: K: Through faith, you perceive and see the spiritual which results in the conclusion that we are more precious and valuable in the eyes of a creator. That there is a highter meaning to life than what we perceive while walking in the spiritually numb valleys of it. Without faith, I guess we'll all just have to resign to the fact that we're just a bunch of bones running around in skin suits. I guess love, joy, pain, deception, truth, etc. doesn't really exist either since we can't prove it. G: - essentially, you are saying "I believe that we can derive our observed irrationalities and 'humanity' from an unprovable Deity - and that if an unprovable Deity doesn't exist, neither do the things that make us human."
K: No, What I was saying is that not everything can be approached from a scientific, intellectual view point such as things of spiritual nature. Things we can not explain. Sure there are chemicals that love and anger produce but what about the invisible driving force behind it. What about the "choice" which has nothing to do with science or logic. What I am saying is that there are things in this world that are observed on the logical and scientific level but there is also things observed on the spiritual. Just because you can't touch, taste or smell them deosn't mean they don't exist.
G: Which doesn't follow at all; you are issuing a definitive statement on an unprovable foundation; you recognise this, but say that any number of observable phenomena rely on this unprovable foundation. If you are going to say this, then any and every unprovable axiom is an equally good solution to the question of whence 'humanity' derives.
K;Hey man, I'm just sharing my reality.
G: According to your argument, Kristin, every God exists - from Coyote to Astarte to Jahweh to Mithras - or none of them do. You cannot point to anything human and use an unproveable foundation to prove any one God to the exclusion of others; the Deity becomes an eigenfunction; any one of a number of solutions came be used equally well.
K: I'm very impressed by the big words but unfortunatly I don't know what half of them mean. I never needed a whole bunch of phylisophical, overintellectuallism to figure out if God existed or not. At first I did. I lived my life overanalyzing everything. You know why I needed so badly to have to be right about everything and know everything down to the last detail? Control. If anyone could poke holes through my theories on life, work, relationships etc. then I would have to admit that I wasn't in control. And if I wasn't right in my thinking and ultimatly in control of my surrounding, then maybe I needed some help on this journey called life. Pretty frightening thought. If I wasn't in control then who was going to be? Gid, life and truth did not begin in my head or your head, nor does it end there. No matter how much we think we know there are 6 billion people who know something we don't. Just because you can't wrap it in a perfect box and sell it to yourself doesn't mean it doesn't hold any truth.
: K: Anyway, your right. To the human eye God is foolishness. But to the spiritual eye, "no God" equals foolishness.
G: - Which reads as "If you already believe in God, then not believing in God is strange to you". Fine; but it's the sort of circular argument a Jesuit would use; and not one that stands up to critical examination.
K:There's that word "critical", and in the paragraph before you wrote "According to your arguement Kristin".... Gid, why does everything have to come under scrutiny with you? What's wrong with expressing my own perception without it being about whether I'm right or wrong? Why do you care? It's my own gig, I'm just sharing' it.
: K: So all this witty, banter back and forth whether God is real or not does nothing but build walls of pride and ignorance.
G: - which reads as "you try to conceal the aching void in your lives by indulging in mind-wank".
: Actually; it's something I do because I find it interesting; I'm a philosopher because I don't just believe in blind faith. Blind faith leads to sloppy argument and does no-one any favours. Certainly not those such as yourself trying to convince a sceptical audience.
K:Faith is anything but blind my friend.
:: K: Love, patience, kindness, forbearence, honesty, humility etc. If so and if these fruits are genuine and not based in pretense, people pleasing, manipulation, wanting to appear godly etc, then we can conclude that there is something of TRUTH there. And if the truth spoken in love has the power to change the hearts of men and love and truth being spiritual laws then we also can conclude that it is something to be seriously contemplated and looked at.
G: What you're trying to say here is that somehow being nice to people is good because it serves the Ultimate truth; this is utterly unprovable and vacuous; even if it's an admirable statement along the lines of "wouldn't it be nice if everyone was really nice to each other?"
K: The secret is this Gid, it's not about doing it's about trully being. God knows the motives of the heart. When I never knew God, I used to be nice because then I could control others perception of me. If I was "doing" nice things"I could get what I wanted from people, whether it be a pat on the back or kindness in return. People are generally nice a moderate part of the time because they want to be liked. "Doing nice" and "being nice" are two different things. You can walk on this planet and do all the right things for the wrong reasons. Most people strive to do the right things because they want to be accepted by others, otherwise our actions are generally self centered at best. Left to my own devices, I am selfish, my desires are for myself. In Jesus, my desires are not just redirected towards the others, my desires and my heart are literally transformed into a strong desire to love others apart from what I gain. Galatians 2:20
: K: No one can prove the reality of a vision but it is through the visions and hopes of our forefathers that we reap all the inventions and comforts of today. It was not because of evalution that made the Wright Brothers design an airplane. It was because deep down in their SPIRITS the truth told them it was possible. They never invented it, they only, through faith, hope and a vision discovered what was already there waiting for men of faith to bring into existance- "Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven."
:G: - "Every idea comes from a spiritual part of us that is hotwired directly into God".
: Two major problems with this;
: Firstly it relies on your unsupportable assumption that our humanity comes solely from God. Which makes it as sound as the rest of that claim; and you could equally well say that any God is responsible for humanity.
: Secondly, what kind of bastard would God be to give us the atom bomb? If you seriously maintain that all human inventions are divinely inspired, then God has given us chemical warfare, machine guns, nuclear weapons and the like.
: If you take the usual route of saying that these were the product of a) the Devil or b) humanity's perverse nature, then God really isn't 'good' by any measureable means.
K: In the beginning we ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God gave us food. It is good but when abused you can become obese and die. He gave us relationships with one another but when self centered and power driven we can destroy eachother. I never said God inspires every human invention. I was talking about how without faith and a vision, things remain hidden from our knowledge.
: K: This Christian debate has become a joke. No one is interested in knowing the truth because we're all to busy worshipping our idol of wisdom.
:G: -or because some of those here are so indoctrinated that they wouldn't be able to cope with the idea that there may very well be no Ultimate Truth; like a safety blanket, they cling to the idea of something they can never be sure even exists or not.
K: Am I the one with the safety blanket? I have little fear Gid. Fear of being known, being rejected, being unloved, being exposed, not being able to control others and my surroundings in order to be at peace with myself. It’s not really a question of whether or not we need a crutch, the question is which crutch do we use. My stepfather makes a lot of money. When he gets, what he considers, a small paycheck, his ego and sense of control plummets. He becomes irritable and afraid. My sister is very beautiful, when she gains 2 pounds or has a bad hair day, her whole attitude towards others and herself changes. She withdraws, isn’t as confident and obsesses over physical flaws that no one sees but her. My Aunt is very charming. She is dynamic, extremely intelligent, and is always the center of every gathering. This is her niche in life. When she’s not in the mood to put on this charm hat, she never shows up at things because she has created an image that can’t be lived up to every moment of the day. Everyone has a crutch, whether it be money, sexuality, beauty, charm, or something we’re good at that we allow ourselves to be defined by as a whole . Unfortunatly, they are not solid and seldom authentic and as a result we are in bondage to them. In bondage because when we’re not operating within our crutches or comfort zones, we suffer, guilt, low self esteem, self condemnation and critisism. God’s Spirit which is truth sees past the facades. Walking in the truth is more than believing in Jesus, it’s being freed from self deception. When we ask God into our lives, he brings His truth with Him and it becomes ours. What do you use as a comfort or crutch? Sleep, wisdom, finacial security, cigarettes, trying to gain respect, admiration from others, food, looking good, sexual potency, having an attractive partner that makes you feel envied in the eyes of others, fantasizing over what your going to do with your life to prove your such a unique and special individual…. And the list goes on. A man who says he uses nothing for support (which is what a crutch is), or comfort, is in denial.
:K : As for this comment you've yanked out of November's post, Read IT IN CONTEXT. I was merely stating that if one wants to call another a liar they better be innocent of it themselves.
: Uh-huh. So where does misconception fit in? I don't pretend I've got the ultimate handle on the Universe; I recognise that my knowledge is limited. But I can spot a vacuous argument a mile off. If someone is unwittingly a liar, are they somehow not a liar? - or does their ignorance not excuse them.
: You are arguing an eternally unprovable point; you have no way of ever knowing whether you are lying or not; as such, you'd best be damn careful according to your own axioms.
K:God searches the hearts of men. He’s not content that we just believe in him, he wants our hearts to be penetrated by Him. When this happens it is amazing what you discover about your own motives and denial when dealing with others and life. He takes what is hidden in the darkness and exposes it to the light. How are things of the soul hidden? By a blanket or box? No. They are hidden by deciet. The inability to see things the way they are. When I justify wrong behavior or harmful actions, I keep doing them because I refuse to see the truth about myself. As long as I can rationalize, justify or blame, I no longer am responsible. Why would a so called sane person do this? Pride and a desire to control that which we have no contol over is insane, deceitful, irrational, and leads to a very unfullfilled, unfruitful existance. You can expound on all the scientific reality you choose to but it really has no bearing on the reality of God upon ones soul and the day to day truths that enter into consciousness.
:: K:I was making the point that we all lie, and then defining what exactly a lie can be categorized as. It had nothing to do with religion or me calling someone a liar because they don't believe in God (I have no clue where you got that idea from.).
: "if you want to cast the stones at lies make sure not an embelishment, a justification, a rationalization, a manipulation never spills forth from your heart and onto your very own lips."
:G- but this is what all human speech *is*; hummanity cannot speak in purely logical terms as it runs alien to the illogical mind. All human speech is manipulation; including yours. Your intimation was that humans lie to themselves because they cannot face the truth as you see it; something I disagree with utterly.
K:What is a lie if it isn’t the avoidance of the truth. My boss asks me if I mailed an important document. I didn’t. I say I did. Why? Because I didn’t want him to know the truth which is that I forgot to mail it. A man cheats on his wife. The truth is that he met a woman at work. The attraction builds and he starts fantasizing. He invites her for a drink. Hidden in the back of his mind is the hope that he might get somewhere. They have a couple of glasses of wine, they go back to her place and end up in the sack. His wife never finds out but the guilt is killing him. When he relives what he did he starts to paint another picture. He convinces himself that he was drunker than he was, that he was never really atttracted to her to begin with, that she was the one who pursued him and that ultimatly he is "not that kind of a guy." The truth is that he doesn’t want to be "that kind of a guy" so he lies to himself in order to function without shame and guilt. A man is feeling out of sorts, his friends asked him to help out at a social function a week before. He calls them and tells them he’s sick when really he just doesn’t feel like being around people. etc. etc. etc.
: K: I was merely stating that we shouldn't take out the speck in our brothers eye until we first remove the plank in our own. Man, we're from two different worlds and when you mirror back to me what you think I "mean" in these posts, I just think "Where did he get that from?"
: I got it from a simple treatment of the English you used. If you care to express your ideas in binary, machine code, formal logic or hexadecimal, there might be less room for ambiguity - but I doubt you're familiar with those languages.
G: If you'd care to provide a propositional deconstruction of the English you used, it might help. But do try to be as precise as possible about your use of English; like all human languages, it's really rather ambiguous and imprecise.
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K: If I would have known that you were the true prototype for all human comprehension, logic, and verbal communication dialogue I would have humbled myself long before this post. But I remember what it was like when I thought my logic, emotions, experience and manner of conveyance was the beginning of what made sense and the end of what made sense. Your talking to a girl who once thought she was the center of the Universe. But I learned that true love and wisdom comes from listening between the lines. It’s something to be discerned not defined.
Peace Babe!
Kristin
None.
