Split from Open Mic- Struggling With The Catholic Faith

[stevil]

[quote name='Adrestia' timestamp='1313072165' post='2285889']
What if this god is interactive? [/quote]
This is intriguing, so how is god interactive, and how can we know the interaction was as a direct result of god and not some other source?

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1313133165' post='2286452']
But the problem is that you can only test the material stuff. You can't test the immaterial although I think you feel you derive immaterial nature via the gaps you find in your understanding of the material. So your derived conclusions could quite easily be because you don't fully understand the nature of the material, it is extremely complex stuff.

Take for example the Kalim's Cosmological Argument, full of assumptions and a complete lack of understanding with regards to how matter and energy come to be and how they come to form an expanding universe. Somewhat similar to the original Cosmological Argument that you alluded to with your philisophical post about a prime mover.

I am actually interested in how philisophically speaking you could derive that an all powerfull, all knowing, perfect, complete god could come to the conclusion that it desired or required creation of existence?
If one has desire then one is incomplete, less that perfect. If one is requried then one isn't all powerfull. Given that this god knows everything already then what is to be learnt by carrying out such an activity. There would be no surprises, no revelations, no interesting bits, nothing to learn, no satisfaction, no humor, it would just be, well, pointless....

Somewhat like reading my posts LOL
[/quote]


I guess our posts are a bit like what you described: no real surprises etc. haha.

Firstly, you can test things that aren't material. My friend once asked "Do you know your mother loves you?" Another responded "yes." My friend responded "Show me this love." Love is immaterial, but real. It can't be shown but we know it. Though for better examples, modern analytic philosophers (one of my professors who is an atheist) says there are plenty of immaterial things such as football scores, most of the economy, credit ratings, and for the most part any money you have. Your money isn't really material. For most people their money is simply some number at a bank or credit and is immaterial. They spend it without any actual materiality changing. There are plenty of real life things that are immaterial. Perhaps the best example is consciousness. It is irreducibly immaterial in its very nature since it is the first person perspective. In science we try to reduce things to simpler parts: all heat really is is the mean kinetic energy of the particles of which a thing is made. In this example we eliminate the first person experience of heat and say what it "really is" in its materiality; however, this cannot be done with consciousness since consciousness is the first person experience that science seeks to push to the side and reduce everything else. We know consciousness affects reality. You can say it is an illusion but in reality you must act as if you have free-will. When you go to a restaurant, you cannot say that "I, having studied biology, shall wait until I choose as an expression of my desire which are the only forces that I know to exist that are able to make me move." No, you must make a decision and at least act as if you have free-will and are freely conscious. This fact can be seen when people speak in that they go to a restaurant and then "decide" what they want to eat. If their was no consciousness with freedom of action wouldn't they already know what they wanted? That being said, it seems that immaterial things are part of the natural world and we have no problem with them in our daily lives; in fact, they affect our daily lives.

Secondly, I am not saying their is a gap in my understanding of materiality, just that there is a distinction between matter and being and that these two things are not linked to one another by definition. This is not a gap in my scientific understanding but rather has to do with my theory of matter and my theory of "be"-ing, as I laid out before in that "matter" as such seems not to be anything real at all but always the "matter of something" or matter of a substance. Also, I never said anything about a prime mover, though I did say one had to account for "change" and "substances" in one's philosophy of reality. My argument was from that of existence, not motion. Though to be fair, I do think existence is an act, but motion seems to action as well but with the added distinction of being in space.

Finally, to your question. An all powerful, infinite God could desire. Such a desire would be infinite in that it would be part of His mode of being. If that God were pure being--that which is without limitation--then the desire would be an extension of that being to others, an outflowing of that being to others. I use the term desire here since it is not a necessity that infinite being create since it is indeed infinite being and therefore need not create since it lacks nothing. Rather the desire should be thought of as an eternal act which is in accord with the nature (the eternal act-of-being) of such a being. This outflowing is what we normally call love in that we want to give ourselves to others and help them and we want to receive that gift of love as well. Such a desire would be specific in the view of its objects, which are finite and as such in themselves would place a restriction on what could be received, but the outpouring would be infinite. To make this point clearer, a shot glass can only hold so much fluid while a two-liter bottle holds more. If two-liters is poured into them, the amount they receive is restricted by the finiteness of the container not. The container is the limiting agent in this scenario. Obviously this is an imperfect analogy since the fluid would have to be infinite but I think it illustrates my point.

Sorry that I write so much.
EDIT** Added this apology.

Edited August 12, 2011 by Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

[Papist]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1313132067' post='2286449']
Yes, this is want happens often when humans come up with theories and then objectively test them. We often find we were wrong and need to modify or throw away the theory. It would really be quite incredible to think of the possibilities that we would come to if we didn't bother to test. You could easliy spend a couple of thousand of years going off on completely the wrong tangent.
[/quote]
Which is what happened with Darwinism.

[Adrestia]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1313133533' post='2286454']
This is intriguing, so how is god interactive, and how can we know the interaction was as a direct result of god and not some other source?
[/quote]

You answered your own question.

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1313132067' post='2286449']
Yes, this is want happens often when humans come up with theories and then objectively test them. We often find we were wrong and need to modify or throw away the theory. It would really be quite incredible to think of the possibilities that we would come to if we didn't bother to test.
[/quote]

I'm a science geek, so I used the scientific method.

[quote]The scientific method: an [i]observation[/i] is made, a [i]hypothesis[/i] is proposed, experiments are done and conclusions (facts or theory) are reached.

The [i]null hypothesis[/i] sets up a premise that states that there no significance or difference between or among compared grouped results or data. The null hypothesis states that the variables are the same and not different.[/quote]

In my case, I decided to use prayer as my methodology, my "experiment" so to speak. If there is a god, prayer would do something; if there is no god, prayer would have the same outcome as no prayer.

[stevil]

[quote name='Adrestia' timestamp='1313168054' post='2286563']
In my case, I decided to use prayer as my methodology, my "experiment" so to speak. If there is a god, prayer would do something; if there is no god, prayer would have the same outcome as no prayer.
[/quote]
This is right.
This is most probably the most varifiable thing that can easily be tested.
Do you know of any reports where objective studies were made where a group prayed to the Christian god, a group prayed to the Muslim god, a group prayed to the Greek gods, a group prayed to the devil, a group prayed to the sun, a group didn't pray at all etc.
And with results conclusivly proving that only one group's results worked and that group was that prayed or didn't pray to x god?

Was this test recreated by others, especially by people trying to prove the original study wrong?

[Adrestia]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1313181080' post='2286609']
This is right.
This is most probably the most varifiable thing that can easily be tested.
Do you know of any reports where objective studies were made where a group prayed to the Christian god, a group prayed to the Muslim god, a group prayed to the Greek gods, a group prayed to the devil, a group prayed to the sun, a group didn't pray at all etc.
And with results conclusivly proving that only one group's results worked and that group was that prayed or didn't pray to x god?

Was this test recreated by others, especially by people trying to prove the original study wrong?
[/quote]

No, but that answers a different question. The question I asked is how you might test whether a god exists.

[stevil]

If prayers specifically for that god are answered but prayers for other gods or no god at all aren't answered then this might prove that that god exists.

[Adrestia]

How would you go about determining whether a god exists? I'm not asking about differentiating between different concepts of god, I'm asking about theism versus atheism.

[stevil]

You have just said that answered prayer is proof.

If you don't think that it matters which god then studies should investigate whether prayer by Theists delivers results whereas the control group of Atheists don't get favourable results.

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1313184388' post='2286628']
You have just said that answered prayer is proof.

If you don't think that it matters which god then studies should investigate whether prayer by Theists delivers results whereas the control group of Atheists don't get favourable results.
[/quote]

What would count as a favorable result? Read Job or Exodus, things are not always happy for those with faith. Job loses everything and Moses has to watch the kingdom he grew up in suffer because of the hardness of heart of Pharoah. However, both men end up closer to God in the end and grow in virtue. Does suffering necessarily count as an unfavorable outcome. If so, I think Christianity would necessarily lose in that our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified. I don't think it necessarily counts as unfavorable but it does need to be examined.

[stevil]

I'm not sure how prayer works.
I have a friend that is Christian and she and her husband prayed for a sunny day on their wedding day.
Could we do a study and see who prayed for a sunny wedding day and compare that to what they got, then do a comparison with regards to Atheists getting married on sunny or rainy days?

[Amppax]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1313193299' post='2286701']
I'm not sure how prayer works.
I have a friend that is Christian and she and her husband prayed for a sunny day on their wedding day.
Could we do a study and see who prayed for a sunny wedding day and compare that to what they got, then do a comparison with regards to Atheists getting married on sunny or rainy days?
[/quote]

The problem is, that really isn't what prayer is about. Prayer is about communicating with God. It's not just about asking for what we need and want.

[stevil]

Are you saying that there is no tangible, measurable outcome with regards to prayer?

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1313208327' post='2286840']
Are you saying that there is no tangible, measurable outcome with regards to prayer?
[/quote]

Is there measurable outcome after you have talked to your friend? I mean a good friend identifies what you need or what you haven't seen and inform you. That is not really measurable if prayer has that aspect.

[stevil]

[quote name='Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam' timestamp='1313211182' post='2286851']

Is there measurable outcome after you have talked to your friend? I mean a good friend identifies what you need or what you haven't seen and inform you. That is not really measurable if prayer has that aspect.
[/quote]
That would mean that you have attained knowledge that you did not have prior. That could be measured by getting a subject to guess which card is on the top of a deck of cards. The subject could pray to god for this knowledge. Traditionally knowing something like that has been called E.S.P. but i don't think it hs been attributed to a relationship with god. If this could be proven it would be a resounding break through.