/lit/ - Literature

no

nope

yes, it is. go tell all your friends. blog it. tweet it. call the newspapers. call the networks. contact your local congressman.

>>5279753
god knows god to exist, so he is a gnostic theist.

>>5279753
>god can't have faith

Actually, he must. Pic related.

God is dead.

>>5279753
yes in an internal way, plus sneaking in a few conditions in the second balloon, but god doesn't think or believe

>>5279888
this is a socio-cultural quasi-truth. it doesn't apply to theology

Actually, Christianity is based on 'science'. You probably believe that water or morphine, for example, has a certain molecular structure (In fact, I'm certain you believe in the 'H20' model), but how many times have you actually 'proven' to yourself via vigorous empirical observation that morphine or water or polystyrene, or anything else for that matter, is what you believe it is?

You believe in H20 and morphine because someone told you so. Well it's the same with Christianity. God has been observed - talking with Moses, with Abraham, with Lot, with hundreds of others, and these empirical facts have been recorded in the most accurate book of history we have called the Bible.

I'm not in a position to verify that God appeared to Moses, and I lack the ability to test whether morphine is comprised of 17 carbon atoms; there is not enough time in my mortal life on this earth to verify everything I take as fact. Your picture, with the "Faith is belief in things that aren't based in fact" applies to the atheist and the theist. To the radical skeptic atheist who denies knowledge of everything, to him every time he swallows medicine or fastens a seat-belt is an act of faith.

>>5279927
>You believe in H20 and morphine because someone told you so.

No, we believe it because there's evidence it exists. The chemical makeup of water and morphine is definable, testable and repeatable. In religion, nothing is

>>5279927
>tfw atheists have to put faith in something because dogma is impossible to live without

>>5279927
>I'm not in a position to verify that God appeared to Moses, and I lack the ability to test whether morphine is comprised of 17 carbon atoms;

The former is necessary, the latter contingent. There's the difference.

>>5279956
He's saying we know it exists because certain people have access to the means needed to verify it.

>>5279982
He's being an asshat. Water and opiates existed in a testable, repeatable state before modern chemistry.

>>5279956
>No, we believe it because there's evidence it exists
No, You believe that the evidence exists. You have 'faith' in this evidence.

>>5279981
The former is contingent too. If you maintain the stance that it's impossible to objectively verify any axiom, then noting is beyond potential.

>>5279927
>the most accurate book of history we have called the Bible.
bait

>>5280018
>The former is contingent too.

No, the nature of the event makes it empirically indeterminable. It is true that there could have been an occasion where God revealed himself to Moses which you could verify (suppose history had been different and it happened in your lifetime before your sight), but that is only in the realm of possibility. Given the nature of the claim as made, it is necessarily impossible to test. Whereas the only reason you can't test the structure of morphine is that you don't care enough to do so.

Pretending there is no difference is asinine.

>>5279996
>>5279996
>Water and opiates existed in a testable, repeatable state before modern chemistry.
Could you, for the benefit of the board, objectively verify for us that the morphine molecule exists. Until you can do this, we will have to assume that you have 'faith' in it's existence (presumably from second hand Chinese scientism whispers) and not an objective fact at all.

God has appeared to millions of people who all have personal knowledge of him. Millions of people. You are oblivious to his warm embrace and deny him, yet you will happily put your 'faith' in other things.

>>5280076
>>God has appeared to millions of people who all have personal knowledge of him.
Same with Elvis.

>>5280087
Exactly. I have faith in God and Morphine because of second-hand empirical observations that I agree with, and I cannot rule out the possibility that Elvis is still alive with a certainty reaching 100%.

>>5280107
So why haven't you faith in Elvis being alive?

>>5280076
done

>>5280122
Because I have no empirical observations from anyone else that I believe to be valid. If you could demonstrate something then my probability value might change.

The funny thing is, scientists don't believe their descriptive models to be objective facts, they constantly try to falsify them and are awarded Nobel prizes for doing so. It wasn't long ago that the majority of western society had faith in elements and platonic forms. Now we have atomic theory with quantum mechanics gaining ground and string theorists scribbling away at something that might be shunned. In 100 years atomic theory could be thrown out thrown out along with theory of opiate receptors and the theory of a molecule and replaced by something else. Yet all the evidence we have now, all the empirical observations point to a God and to a morphine molecule, and neither of these have been falsified. Yes, Russell's teapot hasn't been falsified either, but there are no real claims of empirical observation, and there is no secondary measurable impact on something else we can test.

>>5280147
Nope. You have provided a descriptive model that verifies itself within an inter-subjective system. You have failed to provide an objective fact.

God can't have "beliefs", that's a category error

>>5280190
woaw

you just blew muh mind m8

englighten me further

>>5280191
Go to bed, Ryle.

faith is only necessary on earth when man doesn't have all knowledge.

>>5279927
but you can verify scientific truths with your own experiments
like making chlorine gas with bleach and vinegar in your toilet bowl and having to evacuate your sleeping family

>>5280194

>>5280191
this
god is omniscient, so he doesn't believe, he knows

>>5280221

This assumes there are no things which are unknowable about which it is possible to hold beliefs.

People should also consider this: >>5279869

>>5280221
He doesn't "know" either. Knowledge cannot be spoken of within a context where doubt cannot exist

>>5280248

This is OK for pain, but not so much for God, I think. What makes you sure that he can't doubt? All I can think for you to say is "Because he is omniscient" which seems self-negating.

>>5280238
if it is unknowable god would be able to know it
god is inherently outside logic

>>5280267
>if it is unknowable god would be able to know it

Does God know the last digit of pi?

>>5280270
yes

>>5280277

But there is no last digit of pi.

>>5280284
and yet god knows it

>>5280287

Does God know the ratio of the sum of a triangle's three sides to its fourth side?

Does God know what unicorn meat tastes like?

Does God know all the things God does not know?

>>5280221
Knowledge is justified true belief, you silly.

>>5280191
Thats an error but its nit a category error. We are not putting a general into a particular here.

>>5279753
Webster defines faith as a strong belief or trust in someone or something. So his definition is wrong right off the bat. Moving on.

>ascribing human characteristics to an infinite Absolute being.
>is his logic sound

No, it isn't. God doesn't believe, he beyond belief. God can't NOT have something, God is and transcends everything. Claiming that God can't have faith is absurd because God is beyond belief in the first place. Limitations of any kind do not apply to God.

>Theology

>>5279753
God can't really have beliefs, but fully "understands" all beliefs from their particular viewpoint.
Believing is a human action, of which God is separate from and above.

From a human perspective and understanding, God does indeed know everything. In regards to God though, "knowing" or "having knowledge of" wouldn't be the right way to word it and would strictly be a human concept/action. God "knows" everything, but does not "know" in the way we may understand it.

Hypothetically

>>5279869
I liked this, anything more? source?

>>5280353
>Claiming that God can't have faith is absurd because God is beyond belief in the first place

I think you must be wording this badly. It's like saying that claiming God doesn't have a penis is "absurd" because God is beyond biology. The latter would entail the former, as with your claim, as phrased.

>>5280368

Embarrassingly, I made it. Glad you liked it, though.

>>5279869
so the demiurge is real

>>5280387
>I think you must be wording this badly.

>>5280362
^^ explains it better than I do.

>>5280261
Because he can't anything. He's not even a "he". Nothing can be said about him at all, strictly speaking.

>>5280387
>It's like saying that claiming God doesn't have a penis is "absurd" because God is beyond biology. The latter would entail the former, as with your claim, as phrased.

this was really obfuscating. the point is god is transcends fucking everything.

>>5280431
>Because he can't anything.

I dunno what you mean by that.

>>5280076
Lol this entire thread is an unmatchable display of the most willful and enthusiastic pseudo-profundity. We know morphine molecules exist because morphine exists, and insofar as morphine is an individual chemical (i.e. not a mixture), it is said to be composed of morphine molecules. Its not as if the words we use are some sort of veil that hides an inaccessible and transcendent truth which we can only hopelessly try to uncover.

Right now I'm sitting on a couch. Its pure sophistry to say "are you sure your sitting on a couch, isn't there something utterly unprecedented that we could discover tomorrow that would usher in a paradigm shift inaugurating a new post-couch era of history?" The usage of the word "couch" has become so established such that its impossible to be wrong when I say "I'm sitting on a couch". Even if we did discover something utterly baffling about couches - for example that they are made of millions of microscopic kittens with handlebar mustaches - we would still be able to continue using couch as we do now without any trouble. When I say "Im sitting on a couch" its not as if I'm attempting to make some assertion about the world which only seems to me to be true, but is actually subject to doubt. Its absolutely and infallibly true! When I say "I'm sitting on a couch" all I mean is that I'm having the experience that I'm having right now. There's no need to be making any grand epistemological claim about the nature of couch-sitting. Thats not my concern. I'm only attempting to give a name to a particular range of experiences I might have so as to discuss similar experiences with others. Nothing anyone discovers, realizes, asserts, or believes could convince me of the fact that I'm not sitting on a couch because when I say "I'm sitting on a couch" all I mean is precisely what I'm doing right now, regardless of what we might learn about this experience in the future.

Some statements are simply beyond doubt. Its the very nature of language.

>>5280287
God is all powerful.
Can he create a being more powerful than himself?
Can he both be god and not be god at the same time?

God is all powerful and all knowing.
Can god create that which he cannot understand?

If god did exist he would still be subject to the limits of logic and maths.

>>5280605
Das deep yo

>>5280713

I'm annoyed that I didn't instead ask him if God knows that there is no last digit of pi as well as knowing the last digit. Missed opportunity.