Did Laidlaw, Broun, Stoppard, Chesterton...?

Originally posted by twhitehead

"The greatest act of faith takes place when a man finally decides that he is not God." (Johann Wolfgang Goethe)

1. He appears to be suggesting that most people think they are God. I think this is false. I certainly have never considered myself God and have never met anyone who has admitted doing so. But one could potentially give quite a ...[text shortened]... the size of acts of faith so how would one determine that this was a person's greatest such act?

Well, thank you. This one I must ponder (and get some more sleep at GMT-6). Be back sometime on Wednesday. -Bob

Originally posted by twhitehead
That is because it is subject to a fairly large amount of interpretation. You are clearly interpreting it a different way that I or googlefudge did but I am not entirely sure what your interpretation is.

That's the ecstasy of hermeneutics for you. As J.M. Coetzee once said: "I would not wish to deny you your reading."

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Sure.

Baker's dozen: Descartes, Pascal, Spinoza, Blake, Kierkegaard, Berkeley, Kant, St John of the Cross, St Teresa of Avila, Dostoyevsky, Tolkien, Wolfe (Gene), Dickens.

Originally posted by wolfgang59
Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics
to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This
is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and
Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit,
nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provi ...[text shortened]... st in
an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.
[b]Bertrand Russell[/b]

Can't gainsay that.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
In one concise paragraph statement, please help me grasp the concept of 'god' as a figment* of some dream or trance experienced by a well intentioned/misinformed priest or philosopher in the ancient world. I will listen with care.

Note: *Or by any other set of facts or rationale, argument or debater's technique you choose.

Erm... What?

I write a post about the validity of a particular kind of argument.

In short: if you say that "you shouldn't believe something about the nature of reality
because if it were true the consequences would be bad" then you have ceased to
care about what the truth IS. And instead are simply going to believe that which
you find comforting, regardless of it's veracity...

In which I write nothing about god being a figment...


And you respond with this...

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
In one concise paragraph statement, please help me grasp the concept of 'god' as a figment* of some dream or trance experienced by a well intentioned/misinformed priest or philosopher in the ancient world. I will listen with care.

Note: *Or by any other set of facts or rationale, argument or debater's technique you choose.

????

Seriously?

Try again. this time actually read what I posted...

here i'll post it again for you ....

You posted...

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Did Wilson get it right?

"If there is no God, then all that exists is time and chance acting on matter. If this is true then the difference between your thoughts and mine correspond to the difference between shaking up a bottle of Mountain Dew and a bottle of Dr. Pepper. You simply fizz atheistically and I fizz theistically. This means ...[text shortened]... ankind is a set of bi-pedal carbon units of mostly water. And nothing else." -Douglas Wilson

And I replied...

Originally posted by googlefudge
This argument basically boils down to ...
"I think it would suck if god didn't exist. Therefore I will believe that god exists."

An argument William Lane Craig is very fond of.

To me, whenever I see this argument I hear...

"I want to believe what makes me feel good regardless of whether its true or not."


My position is that there is no requirement on reality that it not suck.
Sometimes the truth sucks, [sometimes it's awesome] and the difference between
you and me is that I care what the truth is regardless of whether or not the truth
is what I would like it to be.


It would really suck to be told that you have advanced and untreatable cancer and
that you were going to die in a matter of weeks or months... Probably in a great deal
of pain. But the fact that it would suck to find out I was dying of cancer is irrelevant
to whether or not it was true.



Now I am perfectly happy and able to find meaning in a universe with no gods, nothing
Wilson says troubles me...
The fact that I know that my enjoyment of good food is simply a bunch of chemistry and
physics going on in my brain doesn't stop me enjoying the food.
But if I were troubled by a universe with no gods and say that I were to believe in gods
simply because I found the alternative tasteful then I would be announcing that I
no longer cared about finding the truth.

And that is exactly what anyone who uses this argument is saying.

Religion is their comfort blanket they huddle up with because they can't face up to a reality
that isn't as they would want it to be.





You say that a world without god would suck.

I say so what? That makes no difference to whether it's true or not.

Now do you have any response to my take down if this particular style of argument represented
in the quote you posted?

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Baker's dozen: Descartes, Pascal, Spinoza, Blake, Kierkegaard, Berkeley, Kant, St John of the Cross, St Teresa of Avila, Dostoyevsky, Tolkien, Wolfe (Gene), Dickens.

Pascal?

He of the famously idiotic wager...

What's he written that's worth a damn?

Originally posted by googlefudge
Pascal?

He of the famously idiotic wager...

What's he written that's worth a damn?

Define "worth a damn".

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Define "worth a damn".

Well written coherent arguments.

I should clarify, and this was sloppiness on my part, I was talking about his work
as a 'Christian philosopher' as opposed to his work as a mathematician and scientist.

Because however popular they me be, the arguments I have seen by him in this field
have been trivially easy to obliterate. Obviously wrong, and frustrating to see repeated
so often.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Well written coherent arguments.

I should clarify, and this was sloppiness on my part, I was talking about his work
as a 'Christian philosopher' as opposed to his work as a mathematician and scientist.

Because however popular they me be, the arguments I have seen by him in this field
have been trivially easy to obliterate. Obviously wrong, and frustrating to see repeated
so often.

I'm chiefly interested in the Pascal of the Pensées as a stylist.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
I'm chiefly interested in the Pascal of the Pensées as a stylist.

I am not totally sure what you mean by "as a stylist"?

Originally posted by googlefudge
I am not totally sure what you mean by "as a stylist"?

I've used it the same way Jake Kerridge does in the following sentence (referring to Dan Brown): "As a stylist, he gets better and better: where once he was abysmal he is now just very poor."

Except Pascal is a brilliant stylist.

Originally posted by twhitehead

"The greatest act of faith takes place when a man finally decides that he is not God." (Johann Wolfgang Goethe)

1. He appears to be suggesting that most people think they are God. I think this is false. I certainly have never considered myself God and have never met anyone who has admitted doing so. But one could potentially give quite a w ...[text shortened]... the size of acts of faith so how would one determine that this was a person's greatest such act?

"The greatest act of faith takes place when a man finally decides that he is not God." (Johann Wolfgang Goethe)

"He appears to be suggesting that most people think they are God." -twhitehead

My read centers on the prior realization that despite his own genius and self confidence there was someone stronger and smarter than himself; and on the courage it must have taken to 'finally accept the rational decision that he wasn't God'.

"It is not clear whether Goethe is saying that after man decides he is not God, he then commits an act of faith, or whether he is saying that deciding that he is not God is itself an act of faith." -twhitehead

God Consciousness is a universal process of discovery. In advanced high tech societies an awareness of some superior intelligence displayed in observable phenomenon (by microscope, telescope or naked eye) occurs as early as pre-school; in remote jungles, maybe not until late teens or early twenties. Decision Options: if there's someone up or out there, I want know you or I'm not interested. If volitions says, "Yes" God has the responsibility to provide information about Himself and His Plan to make your informed relationship with Him possible. If volition says, "No" God has no further responsibility to reconcile you to Himself (though His Grace and Virtue Love for all mankind wait patiently for you to change your mind.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Define "worth a damn".

What do you mean by "define"?

Originally posted by twhitehead

It was not a question. I was pointing out why there are not many theists in this thread. You seemed to think the lack of theists in the thread demonstrated the accuracy of the Heywood Broun quote - I was explaining that there was another explanation that better fits the situation.
Your response:

We're examining ideas within quotations, not the ...[text shortened]... we disagree. Let's elevate our focus.

Clearly shows you did not understand what I said.

"Nobody talks so constantly about God as those who insist that there is no God." -Heywood Broun;

"It was not a question. I was pointing out why there are not many theists in this thread. You seemed to think the lack of theists in the thread demonstrated the accuracy of the Heywood Broun quote..." -twhitehead

An implied question, I should have said. Sorry for the error. I'm pleased you misunderstood my 'thinking'. You've given me opportunity to state unequivocally that the opposite reality holds true. Though I have several 'theist' friends on this site, my sole motivation for contributing to this forum is to engage those who are self proclaimed theists in thoughtful conversation.

If I was a non-theist an emptiness and uncertainty would pervade my being day and night. I'd visit this forum, seeking light.
"Nobody talks so constantly about God as those who insist that there is no God." Broun describes that Grampy Bobby.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Baker's dozen: Descartes, Pascal, Spinoza, Blake, Kierkegaard, Berkeley, Kant, St John of the Cross, St Teresa of Avila, Dostoyevsky, Tolkien, Wolfe (Gene), Dickens.

Thanks, Bosse. I'm familiar with Descartes, Pascal, Spinoza, Blake, Kierkegaard, Kant, St John of the Cross [NT?], St Teresa of Avila, Dostoyevsky, Tolkien and Dickens. How about a favorite quotation or two from each of these literary giants?