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The One True God

Posted by khalling 9 years, 3 months ago to Philosophy
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Robin Craig, BSc (Hons 1, Univ. Medal), PhD graduated in molecular biology and is now an owner and COO of Australia’s longest surviving private biotechnology company. He has a long-term interest in both science and Objectivist philosophy and has hosted private monthly philosophy salons for over 15 years. His publications are wide ranging and include numerous scientific papers in genetics, philosophically-themed near-future science-fiction novels (the Just Hunter series) and short stories, the chapter “Good Without God” in The Australian Book of Atheism, philosophical essays on Amazon, and twenty years of Philosophical Reflections, a popular and controversial column in TableAus (the magazine of Australian Mensa). His website monorealism.com includes essays and debates on numerous philosophical topics.
SOURCE URL: http://www.thesavvystreet.com/the-one-true-god/


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  • Posted by peterchunt 9 years, 3 months ago
    Too be honest I really don’t give a damn about is there or is there not a God. I am and have been an atheist since my teen years. I also believe in letting those who want to believe, go ahead and believe what they want, so long as they don’t push their beliefs on me, as I don’t try to push my beliefs on them. Religion is just a subset of Philosophy. My philosophy happens to be based on Objectivism. If someone asks me my philosophy I am more than happy to expound on it. Just because we have differences doesn’t mean we cannot be friends. Just as there are religious groups trying to force down our throats their religion, so to are there atheists groups trying to do the same (they just don’t cut off heads in the process). Either extreme does no one any good. We can all live in peace, accept that there are going to be differences and go on with our lives.
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    • Posted by flanap 9 years, 3 months ago
      So how do you address origins or afterlife? Are you an annihilationist? Are you just a bunch of chemicals randomly arranged to result in you? How is right and wrong determined? Without an extra-anthropic standard which is immutable, then nothing has any meaning as it can change at anytime dependent only upon the whims of man.

      Ignoring this doesn't put you above it in terms of consequences.

      Either there are reasons for life or not.
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      • Posted by Watcher55 9 years, 3 months ago
        As for consequences, you should read about The One True God more carefully :-)
        As for your specific questions:
        My origins are my parents. My ultimate origins lie in the origin of life on planet earth by chemical processes in an energy-rich environment.
        There is no afterlife. The question makes no sense. Life is a process. When the process is ended, there is nothing left of it except its component chemicals.
        No I am not a bunch of chemicals randomly arranged. There is nothing random about life or what makes it possible.
        Right and wrong are determined by what is right and wrong for the life of a thinking being. If you are truly interested in the question, try this: http://tinyurl.com/6vf9yd7
        If the meaning of our lives is determined by some unknowable extra-human being, then nothing has any meaning because it can change at any time dependent only on the whims of that unknowable and reportedly inimical being. The meaning of your life is the meaning you choose for it.
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        • Posted by flanap 9 years, 3 months ago
          So you are willing to bet your eternity on our just being "lucky" to be here? Your last statement is very dangerous and justifies anything anyone has ever done, including those atrocities many have historically called "evil." There can be no true evil in your world, so there can be no good. Whether I help the old lady across the street, or bang her head in with a crow bar, it makes no eternal difference in your world in an absolute sense because you have no absolute standard to measure the behavior against. There can be no love or hate in your world. There can be no reason for anything in your world. How do you even justify your own existence from a meaningful perspective that is absolute?

          Regarding the change by an extra-human entity, that depends on the entity you are referring to. Has that being communicated to us? You have to get back to established laws (natural laws if you will), that haven't changed since their creation we depend on in life, which if they changed, then live would not exist. Again, if you say these exist because of random, time plus chance events, you still have to deal with where the original matter came from? Either matter is eternally existent or God is eternally existent...

          If you are willing to risk your entire life by ignoring the obvious signed of creation all around you and deny you were created, then so be it. I simply accept the obvious for anyone who can think outside themselves.
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          • Posted by Watcher55 9 years, 3 months ago
            I would not bother replying to this except as a signpost to future anthropologists who might wish to use it as a study point. A fascinating example of how people can think they are making an argument despite completely ignoring everything they think they are refuting.
            It is sad that this person is betting his or her eternity on the blind luck of being born into the "right" religion when in fact they have been deceived by a false god :-)
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            • Posted by flanap 9 years, 3 months ago
              This is the usual response I get here in the Gulch...I have numerous examples.

              By the way...you define my God as a false god...is there a true god in your world, or are you him?
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      • Posted by $ sjatkins 9 years, 3 months ago
        There is no "afterlife" by definition. Origins are a matter of scientific research, not mysticism. What do you care if you are a bag of chemicals? You are still alive. Evolution is not *random arrangement". I am an objectivist. I need no meaning from outside to give my life and being meaning. Reality is not dependent on whims.

        Go back and read anything at all by Rand and think a bit. You obviously have missed most of it.
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  • Posted by straightlinelogic 9 years, 3 months ago
    That was excellent. I've got to spend more time on that site.
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    • Posted by 9 years, 3 months ago
      ahem, you write articles for that site :)
      I thought I would get a fair amount of grief for this post. robbie must be travelling...:)
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      • Posted by Robbie53024 9 years, 3 months ago
        From an article on St. Augustine (Catholic Online):

        "Augustine begins to answer the age-old question why man chooses to do evil by clarifying that what makes humans distinct from animals is the fact that humans have the capability of reasoning and animals do not. Then he points out that some things that men possess uniquely as opposed to animals, such as the �power to jest and laugh� and �the love of praise and glory,� are �of a lower order.� Therefore, when reason rules the soul, �the more perfect [reason] is made subject to the less perfect [desire and passion].� In our day, most people do not even realize they should work toward having reason rule their lives. "

        We're not so far apart.
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  • Posted by Robbie53024 9 years, 3 months ago
    For some reason, my post from earlier didn't get added.

    You'll probably find this hard to believe, but I agree with most of what Dr. Craig writes. I just don't believe that it negates the possibility of a deity. See my other post in response to your quip on the Catholic theology. It's not that different. Free will and reason are critical to being moral people.
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    • Posted by $ sjatkins 9 years, 3 months ago
      Define what it is suppose to be without contradiction before even claiming it is possible. This means define how it could exist within reality as we know it. What is possible, having completed that stop successfully if you can, is not that which is known to exist. Thus to believe it because perhaps it is possible without even showing that is so is totally irrational.
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    • Posted by $ sjatkins 9 years, 3 months ago
      Well, to say something is even possible one needs to first say something about what one means by "deity". This may seem nitpicking but some notions abut "God" are in fact logically impossible.

      Then you have the problem that that which is possible in reality still should not be believed to be actuality without evidence that it is more than merely possible, evidence that it in fact does exist. To believe without this and act as if it does exist, much less that it is the most highly important, is not rational.
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    • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 3 months ago
      The debate goes on.
      The problem is that we know just enough about the universe to get us in trouble. But, we're working on it. Instead of using the word God, what about The Intelligence? Where does consciousness lead us? What happens when consciousness meets quantum physics? On and on. Who knows what answers will come to us in a hundred, two hundred years? It might turn out that everyone is right. The only answer that can be given at present is, "I don't know, and neither do you."
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      • Posted by 9 years, 3 months ago
        Dr. Craig's point about why do we have to even entertain a concept of which there is no scientific proof-going backwards by saying "I don't know" is well taken.
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  • Posted by Robbie53024 9 years, 3 months ago
    You'll probably find this hard to believe, but I agree with most of that. I just don't see that it negates the possibility of a deity.
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    • Posted by Watcher55 9 years, 3 months ago
      It is not meant to "negate the possibility of a deity". It is meant to show that claiming some theoretical possibility of any deity or worse, any particular deity, is meaningless.
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      • Posted by flanap 9 years, 3 months ago
        Without absolutes, anything is meaningless; therefore, if you intend to communicate in such an environment, I would question whether you actually can.

        Reasoning to the point of nonreason isn't reason at all.
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        • Posted by $ sjatkins 9 years, 3 months ago
          Reality is the only absolute. The rest is nonsense.
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          • Posted by flanap 9 years, 3 months ago
            Define reality? Perception, or that which exists regardless if you ever existed? If you never existed, would gravity still exist, or only if you perceived it? Saying reality is the only absolute means that anything happening in reality is absolute; however, how is reality determined has been of great philosophical debate over the centuries. Even Descartes started with the uncertainty of his own existence in reality; however, his conclusion was based on a false presupposition which is that he things, therefore he exists, but that if faulty...what if he was knocked unconscious or in a coma as a vegetable in the hospital....would he then still exist even if his neurological pathways shutdown beyond conscious thought? Of course, so we have to move beyond ourselves for reality, else you can invent any version of reality you want, which means you are saying that relativity is the only absolute; however, if that is the case, then I would question whether that is even absolute since you in your world, only relativity is absolute...A cannot be nonA at the same time, but in your world, it apparently does.

            Please consider the faultiness in your statement about reality. Keep emotion at bay and just think through this.
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        • Posted by 9 years, 3 months ago
          floating like your statement. flanap, who owns you?
          let's start there.
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          • Posted by flanap 9 years, 3 months ago
            Ownership? Define own. Are you saying who controls me, or defines the rules within which I have no choice but to conform all my decisions to? Are you asking whether I have free will? Free will is absolute, but the extent of exercising it is limited (e.g. the person in a coma in the hospital is free will, but is limited...go on from there).

            Help me understand what you mean by "own" please.
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      • Posted by Robbie53024 9 years, 3 months ago
        I don't see that rational thought and a supreme being are mutually exclusive. Actually, my particular theology requires free will and rational thought.
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        • Posted by Watcher55 9 years, 3 months ago
          Well, they are and they aren't!
          People believe you can rationally believe in a supreme being because they believe there is valid evidence for one. However there is no actually valid objective evidence for one. Which means that in fact, the belief is an arbitrary claim (one without evidence).
          The analysis of such evidence and why there isn't any is quite another topic: and The One True God does not address that issue. It is targeted at a quite different animal: the one which explicitly tries to dodge the need for evidence (the Pascal's Wager/"You don't know there isn't a God"/"You can't prove there isn't a God"/"What if you're wrong, huh?" cluster of thought). It also shows the emptiness of arguments based mainly on "design", especially the "how do you account for the Universe existing" or "how do you account for Life existing" ones: by showing that such arguments prove nothing about any particular version of God and that in fact the One True God fits those "facts" much better than traditional religions do.
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          • Posted by flanap 9 years, 3 months ago
            The only reason people believe there is no "valid objective evidence for one" is because the evidence has been obscured by the brainwashing of evolutionary theories. I say brainwashing because the teaching of creationism alongside evolutionism is not typically allowed. Brainwashing is indoctrination without the option to "opt out" for other possibilities.

            In your world, anything is possible except that there is a God who is personal and created you. You reject it for the purpose of self-determination; however, what you forget is that you did not self-determine yourself to exist, therefore, what do you do with all the activity you cannot control? Why are not all the life-sustaining environments and elements and measurements we have observed changed enough to eliminate our lives over the supposed 4+ million or so years life has supposedly been on the earth? In your world, it is chance...only chance.

            Frankly, I would venture to better believe in a man from mars seeding man here than just go by chance. Once you get to there, getting to God is not a far stretch.
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            • Posted by $ sjatkins 9 years, 3 months ago
              Evolution is a FACT of reality. Not optional at all. Positing a God or gods explained nothing of life and its variety.
              You have no evidence whatsoever of this God and not even a coherent non-contradictory statement about what this purported God is.
              The age of earth is over 4 billion not million years.
              You are too ignorant to be worth talking with.
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              • Posted by flanap 9 years, 3 months ago
                Funny, at times, I do admit I am ignorant of many things, especially of the evidence for macro-evolutionary systems. Can you educate me, starting with the chain of being that began with the Babylonian creation myth, or Greek philosophies of origins (Darwin did not invent the concept of evolution)?

                It is from these myths and legends that led to Darwin's concepts, not his explorations on the isles of Galapagos. They still cannot explain ultimate origins. The God of the Bible is self-existent...in your world, matter is self-existent. We are not that far apart, except on that crucial, point conditio sine qua non.

                The reason that the God of the Bible is the one, true God and no other is because absolutes exist, which confirm His Word, the Bible, then His Son, Jesus Christ was witnessed by man to have resurrected from the dead, which has never occurred by any man apart from the power of God.

                You have to deal with absolutes, else, all theories you derive from relativity fall apart.
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              • Posted by Robbie53024 9 years, 3 months ago
                Evolution is not a FACT it is a theory, and one that has flaws. What you believe is true is not supported absolutely by science. You are just as entrenched in unsupported theory as you criticize in those of faith.
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            • Posted by 9 years, 3 months ago
              why do I have to create a creator? why can't I start from existence?
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              • Posted by flanap 9 years, 3 months ago
                In order to start from existence, you have to have something existing, else, you are going right back to my point that something has always have to have existed for existence to be there at all, regardless if you say that is God or matter. If you cannot work out origins, everything else you derive from there is apt to be folly.
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        • Posted by flanap 9 years, 3 months ago
          "my particular theology requires free will and rational thought." I agree to a certain point, but what happens to the 2 minute old baby who dies? We have to have a way of handling what eternally happens to those who never reach the ability to think through abstractions. This is why a just God is necessary.

          Just/justice....now that will open a can of worms now won't it?
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          • Posted by Robbie53024 9 years, 3 months ago
            Not sure I understand the comment about the baby. God does not cause actions. Read the book of Job.
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            • Posted by flanap 9 years, 3 months ago
              "God does not cause actions." What about Genesis 1:1?

              God has given us free will, no question, however, it operates only within the realm God has defined and when you have a defined realm to operate, that creates limits within which some desires are not possible. Even God has limited Himself via His character, else, He would not be God (e.g. He cannot create another God, He cannot make a rock He cannot lift, He cannot become nonexistence, He cannot do anything which would be inefficient since inefficience is a result of the fall of man and sin, and on and on).

              I have read Job...not sure what you mean.
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  • Posted by flanap 9 years, 3 months ago
    If you follow his logic, then without God, we truly are here via arbitrary means. If you trace God, or nature back far enough, you end up with the original reasons for anything being arbitrary.
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