bald man blogging

Norm says:

Rantz, true not all of the apostles were scholars, Paul was the most educated of them, Peter and John were educated to a degree, but all of them were learned in the old testament scriptures therefore they knew how to read and write. the only differences in their writings is from their own perspectives. their stories are the same. Spinoza [Ibelieve] said,” Truth is like a diamond, there are many facets, but it is the same.” It does not matter which angle you look at the truth, because you always end up with the truth,

Norm says:

Rantz, you might like to read Espinozas Ethica

Norm says:

sorry Mispelled ;Spinosa.

Jeremy Pierce says:

Actually, scholars are as likely or even more likely to spell it ‘Spinoza’ as they are ‘Spinosa’. Either could be a legitimate transliteration, but the first one is the one I see most commonly in philosophical literature.

Bald Man says:

Sean,
I almost missed your question: yes I’m a Christian.

rantz grotto says:

Norm: Who is this Spinosa or Spinoza person?

Jeremy Pierce says:

Baruch Spinoza was an important philosopher in the early modern period, around the time of Rene Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke. He was a monist, thinking that all reality constitutes one thing without distinct parts, and he called that thing God. He was thus a pantheist of sorts. He was also a necessitarian, thinking everything that happens is the result of necessary forces in God that have nothing to do with rational choice, free will, or any contingency.

His treatise Ethics is largely a work not of ethics but metaphysics, in which he starts out with all manner of controversial axioms and seeks to prove with all manner of controversial inferences the sum total of his metaphysical picture by using what he considered mere logical inference. It’s arranged like a mathematical proof.

He was probably the first modern biblical critic. He was excommunicated by his fellow Jews, a very rare occurrence even in those days as I understand it. What he did with the Bible pales in comparison with what followed, particularly in the 19th century, but he was really the first modern figure to start treating the Bible as a document to be critical of.

Norm says:

True, but by his criticism he prooves that there is a God, and that nothing can exsist without him, however controversial that may be. Strange how his idea is considered to be of pantheism when his body of work points to a single God.

Jeremy Pierce says:

He does call the universe God, and thus he says he’s proved the existence of God. But for him God is the sum total of all things, and thus it’s pantheism. A pantheist believes in a single God — the universe! It’s a polytheist who believes in multiple gods. Spinoza is no polytheist, since he’s not poly-anything. There is only one thing to begin with.

Sean says:

Gentleman, what you are talking about is called the cosmological argument for God’s existence. Every effect has a cause. Everything that has a begining is an effect. The Universe has a begining. Therefore, the Universe has a cause. The cause of the Universe must not be part of the Universe (i.e. it must be super-natural). Let that cause be God.

Norm says:

Yes ,but he still proves the exsistance of God metaphisicaly from out side the source [The bible]

Sean says:

God can be proved outside of any source…based on reason alone through what is called the ontological argument:

1. It is a conceptual truth (or, so to speak, true by definition) that God is a being than which none greater can be imagined (i.e., the greatest possible being that can be imagined).
2. God exists as an idea in the mind.
3. A being that exists as an idea in the mind and in reality is, other things being equal, greater than a being that exists only as an idea in the mind.
4. Thus, if God exists only as an idea in the mind, then we can imagine something that is greater than God (i.e., a greatest possible being that does exist).
5. But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God (for it is a contradiction to suppose that we can imagine a being greater than the greatest possible being that can be imagined.)
6. Therefore, God exists.

This argument does not depend on any sensory data.

Norm says:

I was throwing this info for Rantz, but its good to know about these exterraneous sources

rantz grotto says:

Sean: I have something greater than God in your theory. How about the thing which created God! If the world could have been created without some sort of creater, how can God have been created without some some sort of creater? Even Zeus had parents. Your arguement falls to the holes of, Can even God create a rock so big he can’t lift it. If yes, he can’t do all things, if no he’s not all powerful. Also, if God exists only in the mind, that means that God is not real, thus, not something for which we need to worship. I’m not really sure how your arguement works in any way other than to disprove what you were trying to prove.

rantz grotto says:

Norm: The idea of attempting to prove or disprove God really isn’t that thrilling to me. As was stated over on my blog, belief is based on a leap of faith or not leaping of faith. There is no way to prove God without God itself stepping forward. There is no way of disproving God since I know of no way of disproving something without first proving it.

Now the arguement made by Spinosa as stated by Jeremy and understood by me is that some random force created the universe and for the lack of a better name they called it god (Lack of capitalization is important here). This force lacks a personality and is just a force of nature. To say that the universe was created without some force is silly, but to say that force has a personality and the will and desire to have others worship it is where the arguement on God (note capitalization) exists.

Some might say the above statement leads to a gray area between Athiesm and Agnostism, but I don’t believe so.

Also, I think to avoid further confusion we need to rename the Christian God from the generic term of god to Jehova so as not to confuse the concepts of the two. I think this might clear up some confussion.

Jeremy Pierce says:

The rock God can’t move issue is a pseudo-problem. I’ve addressed it here.

It isn’t really an objection to the cosmological argument to ask what created God. The point of the argument is to show that there must be some sort of being whose existence isn’t explained by things outside itself. If you follow the argument in its details, that becomes clear. Whatever it shows, it shows that something exists whose explanation is within itself. If you then ask why that thing exists, the answer is somehow within itself. For more, see here on the cosmological argument itself and here for responses to objections to it.

Sean says:

Rantz,

Firstly, the quip, “who made God” has no bearing on the cosmological argument. It is a premise that only effects have causes. God is not an effect therefore he does not need a cause. Since God has no begining he can be an uncaused causer.

God can’t perform acts that are contradictions. Since there is no such thing as a rock so big that it cannot be moved it is a meaningless question. Furthermore, God cannot make a square circle not because of any limitation on his part but because there is no such thing as a square circle.

As to your comments on the ontological argument, perhaps you need to chew on it a bit before dismissing it out of hand. Besides, I didn’t invent any of this, these ideas have been around for centuries. I’ll leave you with a question, “According to your beliefs, what caused the begining of the Universe?”

rantz grotto says:

Sean: The only way that God can be causeless is to believe that nothing created God. You are creating conditions in your answer. To say that these arguements have been around for centuries and therefor are correct is also not really logical. Do you think I’m the first person to ask if God could do things which create contradictions? The arguements against God have existed as long as (or in some cases longer (some things in Christianity are exactly the same as those in other, older religions)) those for God. I really don’t understand the arguement that has been made many times here that “we’ve said this over and over for 2,000 years so it must be true.”

According to my beliefs I have no idea what caused the begining of the universe. I don’t need to define everything that exists. I don’t have to understand how to build a house to live in it. We don’t know, and will never know 100% how the universe was created during our living moments (unless God decides to show himself (if he exists)). Doesn’t bother me. Would I like to know, sure. Now, I’ll say that I lean most toward the Big Bang theory out of those I’ve heard, but I can’t really say I believe it totally because I don’t understand space science enough to do so.

“I don’t know! I don’t know! I like that. I think I’m going to leave that right here on the board for everyone to see. ‘Mr. Hand, am I going to pass this class?’ ‘Gee Mr. Spikoli, I don’t know’. I like that.” -Fast Times At Richmont High

Norm says:

Rantz, the reason I suggested Spinoza was partly to give you another direction to start from to get to what is true. Spinoza states that something caused the universe to come into being. that something was God, if you want, call it a creator. This creator, According to Spinoza, was/is something that has no beginning and no end. therefore, he says it must be a God. He also gives argument to disprove the exsistence of this God in the appendix of his work, Ethics., which he calls absurd because as he argues to disprove, he further proves this God. I am not trying to convert you here, though if you did I would be elated for you, but as you seem to be pretty intelligent, I just wanted to give you another source outside the bible to examine for yourself. I have found the old adage, you cant teach an old dog a new tirck, not to be true. From experience I have taught an old dog. But , as you insist in not wanting to know that there is a god, I do see that you do leave an opening for the possibility that he does exsist. W. C. Feilds, an atheist himself, on his deathbed asked for a bible. When questioned as to why. He said , “Looking for loopholes”. As you said there are holes in the god theory, so you must admit there are holes in your atheism, or you wouldnt leave room for any possibilities. There is one thing that everyone from atheist to scientist to bible scholars agree on. That is that there was a beginning. But like you said that you seek not to believe because you have no reason to believe. your willingness to be open minded allows dummies like me to speak. so with this i leave you with this, I will continue to pray that you come to the knowlege of truth.

Sean says:

Rantz,

I think you misunderstand what I say a lot. As to your first assertion that I am creating my own answer I think you are probably not correct there. Look at the statements again.

Every effect has a cause.
Everything that has a begining is an effect
The Universe has a begining.
Therefore, the Universe has a cause.
The cause of the Universe must not be part of the Universe (i.e. it must be super-natural).
Let that cause be God.

I am not twisting anything here (to my knowledge at least). Nothing is necessary to have created God if God does not have a begining. So then, there are two possible soultions to this (1) there is an eternal God (2) there is an eternal succesion of gods. You deny both.

As to your point about these arguments being around for a long time, I was simply saying that I wasn’t inventing anything. Age is no garuntee for truth, I never meant to even imply that.

I think you should research into whether or not the Universe has a begining. Apparently the Big Bang is the biggest theory in town and the Big Bang has a definite point in time when it began. So if you are a believer in the Big Bang then by logical extension you should either believe in an eternal God or an eternal succesion of gods. To believe that the Universe has a begining and not to believe in a Cause is contradictory.

A side point, my friend, is that you are not an atheist. You are not sure about whehter God exists or not and you are not even sure if the Universe has a begining. This makes you an agnostic (a = not; gnosis = knowledge).

Bald Man says:

Well, now what was the original question again?

Rantz_Grotto says:

Norm: Thank you for your prayers and well wishes. I enjoy the expanding oppertunities learning provides. Some day I may look further into Spinoza.

Sean: This conversation leads easily to misunderstandings. All things in the Bible do (hence my ealier comments on if the true meanings of the original authors were correctly conveyed). I don’t see that a god (being with higher though) had to exist to create the universe.

As to your attempt to redefine me, my wife makes the same point as you do. To me I’m an athiest because I believe there is no diety (http://209.161.33.50/dictionary/atheist). I am willing to listen to your arguements and will admit I’m wrong if convienced, but that does not mean that I acknowledge a god (Which to me is the definition of an agnostic, one who acknowledges a god in some form, but doesn’t know which form is correct.). Again, notice how two learned people have different connotations of words leading to potential misunderstandings.

Baldman: I wish to thank you for hosting this exchange. It is fun and one I hope will continue either here or at my site. It has allowed for many questions to be asked and good answers presented.

Bald Man says:

I’m always happy to host…

Sean says:

Why do you say, “all things in the Bible lead to misunderstandings?” This is not an accurate statement. The vast majority of the Bible is easy to understand to such an extent that without any education, just literacy, one can pick up and understand what it says. The Bible interprets itself marvelously. You should definitely read the whole thing through (if you haven’t already). You may be surprised at how many things are explained by getting a proper foundation of the Old Testament before coming to read the New Testament.

As to your comment, “I don’t see that a god had to exist to create the universe.” My question to you is, “did you believe the universe had a begining?”

Ian says:

I must say, I agree with Sean on this one. The Bible, if read from beginning to end is extremely easy to understand. All of the little ‘kinks’ and ‘twists’ that people find one place or another, in my experience at least, are always thoroughly explained within the next few pages, or the pages previous. Like Sean said, the Bible is it’s own concordance; the Old Testament(Hebrew) are the building blocks for one who has faith. Without that foundation, and religion based off of the Bible will be very hard to uphold. Without a proper framework, without proper support, nothing is very sturdy.

I guess then also, that I should place my bets on the whole ‘God’ thing. Sometimes, it’s seems that philosophy had it right in the first place. Common practice for many age-old philosophers was the deduction of an answer through persistent, clear, and logical reasoning. Take, say… a human life as an example. Because we know that instantaneous (and spontaneous for that matter) biogenesis is not possible, the why deduce that that person(s) had to have a beginning, they had to be created. And, what is a creation without something to create it (ie. the two parents of the child). And, logically, each of those parents had two of their own parents and so on and so forth until the beginning of human existence. And, when there was no human existence, what created humans? Well, since there is no creation without a creator, and there are no humans around to create any other humans, one must deduce that there must be some other super-natural being that defies both age and human understanding in order to have created humans in the first place. And, while I’m not sure about you, this seems to be a well mapped-out description of God.

The universe is the same way. So, unless the universe had no beginning, then the universe had to be created by none other then a super-natural being who defies both age and human understanding; ie. God.

rantz grotto says:

Ian, Who or what created your god? Why can god have spontanious creation, but not the first human? I also seem to have little to join the god (note little g) with God (note capital G). If some force X did create the universe, what makes you think it is the same force who defined Christianity and not the force who defined Shintoism or the Bambuti religion?

Sean says:

Rantz, only things with a begining need a creation. The God the Bible teaches is eternal therefore he does not require a creation.

Ian says:

As I see Sean has stated, the Bible teaches that God ‘was, is, and is to come’, effectively making him eternal. God didn’t have ’spontanious creation’ being as he is eternal, as Sean also pointed out.

And, as with your second point, perhaps I jumped to conclusions here, connecting the ’supernatural being’ in Seans post to the God of the Bible. If it’s seems that I made that jump without any real basis, my apologies. Sometimes I make connections in my mind, and just assume that everyone will be able, by some obviously non-existant means, be able to follow my train of thought.

All I meant to point out, or I suppose rather, to reinforce, was the fact that if the universe did have a beginning there must have logically been something (God in my assumption) that predated the universe in order to create it. And, because time can’t really exist outside of the universe, it is (in my opinion) quite logical to assume that this person/thing would have to be eternal.

rantz grotto says:

Ian & Sean: That is assuming that what is stated in the Bible is the truth. You can’t draw from another unproven conclusion to prove your clause. As Ian points out nicely, you have to join him on his conclusion jumping to reach the same endpoint as he does. It is the common conclusion jump, and without it we wouldn’t be discussing this today. Unfortunitly, if your point is to use only logic to prove the existance of God (or god), you can’t make that jump in your proof.

I hereby conclude that without faith, the existance of God is nearly imposible to accept. With faith, the denial of God is nearly impossible to conceive. Our ideas are not seperated by right or wrong, meerly faith.

Ian says:

“I hereby conclude that without faith, the existance of God is nearly imposible to accept. With faith, the denial of God is nearly impossible to conceive. Our ideas are not seperated by right or wrong, meerly faith.”

What is faith, but the distinguishment of right and wrong? Faith allows us to understand what is right action from a biblical standpoint, and, by extension, what is right action by our morals. Faith also allows us to be able to distinguish wrong. Though, one must also understand that faith isn’t simply the acceptance that God exists. I can have faith that tomorrow will be Thursday and, when tomorrow comes around, be it Thursday or not, I’ve still had faith that it would be Thursday tomorrow. And while this may seem a silly analogy, it is also a simple one. Another would be if, say, I was sky-diving. I would (hopefully) have faith that my parachute would work properly before I jumped out of the plane. Now, despite if my faith is based in truth or not, I’ve still had faith one way or another. Faith was once explained to me as expectance + yearning. I expect that this event is going to happen, and I also want it to happen, therefore I have ‘faith’ that the event will transpire.

And, for the sake of not being long-winded, just a question in response to your statement of:

“That is assuming that what is stated in the Bible is the truth. You can’t draw from another unproven conclusion to prove your clause.”

What proof is there that the Bible is unproven? What proof do you have/exists that the Bible is not truth?

Bald Man says:

Philosophical arguments over the existence of god always seem to break down at some point. Unmoved mover? Fine, I’ll take an infinite progression of movers. What an outside “mover” to put that infinite progression in place? Fine, make mine an infinite progression of outside movers acting on an infinite progression. And so on…

And this from someone who believes in God.

Also, to say the the Bible is self-explanatory is, in my opinion, a misstatement. There are reasons that well intentioned, sincere, education people have debated and continue to debate the texts of the Bible: everything from meaning to historicity to application. The Bible isn’t all mystery and code, but it isn’t “The Cat in the Hat” either.

And this from someone who follows Christ and thinks the Bible has been inspired by God…

Rantz,
I’d have to say that god by definition would be eternal and without a creator. If god were a created being that that being would be inherently something other than god. Perhaps something more along the lines of a superhero. For example, the Greek gods of mythology or the pantheon of Hinduism would fall into the superhero category. God is the singular superlative; nothing can be greater than god.

Ian,
I suspect the outlandish claims of the Bible require your question to be turned on its head: What proof is there that the claims of the Bible, many of which run counter to the ordinary way things work, are true?

rantz grotto says:

Baldman: I agree with your statement. My question is not, “Did something create the universe?” Because I know that something did. As has been stated, nothing can come from nothing, or is it everything must come from something… My question is more, “Is that something a thinking being or a random set of events?” To me a god must be a thinking being. That’s just me though.

Ian: I can have faith that tomorrow is Friday. It doesn’t change the fact that, ok, I write this at 4 past midnight… So I have faith that tomorrow is Monday, yeah, I can have faith that is so. It won’t change the fact that tomorrow is Friday. I’d be wrong, but I would still belive it because I have faith in it. We can have misplaced faith. Just having faith doesn’t mean we are correct. If all it took was faith, then my favorite teams would win every year, because I have faith in them.

Sean says:

What a wonderful distraction from a simple set of propisitions.

1. the universe has a begining
2. something or someone must have begun it that is outside or not included in the designation “universe”
3. this therefore leaves two options (1) an eternal God (2) an eternal succesion of gods.

Yet, you, Rantz, reject both! What’s to argue about? Why does the Bible have to even be a point of discussion at this point? I’m talking logically here and I’m not sure where this line of reasoning breaks down.

Sean says:

Believing the Bible is true or not takes faith either way. The only question is “Is it more reasonable to have faith that the Bible is true or have faith that it is not true?” However, I’d rather talk about the existence of God first because that is what Rantz denies.