speaks of when it speaks of God's love for us. 1 John tells us "He who loves knows God for God is love."

Agape Means: the will to value the other, or the will to the good of the other; the desire for the other to have the best. It entails the idea of according the other all rights and human dignity. It is not personal, it's a commitment to all people. Agape is sometimes translated Charity (as in kJ trains 1 Corinthians 13 "if I speak with the tongue of men and of angles and have not charity") but this is more condescending and patronizing than the actual meaning of the term. Charity can be paternalistic in the negative sense, controlling, colonizing, derogatory. Agape is a totally positive thing; one must actually seek the good of the other whatever that may be, even against one's own interest.

Now I will start saying "crazy stuff," these are things that I have theorized about and I guess they make up the radical edge of my own philosophy because they have been scoffed at plenty of times on these boards. But I don't care I'm saying it anyway.


Basis of everything: connection with Being

When I say love is the basis of everything, I mean it really is. I believe that when the Bible says "God is love" it means it literally. In other words, we should put an "itself" there. God is "love itself,": the thing that love is actually the essence of what God is. Now you may ask how can God be both being itself and love itself? Because these two are inextricably bound up together.

Love is giving, the idea of seeking the good of the other, according the other full human dignity equal to one's own, these are ideas that entail give over, supplying the other with something. It's a positivity in the sense that it supplies an actual thing to someone. Being also shares these qualifies. Being is giving in the sense that it bettors itself upon the beings and they have their existence. It is positive in the sense that it is something and not taking something away, it's not a void as nothingness is, but moves in the direction of filling a void; nothingness becomes being, the existence of things.

So love and being are really the same impulse and they both unite in the spirit of God. God is the basis of all being, of all reality. God's character is love; that is God seeks the good of the other and bestows upon us the ultimate human dignity of being a child of God.


Motivating force behind creation

Love is the basic motivating force behind creation. God's motive urge to create was not out of a need due to looniness, but out of a desire to create as an artist, and desire is fueled by love. Art is love, artists love art, as revolutionaries love. Revolutionaries are in love and their revolutions are often expressions of love, what He Guava called "a strange kind of love, not to see more shiny factories but for people." So God creates as a need to bestow love, which entails the bestowing of being.

Now let's not have a bunch of lectures about "perfection" based upon not knowing what perfection is. Let's not have a buck of Aristotle thrown in as though it were the Bible. There is no base line for comparison from which one can really make the judgment that need is imperfection; especially the sort of need one feels to be creative or to bestow love; that is a different sort of need than the need for food or shelter.

Basis of morality

Love is the basis of morality. Love is the background of the moral universe, as Joseph Fletcher said. Austin said it too. That means all moral decisions are made with ultimate reference to God's love which is the driving force behind morality. Many people think Christian morality is about stopping impurity. These people regard sex as the greatest offense and think that basically sin = sex. But nothing is further from the truth. Sin is not sex, sin is an unloosing nature, or a selfish desire to act in an unloosing manner.

Love requires selfless giving over OT the other for the good of the other. That means all moral actions must ultimately evaluated with reference to their motivational properties. That's why Jesus spoke as he did in the sermon on the mount: if you hate you are a murderer. Because the motivation itself is the true essence of the sin, the rejecting of love and acceptance of self as the orbit creates the motive that eventually leads to the act. He is not saying that the act sin OT sinful of course, but that the sin begins with the motive not just with the act. In that sense morality is somewhat teleological, although I normally eschew teleological ethics. I am not saying that the morality of a given act is based upon outcome, but that the end toward which moral motions are given is the goal of doing love.

Keeping up with exotic visitors

Num Perc. Country Name
66 78.57% United States
8 9.52% Canada
3 3.57% United Kingdom
2 2.38% Australia
1 1.19% Netherlands
1 1.19% Malaysia
1 1.19% Philippines
1 1.19% Kenya
1 1.19% Switzerland


They are exotic to me. I hope they take no offense, as to them they are the norm and I'm, well, if not exotic at least shall we say, out of the ordinary?Well why shouldn't I be charitable to myself?

I welcome the reader from Kenya. I don't think I've had a visitor from Kenya before. I've really lost favor with the UK. in the begining they made up 13% of readers. no 3% There was actually a more exotic crop the other day. I hope someday I'll travel to these places. Hey if you were stuck in Dallas Texas, you would love hearing form people around the world too.

btw comments can be made to the blog again. No one is maknig any but I would like to hear from you all and know how you enjoyed the debate between JD and I.

The last word in the debate

I have decided that my duty as a good host is to allow the guest to have the last word. I will make a breif general comment, but not try to "debate" the matters further. At the end fo JD's Rebuttle is a statment about accepentence and understanding of others. I agree with almost everything in that statment without any real qualification. So i will set that part out and make note of it, and just state here and now I think it's excellent.



Metacrock,

I would like to start out this time by saying that I am actually really
enjoying this! I have numerous other dialogues open at this moment and none
other is nearly as stimulating as this one. You posted a comment to my
latest response and I agree with your thesis, that there needs to be a
discussion about understanding and acceptance. This is a very important
topic and I have written a response to it and will include it at the end of
this response.
I am going to go along the points that you made and give a short response, I
am not going to try and debate your points I am going to try to respond in
generality; however there are some topics that I will respond to directly.
When you speak of innate ideas of god and the idea that god is pre-wired
into the human mind I whole heartedly disagree and there is nothing short of
experimental proof that would even sway me. I am immersed in psychological
study and neuroscience and there is no such evidence that would suggest what
you believe. There is no harm in believe this as do you, but I do not and
there is no outstanding evidence or circumstantial reason for me to do so.
I would like to leave this topic at that and go on.
You ask me why I believe that all causes and effects are natural. You say
that I do not have direct proof of first cause, which is correct nobody does
least of all fundamental Christians. You assert that there is a need for a
first cause due to your arguments about the impossibility of an eternally
existing universe. I do not claim that the universe that we reside in
needed a first cause (widely called the ‘Big Bang’) or that the universe
itself is eternal. As I mentioned in my last response the science seems to
be showing that the universe is actually finite and will eventually spread
itself far enough as to cease to support itself. What I claim is that
before our universe came into existence there was an eternally existing
realm of naturalism, now I do not claim that there is evidence of this or
that this idea is indisputable, however, when you assert that before our
universe there was a god of supernatural ability there is equally no
evidence. Where as your theory of the beginning of existence requires
religious thought and hypothesis, my theory requires scientific thought and
hypothesis through theories stemming from the super-string theory of the
universe.
I never claimed that there was evidence behind the fact that all we firmly
know to exist is natural, this being evidence for it just because it’s all
that we know of. What I was getting at is that all that we can prove and
show to exist is natural, and that the supernatural cannot be proven or
shown to exist; this along with all of the supportive evidence on
naturalisms side being enough reason for me to accept it, I do not expect
others to do the same especially the inherently religious.
You speak of having an ace up your sleeve; please by no means feel that it
would be unfair to play it. As far as Paul Tillich I know of him and
disagree with his theology, from what I remember he was an existentialist
and had theories similar to Kierkegaard and Freud when it came to being; he
believe that people had an anxiety of nonbeing or of their inherent
mortality and death, this may be the only aspect of his theology with which
I would agree with.
When I explain what I was meaning with regards to there being natural
existence before the singularity seen in the Big Bang scenario you assert
that saying this is asserting something of which we have no knowledge of,
true but we have mathematical based theories to support it; and in any case
your theory of god is also something that we have absolutely no knowledge of
too. Your opposition to my theory can be applied to yours without any
tampering.
The fact that you attempt to turn Spinoza into a man that believed in god
almost makes me angry. Spinoza was known as both the greatest Jew and the
greatest Atheist. There is no way in the world you can claim that Spinoza
believed in a monotheistic god of any religion. As a matter of fact he was
excommunicated from the Jewish community for his claims that all god really
is would be that of the mechanisms of nature and the universe, and that god
had no personality. When Spinoza used the word god to help describe
anything he was not meaning god in any religious sense he meant god as the
underlying essence that bound all of existence and to him this was nature,
if you don’t believe me reread his argument I provided. He wrote that, I
have not changed or altered a bit of it, he is clearly arguing that god is
merely nature and that people who believe otherwise have been misled. When
physicists and intellectuals in general use the word god to describe things
every now and again this does not mean that they are religious or that they
believe in a monotheistic god, it simply means that they are using a word to
help describe the underlying essence that binds all of existence. Einstein
used the word god numerous times when speaking of science and the universe;
however he was a secular humanist and did not believe in a monotheistic god.
It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological
concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or
goal outside the human sphere.... Science has been charged with undermining
morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based
effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious
basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be
restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death. • ALBERT
EINSTEIN.
In any case to attempt and assert that Spinoza was religious would be an
egregious deception; two of his formost philosophical position were, god is
the natural world and has no personality, and that the natural world created
itself. Now if he uses the word god in any of his writing (which he did) he
was obviously using it to mean the natural world (which he made very clear).
Supernaturalism does subvert science. Science is a system of acquited
knowledge based on empiricism, experimentation, and methodological
naturalism aimed at finding out the truth (italics mine). Supernaturalism
is superstitious.
I was about to go into a long argument for this but I feel that it would be
wholly uneseccary for you are religious and believe in the supernatural, and
in any case I will not be able to deter these beliefs. So let me just say
that, to me, supernatrualism is superstitious. Science and SN are in
competition (for if genesis isn’t a scientific theory on the creation of the
universe then what is it?). Religion is a scientific theory it is just a
really bad one. To me SN is irrational, and you make this evident in you
defense of it. You say that if we cannot understand it how do we know it is
not there. Well I cannot prove that god does not exist, I also cannot prove
that yellow fairies live in invisibilty surounding my physical body but this
surely does not mean that I should believe they do just because I cannot
prove otherwise.
You try and make it appear that I am opperating on faith when I say that we
should await the day when science is able to dispell these arguments and put
to rest any doubt or hesitation we may have about existence. This is not
faith it is reason, to conceed that one does not know the answer and that
one may be able to in the future and then to await this day (if it comes or
not) with out subscribing to SN. That is the epitomy of reason and
sensibilty, imagine being able to say “Yes I do not know, I may never know,
however, I will not subscribe to a theory or idea with absolutly no evidence
supporting it, I will not become discouraged at not knowing and attempt to
fill this lack of knowledge with religious superstition.”
You say that what I call weak in your argument is only what I am used to or
expecting to hear; you are completely wrong, so so wrong. My good friend
Eli believe in a very bizarre god, one that seems to change in definition
over time and depending on the discussion. He has asserted that god is a
pool of consciousness and that we as humans tap into this pool in order to
acquire consciousness ourselves, I then illustrated to him how we as humans
acquire consciousness through the phsyical body via the brain. He makes
statements such as: “When the totality of all existence pulsates through our
being and constitutes our being, we receive messages from it, but only those
messages that we can process given our receptors and our particular level of
consciousness.” This is a wild statement and what I had to say is as
follows: “God pulsates through our being and gives us messages that we can
process and understand? What are you talking about? How can you say
something such as this and not include an example or give any support? You
should include some form of representative illustration. Obviously this
isn’t true for no such entity is pulsing through me giving me messages.
Though if you would like to argue that god only pulsates through certain
individuals and sends them “messages” I would ask what messages? What do
these messages consist of? How are they viewed and understood by the
receptive individual? Are the messages akin to an idea, thought, or impulse
and if so how does one differentiate a message from god from that of an
idea, thought, or impulse? I have to say that it seems to me that you are
deriding fantastical explanations and definitions from otherwise easily
understood mechanisms of human functioning. Your statement implies that god
ebbs and flows through our being such as consciousness and states of self
awareness, and that god provides us with ideas, thoughts, and impulses
rather than the functioning of the human organs, hormones, chemicals, and
all of these things in continual interaction with one another. To me it is
simply illogical to believe these things and refuse to study the science
behind such mechanisms and functioning through psychology, physiology, and
neurochemistry. I am not degrading your commitment to such beliefs rather I
am challenging you to study the science behind some of your mystical
beliefs.”
He has made many more wild claims and definitions of and for god and I have
opposed them all equally. Your views of god are not new and/or unexpected,
quite the opposite. I have studied many religions, many gods, many
mythologies, from the Egyptian-Chaldean Hellenistic universal consciousness,
alchemy, Islam, Greek and Roman mythology, Viking mythology, Buddhism,
Hinduism, to that of Scientology. So in reality your views of god are not
new to me quite the contrary, and to make this statement is quite
condescending, I would be offended if I were to not give you leeway based on
the fact that you were responding to a discomforting argument against your
beliefs.
My view of existence and naturalism is not circular, and your attempt to
show that it is does not even make sense: “nature is what is and is natural
by virture of the fact that it is.” What in the world is this illustrating
and how is it proof of my circular reasoning? Nature is natural because we
can prove that it is, when I see a rock I can prove that it is natural, when
I encounter wind or rain I can prove that it is natural. I have read and
reread that quote and it is similar to reading L Ron Hubbards book
Dianetics, it is so incomprehensible that it is astounding. Yes nature is
what is (we can prove natures existence) – “and is natural by virtue of the
fact that it is” no it is not natural merely because it is natural, it is
natural because we can interact, measure, view, and experiment with it, that
is why it is natural.
If you don’t have to define god then why in the world should I believe in
something that cannot be defined or explained? That is the “poppy cock” my
friend. You say that god is a mystical reality and that we may only
experience god, sounds quite familiar to what my friend Eli said and I again
reject such notions. Ultimately I do not believe in god for there is
insufficient evidence, and that any major religion already established
claiming to know god is historically wrong about numerous major issues; the
bible was written by a nomadic and savagely unsophisticated society of
people and I do not, have not, and never will subscribe to almost everything
written in the bible. “You can't dictate to people about their most sacred
bleiefs, those have to be formed of thier own properly basic experinces of
the world.” You can, you can show people the implausibility of their
religious belief in larger or lesser degrees. If ones sacred belief
involves animal sacrifice you can and should show them that this is wrong.
From this quote it seems to me like your idea of god isn’t based on science
but on personal experience and revelation, dare I say that internal
sensation, revelation and insight is quite subject to faulty functioning.
You claim that myself and most atheist are in a box dated in the 19th
century, how offensive and wrong. If any group of people were in a box
dated by history it would be all of the major monotheistic religions, your
faith is terribly archaic and outdated, my friend, you still subscribe to
14th centurey beliefs. In any case I do not believe that religion and
science are in competition overall, obviously there are numerous cases in
which this really is the case (Dover PA, Kansas, Saudi Arabia, Iran, to
mention a few). Obviously there are religious moderates that are capable of
reconciling their faith with science, I do not dispute that, never have and
never will. I am an atheist and I am in a box, a box free of
supernaturalism and the boxes date is not the 19th century it is the 21st.
Despite the offensiveness of some of your response I enjoyed reading it and
responding to it. It is good to have your belies challenged. I enjoy the
discourse that we have had thus far and I feel no hostility towards you or
your beliefs for that matter. At the end of the day we are both merely two
different people with differing views of the world. I think you are an
intelligent person with the best intentions, you have come off as offensive
a few times but I ascribe this not to your personality but to the subject
matter. For I find that topics such as these seem to inculcate the heat of
passions flame which may then ungulf the sensible mind, I know I have been
as guilty of this as anyone else. Despite our different views I feel that
we are both good people and that we both would like to see more hormony
within the human race which leads me to my response to your comment.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Acceptance and Understanding




I agree that talking about acceptance and understanding is far too sparse
and should be undertaken to a fuller extent. As the both of us have
effectively demonstrated two individuals with opposing viewpoints may still
get along with one another by subverting intolerance and hateful bigotry.
People with differing viewpoints and beliefs about the world in which we
live does not negate the fact that we are all human beings that share a
common humanity, we are all connected and bound to one another through the
similarities of the human experience. Ethnocentrism, racism, and bigotry
are all expressions of human iniquity and failure; these shortcomings
expressed in any fashion should be exposed and reformed. The human race in
general is subject to any of these given faults and no race, country, or
group may be exempt.
In order to help rectify such intolerance and hostility the entire world
needs progress, every nation needs to acknowledge and accept differing
religious views, philosophic beliefs, and cultural traditions. There are
certainly specific nations in greater need of these items than others, Saudi
Arabia being a prime example. Here in the United States we need to bolster
elementary education on up with more classes and programs dealing directly
with cultural and racial diversity. There also needs to be more effort in
redistributing the wealth so as to help end intolerable poverty and
starvation within our own country. The two greatest factors that inculcate
irrational hatred and intolerance would be ignorance and poverty. There
needs to be a greater focus on ending poverty and increasing education
standards, not only in middle class America but through out the impoverished
areas even more so. One must start from the beginning, it would be
impossible to teach an individual racial and cultural harmony while they
lived in an environment of increasing hostility, senseless violence, poor
education standards, lack of resources, and the adulation of achieving
success by way of illegal and destructive means. We must start here by
increasing the focus on education, on economy, and social reform. Only then
may we be able to work towards a social harmony for all humanity. The goal
is terribly difficult and will require hard work but it is a goal that is
both obtainable and worth the effort.
There are also little things that the individual can do on a daily basis.
There are things such as expanding your horizons, visit a Jewish synagogue,
read the Koran, read a book written by a humanist philosopher, talk and
interact with people outside of your world views comfort zone. These things
help the individual come to understand that people that are different are
only different to certain cultural and social degrees; in fact we are much
more similar than one may even fathom. The next time you run across a Hindu
or Muslim women take time out and speak with them, and there is no need to
talk of religion or world views talk about ever day human life, ask about
their family, their jobs, how they’re doing, etc. Simply make the effort to
understand where these people are coming from, how and why they are the way
they are or believe the way they believe, come to understand that these
people are merely people. Come to know that despite differences (especially
religious) we are all equal and that we all have something to offer worth
value, we are no better or worse than the next based merely on beliefs, we
are better or worse than the next based on the way we interact with one
another and conduct ourselves not only within the confines of familiarity
but within the boundaries of difference.
To help make a difference and effect positive change we all must foster
undying empathy, unconditional positive regard, and the general concern for
the well being of other people and life in general. We must strive to
champion human rights and ability and work towards creating a tranquil
world-state for all of humanity.

Sincerely

JDHURF

My second rebuttle

JD:First of all thank you for posting my first response and thank you for
posting such an intricate and intelligent response yourself! Here is my
resonse to yours:

Metacrock,

I am pleased to see that you felt my post warranted a long response. Again
I disagree with the larger bulk of it. Clearly you are intelligent and you
make strong cases for the supernatural, however, the case for the
supernatural always comes with inherent implausibility and an impetuous
assertion. This assertion being that nature and the material universe is
reliant upon or caused by supernatural forces unseen and/or unknown. There
is much to discuss with regards to your long response and I would like to
begin with the more mundane.



Meta:I thank you for the kind words. Its' is nice to have a dialogue partner of good will with I can discuss and who is obvioulsy a man of intelligence and reason. Now to get down to it:

First, it seems a lot more likely that this would be the case since we know so little about relaity. You are weighing our little experince of this one dust mote floting in an endless sea of space, to the vastness that far out spans our ablity to even conceive of it; and you expect to know what's out there and to be able to exclude options you don't like. To me that seems rather arrogant, and rather short sighested, No offense.

Secondly, we know our uinverse exists in space/time which is a four coordiante system and that beyond the event horizon of our big bang is something beyond our cotninuum of space/time. So that would seem in and of itself to reaise qeustions of worlds beyond this one, and the possilbity of a supernatural.

thirdly, as I have marked out in my own essays on the Supernatural, I think there is a great deal of confussion about what exactly is meant by the term. Essentually it is God's power to transform the natural. So that is a far cry from another ralm you can go to or a realm of dark forces and so forth. At that rate SN would just be a consequence of belief in God per se.



JD: In the beginning of your response you spend a good deal of time discussing
the hatred and hostility visited upon you by atheists. You talk about how
atheism has an inherent subculture of hatred. While these observations are
both true and false in differing degrees I would like to discuss this matter
further. First of all I do not doubt the accuracy of experiences recounted
in your post. There are many people (especially within the blogosphere)
that feel empowered by the anonymity and negate any responsibility that they
would otherwise assume ownership of.

Meta: Excellent point! I wasn't trying to say that just the act of not beleiving in god makes you like that.Not only do I know many atheists who aren't like that, but I was an atheist and I don't think I was like that. so I'm sorry if I was misunderstood.



JD:To single out the atheists as a group
of people and claim that they are guiltier of this than any other group is
irresponsible and biased. Atheists are people first, before they made the
decision to believe what seemed more plausible to them (that there is no
god) they were people just as everyone else; and as such they are subject to
the inequity, animosity, and failings of the human being in general. To say
that atheists represent more of these failings than any other group would be
biased and hateful in and of itself. Surely there are atheist blogs and
boards in which the atheists are all of the above negative attributes but
surely there are blogs and boards in which they are not; furthermore it is
also equally true that theists and deeply religious individuals exhibit
these shortcomings themselves. As is my personality I don’t care to
illustrate the malign and depraved rather I like to illustrate the kindness
and compassion, and if necessary the wrongness of an individual. It hardly
seems beneficial to speak of a group so derogatorily; especially a minority
group that still faces inequality. You provide examples of atheists being
hateful and negative, while this is true there are many examples of atheists
being positive and compassionate, hopefully I am an example of this also
check out the blog jewishatheist.blogspot.com for further proof. For proof
that theists are malign and hateful just as much as atheists visit the
website concernedcatholic.blogspot.com and witness depravity in it’s truest
form. I will not provide specific quotes for as I said I would rather focus
on semblance and positivity rather than the contrary. I am glad that your
one act of solidarity is that you attribute this behavior with the net more
so than the individual. I would agree, for the sense of anonymity seems to
harbor feelings of ‘anything goes’ and that what one does one is not
entirely responsible for. The internet (especially the blogosphere) is
notorious for fostering such ignorant and blatant hostility; and atheists
are no guiltier than theists themselves.

Meta:Sorry I was misunderstsood in that way.






JD:My main issue with this portion of
your response is, why even include it? Obviously there are going to be
hateful and irresponsible atheists just as there are theists. Why include
this fact as if it was more congruous with atheism?


Meta: Well, first because it just happened and I was angry, I flet that I should make outgrages known. Secondly, I guess I feel that if I tell enough people they will stay away from those boards or demand that they change or soemthing.




JD:It just seemed like a
very negative and biased issue to include. When I illustrate disagreement
with the assertion that many atheists believe that infants are born atheist
you suggest that I visit more message boards. This is almost condescending,
for you do not know my track record with respects to visiting blogs, if you
did you wouldn’t have made this comment. I frequent numerous blogs and
continually search out new ones, as I did with you own blog. I do not know
how many atheist blogs you have visited but I would seriously doubt the
number surpasses mine.



Meta: Not at all. I've seen that on boards many many times.






JD: With respects to the brain being wired for god and/or the inert ideas of god
residing in the brain, these are true and false in larger or lesser degrees.
Where as it is true that many of us are predisposed to religiosity and to
god through the neuro-pathways of the brain this says nothing of the truth
behind religiosity and/or god. Look up Paul Kurtz, especially his book
entitle “The Transcendental Temptation”, or Richard Dawkins (any of his
books or essays will suffice). The fact that evolutionary upsurge may have
culminated in the side effect of religiosity surely does nothing in proving
the truth behind such superstition.


Meta: I woulnd't expect Dawkins to agree with me. I would expect him to try and expalin it through evoution. What else could he do? But I think a good argument is there to be made that evolution shouldn't be able to produce that affect. It should require innate ideas. Why should the feelings incurred just produced religion and not merely produce unity or social cohesion or any of the other opporative explains used. The theory is religion is a vehicle to some other thing, such as social cohesion. But that doesn't expalin why the warm fuzzies buzz for God talk and no other talk. Why not for talk of social cohesion? It would really require an innate knowledge of God to do that.






JD:On a note of armistice I do like the
reference you made with Andrew Newberg for he is definitely a decent source
of information upon this subject; his studies are usually within
neurotheology or also known as biotheology. He has conducted a good amount
of tests and has done extensive research (none of which claims there is an
inert idea of god in anyone). He is a distinguished scientist and his
research is valuable he is certainly not the top researcher in the field. I
would also like to note that his research has never illustrated an innate
belief in god and he surely doesn’t promote his research or findings as
such.



Meta: having a warm fuzzy when you heard Godtalk is an illustration of an innate beilef in God. Newberg is good because he doesnt' try to claim more than he can pull off. He did become a beilever due to his research, he does think it proves God, but in a subtle way. He knows its not enough to prove it to others. There are other things that go with a leap of faith than just proving some facts. But the mateiral is there if one seeks a rational warrant for belief.





JD:The rest of your response deals with cosmology and astrophysics, I would
like to make a few points. The first being that I am in no way a
credentialed astrophysicist my field of scientific knowledge is generally
held within the confines of theoretical psychology. The second being that
you misconstrue a good portion of what my ultimate thesis was, and this is
not to say that you are to blame I was guilty of being too vague.
First you ask why it would be fair to assume that natural existence is
eternal, I would answer because if something is the effect then it must have
a cause and as far as I see it there are only natural causes and effects, so
the cause of the material universe must be natural and obviously the effect
of such as cause is natural;


Meta: But there you are just begging the question. You assume all C&E is naturalistic, why? Because you don't have direct proof of first casue, but here is direct proof of the need for a first cause; the cosmological arguments that I made before, the impossiblity of an eternally exsiting universe. So your assumptions about C/E is just quetion begging.






JD: it is fair to assume that natural existence is
eternal, assuming that any form of existence is eternal, for if anything
would be eternal it would be that of what we know to be true and actually
existent, that of natural existence.


Meta: Sorry if I misunderstand you, but this sounds like more question begging.You seem to saying "since all we know for sure is natural existence, that's all we can assume existence is." But that's of course begging the question because the question is "is it it true that all we know is the natural world?" A lot of us think not. So that's up for grabs, you can't use it as proo of itself when it is the question being debated.


At this point we could go off into some very interesting discussions about the nature of Being if we were willing to leave behind the constrictive debate forematt. So I hesitate to metion it because I don't want it to be construed as an attempt at pulling some ace out of my sleve. But I do want to mention the idea of Paul Tillich's God as being itself. I'll discuss that more latter, because I don't want it to be part of the debate for rasons already stated. Just suffice to say we have a very heavy question about the nature of being and reality, and we can't resolve that just with ideologies. It's going to be a matter of one's metaphystics, thus no somehting one can resolve in a debate.



JD: You say that scientists tell us the
universe is finite, I do not claim the contrary for all one must do is look
up the Hartle-Hawking boundary condition and come to their own conclusions;
however this is no proof that existence itself is finite or that existence
itself is subject to a beginning or end. I know this all sounds amorphous
but bear with me. When you give proof that our universe will come to an end
as we know it I would not disagree, for again I am aware of the science
behind this. What I was meaning to illustrate was that existence in its
fullest sustenance will not cease to exist that there is no beginning nor
ending in time in this regard; to say that time either began or ended is
proof of the lack of knowledge with regards to relativity as espoused by
Einstein.


Meta: That's just a trick of language. There is no begining or end in time, because time itself is not eternal. time has a beging, that's established by the Big bang. That's what t=0 means. All Hawking does is change direction from going back chronologically to going down along that last moement; he constructs an infintessible in which one can pin down the exactly second at which there is a begining. This is no way means that the univese is sitting around forever and doesn't require creation.

If that's what you argue, you have to show how it overcomes arguments like the fininite stock of order of energy/matter being created in the Big Bang.



JD:One way in which you completely misconstrued what I was intending would be
when you go off on long tangents attempting to discredit chaotic inflation
(which is widely held) and the oscillatory universe, both of which I don’t
believe. What intrigues my rationale is the theory of brane cosmology which
stems from the string theory of the universe; I won’t describe in searing
detail as you have in your post. If you would like to review it do so, if
you would like guidance on where to review it say so and I will help, or
maybe you already know of it and just decided not to mention it in your
response.


Meta: I didn't discredit it. I said it doesnt' change my argument. Both of those still preserve the big bang as part of their major senerio. Of cousre there is no data to support the chaotic inflation part, there is only the t=0 and that's all. we have no data from "before" that. Becuase that's when time begins. Our space/time envoleope began at that point, so there can be no data form "before" or "beyond" that point. Thus all of those theoreies are unproven and can be just as easily plugged into my senerio of creation.


JD:Brane cosmology asserts that existence is in fact eternal and that a
collision of branes is what created the universe as we know it today;
whether or not this universe is itself infinite doesn’t negate that fact
that existence outside of it is. That was my main point and it was my fault
for not vocalizing as well as I should have. The only cosmological theory
for which I feel any commitment to would be the brane theory, not the
oscillatory universe I was merely allowing multiple theories be shown. I’m
sorry that you spent so much time disproving or illustrating evidence
against theories that I do not even subscribe to, although you did do a
magnificent job!



Meta: You are always going to be dealing with contigneicies. naturalistic pheomena are always contingent. But to deal with a world of contingencies with no necessity is nonsense. So to posit an eternal universe doesn't change anything God wise, there still is a need to posit and siealteniously eternal creator who is the ground of being and who makes possible the etneral contingnecies. An analogy would be an eternal flute player. As long as the floutist plays the music exists. So if the floutist palys eternally, the music is eternal. But if the player stops, the music stops. So the mustic, though eternal, is contingent upon the player. The reason for posulating that vis "the universre" would be the fact of necessity and contingency, naturalisitic phenomena are contingent. But That's assuming we just ingore the questions about finite stock of order and heat death.

If the universe will eventually die a heat death, it can't be eternal. Eternality cannot cease to be, it cannot ever change. And given eternal changces if it will do it it would have already done it.

This last point, think of this. If I had a billion billion chances I could flit enough coins enough times that the letters on them (use coins from all nations) would sepll out the play Othelo. But it would take of cousre anstronominal amouhnts of time. yet if the unverse is eternal we have already had astronmical amounts of time so it should have already done it.


JD:When I made the statement – “The theory certainly can be interpreted as the
beginning of the magnificent explosion and expansion of the material
universe, that before this extreme change there was the dense-hot state of a
gravitational singularity, and that prior to this singularity and explosion
there was an eternal state of natural existence.” I did not mean that prior
to this singularity there was only natural existence residing within this
singularity, I apologize for the vagueness of such a statement; all I mean
is that prior to the expansion or ‘creation’ or our universe there was an
eternally existing natural realm present, outside of our universe.



Meta: I see, but that's still asserting something of which we have no knowledge.


JD:Our
universe may be but one brane in a realm consisting of numberous branes, our
universe is the way it is and has been developed by the collision of two
such branes within this vast and natural realm.
You question the authority of Corliss Lamont the only explanation for this
is that you don’t know who he is and have done no investigation into it, he
was a highly esteemed humanist philosopher he taught at Columbia, Cornell,
and Harvard. He was the director of the ACLU from 1932-1954 and was then
the chairman until his death in 1995. He successfully challenged Senator
Joseph McCarthy's senate subcommittee and other government agencies. In 1965
he secured a Supreme Court ruling against censorship of incoming mail by the
U.S. Postmaster General. In 1973 he discovered through Freedom of
Information Act requests that the FBI had been tapping his phone, and
scrutinizing his tax returns and cancelled checks for 30 years. His
subsequent lawsuit showed the surveillance had no justification in law, and
set precedent for other citizen's privacy rights. He also filed and won a
suit against the Central Inteligence Agency for opening his mail.


Meta: sounds like a great guy, but it's still unncessary appeal to authority; what credentials has he as a cosmologist?




JD:You claim that god is necessary refering to “him” (sexist and egoistic) and
that matter-energy is a contingency.



Meta: I actually got out of the habit of refurring to God as "HE" in semianry! It was the feminsts in my secular history of ideas program when I went for my doctorate that got me back in the habit. I kid not!



JD: I disagree and I will provide a
paradigm put forh by one Benedictus De Spinoza helping me illustrate this
fact: Spinoza contended that God and Nature were two names for the same
reality, namely the single substance (meaning "to stand beneath" rather than
"matter") that underlies the universe and of which all lesser "entities" are
actually modes or modifications.



Meta: You make it hard to argue with you, as I am a big Spinoza fan mytself. However, as a Christain I can't quite go along with him, but I admire his intelligence and his lens grinding too.



JD:The argument for this single substance runs
something as follows:
1. Substance exists and cannot be dependent on anything else for its
existence.
2. No two substances can share an attribute.
Proof: If they share an attribute, they would be identical. Therefore they
can only be individuated by their modes. But then they would depend on their
modes for their identity. This would have the substance being dependent on
its mode, in violation of premise 1. Therefore, two substances cannot share
the same attribute.
3. A substance can only be caused by something similar to itself (something
that shares its attribute).
4. Substance cannot be caused.
Proof: Something can only be caused by something which is similar to itself,
in other words something that shares its attribute. But according to premise
2, no two substances can share an attribute. Therefore substance cannot be
caused.
5. Substance is infinite.
Proof: If substance were not infinite, it would be finite and limited by
something. But to be limited by something is to be dependent on it. However,
substance cannot be dependent on anything else (premise 1), therefore
substance is infinite.
Conclusion: There can only be one substance.
Proof: If there were two infinite substances, they would limit each other.
But this would act as a restraint, and they would be dependent on each
other. But they cannot be dependent on each other (premise 1), therefore
there cannot be two substances.



Meta: But Spinoza beileved in God.Now, it's true people think "not much of a God." but it was god enough for Spinoza. He was not an atheist and did not see himself as such. I like his take on the ontological arugment and it forms the baisis of my understanding of it. Spinoza did not say the universr and existence is only natural and there is no supernatural. He's more like combining sort of immanent transcendence or a naturalsitic supernatural. This is way after the concept has been degraded anyway. Ture he didn't believe in the conventional concept, but neither did he just consian existence to naturlism and become an atheist.

It's always amazing to me when I find people who have gotten other things out of a thinker and reached diametrically oppossite consclusions. I am not saying you are wrong even to look at his work the way you do. But I see there is a differnce in the way we each read Spinoza.




JD:My ultimate thesis and strong beliefs is that existence in its entirety is
natural, that there is no reason to conclude that supernatural phenomena are
the causes of natural effects, and that when scientific understanding and
ability has reached its furthest limits we must concede that we are not able
to understand such phenomena and resist subverting science and embracing the
irrationality of superstition and occult phenomena;


Meta: That satement is loaded with all sorts of presuppostions that are not in evidence and unproven, and in fact I don't think you can prove any of them. That they mark your feeling about the world I am prepared to be friends and agree to disagree. Those presupes include:

(1) that SN subverts science so the two are competing rather than represeting different magesteria.

(2) that SN is superstition: superstition opporates by a senes of dread at tresspass upon the realm of unseen forces; supernatural is a ratiaonl ontology that sketches out how divine power can affect and transform human nature. It has nothing to do with fear of illelutable forces.

(3) that SN is irrational: SN is more rational that you can imagine, it's the ultimate form of rationality because it says that relaity istself has a supersturcture and that superstructure is reason! there is an ordering pricniple, a logos that orders and manages the natural as its ground and end; the natural moves toward it teliologically; that is ratianolism that is not irrational forces.

btw if we can't understand it how do we know there is no supernatural? you say "and that when scientific understanding and
ability has reached its furthest limits we must concede that we are not able
to understand such phenomena": so we can't understand it but somehow we know the SN is not true?




JD:that in any case what we
cannot yet understand today may surely be understood in the future and to
await this day accordingly.


Meta: seems to me that you are just opporating on faith. Isn't faith a bit on the irrational side?

JD: Religion has in the past opposed the fact that
the sun was the center of our galaxy, they opposed the fact that our planet
is a sphere,


Meta: that's actaully guilt by assocaition (some religious people did x, therefore, religious people do x). It's also ahistorical. No The Chruch never oppossed teh idea tha thte sun was the center of the galaxy. What they oppossed was rejecting the authority of Arosttle. Others had aruged that the mathematics of the Copernican system made more sense of the calender and epicyles and all the fiddely bits of ptoemaic system, and and Copernicus never got in any trouble as long as he propossed it as a mathematical theory. The trouble only came when the authority of the chruch was questioned via the authoritiy of Arostotle (who had been installed by the chruch as a kindof previent saint). The chruch had no real interest in the center of the galaxy or where the sun was in relation to the earth.

I don't think you can show that they oppossed the idea of the earth being a sphere. But even so, Milton whent o see Galileo when he was young and told him "the Christians of Engalnd are with you." They never had any such persecution in Engalnd where science and chrsitaintiy were identified as one. So that's just a matter of chruch politics and not religious ideas per se.


JD:they oppose consciousness being an extension of the physical
body via the brain, and they oppose the idea that god did in fact not create
existence. These oppositions are fine and to believe in god and what “he”
has done is okay but to talk about physics and the ‘evidence’ that this
science gives in favor of god is incongrous with the scientific method and
reality.


It's a fond steriotype to think of the Monty Python scene where the woman weighs the same as a duck. "what do we burn apart form withces?" "More withces!" The truth is the middle ages were not filled with budding Enstines who were being burned at the steak fro their attempts to do science. There are really only a couple of examples. In fact the chruch did a lot to keep learning alive nd modern scinece was born in monesteries and it was the chruch that created it.See my essay I wrote in grad school:




JD (quoting Meta)-“But eternally existing anything would have to be ontologically necessiary,but naturlism requires ontolgocal congingency for all natursiltic
phenomena.” – Why is this? In what way does the supernatural or god resolve
this conflict? What is the evidence of such gratuitous interactions from
the supernatural?


Meta: break it down:

eternally eixsting anyting would have to be ontologically necessary


Because necessary means "cannot cease or fail to exist, and not dependent upon anything else for its existence. If it could cease, or if it could have been otherwise that would mean it is dependent upon something else, and that is contingency. It can't be necesary if it is contignent. It's contingency because if it could cease it isn't etenral and if it could be otherwise that would have to be becuase the circumstances that bring it about could have been otherwise. that means anything that is eternal would have to be either eternally contingent upon an ontotoglally "prior" cause or condition, or it would be a necessity (not contignent).




JD:-“THE BEGINNING OF THE UNIVERSE!
THE BEGINNING OF TIME!"” – The beginning of the universe that we know not of
existence as a whole. Didn’t you speak of time in relativity just prior to
this, time is relative and really doesn’t have a beginning or an end.
Wouldn’t you say?


Meta: I quoted sources saying time begins with the big bang. I could theorize that tmie is running eternally. But the evidence I've seen susggests it begins with the Big bang.


JD:I read your argument for god as a cause under why God doesnt' need a cause
and the universe does, your god here doesn’t seem to be an actual defining
being or substance, I could easity isert the word nature for god within this
argument and change absolutely nothing; this is a vague, weak, and
ineffectual argument for god.


Meta: You said in the first deal it was the best you'd seen. I think you are just used to dealing fundies and you can only think in terms of one concept of God; the big guy in the sky. Spinoza is not known as an atheist, he had his own version reilgious life, and he believed in God, he just had his own ideas about God. Would you call that "weak and ineffectual." IF it's so weak why can't you beat it? You haven't come close. you haven't got your foot in the door. IN fact your only arugment is just that it seems strange to you because I'm no saying things you expect to hear, and that's what you call "weak."




JD:By the way what is god? What do you believe
god is? A being? A pool of conscioussness? Energy? A being that resemble
humans? Your definition of god is so vague in this argument that it could
be refering to nature itself, do you not see the transience within this
argument?


Meta: Can't refur to nature because nature is contingent. God can't be contignency. God has to be necessity. But here I think the truth comes out that actually your definition of nature is weak. You seem to have a circular defition where by nature is what is and is is natural by virture of the fact that it is. That doesnt' tell us anything and it could potentually include God.


For the big lo down on my views about God read my essay on God as the Grond of Being. Essentually my concept of God is in line with that of Paul Tillich, the German theological emegree to America in the 50's.



JD: You must firmly define what god is, how it acts, etc. Otherwise
your giving an argument for nothing, this sort of god seems to encapulate
many individuals psyche now days, the god of everything and yet nothing.


Meta: I don't mean to offend you, because I feel that we have the basis for a good friendship. Nevertheless I think that argument is poppy cock. I do not have to define God in any way that pre-determines or pre-conceieves our understanding; and that would be contrary to my views anyway because my whole "thing" is that God presciley is not predicatble and is not something we can pin down to neat little categories. God is a mystical reality that blows away all our preconcieved notions and pre-set categories. All we can really do is experince God, or opporate within a tradition that calims to already understand something of God's will.

Now that's exactly my ratiaonle for being a christian, and it means that rather than trying to define God in some pesudo-sceintific way, all we really need to do is sketch out God as a proper object of religious devotion. God is the transcendental signifier, and as such we need only understand how that plays out in any given tradition as the object of devotion.

This is nature of one's belief, you can't dictate to people about their most sacred bleiefs, those have to be formed of thier own properly basic experinces of the world.





JD:Over all I was impressed with the cosmological argument you put forth, I
congradulate you! However, you were opposing theories that I do not
subscribe to.


Meta: but thank you for your kind words.


JD:Cosmologically I would subscribe to brane cosmology (not the
oscilliotory universe), and even if this theory proves to be false this
hardly means that god has won out by default; ultimately there is no proof
of the existence of a god or of supernatural phenomena, the best the
religious can do is discredit and find faults within scientific theory and
insert the supernatural and god into convienient holes that are the as yet
unknowns of science (they are doing this with evolution right now with ID).


Meta: Why do you put it in terms of conflict? This is one of the things that I think puts atheists in the box. Rather than thinking outside the box, you are still in the box, and that box is full of 19th century peraphenalia. The idea that science and religion are in competition and are somehow conflifting is sympematic of that sort of thinking. I think that weakens atheism beasue it puts it behind the times. While I agree that there is no absolute or direct proof of God, there is certianly more than amle rational warrent for belief. That can be adhuced from reading the back pages of this blog. But religion can do a lot more than just discredit scientific theories. There is more than ample reason to believe. Also see my list of God arguments: I'm up to 39 but I'm shooting for 42.


JD:Ultimately I was just wanting to say that existence is natural, always has
been and always will be, and that the supernatural should be heavily
scrutinized and doubted. I am impressed by the extent of your knowledge
pertaining to astrophysics. I would be intrigued to hear your views on
brane cosmology.


Meta: It's good to have our presups shaken up once and awhile and I respect your views and appreciate your attidue to ratioanl and plesant discussion.

I'll do some reading on brane cosmology and let you know.

JD's Rebuttle to my rebuttle

First of all thank you for posting my first response and thank you for
posting such an intricate and intelligent response yourself! Here is my
resonse to yours:

Metacrock,

I am pleased to see that you felt my post warranted a long response. Again
I disagree with the larger bulk of it. Clearly you are intelligent and you
make strong cases for the supernatural, however, the case for the
supernatural always comes with inherent implausibility and an impetuous
assertion. This assertion being that nature and the material universe is
reliant upon or caused by supernatural forces unseen and/or unknown. There
is much to discuss with regards to your long response and I would like to
begin with the more mundane.
In the beginning of your response you spend a good deal of time discussing
the hatred and hostility visited upon you by atheists. You talk about how
atheism has an inherent subculture of hatred. While these observations are
both true and false in differing degrees I would like to discuss this matter
further. First of all I do not doubt the accuracy of experiences recounted
in your post. There are many people (especially within the blogosphere)
that feel empowered by the anonymity and negate any responsibility that they
would otherwise assume ownership of. To single out the atheists as a group
of people and claim that they are guiltier of this than any other group is
irresponsible and biased. Atheists are people first, before they made the
decision to believe what seemed more plausible to them (that there is no
god) they were people just as everyone else; and as such they are subject to
the inequity, animosity, and failings of the human being in general. To say
that atheists represent more of these failings than any other group would be
biased and hateful in and of itself. Surely there are atheist blogs and
boards in which the atheists are all of the above negative attributes but
surely there are blogs and boards in which they are not; furthermore it is
also equally true that theists and deeply religious individuals exhibit
these shortcomings themselves. As is my personality I don’t care to
illustrate the malign and depraved rather I like to illustrate the kindness
and compassion, and if necessary the wrongness of an individual. It hardly
seems beneficial to speak of a group so derogatorily; especially a minority
group that still faces inequality. You provide examples of atheists being
hateful and negative, while this is true there are many examples of atheists
being positive and compassionate, hopefully I am an example of this also
check out the blog jewishatheist.blogspot.com for further proof. For proof
that theists are malign and hateful just as much as atheists visit the
website concernedcatholic.blogspot.com and witness depravity in it’s truest
form. I will not provide specific quotes for as I said I would rather focus
on semblance and positivity rather than the contrary. I am glad that your
one act of solidarity is that you attribute this behavior with the net more
so than the individual. I would agree, for the sense of anonymity seems to
harbor feelings of ‘anything goes’ and that what one does one is not
entirely responsible for. The internet (especially the blogosphere) is
notorious for fostering such ignorant and blatant hostility; and atheists
are no guiltier than theists themselves. My main issue with this portion of
your response is, why even include it? Obviously there are going to be
hateful and irresponsible atheists just as there are theists. Why include
this fact as if it was more congruous with atheism? It just seemed like a
very negative and biased issue to include. When I illustrate disagreement
with the assertion that many atheists believe that infants are born atheist
you suggest that I visit more message boards. This is almost condescending,
for you do not know my track record with respects to visiting blogs, if you
did you wouldn’t have made this comment. I frequent numerous blogs and
continually search out new ones, as I did with you own blog. I do not know
how many atheist blogs you have visited but I would seriously doubt the
number surpasses mine.
With respects to the brain being wired for god and/or the inert ideas of god
residing in the brain, these are true and false in larger or lesser degrees.
Where as it is true that many of us are predisposed to religiosity and to
god through the neuro-pathways of the brain this says nothing of the truth
behind religiosity and/or god. Look up Paul Kurtz, especially his book
entitle “The Transcendental Temptation”, or Richard Dawkins (any of his
books or essays will suffice). The fact that evolutionary upsurge may have
culminated in the side effect of religiosity surely does nothing in proving
the truth behind such superstition. On a note of armistice I do like the
reference you made with Andrew Newberg for he is definitely a decent source
of information upon this subject; his studies are usually within
neurotheology or also known as biotheology. He has conducted a good amount
of tests and has done extensive research (none of which claims there is an
inert idea of god in anyone). He is a distinguished scientist and his
research is valuable he is certainly not the top researcher in the field. I
would also like to note that his research has never illustrated an innate
belief in god and he surely doesn’t promote his research or findings as
such.
The rest of your response deals with cosmology and astrophysics, I would
like to make a few points. The first being that I am in no way a
credentialed astrophysicist my field of scientific knowledge is generally
held within the confines of theoretical psychology. The second being that
you misconstrue a good portion of what my ultimate thesis was, and this is
not to say that you are to blame I was guilty of being too vague.
First you ask why it would be fair to assume that natural existence is
eternal, I would answer because if something is the effect then it must have
a cause and as far as I see it there are only natural causes and effects, so
the cause of the material universe must be natural and obviously the effect
of such as cause is natural; it is fair to assume that natural existence is
eternal, assuming that any form of existence is eternal, for if anything
would be eternal it would be that of what we know to be true and actually
existent, that of natural existence. You say that scientists tell us the
universe is finite, I do not claim the contrary for all one must do is look
up the Hartle-Hawking boundary condition and come to their own conclusions;
however this is no proof that existence itself is finite or that existence
itself is subject to a beginning or end. I know this all sounds amorphous
but bear with me. When you give proof that our universe will come to an end
as we know it I would not disagree, for again I am aware of the science
behind this. What I was meaning to illustrate was that existence in its
fullest sustenance will not cease to exist that there is no beginning nor
ending in time in this regard; to say that time either began or ended is
proof of the lack of knowledge with regards to relativity as espoused by
Einstein.
One way in which you completely misconstrued what I was intending would be
when you go off on long tangents attempting to discredit chaotic inflation
(which is widely held) and the oscillatory universe, both of which I don’t
believe. What intrigues my rationale is the theory of brane cosmology which
stems from the string theory of the universe; I won’t describe in searing
detail as you have in your post. If you would like to review it do so, if
you would like guidance on where to review it say so and I will help, or
maybe you already know of it and just decided not to mention it in your
response.
Brane cosmology asserts that existence is in fact eternal and that a
collision of branes is what created the universe as we know it today;
whether or not this universe is itself infinite doesn’t negate that fact
that existence outside of it is. That was my main point and it was my fault
for not vocalizing as well as I should have. The only cosmological theory
for which I feel any commitment to would be the brane theory, not the
oscillatory universe I was merely allowing multiple theories be shown. I’m
sorry that you spent so much time disproving or illustrating evidence
against theories that I do not even subscribe to, although you did do a
magnificent job!
When I made the statement – “The theory certainly can be interpreted as the
beginning of the magnificent explosion and expansion of the material
universe, that before this extreme change there was the dense-hot state of a
gravitational singularity, and that prior to this singularity and explosion
there was an eternal state of natural existence.” I did not mean that prior
to this singularity there was only natural existence residing within this
singularity, I apologize for the vagueness of such a statement; all I mean
is that prior to the expansion or ‘creation’ or our universe there was an
eternally existing natural realm present, outside of our universe. Our
universe may be but one brane in a realm consisting of numberous branes, our
universe is the way it is and has been developed by the collision of two
such branes within this vast and natural realm.
You question the authority of Corliss Lamont the only explanation for this
is that you don’t know who he is and have done no investigation into it, he
was a highly esteemed humanist philosopher he taught at Columbia, Cornell,
and Harvard. He was the director of the ACLU from 1932-1954 and was then
the chairman until his death in 1995. He successfully challenged Senator
Joseph McCarthy's senate subcommittee and other government agencies. In 1965
he secured a Supreme Court ruling against censorship of incoming mail by the
U.S. Postmaster General. In 1973 he discovered through Freedom of
Information Act requests that the FBI had been tapping his phone, and
scrutinizing his tax returns and cancelled checks for 30 years. His
subsequent lawsuit showed the surveillance had no justification in law, and
set precedent for other citizen's privacy rights. He also filed and won a
suit against the Central Inteligence Agency for opening his mail.
You claim that god is necessary refering to “him” (sexist and egoistic) and
that matter-energy is a contingency. I disagree and I will provide a
paradigm put forh by one Benedictus De Spinoza helping me illustrate this
fact: Spinoza contended that God and Nature were two names for the same
reality, namely the single substance (meaning "to stand beneath" rather than
"matter") that underlies the universe and of which all lesser "entities" are
actually modes or modifications. The argument for this single substance runs
something as follows:
1. Substance exists and cannot be dependent on anything else for its
existence.
2. No two substances can share an attribute.
Proof: If they share an attribute, they would be identical. Therefore they
can only be individuated by their modes. But then they would depend on their
modes for their identity. This would have the substance being dependent on
its mode, in violation of premise 1. Therefore, two substances cannot share
the same attribute.
3. A substance can only be caused by something similar to itself (something
that shares its attribute).
4. Substance cannot be caused.
Proof: Something can only be caused by something which is similar to itself,
in other words something that shares its attribute. But according to premise
2, no two substances can share an attribute. Therefore substance cannot be
caused.
5. Substance is infinite.
Proof: If substance were not infinite, it would be finite and limited by
something. But to be limited by something is to be dependent on it. However,
substance cannot be dependent on anything else (premise 1), therefore
substance is infinite.
Conclusion: There can only be one substance.
Proof: If there were two infinite substances, they would limit each other.
But this would act as a restraint, and they would be dependent on each
other. But they cannot be dependent on each other (premise 1), therefore
there cannot be two substances.
My ultimate thesis and strong beliefs is that existence in its entirety is
natural, that there is no reason to conclude that supernatural phenomena are
the causes of natural effects, and that when scientific understanding and
ability has reached its furthest limits we must concede that we are not able
to understand such phenomena and resist subverting science and embracing the
irrationality of superstition and occult phenomena; that in any case what we
cannot yet understand today may surely be understood in the future and to
await this day accordingly. Religion has in the past opposed the fact that
the sun was the center of our galaxy, they opposed the fact that our planet
is a sphere, they oppose consciousness being an extension of the physical
body via the brain, and they oppose the idea that god did in fact not create
existence. These oppositions are fine and to believe in god and what “he”
has done is okay but to talk about physics and the ‘evidence’ that this
science gives in favor of god is incongrous with the scientific method and
reality.

-“But eternally existing anything would have to be ontologically necessiary,
but naturlism requires ontolgocal congingency for all natursiltic
phenomena.” – Why is this? In what way does the supernatural or god resolve
this conflict? What is the evidence of such gratuitous interactions from
the supernatural?

-“THE BEGINNING OF THE UNIVERSE!
THE BEGINNING OF TIME!"” – The beginning of the universe that we know not of
existence as a whole. Didn’t you speak of time in relativity just prior to
this, time is relative and really doesn’t have a beginning or an end.
Wouldn’t you say?

I read your argument for god as a cause under why God doesnt' need a cause
and the universe does, your god here doesn’t seem to be an actual defining
being or substance, I could easity isert the word nature for god within this
argument and change absolutely nothing; this is a vague, weak, and
ineffectual argument for god. By the way what is god? What do you believe
god is? A being? A pool of conscioussness? Energy? A being that resemble
humans? Your definition of god is so vague in this argument that it could
be refering to nature itself, do you not see the transience within this
argument? You must firmly define what god is, how it acts, etc. Otherwise
your giving an argument for nothing, this sort of god seems to encapulate
many individuals psyche now days, the god of everything and yet nothing.
Over all I was impressed with the cosmological argument you put forth, I
congradulate you! However, you were opposing theories that I do not
subscribe to. Cosmologically I would subscribe to brane cosmology (not the
oscilliotory universe), and even if this theory proves to be false this
hardly means that god has won out by default; ultimately there is no proof
of the existence of a god or of supernatural phenomena, the best the
religious can do is discredit and find faults within scientific theory and
insert the supernatural and god into convienient holes that are the as yet
unknowns of science (they are doing this with evolution right now with ID).
Ultimately I was just wanting to say that existence is natural, always has
been and always will be, and that the supernatural should be heavily
scrutinized and doubted. I am impressed by the extent of your knowledge
pertaining to astrophysics. I would be intrigued to hear your views on
brane cosmology.

Sincerely