Omniscience and omnibenevolence

[Gary Childress]

If there's evidence then it isn't "faith" strictly speaking.

That's the falsehood. Nowhere in the Bible will you find "faith" defined or exemplified that way. So you're just wrong, Gary...sorry.

What about the Upanishads? What about spirituality as practiced in many aboriginal cultures? Why would God chose to reveal himself to some but not all and then allegedly tell the chosen ones to destroy other tribes in order to make room for the chosen tribe? Heck, maybe Muslims have it right and we should just "submit" to their version of God.

[Immanuel Can]

If there's evidence then it isn't "faith" strictly speaking.

That's the falsehood. Nowhere in the Bible will you find "faith" defined or exemplified that way. So you're just wrong, Gary...sorry.

What about the Upanishads?

What about them?

Do you think a belief system has to be called "right" simply because some group believes it?

If you do, you're not only operating with a definition of "faith" that has nothing to do with real faith, but also with a pattern of thinking that has nothing to do with logic.

[phyllo]

Do you think a belief system has to be called "right" simply because some group believes it?

Could you provide a link to the post where you definitely show that your belief system is the right one and all others are wrong?

TIA

[Gary Childress]

That's the falsehood. Nowhere in the Bible will you find "faith" defined or exemplified that way. So you're just wrong, Gary...sorry.

What about the Upanishads?

What about them?

Do you think a belief system has to be called "right" simply because some group believes it?

If you do, you're not only operating with a definition of "faith" that has nothing to do with real faith, but also with a pattern of thinking that has nothing to do with logic.

I would think my answer would be obvious. Apparently it isn't. Your blinders are showing.

[Belinda]

Knowing the world we live in, the thought of the God who created it having a "plan" doesn't strike me as entirely reassuring.

That's only because you don't know God, Gary. But that's been your choice.

Is it? If I "knew" God would that change anything regarding earthquakes or suffering?

As far as being my choice, I assume then it's all my fault that God hasn't spoken to me yet? Have you ever spoken to God and had him speak back to you? I'm not talking about "aha" moments or coming to realizations about things. And I'm not talking about supposedly hearing God speak through other people speaking to you. I'm talking about God's actual voice? Has he literally spoken to you in a voice? And if so what did it sound like? Was it male or female? High pitch, low pitch?

God has evolved since the days when He walked and talked with humans typically on mountains or hilltops. Immanuel Can believes in black and white, not evolution of ideas. This is odd, because The Bible itself is evidence of evolution of ideas.

[Sculptor]

It is logically impossible for God to have created people with omnipotence because there can only be one omnipotent being (lest you run into the immovable object/irresistible force paradox).

However, there isn’t anything illogical about making other omnibenevolent or omniscient beings.

Why did God not make humans omniscient and omnibenevolent to avoid the instantiation of evil and suffering? Why not make angels that way too (to avoid Satan existing as a deceiver)?

As god is omnipresent, he cannot also be at the same time omnibenevolent since there would be no room within god for any evil to exist, as He is All. Consequently, God Himself must also be evil in part and has no real interest in banishing suffering.

[Immanuel Can]

What about the Upanishads?

What about them?

Do you think a belief system has to be called "right" simply because some group believes it?

If you do, you're not only operating with a definition of "faith" that has nothing to do with real faith, but also with a pattern of thinking that has nothing to do with logic.

I would think my answer would be obvious. Apparently it isn't. Your blinders are showing.

Well, your answer should be "No," for sure, of course...but since you posed the question, I can't imagine what you were thinking, then. The existence of any number of wrong answers doesn't suggest there's no right answer. So your rejoinder -- if that's what it was -- doesn't even make sense.

However, feel free to expand on your objection, I guess.

[Immanuel Can]

Do you think a belief system has to be called "right" simply because some group believes it?

Could you provide a link to the post where you definitely show that your belief system is the right one and all others are wrong?
TIA

I talk about that all the time, but so often that it's not in a single post, but many, many posts. What I do, most of the time here, is what other people do too: contend for what I believe to be the truth, through a variety of arguments, to see what holds up and what doesn't. That's philosophy.

However, if you're serious about wanting the best arguments for my belief system (from a strictly secular point of view, I assume you want; I don't know if you're interested in additional theological arguments), then I strongly recommend The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. It's the best academic source I've found for the major current secular arguments for the existence of God.

Or, if you're more interested in theological comparative arguments, you could do what I did: go and read the Bible, the Koran, the Tao, the Dhammapada, the Gita, the Gnostics, the various Atheists, and anything else you want to include, and come to your own decision. That's a lot of work, but it's a most illuminating thing to do.

Take your pick.

[Gary Childress]

What about them?

Do you think a belief system has to be called "right" simply because some group believes it?

If you do, you're not only operating with a definition of "faith" that has nothing to do with real faith, but also with a pattern of thinking that has nothing to do with logic.

I would think my answer would be obvious. Apparently it isn't. Your blinders are showing.

Well, your answer should be "No," for sure, of course...but since you posed the question, I can't imagine what you were thinking, then. The existence of any number of wrong answers doesn't suggest there's no right answer. So your rejoinder -- if that's what it was -- doesn't even make sense.

However, feel free to expand on your objection, I guess.

1. If there is a God, then I doubt it's the God of the Hebrews any more than it's any god of the Upanishads or any other fallible human translation of divine experience. Perhaps persons from multiple cultures have come into contact with the divine. However, none of us ought to have God in our pocket more so than anyone else if God is remotely fair and the creator of everything. To think God can be won on the side of any particular people would make the divine utterly petty and trivial--utterly profaning the divine.

2. A common theme that mystics seem to share is that of ineffability of divine experience. Meaning no one can capture the essence of the divine on paper or in speech. I conclude from this that any and all attempts to encapsulate the divine are going to be mostly fruitless unless one has that experience themselves. Non mystics reading divinely inspired documents are therefore doubtless going to be adding their own prejudices into such documents.

3. It is my understanding that mystics from different cultures generally tend to fall in line with the interpretation of the divine that is specific to what they have learned and internalized from their own culture. Christian mystics typically describe their experience to others in ways that are familiar to their culture (a Christian one) and the same goes for mystics coming from other religious traditions describing their experiences in ways that they have learned and are familiar to those traditions that they are surrounded by. This suggests to me that there is an element of interpretation that has to be done by the mystic that comes from a mystic's own background and lived experience which may taint their experience.

I propose that the divine is likely an experience that any radical seeker can come to have only after ENORMOUS effort and outreach on their part. This effort and outreach radically changes a person from one of many to what many mystics call "oneness" or "Mystic union". I suggest it is not something that anyone on this forum has truly experienced, myself included, except perhaps in bits and pieces. I doubt there are any real mystics here who have been radically transformed by substantial contact with the divine to the point where they're in a state similar to the great mystics who have gone into seclusion in temples and forests after their experiences. NOTHING would get done by anyone if everyone had such experiences. Such experiences require a level of commitment and effort that is just not available to most humans and interfere with a person's ability to conform to their everyday 'tribal' duties. The rest of us may be able to scratch the surface from time to time but our own prejudices and predispositions likely take hold after that. The divine is something greater and more vast than any mere human can fully comprehend or come to terms with. This is as it should be. I see no reason to think that the Earth is somehow the center of the universe and the exclusive concern of who/whatever created the universe. Anything less is profane. I doubt God is going to materialize before us like George Burns or even Christ or something. It would be ludicrous to think so.

If there is a God or whatever divinity to come into "mystic union" with, then that is my best layman's guess (based on my scant readings regarding mystic experience) at what its nature might be. It is to say that the divine is incomprehensible to any of us, even to those who experience it on the level of the Buddha, Meister Eckhart or any other person who has gone into the "deep end" in seeking contact with the divine. Our experiences or guesses as amateurs are like a drop in an ocean. We'll never be able to come even close to fully comprehending it without monumental effort and investment and that's how it should be. The divine doesn't take sides or punish humans for not fully understanding what is incomprehensible to us. It would be unfair to do so and the divine ought to be impartial which would explain why so much misfortune can be experienced by just about anyone. In a sense, maybe we can touch pieces of the divine but to think any being is somehow privileged for that ability is profanity. The universe is unbelievably vast and our own bodies and minds will always stand in the way of fully grasping it.

Those are my thoughts on the divine.

[phyllo]

Do you think a belief system has to be called "right" simply because some group believes it?

Could you provide a link to the post where you definitely show that your belief system is the right one and all others are wrong?
TIA

I talk about that all the time, but so often that it's not in a single post, but many, many posts. What I do, most of the time here, is what other people do too: contend for what I believe to be the truth, through a variety of arguments, to see what holds up and what doesn't. That's philosophy.

However, if you're serious about wanting the best arguments for my belief system (from a strictly secular point of view, I assume you want; I don't know if you're interested in additional theological arguments), then I strongly recommend The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. It's the best academic source I've found for the major current secular arguments for the existence of God.

Or, if you're more interested in theological comparative arguments, you could do what I did: go and read the Bible, the Koran, the Tao, the Dhammapada, the Gita, the Gnostics, the various Atheists, and anything else you want to include, and come to your own decision. That's a lot of work, but it's a most illuminating thing to do.

Take your pick.

I don't know why you shifted from talking about your particular belief system to general arguments for the existence of god/gods.

Obviously, you think most of those belief systems are wrong. Their arguments must be partly or entirely wrong.

[Immanuel Can]

I would think my answer would be obvious. Apparently it isn't. Your blinders are showing.

Well, your answer should be "No," for sure, of course...but since you posed the question, I can't imagine what you were thinking, then. The existence of any number of wrong answers doesn't suggest there's no right answer. So your rejoinder -- if that's what it was -- doesn't even make sense.

However, feel free to expand on your objection, I guess.

1. If there is a God, then I doubt it's the God of the Hebrews...

Because?

2. A common theme that mystics seem to share...

That'd be irrelevant, unless you had reason to believe these "mystics" knew something.

3. It is my understanding that mystics from different cultures generally tend to fall in line with the interpretation of the divine that is specific to what they have learned and internalized from their own culture.

I'm not sure what you think a "mystic" is. You seem to be using the word to designate anybody who's kind of strange and talks about some kind of transcendence, but that seems a strange thing to do. As for the "cultural" thing, that could plausibly be true of most, and yet not tell us one thing about the one "mystic" who actually was telling the truth, if such there were.

I propose that the divine is likely an experience that any radical seeker can come to have

Why? Why do you think that would be likely to be true?

Maybe if "mysticism" or whatever you call it, is merely something generated from within the "mystic," you might think that was true. But if what your "mystic" says is in any way related to truth or objective reality, then that seems impossible to believe, since "mystics" disagree so much. To be radically a Buddhist "mystic" for example, is quite contradictory to what, say Judaic "mystics" say, and very different again from an Aryan occultist "mystic." So I think that's pretty obviously wrong.

[Immanuel Can]

Could you provide a link to the post where you definitely show that your belief system is the right one and all others are wrong?
TIA

I talk about that all the time, but so often that it's not in a single post, but many, many posts. What I do, most of the time here, is what other people do too: contend for what I believe to be the truth, through a variety of arguments, to see what holds up and what doesn't. That's philosophy.

However, if you're serious about wanting the best arguments for my belief system (from a strictly secular point of view, I assume you want; I don't know if you're interested in additional theological arguments), then I strongly recommend The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. It's the best academic source I've found for the major current secular arguments for the existence of God.

Or, if you're more interested in theological comparative arguments, you could do what I did: go and read the Bible, the Koran, the Tao, the Dhammapada, the Gita, the Gnostics, the various Atheists, and anything else you want to include, and come to your own decision. That's a lot of work, but it's a most illuminating thing to do.

Take your pick.

I don't know why you shifted from talking about your particular belief system to general arguments for the existence of god/gods.

Because that's the foundation. Everything begins with the realization that there are not many "gods," and that there is but one, who is objectively real, and has a particular and personal nature. Step one is: there is a God, and not just any God. That immediately narrows the field, in the extreme.

Obviously, you think most of those belief systems are wrong. Their arguments must be partly or entirely wrong.

Of course. But so does everybody who believes anything. Atheists say every religion is wrong, each religion declares the others wrong, and even people who claim to be inclusive believe that exclusive beliefs are wrong. So that's just a universal.

But you're right: their arguments can be either partly or entirely wrong. Usually, it's partly. Because it's almost impossible to make up a belief system that is composed of nothing but lies and errors, and even harder to get anybody to believe in it. Any system worth believing has to start with some use of truth, just in order to launch its errors, if those it has.

[Gary Childress]

Well, your answer should be "No," for sure, of course...but since you posed the question, I can't imagine what you were thinking, then. The existence of any number of wrong answers doesn't suggest there's no right answer. So your rejoinder -- if that's what it was -- doesn't even make sense.

However, feel free to expand on your objection, I guess.

1. If there is a God, then I doubt it's the God of the Hebrews...

Because?

2. A common theme that mystics seem to share...

That'd be irrelevant, unless you had reason to believe these "mystics" knew something.

3. It is my understanding that mystics from different cultures generally tend to fall in line with the interpretation of the divine that is specific to what they have learned and internalized from their own culture.

I'm not sure what you think a "mystic" is. You seem to be using the word to designate anybody who's kind of strange and talks about some kind of transcendence, but that seems a strange thing to do. As for the "cultural" thing, that could plausibly be true of most, and yet not tell us one thing about the one "mystic" who actually was telling the truth, if such there were.

I propose that the divine is likely an experience that any radical seeker can come to have

Why? Why do you think that would be likely to be true?

Maybe if "mysticism" or whatever you call it, is merely something generated from within the "mystic," you might think that was true. But if what your "mystic" says is in any way related to truth or objective reality, then that seems impossible to believe, since "mystics" disagree so much. To be radically a Buddhist "mystic" for example, is quite contradictory to what, say Judaic "mystics" say, and very different again from an Aryan occultist "mystic." So I think that's pretty obviously wrong.

I told you my best guess as to why mystics from different cultures differ in ways from those of other cultures. "Mystic union" is said to be ineffable. It can't be communicated, related or put into words or speech. That's a common theme among all mystics according to what I've read. And when people do try to put it into words it seems to come with whatever metaphysical baggage the individual is carrying from his culture. At least that's what Walter Stace suggested in "Mysticism and Philosophy". I find that to be a compelling argument.

I mean, maybe the notion of there being a "God"/creator is a cultural prejudice of human culture which appoints kings and presidents as our leaders. American Indians were apparently much more anarchist in their spirituality (which maybe doens't fully grasp the whole picture either. Maybe some sort of supreme consciousness or spirit is responsible, whatever that may look or be like or whatever. I don't know. Otherwise, how do you explain mystic behavior such what people like the Buddha, Meister Eckhart, Teresa of Avila and many others experienced. Their experiences were so intense that it seemed to change them forever at their very core and they ended up going off into the woods or the proverbial temple in the mountains. Yet somehow people gravitated to them and tried to learn from them. There's something very interesting to me about that.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[phyllo]

Because that's the foundation. Everything begins with the realization that there are not many "gods," and that there is but one, who is objectively real, and has a particular and personal nature. Step one is: there is a God, and not just any God. That immediately narrows the field, in the extreme.

Assuming that there is good reason to think there is at least one god,

then why one god, why your god and your revelation?

People are obviously arguing that the characteristics of your god ... omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence ... are at odds with what is observed in the world.

Which is one reason to reject your god as the one correct god.

[Immanuel Can]

"Mystic union" is said to be ineffable.

that just means, "Anybody can get stoned."