Wanted: Honest intelligent productive thinking to resolve the issue God exists or not.

originally posted by: midicon

originally posted by: Itisnowagain
a reply to: Pachomius

Naming is the source of all particular things. Tao Te Ching.

Remove all naming and what remains?

Sounds similar to, 'In the beginning was the word' although both statements are flawed without further clarification.

Things in themselves don't have to be named in order to exist. The naming is not the source. And the 'word' did not exist without that which utters said word so it can't have been the beginning.

So the use of the words 'source' and 'beginning' are being used in a particular context that can't be overlooked.

Amazing !!
You just debunked a 5000 year old philosophy, in 37 minutes !!!! Wow !!!!!
Thousands of scholars, and many hundreds of thousands of folks, have studied the Tao for millennia : but you've got it all figured in a few minutes !!!! Simply amazing !!!

You must be like : a scholarly scholar, that schools the other scholars, eh ?

Perhaps you may wish to send one of your undergrad students, to debunk this site : Taoistic , where they only have 76 different scholarly interpretations of the first chapter of the Tao, and 3 whole translations of the Tao.

Let us know how it turns-out, mkay ?

a reply to: Nothin

Perhaps I'm just the innocent child pointing at the emperor!

I responded to a simple statement and somehow you seem put out in some way!

In truth I haven't debunked anything, I said the statement needed clarification!

mkay?

originally posted by: Pachomius

Words represent concepts in our mind, and concepts in our mind represent objects outside and independent of our mind.

From the word/concept in our mind of God, in concept as the creator cause of man and the universe and everything with a beginning, we go forth into the world that is outside and independent of our mind, to seek evidence of God's existence.

We come to babies and roses in the neighborhood, there, they are the evidence proving the existence of God, God corresponding to the concept in our mind of the creator cause of man and the universe and everything with a beginning.

Now atheists will complain that my proof above is just circular reasoning, and that is where they are very bad with honest intelligent productive thinking, because I do not just stay with words and concepts in my mind - that would be circular reasoning - in my mind, but I go forth into the world outside my mind, and I come to babies and roses in the neighborhood, there, they are the evidence proving the existence of God, God in concept as the creator cause of man and the universe and everything with a beginning. .

That statement makes as much sense, by substituting a multitude of words, in the place of 'God'.
Like perhaps : The Great Spaghetti Monster ; Bob ; Santa-Claus ; Nature ; etc...
Creation myths.

Hey !! Let's try one out !

EX : From the word/concept in our mind of Bob, in concept as the creator cause of man and the universe and everything with a beginning, we go forth into the world that is outside and independent of our mind, to seek evidence of Bob's existence.

We come to babies and roses in the neighborhood, there, they are the evidence proving the existence of Bob, Bob corresponding to the concept in our mind of the creator cause of man and the universe and everything with a beginning.

EX : From the word/concept in our mind of Santa-Claus, in concept as the creator cause of man and the universe and everything with a beginning, we go forth into the world that is outside and independent of our mind, to seek evidence of Santa-Claus' existence.

We come to babies and roses in the neighborhood, there, they are the evidence proving the existence of Santa-Claus, Santa-Claus corresponding to the concept in our mind of the creator cause of man and the universe and everything with a beginning.

Hey ! That's fun !!
Try it yourselves kids !! Use any word you want !!

The OP commanded us :

Cease and desist already from self-enslavement to "commonly held views."

a reply to: Pachomius

Words represent concepts in our mind, and concepts in our mind represent objects outside and independent of our mind.

From the word/concept in our mind of God, in concept as the creator cause of man and the universe and everything with a beginning, we go forth into the world that is outside and independent of our mind, to seek evidence of God's existence.

We come to babies and roses in the neighborhood, there, they are the evidence proving the existence of God, God corresponding to the concept in our mind of the creator cause of man and the universe and everything with a beginning.

I guess I'll just consider this to be your final definition and proof.

Pachomius:

Cease and desist already from self-enslavement to "commonly held views."

I don't think you pulled it off.

The major Western monotheist systems have your same definition of God : creator cause.

Pachomius:

When people like Neutron want to make God the judge of good or evil in man's acts, then they are into a branded God,

I don't think I can hold on to this definition long, but within this exercise:

Def: God, in concept, is the non-branded arbiter of good vs bad in man's acts.

we go forth into the world that is outside and independent of our mind, to seek evidence of God's existence. We see man act. In our minds we have a concept of good and bad. Therefore God, in concept, has put those concepts there, because he is the creator cause of all things with a beginning. Babies aren't born with the concept of good and bad. Those concepts have a beginning.

Proved.

a reply to: midicon

Maybe you're right ?
Or maybe you haven't taken your own advice ?

I am a simple fellow. In this instance perhaps like the child pointing at the emperor. I do not make statements about God and life's purpose. I may have my own experience but I am wise enough to know the difference between a personal truth and an objective one. You on the other hand make bold statements as if they are facts but when questioned they become personal truths

Can you see how the way your post was presented, that it may appear as : ..."...bold statements as if they are facts..."... ?
Let's see if we can work things-out, easier than it appears to be to work with the OP : mkay ?

a reply to: pthena

Nice crack.

Are we talking like : " Introducing : spanking new bouncing Babies™, brought to you by : God !! " ?

So not God™ then ? ( Phew ! )

a reply to: Pachomius

Funny.

I am open to the idea and have faith that yes God sparked life into the universe. But that doesn’t mean an ancient extraterrestrial race piece and engineered the human species into being. Are you open to such concepts.

What if god created the universe, provided the breathe of life that an extraterrestrial race evolved the human race into being.

a reply to: Nothin

Are we talking like : " Introducing : spanking new bouncing Babies™, brought to you by : God !! " ?

I forgot. That was a temporary definition.

I had to re-read the definition I forgot:

So not God™ then ? ( Phew ! )

That is correct, according to the temporary definition.

Wait! Didn't I specifically include (NOT-BRANDED)?
That changes everything.




"So not God™ then ? ( Phew ! )"
If the not cancels the God™,
then:
"So then? (Phew!)"

Correct.

I get the impression that you value few words more than more.
You can see the influence that has here:

Oops! ... I Did It Again

Posted the rough draft.
I can see already that there are
too many words
and not enough substance.

But then again
if I waited for a draft
that met the highest standard,
then I might end up posting nothing.
Oops!

originally posted by: Nothin
...
Thousands of scholars, and many hundreds of thousands of folks, have studied the Tao for millennia ...

To understand why Taoism and Confucianism came to wield such a deep and lasting influence on the Chinese people, as well as on those of Japan, Korea, and other surrounding nations, it is necessary to have some understanding of the fundamental Chinese concept of Tao. The word itself means “way, road, or path.” By extension, it can also mean “method, principle, or doctrine.” To the Chinese, the harmony and orderliness they perceived in the universe were manifestations of Tao, a sort of divine will or legislation existing in and regulating the universe. In other words, instead of believing in a Creator God, who controls the universe, they believed in a providence, a will of heaven, or simply heaven itself as the cause of everything.

Sounds familiar (the bolded part in particular):

“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.”—The Grand Design, by Stephen Hawking

Sophisticated nonsense.

Context (playlist):

Psychology: The Art of selling nonsense/contradictions (Prologue: Stephen Hawking's nonsense)

Applying the concept of Tao to human affairs, the Chinese believed that there is a natural and correct way to do everything and that everything and everyone has its proper place and its proper function. They believed, for example, that if the ruler performed his duty by dealing justly with the people and looking after the sacrificial rituals pertaining to heaven, there would be peace and prosperity for the nation. Similarly, if people were willing to seek out the way, or Tao, and follow it, everything would be harmonious, peaceful, and effective. But if they were to go contrary to or resist it, the result would be chaos and disaster.

This idea of going with Tao and not interfering with its flow is a central element of Chinese philosophical and religious thinking. It may be said that Taoism and Confucianism are two different expressions of the same concept. Taoism takes a mystical approach and, in its original form, advocates inaction, quietness, and passivity, shunning society and returning to nature. Its basic idea is that everything will come out right if people will sit back, do nothing, and let nature take its course.

Sounds familiar as well.

In its early stages, Taoism was more a philosophy than a religion. Its founder, Lao-tzu, was dissatisfied with the chaos and turmoil of the times and sought relief by shunning society and returning to nature. Not a great deal is known about the man, who is said to have lived in the sixth century B.C.E., although even that is uncertain. He was commonly called Lao-tzu, which means “Old Master” or “Old One,” because, as legend has it, his pregnant mother carried him for so long that when he was born, his hair had already turned white.

By the seventh century, during the T’ang dynasty (618-907 C.E.), Buddhism was making inroads into Chinese religious life. As a countermeasure, Taoism promoted itself as a religion with Chinese roots. Lao-tzu was deified, and Taoist writings were canonized. Temples, monasteries, and nunneries were built, and orders of monks and nuns were established, more or less in the Buddhist fashion. In addition, Taoism also adopted into its own pantheon many of the gods, goddesses, fairies, and immortals of Chinese folklore, such as the Eight Immortals (Pa Hsien), the god of the hearth (Tsao Shen), city gods (Ch’eng Huang), and guardians of the door (Men Shen). The result was an amalgam embracing elements of Buddhism, traditional superstitions, spiritism, and ancestor worship.​—1 Corinthians 8:5.

As time wore on, Taoism slowly degenerated into a system of idolatry and superstition. Each person simply worshiped his favorite gods and goddesses at the local temples, petitioning them for protection against evil and for help in attaining earthly fortune. The priests were for hire to conduct funerals; select favorable sites for graves, houses, and businesses; communicate with the dead; ward off evil spirits and ghosts; celebrate festivals; and perform sundry other rituals. Thus, what started off as a school of mystic philosophy had transformed itself into a religion deeply mired in belief in immortal spirits, hellfire, and demigods​—ideas drawn from the stagnant pool of false beliefs of ancient Babylon.

Ancient Babylonian religious concepts and practices are found in religions worldwide

“Egypt, Persia, and Greece felt the influence of the Babylonian religion . . . The strong admixture of Semitic elements both in early Greek mythology and in Grecian cults is now so generally admitted by scholars as to require no further comment. These Semitic elements are to a large extent more specifically Babylonian.”—The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria (Boston, 1898), M. Jastrow, Jr., pp. 699, 700.

Their gods: There were triads of gods, and among their divinities were those representing various forces of nature and ones that exercised special influence in certain activities of mankind. (Babylonian and Assyrian Religion, Norman, Okla.; 1963, S. H. Hooke, pp. 14-40) “The Platonic trinity, itself merely a rearrangement of older trinities dating back to earlier peoples, appears to be the rational philosophic trinity of attributes that gave birth to the three hypostases or divine persons taught by the Christian churches. . . . This Greek philosopher’s [Plato’s] conception of the divine trinity . . . can be found in all the ancient [pagan] religions.”—Nouveau Dictionnaire Universel (Paris, 1865-1870), edited by M. Lachâtre, Vol. 2, p. 1467.

Use of images: “[In Mesopotamian religion] the role of the image was central in the cult as well as in private worship, as the wide distribution of cheap replicas of such images shows. Fundamentally, the deity was considered present in its image if it showed certain specific features and paraphernalia and was cared for in the appropriate manner.”—Ancient Mesopotamia—Portrait of a Dead Civilization (Chicago, 1964), A. L. Oppenheim, p. 184.

Belief regarding death: “Neither the people nor the leaders of religious thought [in Babylon] ever faced the possibility of the total annihilation of what once was called into existence. Death was a passage to another kind of life.”—The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 556.

Position of the priesthood: “The distinction between priest and layman is characteristic of this [Babylonian] religion.”—Encyclopædia Britannica (1948), Vol. 2, p. 861.

Practice of astrology, divination, magic, and sorcery: Historian A. H. Sayce writes: “[In] the religion of ancient Babylonia . . . every object and force of nature was supposed to have its zi or spirit, who could be controlled by the magical exorcisms of the Shaman, or sorcerer-priest.” (The History of Nations, New York, 1928, Vol. I, p. 96) “The Chaldeans [Babylonians] made great progress in the study of astronomy through an effort to discover the future in the stars. This art we call ‘astrology.’”—The Dawn of Civilization and Life in the Ancient East (Chicago, 1938), R. M. Engberg, p. 230.

Source: Babylon the Great (Reasoning From the Scriptures)

a reply to: whereislogic

There is a thread lacking in good Christian understanding here: Biblical Refutation of Authoritarianism.

I tried to tell them something but I'm limited by not being a Christian. Maybe ... I don't know. There's at least one anti-JW poster there. But you seem bold.

==============
Further note:

I read the book Zen and the Birds of Appetite by Thomas Merton & D.T. Suzuki. I understood what Merton was getting at, but still didn't understand Zen much, and Suzuki said Merton didn't understand it either. I think Western and Eastern systems of thought are way different from each other.

If the great Thomas Merton didn't get Zen, then I doubt I can get Taoism in one lifetime. I'm a Westerner, and some worldviews take growing up in them to know.

Oh why not, I might as well post the Amazon summary, since I think I understand it:

"Zen enriches no one," Thomas Merton provocatively writes in his opening statement to Zen and the Birds of Appetite―one of the last books to be published before his death in 1968. "There is no body to be found. The birds may come and circle for a while... but they soon go elsewhere. When they are gone, the 'nothing,' the 'no-body' that was there, suddenly appears. That is Zen. It was there all the time but the scavengers missed it, because it was not their kind of prey." This gets at the humor, paradox, and joy that one feels in Merton's discoveries of Zen during the last years of his life, a joy very much present in this collection of essays. Exploring the relationship between Christianity and Zen, especially through his dialogue with the great Zen teacher D.T. Suzuki, the book makes an excellent introduction to a comparative study of these two traditions, as well as giving the reader a strong taste of the mature Merton. Never does one feel him losing his own faith in these pages; rather one feels that faith getting deeply clarified and affirmed. Just as the body of "Zen" cannot be found by the scavengers, so too, Merton suggests, with the eternal truth of Christ.

a reply to: Nothin

Maybe you're right ?
Or maybe you haven't taken your own advice ?

I never take my own advice.

Can you see how the way your post was presented, that it may appear as : ..."...bold statements as if they are facts..."... ?

I can see that and you are correct! Thanks for that.

Let's see if we can work things-out, easier than it appears to be to work with the OP : mkay ?

There is nothing to work out but I appreciate your feedback on my comment.

Regards midicon

"Wei Wu Wei - All Else is Bondage - Part 1 - Non-Dualism, Taoism, Zen, Dzogchen"

a reply to: pthena
No one gets Zen.....because the understanding of Zen is that there is no one to get anything and there is nothing to get.

What is seeking what?

a reply to: Itisnowagain

Western minds are set up to think teleologically. That's the World we live in, our consensual reality. I think that Christianity dominating Western society cemented that even further.

So everything is time; BC, AD, figuring out how many generations from Adam to Christ; figuring out what day the Earth was created; timelines from Bible prophecies; how many days left until Christ returns.

The gist of what Merton got from studying Zen was that Christians could be the kind of person that is not prey. That is achieved by not having anything that someone would want to kill you for. At least seeming to not be worth killing. Maybe that's as close as someone trained in Western ways can get.

Maybe younger Generations who haven't been limited in exposure to only one Worldview can get more. I don't know.

I did a thought experiment once:
Re-Orientation
If you notice the protagonist is going from a complete amnesia to almost recovered state.
Notice how he orients; distances, velocities, even a mental picture of the area.
Totally blanked mind - then it's right back to the same means of processing reality. Even the delusional phase is approached the same way.

a reply to: pthena
Zen enriches no one.....there is nobody to be found.

It is similar to this:

And God said, Thou shalt not be able to see my face; for no man shall see my face, and live.

Dear everyone:

You can call God anything at all, but if the concept of that something you call God, like flying spaghetti monster, or with Bertrand Russell orbiting teapot in space, does not include in concept the creator cause of man and the universe and everything with a beginning, you are not into the issue God exists or not, but into very poor dishonest un-intelligent and inutile thinking and writing.

Now, I like you to tell me something that you want me to concur on with you, but in re the topic of the present thread.

Here is again my topic in the present thread, for your orientation:

Title of thread: Wanted: Honest intelligent productive thinking to resolve the issue God exists or not.

Author of thread: Pachomius

posted on Jun, 25 2020 @ 01:12 PM


OP of thread:
On the assumption that mankind sincerely seeks knowledge, I submit that it is possible for any person to come to resolve the issue God exists or not, with honest intelligent productive thinking, i.e., thinking on truths, facts, logic, and the history of ideas. Now, honest intelligent productive thinking on the said issue must start with working together to concur on the concept of God. What do you dear colleagues here say?

.

Science took the place of religion for a part but science is not an alternative for religion and never will be.

a reply to: Pachomius

Did you answer to:

Funny.

I am open to the idea and have faith that yes God sparked life into the universe. But that doesn’t mean an ancient extraterrestrial race didn’t piece and engineered the human species into being. Are you open to such concepts.

What if god created the universe, provided the breathe of life that an extraterrestrial race evolved the human race into being.


And you dare to label someone “ When people like Neutron want to make God the judge of good or evil in man's acts, then they are into a brande”

Hahahahahahahaha

Dear Neutron, when are you ever going to learn that there is a difference between pure fiction inside your otherwise precious brain - if any of still remains, and fact and truth, like for example the concept of God to Which you pray.


You are funny, cease and desist already with fictions about extraterrestrial beings etc. nonsense from your otherwise precious brain God gave to you, which God?

The God in concept as the creator cause of man and the universe and everything with a beginning.

You really sad have a poor brain: learn from me how you can exhibit a brain that is subtle, to know the difference between fact/truth on the one hand and fiction inside your lurid brain on the other, okay?

originally posted by: neutronflux
a reply to: Pachomius

Did you answer to:

Funny.

I am open to the idea and have faith that yes God sparked life into the universe. But that doesn’t mean [now the nonsense fiction from Neutron] an ancient extraterrestrial race didn’t piece and engineered the human species into being. Are you open to such concepts.

What if god created the universe, provided the breathe of life that an extraterrestrial race evolved the human race into being.


And you dare to label someone “ When people like Neutron want to make God the judge of good or evil in man's acts, then they are into a brande”

Hahahahahahahaha

.

a reply to: Pachomius

Dear Neutron, when are you ever going to learn that there is a difference between pure fiction inside your otherwise precious brain

Go on. Prove the human race wasn’t bioengineered by extraterrestrials.