The only "knowledge" humans have of God is based on the stories we have told ourselves about him.
So any counter argument on his abilities to know the future or not is moot.
THE IMPONDERABLES TOPIC (Enter at your own risk)
by Terry 61 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Terry
He knows, therefore, He is. If He cannot know, He does not exist.
The interesting question (well, to ME, anyway) is, what is it we are CERTAIN that God knows in advance when there exist person's who have the power and the will to change, disturb, rearrange, nullify, invent or corrupt?
I assert that God possessing and using Foreknowledge cannot occur beyond a vague or general "best guess". And that is NOT the same thing as seeing the future in advance.
Scientific Prediction deals with non-living physics accurately enough to --say---shoot a rocket containing a robot off through space and land it in a specific area at a precise location in time and space EVEN THOUGH earth is spinning and so is Mars WHILE revolving about the Sun! That is NOT foreknowledge of the same nature that is attributed to God, however. The Rocket cannot will itself otherwise nor is either Earth or Mars likely to decide to change orbit.
God speakers(people who speak FOR God) fall back on magic as their explanation. That's why it's a dead end. Using magic as the answer for such huge, important parts of your life stops thought, real searching and is intellectually lazy.
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minimus
It's medication time..
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donny
Terry must be gaving some good coffee down there in Texas! Great post.
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Terry
I ran out of cream!
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Now why, I ask you, do people (humanity) insist on reading the Bible to discover WHO/WHAT God is?
Our brain has a one on one relationship with the nature of our earthly reality.
Man's sin is a default of his human nature.
God's goodness is a default of God's nature.
Communication and understanding of Man and God take place with words, writing and thoughts irrevocably tied down to an attempt at rational discourse.
Rational is a ratio between verifiable and non-verifiable data whereby we actually determine a DIFFERENCE!
Otherwise, morality is impossible to judge on the basis of understanding what is moral/immoral.
Reductionism doesn't work for certain things such as the MIND sets before itself. The Gestalt is such that the whole is actually greater (more profound) than the sum of its parts.
What you and I perceive as beauty and truth is irreducible yet connected to "that which IS..."
Mozart and Bobby Fischer anybody?
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We know that the brain does work electrically and organically to produce a sort of ghost in the machine which enables the brain's owner to interface with
all perceptible stimulation.
Additionally, the human mind can dabble with its own after-echoes. These resonances become recursive and all attempts
to analyze them create meta-entanglements. If we think about thinking, for example...
Now, I understand that we can stimulate the brain and "cause" precitable reaction. But, how is that different from clapping your hands and frightening off
grackles in the tree in your driveway?
My toothache may be universally and empathetically accessible to others--but--that is an inference objectively appraised. It is a far cry from being identical to MY PAIN which is subjectively experienced by ME.
When a gay guy looks at the very same women I'm lusting after I'd have to hypothesize that an essential difference is happening in our respective brains.
Is this because the woman is somehow different to each of us? Doubtful.
Is our filtering/appraisal/conceptual mechanism that much different? Dunno.
Our personally acquired VALUES determine how we FEEL about what we see and hear and think. Ineffable, intangible and irreducible to specs.
However similar me and the gay guy might well be-- our respective identity as a person makes our values considerably at odds.
Our mind is our nature.
Map it as you will--it is irreproducible for what it actually is as a part of the individual human whose nature lies therein.
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sparrowdown
Self-awareness is not necessary for existence.
Sorry , you have lost me.
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Terry
If we look up into the sky and see a horse while looking at a cloud you wouldn't say that the "horse-ness" of our identification is contained in
the constituency of the cloud itself, would you? I reckon not. It is in the inherent pattern-seeking which the brain has developed.
If we look at twin mountains, like the native Americans did, and name them the Grand Tetons (Big Titties) that would hardly be reducible to
the boulders and soil, would it? Nah.
I am saying we blurt our impressions "as though" they are credible. The deer that blurts a waving plant stalk as a Lion's tail in that waving high grass may be wrong--but--if correct? The actual crouching lion will lose the advantage of camouflage and surprise.
Science is like that. What is an hypothesis but a blurt? The testing of it is the proof of such pudding.
Now...back to GOD.....if you don't mind....:)
We as a species tend to assign causality in the same manner the deer blurts the lion tail out of the waving grass.
Without God the primitive humanoid has no agency to approach for mercy or appeasement--so, how useful if the transaction could be due to invisibility.
After all, Charles Taze Russell thought it solved the 1914 return of Jesus problem. (Psssst....he's invisible!)
God having the FOREKNOWLEDGE to see the end from the beginning is a default of the magnification of human imagination into unnecessary superlatives.
Eternity has no "end" so God cannot possibly see "it".
If God cannot (rather than will not) create a rock so heavy He cannot lift it----well, GAME OVER as far as superlatives is concerned.
The legal precept in latin "Falsus in Unum, Falsus in Omnibus" means "False in one, false in all" and basically means that if an entity (person or government) has lied to you about one thing, it is safe (and legal) to assume that entity has lied to you about everything.
But, you get the picture.
ANY LIMIT on God is as good as pulling back the curtain on the Wizard.
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Terry
Even a perfectly operating chess program can be defeated some of the time because underlying principles cannot be reduced to the foreseeable.
What is it about a purpose that is predictable? Life isn't a process whereby we die. Yet, die we do. Life is a co-mingling of infinite variables spontaneously co-existing in a give and take gestalt.
What the chess program can't take into consideration is any other than possible responses which MAKE SENSE according to the valuation of position.
The pieces and pawns have a relative value which can be instantly negated or transformed by change in position (or, pawn promotion.)
Joe Blow has chosen to be the world's greatest doctor. He bends everything toward that end. His life is in order. His goals are set. His path is clear.
Then, he meets Victoria and falls in love. She is moving to a 3rd world country to be a missionary.
Joe isn't even religious. But....he is in love!
All that planning is less than useful at that unforeseen moment of intersection between known and unknown.
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Terry
Self-awareness is not necessary for existence.
Sorry , you have lost me.
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Descartes: I THINK, therefore, I AM.
Self-awareness is not necessary to the person born with a brain-stem only, or to a snail, or to a microbe. Each and all exist, but
are probably not aware (meaningfully) they exist.
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BetterGuyNow
Terry,
I like reading your posts a) after coffee b) before a long day,not after. You have quite the mind and it takes a bit of mental effort (for me, at least) to follow along but I like reading them. I don't always agree, but that makes no difference whatsoever. You get me thinking (whether I want to or not) and causing someone to really think is always good, regardless of the outcome.
I've been out for 8 years, but only recently have I started questioning the validity of this compilation of human writings known as the Bible. I was so programmed as a born-in to not even question it, I always accepted it as the authority. Obviously that's a common condition of Christians worldwide, not just JWs. I was by no means a dedicated man, but it was what it was, and I just knew my entire life I wasn't going to survive Armageddon, and that was OK - to be otherwise meant I had to trust and believe in an organization I just couldn't get into my heart.
Regarding this matter: I'm just starting to put things together with regards to issues I have with the scriptures. Your post is a little too much to handle for me right now, rather like trying to get an angry cat out of the corner of a room. I might get there a little slower, but I still feel my back arching. Not out of anger, probably not even out of fear - I feel a level of embarrassment at how easily I followed along something I never checked out. Only recently have I started to feel that the book I believed for 40+ years is probably not all it's cracked up to be.
Probably. That's what I can say right now. I appreciate the effort you put into this article of a post. It's a challenge to go from start to finish, and I've only just started questioning parts. Questioning parts means you have to question the whole. And without the whole, that leads to the very existence of things I never considered questioning at the beginning. Like God. Like creation.
Even "out" I never thought I would travel down this road. My trust in the Bible has been apathetic. I always believed it was most likely accurate, but never followed it. I thought that made me a stupid man, having the "road map to life" but not choosing to follow it. Not because I was trying to be adventurous, but because I didn't like the road it told me to follow.
So, where does that lead me? I like your points, and will probably be back to read them. Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe in a year. You're showing me the finish line, and for me, the gun just went off and I'm not even breathing heavy yet. But I'm also a new runner. I don't know if I'm crossing at a sprint or dragging myself over the line, but the effort between now and when I can wholeheartedly accept these points is what I have to do to make my choices lasting. Is it possible God isn't really there? Sure. If I end up accepting that the bible is written by men without spirit direction, everything they write about is questionable as fiction. For some odd reason, I can't yet accept that. Will I?
Probably.