The answer to the Does God exist question from Human Practice

[dschou]

Originally posted by FZ+
That's not in any dictionary I read. The world generally accepted, self-evident and necessary are used there.

fine. to avoid clouding the real issue, i shall henceforth use the term "fundamental assumption from which one's worldview progresses"

No. I have found no evidence that an absolute overseer can even exist. In fact, all observations work against it.

yet you must live your life. each day you are faced with decisions, and ultimately, those decisions are made (even if they are not made, a decision not to make them has been made). in the end, your absolute overseer is the thing which precipitates your decision making process. thus an absolute overseer does exist and either you believe in God's existence, or you denounce any such existence and depend on your own self-governance.

Such as? If we do call the existence of God axiomatic, as you attempt to do, I can label the consequences of God's existence similarly absurd - as it contravenes my fundamental axiom. That is, in your terms, a fatal error. But choosing the positive belief of a specific God is also a "fatal error" in that way.

on the contrary. you can ignore God and scorn his existence but you can never rightly disprove it, as you yourself have previously agreed to.

Nor does god's non-existence. Note one thing here - your personal declaration of God, existence or not, is completely meaningless in any argument. You, while giving a sensible response on one hand, have committed the classic flaw of commiting your personal subjectivity as an absolute fact. While X or Y position cannot be proved, absolutism can.

thats just it. my personal opinion regarding God's existence is meaningless, just as yours to the contrary is as well. nevertheless, God either exists, or he doesn't and hence, we are directed to look for consequences of this fundamental assumption from which one's worldview progresses.

You see, the one thing of clarity from all that you have said is that such certainty is immediately unfounded. There is no basis for such an exclamation, and you know it.

exactement. i have stated this originally ("you must believe it...").

When you talk about the consequences of God - consider which God. And consider which godless reality.

there is either one God or no gods since God is by nature all powerful. and there is only one reality, of which we will all at sometime come to understand.

my first post in this forum was typed in full enthusiasm, with the (since revealed as false) idealism that i could effect some change in the opinions of the readers. it is disheartening, to say the least, to hear responses which continue, without pause or reproach, to utter what has been uttered now for millenia by the hearts of man. some small change in thought patterns, some minute - almost imperceptible - adjustment of bias, that is all i have wanted. but alas, the prospect of change for the better is but the opiate of my mind and is not meant to be. i therefore bid the interested parties adieau, as this will be my last correspondance in this thread.

till we meet on the ramparts,
with all grace and respect,
dschou

 

[Zero]

Belief in deities IS self-governance, really, since there are no gods making laws, and you choose to follow what you choose to believe in.

 

[FZ+]

in the end, your absolute overseer is the thing which precipitates your decision making process.

Then, to use your word I have an absolute overseer. But it's nature is not absolute. My non-absolute absolute overseer is my subjective view of the world - what I see. I do not govern myself, because "Me" does not have an absolute existence. I am part of the world and merely exist as part of the world. As there is no evidence for absolute, one way government.

on the contrary. you can ignore God and scorn his existence but you can never rightly disprove it, as you yourself have previously agreed to.

And you can never prove it, as you have failed to remember. In this way, a certainty in God is a fatal error - in precisely the same way a certainty in no god is.

my personal opinion regarding God's existence is meaningless, just as yours to the contrary is as well.

Strange, but you again seem to have forgotten what my point of view is. My point of view is that WE DON'T KNOW. This is far from meaningless. Your point of view is that we do (and not just that. We "certainly" know), and this is meaningless without justification.

exactement. i have stated this originally ("you must believe it...").

And yet you choose to flaunt it my making the meaninglessly absolute assertion that I "am wrong, and will be held accountable."

there is either one God or no gods since God is by nature all powerful.

Strange, but that by talking about God's "nature", you already assume it exists. Thus breaching your original statement again. As you said yourself.
And God as all poweful does not proclude the existence of a set of Gods.

But the actual point I make is rather different. I am saying that while you pick and choose your God (why Yahweh, for example, and not Anubis) to fit in the gaps of reality, and hence allow the God based framework to take any number of claims, you ignore that you are simultaneous denying the existence of all other Gods. And that by assuming that no-god gives only one set of consequences (which you assert is absurd), you have failed to give reality itself the flexibility (as we do not know the whole of reality, and never will) you grant your possibilities of gods. That, when forming your consequence idea, you must first determine what God can do that reality can't.

No easy job.

it is disheartening, to say the least, to hear responses which continue, without pause or reproach, to utter what has been uttered now for millenia by the hearts of man.

One might note rather cynically that it is you who have been giving quotes from (presumeably) ancient scriptures.

 

[FZ+]

To translate zero, even with God, you cannot escape self-governance (if such a thing exists) thanks simply to the act by which you choose a god.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by FZ+
To translate zero, even with God, you cannot escape self-governance (if such a thing exists) thanks simply to the act by which you choose a god.

That's pretty much it...we are governed absolutely in a physical sense by things like gravity, but there is no apparent counterpart for behavioral governing, besides what we impose on ourselves.

 

[heusdens]

God is inexistent as for instance light without darkness, good without evil, positive without negative, etc.