QuantumTroll wrote:This thread has gotten long. Ima try to respond to the most salient points in all your posts. No offense intended if I happen miss something important.
Metacrock wrote:The mistake you are making is to think of it an object "out there" that we an argue about. He was taking God as synonymous with being,not as an individual object among other objects that one could debate about, not the sum total of all physical matter either. The existential basis of what it is to be. Unless you think there is nothing more to life than just dead atoms in a meaningless void then you have some basis for belief in "the sacred." That is God, the generalizable "sacred."
You just contradicted yourself and proved a point I've been trying to make.
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No. look: saying "ground of being" is like saying "first cause." there's an indeterminate category, whatever it is that is the basis of all things being. If I think God serves that function, that no more means that being is God than it means that to say God is first cause is saying that all causes are good.
I am not constructing a seperate entity that exists apart from the universe is called "the ground of being." It's a function, the basis upon which all things cohere. Or to say "God is being itself" meaning God is the basic thing that being is in essence.
Now where's the contradiction? I have different idea about God than Tillich. I am not Tillich. I have my own ideas. I'm not the prophet of Tillich. But My ideas are influenced by him and much like his but not identical.
Sometimes I'm telling you what Tillich said, and sometimes what I think. If I say "Tillich said this" that doesn't necessarily mean it's my view. Or that I wont change my view at some point.
You're inconsistent with what God is, even while trying to have this very weak formulation.
How could it be otherwise. God is beyond our understanding. All language about God is merely analogy. So anytime you have that it's going to be fuzzy.
The existential basis of what it is to be =/= "the sacred". The Ground of Being is a metaphysical law or maybe even a law of physics.
No it's not. It's a metaphysical idea, I didn't know there any
"metaphysical laws." Certainly not laws of physics. It would have to be the basis of the laws of physics. The courts are not the legislature. Laws are passed by legislatures.
The "sacred" is that which makes life more than just dead atoms in a meaningless void. That is not the same thing. According to me, the sacred is a psychological phenomenon just like other feelings,
You are just redefining it to suit your criticism of it. trying to define it in such a way that you lose the phenomena and make it go away. "The sacred" is a value, it's what we as humans find most important, too important to be profaned or taken lightly. That means it's a value in our minds. Does that mean it's nothing more than a value and has no legitimate basis in reality? if so they you lose science, you lose law, you lose morality ,you lose everything that could ever say Is important.
whereas the Ground of Being is a logical/metaphysical singularity in the same sense that the Big Bang is a space-time singularity. Call it God or call it not, it's fine with me
what does that mean? what is a logical singularity?
It seems to me that even Tillich is guilty of this. Or maybe I still don't get him. Maybe the problem is that I believe that the experience of meaning and depth in life is part of being a thinking mammal (thanks to evolution), and this robs the Ground of Being of meaning. Or maybe not, I'm not sure.
how could evolution bestow a sense of the sacred upon creatures without connection to inherent meaning? You are trying to personify evolution and use it as a replacement for God. But if that was the case, then I fail to see the distinction between that and God. So you have merely proven Tillich's point that you can't say being has depth and be and atheist. You just illustrated what he's talking about.
Metacrock wrote: QuantumTroll wrote: Personally, I'm still not convinced there's any reason to believe there is such a thing as transcendence.
Empirically there is, people experience it.
And people experience UFO abductions, too.
nope! they don't. They experience delusions of it but they don't experience it. the difference? Transience really changes your life long term positive sense and ufo abductions don't. How could it change your life long term in a positive way in a dramatic way without something real being at the root of it?
check it out,
the whole point of transcendence is to transcend and if you do actually transcend then you have transcendence!
y9u can dey that and pretend its not there, the studies prove it is.
That doesn't mean there really are little green men in flying saucers whizzing around the planet. Empirically, there is nothing extra special about religious experiences as compared to similar psychological perturbations.
this is where I get mad. I've proven over an dover agan that theer is. I've proven it wiht 326 studies empricial scientific studies. a mouton of evidence,e quotes form sceintists. and you jus tgo "O no that doesnk' exist not true. I've never read a single page of any of those, but I don't want to believe this so I just ignre it."
You are just palying a little game with yourself. It's proven. it's there. you can't deny ti. is'motehr fucking dead to god dman fucking proven!
studies say it's the no1 factor in well being, changes your life dramatically like nothing else can like that can make it all better. but there's nothing special about it. nothing esle does that. nothing else anywhere will do what the studies show RE does. but it's not special!
nothing else like it but its not speical.
Did you know that, on average, Lourdes certifies one miracle per 29 million visitors? That essentially means that doctors know what happened 99.999997% of the time. Is that last case a miracle or statistical inevitability? I'm sorry, but I still feel that a purely materialistic universe (with no space aliens) makes a lot of sense despite some people's experiences.
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Obviously that's because the evidential requirements are so exacting. That's based upon 66 ofical miracles. But they 2000 remarkable cases. that means they missed it just by one piece of paper or one xray or one doctor who could not be reached, but everything else checks out. Then they have over a million claims of miracles.
why doesn't one miracle prove miracles?
that has nothing to do with religous experince.
that's a very dishonest way to argue. you should be ashamed of ourself.