Vague? The term “perceive” has specific meanings which I thought were reasonable to apply in relation to how a theist, well, perceives God. I would argue that how theists perceive God is one of the reasons they believe in him.
Again? This is a strawman. I gave no reference to my use of the term “perceive” including an element of doubt. Why do you think that my use of the term “perceive”, in the context that I used it, is being “rhetorical and deceptive”? I’d actually like to know.
What? Theists can’t claim that they perceive that God is perfect? Why not?
From my perspective, the above can be reduced to opinion - not fact. So why not state that it is your opinion? Ironically, it seems as though you are the one being rhetorical and deceptive here, because not only does the above seem like a fine example of rhetoric to me, you are also trying to pass it off as fact.
This is not relevant to what I stated.
I stated;
I’ve asked you this twice, and you still haven’t provided a straight answer.
I repeat;
“I think it is reasonable to claim that theists believe that God is perfect, because their holy texts claim that he is, and that conclusions theists reach, are primarily influenced by their scriptures and how their experiences relate to scriptures, that is their “home base”. If their scriptures told them that God is an imperfect being, that is capable of granting eternal life, they would believe that. But God is described in them as being perfect, so they believe he is perfect.”
You can’t know that. And even they did, we have no way of knowing if they genuinely believed that.
I stated something like this, you didn’t acknowledge it. Yet you’re repeating it to me as if I never said it.
Generally the term ‘perceive’ [related to perception] cannot be absolutely be without an element of doubt.
I would rather state, believer have faith their God is perfect.
Note my preference of ‘faith’ over ‘perceive’.
Nope, not opinion but a justified belief.
I have argued, in doctrinal principle, a Christian is one who had [by implication] entered into a personal covenant with God/Jesus to comply with the contractual terms as in the Gospel. God is projected as perfect in the Gospel and relevant supporting verses from the Bible.
As such in principle, a Christian has to believe God is perfect and absolute as a contractual duty.
I agree some Christians may have doubts, but that is beside the point.
Point is once a person had entered into and signed a contract, he has no choice but be contractually bound to the terms of the contract, regardless of whatever feelings he has about the terms he has signed.
The same situation applies to the Muslim where the contract/covenant with Allah to comply with the contractual terms in the Quran is more explicit. It is explicitly stated in the Quran, Allah is the God than which no other gods can be greater, i.e. absolute and perfect.
The point is a contracted Christian or Muslim cannot override God’s authority in the holy texts.
Note this scenario;
Islam and Quran: Allah is perfect and absolute
Muslim: Allah is not perfect nor absolute
Point 2 cannot be compatible with 1.
A person may have a personal opinion, but as a Muslim contractually, he [mere slave] cannot contradict Allah’s words.
If a Christian or Muslim were to claim and insist their god is less than perfect, then they are no more a Christian or Muslim.
If they are still theists on their own, I would counter their God differently with arguments that are different from the OP.
The fact is the majority of theistic religions claim their God is perfect and absolute. My argument is based on this fact.
Show me which mainstream theistic religion claim their God is imperfect?
EVEN IF, there exist a religion which claim their God is imperfect, the majority of their believers - driven by the one-up instinct - naturally would prefer their God to be perfect and absolute so that there is no room for the god of others to dominate and make their God as inferior.
I had stated, those who accepted an imperfect God are likely to be the ignorant ones due to traditions, etc. Humans are ‘programmed’ with a one-up instinct in not settling for less than the other unless forced to by various constraints.
The Abrahamic religions make up 80% of all theists, the other majority are the Hindus whose ultimate God Brahman is claimed to be absolute.
It is their holy texts from God that said IT is perfect and absolute.
I have stated, the personal opinions of the believers is not critical to this argument.
Yes, I noticed that but you insist the believers [SOME, etc.] do not believe that.
I said again, the personal opinions of the believers is not critical to this argument.
Your only counter to my argument is to prove the holy texts of the mainstream religions, i.e. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Bahai, do not claim their God is perfect and absolute. The bolded religions represent 90% of all theists.
I think that within the frameworks you have mentioned, truth or 100% certainty concerning something is called a “fact”. So in claiming that your argument is 100% certain, you are claiming that it is a fact. As far as I’m aware, “fact” is the absolute in terms of what can be defined as knowledge. Therefore, your claim is an absolute one. Also, “impossible” is in the ultimate sense.
Yeah, the genome. Can see it in a quite a few species. Fortunate accident. Intuition, inspiration. Life is sort of pro life. I can appreciate it.
No, it looks more like a relative fact. I sort of have a fondness for my size. General relativity, special relativity, quantum mechanics? Which is the scale on which I live. That’s relative. Where the foot falls along the path. That’s a relative fact. I am quite fond of the notion of giving Earth a chance. The sun, the moon, the planet. If pigs could fly any god would be tickled sick if it were worth it’s weight in salt.
By “perceive” I meant: “interpret or regard (someone or something) in a particular way.” I didn’t want to use the term “have faith”.
And that doesn’t explain this claim: “Again you are trying to be rhetorical and deceptive with the term ‘perceive’ which include an element of doubt.”
You need to justify this. As all reputable philosophers would do
Your preference doesn’t invalidate the use of the term in reference to theists.
Well, the justification is noticeably absent.
I assume that you’re talking about the New Covenant, whereby a person has to believe in order to gain the reward of eternal life. That doesn’t mean that everyone who claims to be a Christian, actually believes.
What if they do everything else associated with the religion, believe that their respective religions are correct, but don’t believe that the God they believe in is perfect? Does John 3:16 state that you have to believe God is perfect?
Okay.
Did I claim that there was such a religion?
“One-up” instinct? Some humans may have such a desire, but I wouldn’t go as far as to call it an “instinct”. Maybe you feel that way so deeply that it appears as an instinct to you?
From my perspective, this is a distinctly personal view.
I disagree. If all believers don’t believe that God is perfect, then your argument has to shift to the holy texts.
Which is possible.
So you perceive. Why would I acknowledge what the holy texts say about God, then claim that they don’t say this?
Nope not the new covenant.
The New Covenant is something like a general treaty offer to all people.
I am talking about a personal contract a Christian has to enter into with God/Jesus.
Somewhere or somehow, the person must be in his ‘heart’ has intention to accept Jesus/God as his savior via John 3:16.
John 3:16 states one has to believe in Jesus - as son a God - and his message which in alignment with God’s will.
‘Believe’ in this case would imply contractually bound in believing what Jesus stated and represented in the Gospel and relevant verses from the Bible.
The Gospel and relevant verses from the Bible state God is Perfect and Absolute.
Therefore the Christian is contractually bound to accept God is Perfect and Absolute.
To insist Jesus/God is not perfect and absolute would be a serious non-compliance of the contractual terms which would nullify the contract.
Just to reinforce my point there is none.
This is very evident within anthropology.
It is very evident is school-yards with young kids.
This inherent instinct is not explicit with adults but very noticeable in the majority.
You are not observant and well read on this point and subject.
The holy texts is fundamental.
There is no way you can ignore them for the 90% of theists.
Your point in this case is toothless.
Note my Premise 2 is dependent of God has to be perfect.
Because the holy texts said so, God is perfect, so my argument stands.
I think that another way to define this is a desire or drive to win. If you want to believe that is an instinct then fine. Although, isn’t “one-up” or “winning” a concept?
Can you not see the implicit bias in such a statement? As the reason, you’re saying that, is because I don’t agree with you.
Also, you still haven’t answered this;
With regards to this series of dialogue;
I don’t think I was right… There could be theists who don’t believe that God is perfect, but the theists who do believe that God is perfect are relevant to your argument, as well as the holy texts. That seems more logical.
How do you know? Absolute perfection is impossible to grasp from my finite perspective. So like “justice” or “unconditional love” it’s a symbol for which I have analogies but I recognize that none of the analogies are exact.
In reality Everything is illusion except pain, wisdom and few other things.
What is or isn’t real isn’t for us to decide, for one period in time, we too were not “real”. All is past or future if something isn’t in the present it doesn’t mean it isn’t real, it means it isn’t observable to our being immediate, it’s a string. All that we may comprehend, I feel is real. For the dreamer can still die in a dream.
The Plane wasn’t real either at one time, then we invent it through wisdom, aka understanding of knowledge, this is the god in which is sought, which science is a tool of such god as well.
Wisdom isn’t assigned to a God, wisdom comes from it. It’s the path of good, the knowledge of both “good and evil” wisdom is real, wisdom is it. It isn’t assigned to it… it is it. Wisdom is the understanding of knowledge and the application of such justly.
I have not stated there is a contradiction in the above.
When one relies on faith [belief without proofs nor justified reasons], one claim for whatever based on one’s thoughts because there is no need for proofs nor justified reasons.
Thus a person can rely on faith to believe ‘a being possessing all the Omni’s exists.’
A person can also believe a ‘square-circle’ exists based on faith.
In the case of reliance on faith, one can claim whatever proposition without limitations.
I thought this point is so obvious that I did not catch the point in your above statement.
This is not about knowledge from experience.
My point is inferred from logical deduction.
Sure, analogies can be different.
If one claim there is “perfect justice” of “perfect unconditional love” these are impossible to exist as real.
When a person declares “unconditional love” for something, that is not totally unconditional or absolute. Such "unconditional love’ is conditioned to the person’s feelings which is fundamentally subjective, thus not absolutely unconditional.
Note your point;
Wisdom isn’t assigned to a God, wisdom comes from it [God].
In the above you merely assume God exists but provide no proof for it’s existence.
It is only in one sense, everything is an illusion.
Note the concept of Maya in Hinduism.
In this case, God as the representation of everything is also an illusion, thus an impossibility to be real.
In other sense, everything is real.
But to be real, it need to be justified to be true.
What is real is fundamentally empirical which is verifiable via Science, plus what is real need to be reinforced with philosophical critical thinking.
God cannot be real, thus impossible to be real because God cannot be verified and justified by Science nor philosophical thinking.
Strings are not real per-se. Strings are merely a scientific speculation at present.
Even if strings are proven to be real, they have nothing to do with God which is not real.
If there is no contradiction, why do you compare belief in such a being to believing in a square circle, which is a contradiction? I think that things that are impossible are usually contradictory.
I think that people will have justifications for their faith, such as scriptures, other texts or their experiences and observations. You may not agree that they are justifications, but they are for the people who have faith. They may not be right, but for them and others who share their beliefs, their beliefs are justified. That’s one of the reasons why religions work as they do.
I’m not sure you mean by “rely on faith”?
Why would anyone believe that a square circle exists by faith? Religion/God and a square circle are different conceptually. Which may be why some people believe in God, but no one believes in square circles.
I think that people with faith, like theists, believe in specific things like God, and because it is claimed that God is perfect and can do anything, they believe that, based upon a framework (the religion). But outside of what their religion purports, I am quite sure they recognise that there are limitations, and do not propose that things like square circles exist.
I stated there is no contradiction in a theists relying on faith to believe in an omni-being.
It is only when theists claimed God an illusion is really real , that is a contradiction.
What is an illusion cannot be real - that is obvious.
Yes, people can have their own personal justifications for their faith, but it is not justified true beliefs as in Science and polished by philosophy-proper.
Theists rely on faith to believe God exists as real, but where is the God that is real available for verification and justification that it is really real?
Even since humans conjured up God [transcendental illusion] as a security blanket, no theists has ever produced the necessary direct evidences to verify and justify God is real empirically and philosophically.
“rely” is to depend confidently; put trust in (usually followed by on or upon): dictionary.com/browse/rely?s=t
Seems obvious to me, wonder why you query?
I am using square-circle as an analogy.
As explained above, square-circle and the idea of God, if they are claimed to be real, are both contradictions.
It is not likely the average person will ever insist square-circles can exist as real. Like I said, I am highlighting it as an analogy to the belief God [an illusion] exists as real being a contradiction.
Most theists on average will never consider any other alternatives outside the framework of their religion unless they are beginning to have doubts on the way to be agnostic [like you] or non-theistic. The latter are a very low minority, say 5% of 5 billion?
This is why I insisted those who think their god are less than perfect or not absolute are not critical to this thread.
Infinity is not an impossibility because energy, wisdom, pain and consciousness have not ended and never will.
If god is wisdom like I have stated as such, then god is both absolute and infinite at the same time, it’s simultaneous.
Cause and effect are the string that is very real. You take things too literal. I don’t assume god exists when god is wisdom, it isn’t an entity, the word god is only what it is to describe what is difficult to depict. Wisdom is both infinite and absolute, which is this “god”. We evolve based off of the consciousness of knowledge, which is wisdom, we exist due to wisdom and our evolution of consciousness, aka god and our. If no consciousness and no ability to be aware, would we exist? We’d never know.
Cause and Effect, i.e. causality is real but not absolutely real.
Hume argued ‘cause and effect’ is not an absolute principle but one that emerged from human psychology and experiences from constant conjunction, customs and habits.
It is not the question of ‘would we exist?’
The fact is we exists.
As such we should start from facts [i.e. humans exists] and not from speculations.
If we start from speculations we don’t have grounds, thus the possibility of ending with nothing to speak off. If we NEVER ever know, then we never ever ‘speak’ [feasibility of being real] of it.
Note Wittgenstein’s,
“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” (Tractatus 7)
It one cannot speak or difficult to depict, one should just shut up and don’t speak of it at all.
Note the theory of evolution, the big bang, dark matters, are very complex theories but we have no difficulty in proving these theories with the necessary limitations. These are not difficult to depict speculatively and admitted as a speculation.
I don’t think the idea of infinity is dependent on any particular. In the more or less of possible finite things I never reach either the largest or the smallest. Beyond every smallest there is a smaller and beyond every largest a larger. No matter how far we measure, there’s always a new limit. I see no way of passing from the domain of limits to the unlimited, i.e., from the domain of the finite to Infinity. Therefore, it seems to me, we can have knowledge only of finite things not of the infinite. We can’t reach the infinite no matter how far we progress in the finite . All relations remain within the finite. There’s an unbridgeable gap between the finite and the infinite. Yet the possibility of infinity beyond the ever-expanding known finite cannot be denied.
