Grew up in the faith, but never made it my own. I fell away for some years after I left home, with psychedelics, and ‘free’ sexuality before I realized that I had been desperate to fill an emptiness and the find answers to the plaguing questions that plagued me of who I was and what I was for and why I should continue living. It took a night of experimentation in witchcraft to snap me to the realization that if there WAS a god, maybe it was possible that it could be the God that came to be with us as man. “If he is there, if he is all powerful and loving, then surely you will let me know you are there, that you are Truth, because that is what I have been searching for“ was the essence of the prayer that night and the rest is history.
I have an M.Sc. in the earth sciences. I loved learning previously about the beautiful and intricate interplay of factors across discrete systems in our physical world and, from the start of my reversion, I have looked for something that I can’t accept in the teachings of the Catechism of the Catholic Church that is logically inconsistent or incoherent within an all-encompassing view of reality, physical and otherwise… something I can unequivocally view as bullshit so that I don’t have to believe it, so I don’t have to impose upon myself everything that would be entailed if religion were indeed all true.
Instead, The book has instead been wonderfully illuminating and found it to be a great primer for learning about the spiritual and human side of our metaphysical reality.
Regardless of religion, creed, or motto, it is human to seek the truth and understand it.
I’m all for the truth, or even anything resembling the truth.
You can choose to study physics, or sociology, or how the human body works, or the mind, and how to fight diseases etc.
Questions bigger than that seem too big to me, but if trying to find an answer to those questions makes people feel good and/or live good lives, why not?
It is my understanding that we don't really know how this is pronounced and that this is just another instance of the Tetragrammaton [1] that is normally rendered as LORD with a few exceptions like this. This could just as easily be Yahweh instead of Jehovah.
Chalk this up as one more disagreement between believers (that they really should have settled by now, given their interactions with an unbiased, omniscient third-party)
Almost every human being started believing in god(s) because they were introduced to the idea by their parents or other family members or teachers in stories and rituals and songs, usually long before they had the capacity to focus on objects more than two feet away. Every human society I’ve ever visited is saturated with the trappings of some religion or another, often many, and the messages and symbols of history’s many mythologies resonate in everything from the architecture to the money.
Those who don’t believe are usually the ones who have changed their minds, not the other way around. It’s not surprising that some number of those change their minds again.
Because of divine simplicity,
the absolute maximum of perfection logically excludes the possibility of more than one.
if there were two gods, they would have to differ from each other in some way. But a being that is pure act (without any potentiality) and absolutely simple (not composed of parts) cannot have any accidental differences. They could only differ in their very “whatness” (essence). However, if they differ in essence, then one has a perfection the other lacks. The one lacking that perfection would not be absolutely perfect, and therefore would not be God. Thus, you cannot have two beings each claiming to be the maximum of being.
My understanding of God is not “one more thing in the universe that explains an earlier thing.” It is closer to God as the ground of being itself: the reason anything exists at all, including matter, energy, spacetime, causality, and whatever laws describe them.
For me it was that the implications of atheistic materialism contradicted basic empiric knowledge. Atheistic materialism is an onthologic monism, the ultimate implication of it is that nothing can be defined since everything is a continuum. yet we can discriminate concrete objects and things. No essence can be defined in Mat-Ath, When I was an atheist I argued that the essence of things can be defined in their composition and geometry (arrangement) of constituent parts. But that is a weak argument since "objects" constantly lose atoms and gain new ones. Think about the atoms you lose and gain through all your life (throwback to the greek boat paradox)
Ultimately it was that in MatAth the person could not be defined, yet we are persons. Also the concept of specie was broken too, every animal would be its own specie.
Then I realized that atheists have no explaination for quantum probabilities, i thought that for God to not exist everything had to be explainable with mechanisms. But when we measure the spin of a particle, whether is spin up or spin down, there is a 50/50 perfect chance? what mechanism makes the choice? There is none, and atheists have no answer other than "thats just how the universe works, period" I realized that since there is no mechanism the only thing that remains to explain it is Will, and if there is will there is a person behind that will.
Grew up in the faith, but never made it my own. I fell away for some years after I left home, with psychedelics, and ‘free’ sexuality before I realized that I had been desperate to fill an emptiness and the find answers to the plaguing questions that plagued me of who I was and what I was for and why I should continue living. It took a night of experimentation in witchcraft to snap me to the realization that if there WAS a god, maybe it was possible that it could be the God that came to be with us as man. “If he is there, if he is all powerful and loving, then surely you will let me know you are there, that you are Truth, because that is what I have been searching for“ was the essence of the prayer that night and the rest is history. I have an M.Sc. in the earth sciences. I loved learning previously about the beautiful and intricate interplay of factors across discrete systems in our physical world and, from the start of my reversion, I have looked for something that I can’t accept in the teachings of the Catechism of the Catholic Church that is logically inconsistent or incoherent within an all-encompassing view of reality, physical and otherwise… something I can unequivocally view as bullshit so that I don’t have to believe it, so I don’t have to impose upon myself everything that would be entailed if religion were indeed all true. Instead, The book has instead been wonderfully illuminating and found it to be a great primer for learning about the spiritual and human side of our metaphysical reality.
Regardless of religion, creed, or motto, it is human to seek the truth and understand it.
I’m all for the truth, or even anything resembling the truth.
You can choose to study physics, or sociology, or how the human body works, or the mind, and how to fight diseases etc.
Questions bigger than that seem too big to me, but if trying to find an answer to those questions makes people feel good and/or live good lives, why not?
Which god?
I was told to when I was a toddler, but by the time I turned 12 or 13, I had outgrown the phase.
There is absolutely no god(s). It is a false fabrication of the human mind.
Using his name instead of his title/position helps. https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Psalms-83-18/
It is my understanding that we don't really know how this is pronounced and that this is just another instance of the Tetragrammaton [1] that is normally rendered as LORD with a few exceptions like this. This could just as easily be Yahweh instead of Jehovah.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragrammaton
Or maybe you're not allowed to!
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-tetragrammaton/
Chalk this up as one more disagreement between believers (that they really should have settled by now, given their interactions with an unbiased, omniscient third-party)
I fail to see how.
Ahh, as in “om namah Shivaya” then?
Almost every human being started believing in god(s) because they were introduced to the idea by their parents or other family members or teachers in stories and rituals and songs, usually long before they had the capacity to focus on objects more than two feet away. Every human society I’ve ever visited is saturated with the trappings of some religion or another, often many, and the messages and symbols of history’s many mythologies resonate in everything from the architecture to the money.
Those who don’t believe are usually the ones who have changed their minds, not the other way around. It’s not surprising that some number of those change their minds again.
Why the limitations to one God?
Because of divine simplicity, the absolute maximum of perfection logically excludes the possibility of more than one.
if there were two gods, they would have to differ from each other in some way. But a being that is pure act (without any potentiality) and absolutely simple (not composed of parts) cannot have any accidental differences. They could only differ in their very “whatness” (essence). However, if they differ in essence, then one has a perfection the other lacks. The one lacking that perfection would not be absolutely perfect, and therefore would not be God. Thus, you cannot have two beings each claiming to be the maximum of being.
Couldn't you suppose these gods had the same one-many property as the Trinity and say that it's whole essence is perfect?
If you need a god to explain where the universe came from, induction would like a word with you
My understanding of God is not “one more thing in the universe that explains an earlier thing.” It is closer to God as the ground of being itself: the reason anything exists at all, including matter, energy, spacetime, causality, and whatever laws describe them.
Then explain evil
Loaded (and begging) questions are a fundamental part of circular reasoning.
Occam's razor ("Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity")?
I mean, God, isn't one enough? Honestly, it's too much for me!
Let's settle on having three then.
(If you had just one, it would look pretty silly calling himself father and praying to himself.)
By that argument zero is sufficient.
In nature everything has a opposite or opponent. That would make at least two.
Show me the opposite, or the opponent, of a black hole.
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For me it was that the implications of atheistic materialism contradicted basic empiric knowledge. Atheistic materialism is an onthologic monism, the ultimate implication of it is that nothing can be defined since everything is a continuum. yet we can discriminate concrete objects and things. No essence can be defined in Mat-Ath, When I was an atheist I argued that the essence of things can be defined in their composition and geometry (arrangement) of constituent parts. But that is a weak argument since "objects" constantly lose atoms and gain new ones. Think about the atoms you lose and gain through all your life (throwback to the greek boat paradox)
Ultimately it was that in MatAth the person could not be defined, yet we are persons. Also the concept of specie was broken too, every animal would be its own specie.
Then I realized that atheists have no explaination for quantum probabilities, i thought that for God to not exist everything had to be explainable with mechanisms. But when we measure the spin of a particle, whether is spin up or spin down, there is a 50/50 perfect chance? what mechanism makes the choice? There is none, and atheists have no answer other than "thats just how the universe works, period" I realized that since there is no mechanism the only thing that remains to explain it is Will, and if there is will there is a person behind that will.
> the ultimate implication of it is that nothing can be defined since everything is a continuum.
What does this even mean?
That entire post, run through ChatGPT, gets summarized as “WOO!!!!”.
Not sure the fourth big bang was necessary.