Re: Christianity
Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2023 12:24 am
Well, that is all that that particular video and argument ever intended to establish. So we're good on that.Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Jun 13, 2023 11:39 pm OK. I agree, perhaps it is "reasonable" to believe an "extremely powerful, uncaused, necessarily existing, non-contingent,non-physical, immaterial, eternal being, created the universe and everything in it." Nothing wrong with that.
What does that tell us about "God"?
That it's far more plausible to believe He exists than that He does not. And that's all it is attempting to show.
Try the video on meaning.Does that tell us God created human beings with any special "plan" or "purpose"?
That's the reason there are multiple videos, Gary. They're all different. Each deals with a different question about God, and they don't answer the same question in each one.Where is the evidence that "X" created us to even "love" one another?
And that makes sense. Proving God exists is one thing. Proving that the God who exists is a loving God is another. And proving that the loving God who exists has plans for mankind is a third. They all harmonize with one another, but they're definitely not answering the same question each time.
More.A person can "hate" as much as they can "love".
That's an alternate way of telling the story: maybe man did all this stuff. But it doesn't really work, because man himself is a contingent being. He's not capable of creating stuff ex nihilo, whether we speak of the world into which he's born or a concept like "love." And if we imagine he did "invent" them, then they aren't anything more than man-generated seemings, which are no more durable and serious than he is.Our ancestors perhaps worked out that "loving" other humans is beneficial to every human's survival.
That's assuming those things are merely human concepts, and not ones that refer to anything larger or pre-existent to man himself. Do we have any reason to suppose that?And here's something else to consider. When we use the term "God" to explain an "extremely powerful, uncaused, necessarily existing, non-contingent,non-physical, immaterial, eternal being" are we trying to use human concepts...
I think not. After all, "gravity" is a word that humans use. But they certainly didn't invent gravity. "Death" is a human word, too... So the fact of having a word for something doesn't tell us that the thing to which it refers is human-generated.
*Clint Eastwood voice*: "Want's got nothin' ta do with it."If you want to believe that you'll burn in hell or whatever if you don't "accept" Christ, then by all means, I will not stop you.
What's that conclusion based on, Gary?I, however, believe Christ was probably a human being, who was either, having intense psychological experiences that led him to a false conclusion that he was the creator of the universe, or was some kind of an amalgamation of a hindu and monotheist who maybe conflated the notions of brahmin, atman, or whatever with the idea of God being separate from humans or whatever.
What did I promise? Did I promise you'd find either? And did the creators of the videos promise either? No, they promised only to answer the question with which each video begins, and to do so in 5 or 7 minutes. They didn't say they'd answer EVERY POSSIBLE question....none of them prove the fundamental tenet of Christianity, that Christ was God and that God was Yahweh who "chose" the Jews.
Yet those are good questions -- just not the ones the videos propose to address. And I have reasons for my beliefs concerning both; but you won't find them expounded in the videos, not because there's no answer, nor because the creators of the videos forgot them, but merely because they weren't the questions that the videos were aiming at.
What the videos do is to provide the thing that Biggie said couldn't be done -- namely, to provide non-religious arguments for the existence of God. If they've done that, they've done what they were supposed to do.
