Epistemological problem of God

These are just my thoughts. I'm not 100% committed to them really, so I am looking for some good objections to what I am about to say. I think it is impossible to know whether or not God exists. And here is my argument.

When we talk about God, we assign IT(since God is genderless, this isn't a pun at Christians,Muslims, or Jews) certain attributes, such as omniscience, omnibenevolence, or omnipresence. However, the question I am consistently perplexed by is HOW we know God has these particular attributes. One way is appeal to a particular religious tradition and say that will show the attributes. However, appealing to a religious tradition is an appeal to a holy book which then has the problem of knowing whether the holy book is actually divinely inspired or not. How can I possibly know whether what the holy book says about God is the way God actually is? Holy book X says God has attributes A,B, and C. And then I ask how it knows this, and it says it's divinely inspired. It's circular reasoning, and it seems that this is deeply problematic.

And the other route taken, though still deeply related to an appeal to religious tradition, is to think of God as a somehow supercharged human without any religious tradition. However, this isn't satisfactory either. There is no way for me to know what attributes God does in fact have and it seems as though someone trying this route would still be sneaking in religious tradition. It isn't like morality, where we can appeal to our experience. Nothing in our direct experience suggests God has any sort of attribute at all. Are you born knowing that God's attributes are omniscience, omnipotence, or omnibenevolence? No. You learn these through Church, parents, and the like.

So both "solutions" are no good. If you appeal to a religious tradition, then we cannot know whether the religion tradition itself is saying what God truly is, and if you appeal to supercharged human, then that leaves us with the same problem. We cannot know what attributes God has, and since we cannot know that, we cannot know whether God exists.

 

Do you really not see the problem with that reasoning?

 

How can we know whether or not God exists if we have no idea what God even is? If we can't know what God is, we can't meaningfully talk about God, and thus knowing whether God exists seems impossible.

 

You're shifting the goal posts. We don't have to be able to list all of God's attributes to know He is the Creator of all that is good.

 

That is an attribute sort of, that God is completely omnibenevolent. My question is how you can know that God is such?

 

That's like asking how I can know right from wrong. You would do better to ask how it is that people don't know it; i.e., how they have managed to forget it.

 

So, people who say they know something don't have to explain how they know it; they can just flip the question and ask back how the other person doesn't know that same something.

Doubly noted.

 

We are not talking about "something", we are talking about self-evident truths.

 

how is it self-evident?

 

"It" is not a person. "It" is a thing. So I never would call him "it". "He - the bearer" is a very old expression what shows how our languages are limited. We need also a feeling for "him", for "her", for "it". "It" sounds more like a machine. Machine hearts, machine minds and a cold way without empathy is more than only a difficult spiritual way.

In logos we trust

The christian religion (not only a jewish but also a greek religion) is also called "the religion of the book" because greeks (the leading culture of the world) started to use books instead of rolls. It's the difference of a seriell stream of knowledge to a new parallel technique. We are inside of an endless explosion of knowledge and we are hopefully able to keep the right balance the same time. Example: If we will like to travel to the stars then we need a power what could be able to destroy the sun - but if we will have this power then we should not try do destroy the sun only because we can do so.

Use your logos - trust in your emotions and so on. Try to be in harmony with your inside and your outside - and always try to speak with someone about your thoughts and experiences. Like good mathematicians, philosophers, scientists are able to make also mistakes so everyone is able to make mistakes. Misunderstandings in religious motivations are nearly normal today - sepcially beausse of atheism - but as long as love is in the center of your thoughts you will be motivated to reach a best possible way for everyone.

I don't remember in the moment that the bible says so.

Sorry: but a devils circle is a special problem in philosophy what creates a paradox in our thoughts. If you start to think about the human existance then you will find lots of paradoxes. I would say: If you are thinking in the end that our own existance is not a deep paradox itselve then I would be astonished. The belief in god is like a travel in a ship of lots of believers in a stormy sea of paradoxa. While we are traveling we are able to watch this beautiful sea full of life with dry feet.

No knowledge without tradition. Example: No Einstein without Newton.

"I can get not ... satisfaction ... " is a way of the world.

So what? He loves you. Do you need more information?

Moral?

Hmm - for some people he's invisible for example and for other people he's everywhere - the result is the same.

No. But I was like a wonder of god for my parents. Nevertheless: my knowledge was not the best when I was born. It still could be better.

Nice end. Is it "the end"?

http://youtu.be/fv2kmFZTDeY

 

I would ask first, how do you 'know' anything? What is your method of 'knowing'? And how do you 'know' its correct?

Quantrill

 

There are many condrictions about the nature of God.

1; If god is omnibenevolent and omnificent, how did he created lucifer? A 100% good being who knows all that will ever happen and has ever happened, would not be able to create a being that would be evil. Because that would mean that he was the initial cause of the evil.

2; Why did not allow Lucifer to enter the garden? He knew it would happen, why did he not make it impossible for him to do it? God kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden because of their sin, but Lucifer was already a sinner, so using the same logic, he should never had been able to enter the garden to begin with.

3; If god loves all of his creations unconditionally, why does he demand worship? If you do not worship god, he will never help you. That is not unconditional love. A person could live their life exactly in the way god would intend them to, but if that good life in not accompanied by worship of god, then all of the goods deeds with go completely unnoticed by him.

4; God will never interfere with free will. That is why he allows people to be murdered and raped and otherwise harmed by others, because he cares more about allowing the murder and rapist to exercise free will than about the safety of innocents. But what about people who get hurt by non-manmade disasters? What about when a desease or other natural occurance kills hundreds of innocent people? That has nothing to do with free will, but God allows it to happen.

 

It's impossible to PROVE God, but it's not impossible to know God.


It's like knowing the sun is there by the warm feeling on your back.

 

I'm not making the positive claim that God exists. How do you KNOW that God exists? The burden of proof is on you my dear sir.

 

No one has to justify his belief only because his belief is less worth in your own eyes than your own belief, inquisitor.

http://youtu.be/IkkVxjsy-LU

 

So when I ask you why you believe something, and how you KNOW something, you just say you don't have to justify it?????? Hmmmm. Well I will propose that there is an invisible pink elephant in my room right now. And I have no obligation to offer you any justification for why I believe this. It's just true!

 

It's not easy to answer not existing questions. If you woud like to know something about the christian religion I'm sure you would be able to find some worthful informations.

Another question: How often in your life did you write such or similiar sentences and why are you doing so? What is your reason to repeat continously messages like "Christians are idiots believing in nonsense"?

http://youtu.be/wONwwvhNI2A

 

Your making the claim that it is impossible to know whether or not God exists. Which means you should describe what you mean by 'know'. How do you 'know' anything? And how do you 'know' your method of knowing is correct?

Why is there a 'burden of proof' on me? You started this discussion, not me.

Quantrill

 

Being a Christian you are asserted God exists right? My problem is simply about what the nature of this being is you say exists, and you came to this information. I've already laid out why I believe it's impossible. What other method is there to find out what God's nature would be?

 

No. I do not think God is equivalent to an invisible pink elephant. I was simply making the point about justification. That's all. The example was just to bring out what I was trying to say.

 

You believe it's idiotic for a person to propose that an invisible pink elephant is sharing his life with him? That's interesting.

 

Being a Christian I know God exists. Im under no burden to prove it. Just because you don't know, places no burden on me. Your making the claim here, not me.

You now say 'why I believe it's impossible'. That must mean you don't know, right? Which is different than what you were saying earlier. You said, 'we can't know God exists.'

So, the bottom line is you don't know. You don't believe it, but you don't know.

Quantrill

 

How so?

Why not?

Yes it does.

No you just made the claim that you know God because you are Christian., You must substantiate that in order to not be laughed at.

Correct. Logically one should be agnostic or apatheist, as I am. So why do you not apply the logic to yourself? How do you know God is real?

 

It is always astounding to me that ones who have not seriously read or studied the Bible or EVEN UNDERSTAND IT are the very ones waxing philosophical on the NON-existence of God.

Carry on.

 

It is not interesting. That's one of the problems. Nevertheless it could be good to know where your senseless hate comes from and who washed your brain with rhethoric bull(*)(*)(*)(*). Why do you not like to speak about your "own" motivation, Borg?

http://youtu.be/T7Vadzjac6g