03 Mar 2014

The Living God

Religious 84 Comments

Gene Callahan linked to a very interesting review of David Bentley Hart’s The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss.  (The review itself is written by Mark Anthony Signorelli.) Yet in seeing Gene argue in the comments, I understand why Gene’s critic(s) think he is “redefining” terms when arguing that God must exist, even though Gene claims he is just using the original definition of “God.” (Note that Gene is here using the same stance I took with the term “inflation,” so I’m not quibbling with such a stance in general.)

The pithy statement from the review is, “An atheist is just someone who has failed to notice the perfectly evident necessity of God’s existence.” But let’s quote further to make we know what this means:

In contrast, all of the religious traditions Hart refers to define God as Being itself, “the one infinite source of all that is: eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, uncreated, uncaused, perfectly transcendent of all things and for that very reason absolutely immanent to all things.” This is why a recognition of God’s reality is, as stated, an acknowledgment of something obvious, because none of us can keep from experiencing being, thinking about being, coming to know being in some way. As Hart puts it, “Evidence for or against the reality of God, if it is there, saturates every moment of the experience of existence, every employment of reason, every act of consciousness, every encounter with the world around us.” Yet precisely because God’s presence is implicit in the totality of our encounter with the world, it is liable to our neglect.

I think there is a danger in such a presentation. On the one hand, yes, one can easily win in an argument with an atheist, if we take “God” in this fashion.

Yet when I say, “I know there is a God,” it’s because I truly think He is a living Being who communicates with us, including with me personally on a few occasions in my life. I don’t expect individual anecdotes to persuade a rationalist skeptic. But, at the same time, to give a proof that God must exist through introspection, doesn’t seem to do justice to what I mean when I say, “I know there is a God.”

84 Responses to “The Living God”

  1. Matthew Gilliland says:

    So what I’m getting is that it’s sort of an analytic a priori conception of God? If I’m understanding that correctly, then it seems incredibly silly. It doesn’t tell us anything, and it confuses the discourse. If I define “unicorn” as “a thing that exists,” then yes, unicorns exist by definition, but all I’ve done is wordplay.

    • Ken B says:

      Welcome to Callahania, where Aquinas proved everything worth knowing.

      • ThomasL says:

        Bit of a swing and a miss.

        The ontological argument Matthew Gilliland seems to be parroting has roots in an argument from St. Anselm, not St. Thomas Aquinas.

        Aquinas did not like it and did not think it proved anything. He also did not think it was obvious to reason that God existed, though it was accessible by reason.

        • Bob Murphy says:

          ThomasL wrote:

          Bit of a swing and a miss.

          If Ken B. gets a strike, it’s because he wasn’t playing baseball.

        • Ken B says:

          Not a miss at all as I am referring to Gene’s general tendency. Read him sometime (he’s actual;ly quite interesting on some topics). He cites Aquinas against evolution for instance. He regularly lists Aquinas in his long lists of names he trots out when trying to bore you into submission.

    • ThomasL says:

      I can’t say I this particular argument convinces me, but for what it is worth, it is not as bad as that.

      The thing is that God is understood both philosophically and theologically here to consist of all perfections. No possible perfection could be lacking. (Although technically they aren’t “perfections”, because they are have always been altogether actual with no potentiality.)

      Anywhoo, the point is, can this concept of all perfections, greater than which nothing can exist or be conceived, lack the perfection of existence? If so, couldn’t you imagine one thing greater still, that + existence? So it wouldn’t really be the greatest would it? So that – existence wasn’t even what we were talking about. We were talking about the one that had all perfections. That is, he proves (or seems to prove) that the statement “God does not exist” is a meaningless contradiction. This couldn’t apply to unicorns, because no definition of unicorn could require all perfections as part of the very essence of unicorness.

      It does seem a little tricky though, because the direction of the proof seems to flow from our conception into reality rather than the other way around. In that, it diverges from classical, realist metaphysics isn’t, which is why you won’t find that argument used anywhere in Aristotle or Aquinas.

      There are also attacks as to whether existence is a property or attribute of the thing or something else, &c., &c. St. Anselm’s formulation is a rather beautiful argument though, if you just appreciate careful argument. But I’d recommend reading him directly rather than either his advocates or his critics (except Aquinas, who is a very good critic).

  2. Silas Barta says:

    Like with inflation, you could grab a hundred random believers off the street and ask them what God means, and none would give the definition that Gene puts forth as the “original”.

    That definition does, he is correct, get you out of the “God is obviously made up” frying pan … but only because you thereby dive into the “we just have really, really poor communicators” fire.

  3. Harold says:

    ““if there is no God, I can do anything I want,” a claim that makes the question of God’s existence the supreme and all-determining dilemma of human life.”
    This is wrong. It is the nature of God that causes the dilemma. If God is merely defined as “being itself” we have no insight into how we should behave, and thus “I can still do anything I want.”

    Getting round the problem that “everything has a cause” by introducing something that is eternal and causeless seems a bit of a cop-out anyway, but it is largely irrelevant to how we live our lives.

    • Tel says:

      Exactly.

      Unless God provides detailed and unambiguous answers to questions, belief doesn’t confer any useful advantage (nor disadvantage, other than the energy spent).

      Some will say, “but the Bible provides answers, because it is the word of God,” but that’s quite a different belief right there.

  4. Ken B says:

    Of course Bob is right. By God he means a personal god who interacts with us, said and did specific things, has specific rules, made specific promises, not the necessary necessity of necessitation.

  5. Major_Freedom says:

    God is Being itself?

    This conception of God rests on the same I think confusion as Heideggar’s philosophy: To take a predicate of things, that they are being what they are, and abstracting that predicate into its own concept.

    The realm of pure thought necessarily leads eventually to the concept of God in all of its iterations. At root, God is Ego. God’s cause is the only cause. Ego’s cause ia the only cause.

    The Ego destroys all, which is why theists subconsciously believe that if people are atheists, then the destroying Ego will be in a human. Thus “Without faith in God, there is nothing in him to stop him from destroying all.”

    God is fear of the Ego.

    • Major_Freedom says:

      The argument that if there is no God, then you can do anything you want, is taken seriously, then on what basis is not liking this argument, or fearing it, or whatever other negative feeling one may have in considering it, can one conclude that the converse must be true?

      “I don’t like the implication of the thought of there being no God” doea not imply there ia in fact a God.

      • Ivan Jankovic says:

        If everything is allowed without God, what then to do with 2billion Buddhists who believe not only that there is no God, personal communicator, creator, Father, punisher and so on, but also that God as a concept is just one paranoid delusion stemming from our moral and intellectual weakness that prevents us from grasping ‘impermanence’ ‘unsatisfactoriness’ and ‘non-self’ as “three marks’ of existence. Are there many Buddhists out there who believe that they could kill, steal and rape because they don’ t believe in any sort of God?

    • Ken B says:

      As for reifing the predicate thing, yep. It’s a characteristic of medieval philosophy to think that anything with a name must be real. So the necessarily existent must exist. But that’s just confusion and fallacy. The third even prime number, the square circle. You can prove anything about the members of an empty set.
      Take ‘the absolutely good’. Well IF something exists that is absolutley good then it is good. But that assumes existence of the thing to start. Same with ‘the necessarily existent’. IF it exists then it exists, big whoop. Just identifying the idea ‘the necessarily existent’ does not establish that this predicate applies to anything that exists.

      Bob gets made at me when I point out that people rely on vacuous definitions, but that’s what Gene Callahan and his crew do.

      • Major_Freedom says:

        Agree in general, but I think pure thought (unconstrained to action) is necessarily based on vacuous definitions.

  6. Major_Freedom says:

    Imagine Matthew McConaughy going on stage at the Oscars and saying “Ego has helped me. Ego has given me strength. My faith in Ego is why I’m here.”

    He’d be saying the same thing, but the crowd would likely fear him the way they fear God. “Does this mean he will kill me? Does this mean he will destroy all?”

    • Major_Freedom says:

      It’s not a surprise that some of the world’s most gruesome murderers are theists. To constantly think about Ego…

      The claim of Dostoevsky (Karamazov) that without belief in God you can do anything you want, ignores the fact that there are those who do believe in God and still do whatever they want. Catholic priests molesting boys, people believing themselves to be Jesus convincing hundreds to swallow poison, people believing God told them to kill John Lennon…

      It is very close to a lie to keep saying that no God means you can do whatever you want, without ever saying that there being a God doesn’t necessarily stop people from commiting gruesome acts.

      • Gamble says:

        So is it God or ego that encouraged these people to do the things they did? Your above post about Matthew McConaughy says the ego is in charge. Or maybe you are saying self and ego only do good things and God does all the terrible things?

        Actually since you say there is no God, I am bit confused as to your true position. With NO God, every human action is resultant ego according to your paradigm.

        • Major_Freedom says:

          God is Ego. That is my point.

          Take your pick.

          No, I’m not saying Ego does only good things and God does only bad things. These concepts are amoral.

          I am saying that it is wrong to believe that thinking there is no God implies you can do anything you want, whereas thinking there is a God implies ypu can’t.

          People have murdered in the name of God. And if you want to say that they killed in the name of a different God, the wrong God, then I fully and totally expect Callahan to chime in and reassure you that when different people think of God, they’re all thinking about the same God.

          Yes, with no God every human is Ego. That is what theists fear.

          • Bob Murphy says:

            MF wrote:

            God is Ego. That is my point.

            And you’re totally wrong. Your argument, to my ears, is as grating as someone saying, “In Rothbardtopia, the protection agencies would be the State.”

            • Major_Freedom says:

              Good. I’m glad it’s grating to your ears. Not because I enjoy grating your ears, but because this subject is extremely profound and touches on the most deep convictions that we hold, and how our brains are structured.

              It should be more than a gentle disagreement about such things as the best movie actor or the best place to live.

              If we don’t get a little tee’d off with this, if we don’t cringe at least a little, then we’re doing something wrong.

              I expect you to tell me I’m wrong. You wouldn’t be a theist if you didn’t 🙂

              I mean all this with serious intellectual conviction. Not trying to troll or be a douche.

            • Ken B says:

              One of Gene’s better points. I clearly must adopt it!

            • Keshav Srinivasan says:

              Bob, what is your response to Gene’s “grating” claim?

              • Bob Murphy says:

                Keshav as far as I can tell, I told MF he was grating on me with his argument, and he said he was glad. How is Gene involved?

              • Keshav Srinivasan says:

                I’m referring to the point ” “In Rothbardtopia, the protection agencies would be the State.” which Gene always makes.

              • Ken B says:

                “Keshav as far as I can tell, I told MF he was grating on me with his argument, and he said he was glad. How is Gene involved?”

                Bob, it looks like your brother Weave has been posting again.

              • Major_Freedom says:

                Murphy, I was glad for *why* it is grating. Not that it is grating. I’m not trying to grate you and I certainly wouldn’t find utility in it…

              • Ken B says:

                Crickets.

          • Gamble says:

            So you are saying the ego murders and does other bad things.

            “People have murdered in the name of God/Ego.”

      • Matt M (Dude Where's My Freedom) says:

        “The claim of Dostoevsky (Karamazov) that without belief in God you can do anything you want, ignores the fact that there are those who do believe in God and still do whatever they want. Catholic priests molesting boys, people believing themselves to be Jesus convincing hundreds to swallow poison, people believing God told them to kill John Lennon…”

        Not to get too far into semantics here, but it probably depends on your definition of “can.” Technically, God or no God, we all “can” do whatever we want, because God has granted us free will.

        A more technically accurate quote would probably be something like, “Without God, there is no de facto moral imperative for us to behave in any particular way.” The fact that some people choose to behave badly even though they profess a belief in God does not disprove this any more than the fact that some people willingly pay high prices for low quality goods disproves that free markets are the most efficient economic system.

        • Major_Freedom says:

          I mean people choosing to do those things and believing they are “holy” choices approved by God.

          When an Egoist kills, he kills for his Ego.

          When a theist kills, he kills for God.

          Both are finding selfish satisfaction in what they do. The theist gets bodily pleasure in killing in the name of God, and the Egoist gets bodily pleasure in killing for himself.

          I wonder how many murders can be avoided if we convince everyone that if they have a desire to kill, it is nothing but their own Ego, their own bodily pleasure, that is relevant.

          I imagine many would be murderers who would have killed in the name of God, would find it not at all mystical or a calling or a duty, to kill people. It would not be as significant in their minds.

          Ken B and other minarchists for example are religious. His religion is statism. To him, the Ego is with the state. His religion calls for shooting at people who do not want to live under the idea if the state. Radical Islam calls for beheading or shooting at people who refuse to live under the idea of Allah.

          It is not surprising that Ken B is one of Murphy’s most vocal and harsh critics on the Sunday posts. Ken B ia saying stop worshipping that Ego=God, and start worshipping the Ego=State, so that I feel safer.

          I imagine that if both sets of people realize that their desire to shoot at and murder people is their own Ego, they would probably do a little more self-reflection and find shooting at areligious people to be against their own interests. Not always, but most of the time.

          • Matt M (Dude Where's My Freedom) says:

            “I wonder how many murders can be avoided if we convince everyone that if they have a desire to kill, it is nothing but their own Ego, their own bodily pleasure, that is relevant.”

            Well, I would suggest to you that the vast majority of religions do indeed attempt to teach this. There are some sects that don’t, and some that do, but ultimately fail in reaching every last one of their followers. But overall, the vast majority of religions preach the message that murder is wrong.

            The state; however, does not preach this at all. The state relies upon violence as a necessary condition of its existence. (Most) religions do not. I don’t think the comparison is fair.

            • Major_Freedom says:

              The state also teaches us that murder is wrong.

              I don’t think you’re comparing the same things.

              For religion, you’re talking about what it says and not what it does.

              For the state on the other hand, you’re talking about what it does and not what it says.

              If you compare applea with apples, then religion and the state are like two peas in a pod.

              • Matt M (Dude Where's My Freedom) says:

                Exactly which religions have murder and violence as a necessary aspect of their existence?

                Very few religions claim the moral authority to murder me if I don’t do what they say. Every state does.

                Religions may be unfortunately prone to endorse or even approve of wars started and executed by various states, but has the church itself ever mounted and carried out a war since the Crusades?

              • Major_Freedom says:

                Huh? I just said religion (proxy for most religions) SAYS murder is wrong (and also says or suggests murder is good, under certain circumstances…ahh, Egoism makong its way through God). But theists nevertheless believe themselves to be killing under God’s grace.

                Religions don’t claim the moral authority to murder if it is disobeyed? Well, doesn’t the Christian religion teach us that mortality came into existence for man because Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge, i.e. disobeyed God? Is that not murder?

                The Chriatian God has been killing man ever since.

              • Matt M (Dude Where's My Freedom) says:

                God allowing you to die is not murder, any more than your allowing a poor person to starve to death when you could buy them food is murder.

                Just so we’re not confused here, I’m not religious myself. If you want to argue about whether God exists or not, I’m not really the guy to have that out with. I just generally see religion as having offered far more positive than negative outcomes to society. I’m not religious but I consider myself a “religious sympathizer.”

                As far as I’m concerned, we have a LOT to fear from the state, but very little to fear from Christianity. So it bothers me to see libertarians direct so much effort and energy towards bashing religion when it’s the least of our concerns, in my opinion at least…

              • Major_Freedom says:

                Matt M

                I didn’t cause the homeless person to be mortal for disobeying me.

                In the Christian faith, God isn’t “allowing” humans to die. God causes man to go from being immortal, to being mortal because Adam and Eve disobeyed Him.

                I don’t fear Ego/God. I will protect myself because I love living, but I don’t fear my mortality.

              • Ken B says:

                “Religions may be unfortunately prone to endorse or even approve of wars started and executed by various states, but has the church itself ever mounted and carried out a war since the Crusades?”

                Hooo doggy.

                Does the Caliphate count?
                Anyway, google Papal sates or Pope Julius II just to get you started.

              • Matt M (Dude Where's My Freedom) says:

                The caliphate and the papal states count about half for each. The word “state” is right there as part of the title for the second one, man!

              • Gamble says:

                So now the state is a teacher? Major I think you are slipping.

                Assuming the state is a teacher, the state says murder is not absolutely wrong. Murder is okay when they do it. The state also says the wrongness of murder also varies depending on the jury, judge, sentence and parole board.

                The Christian faith does not waiver, murder is always wrong. Heck Jesus even healed the solders ear and condemned Peter for taking a chunk of it…

              • Gamble says:

                MF wrote: “In the Christian faith, God isn’t “allowing” humans to die. God causes man to go from being immortal, to being mortal because Adam and Eve disobeyed Him.”

                Eve chose to follow the serpent rather than God.

                Eve caused man to be expelled from paradise. Just imagine if she would have avoided the tree of knowledge.

                Yet still to this day, man shuns the simple life and instead waste all of his resources splitting matter as many times as possible, seeing as far as possible, both outward and inward. My friends these knowledge quest are infinite and will always leave you with more questions than answers. Maybe worse, drain mankind of all resources in the process.

                Instead get back to raising some chickens and beans. Keep it simple stupid…

              • Harold says:

                Murder is defined as illegal killing. It would be useful if you were to use the term homicide to refer to any killing of a human by another. If the state commits legal homicide or someone kills in self defence it is not murder by definition, but it remains homicide.

                The existence of different terms for different things is useful.

                You could dismiss the existence of different things, and claim that all homicide is murder, but that leaves you with impoverished descriptive powers.

          • Gamble says:

            MF wrote:

            “When an Egoist kills, he kills for his Ego.

            When a theist kills, he kills for God.”

            But you already said there is NO GOD. So when anybody murders, no mater what they claim, they murdered for EGO.

            You see?

  7. John Becker says:

    I read Hitchen’s book over the weekend and agreed with a lot of what he said about religion being a foundation for violence and totalitarian rule. Then I saw that Mises had said everything Hitchens was trying to say much more eloquently in the chapter of Human Action called “A Critique of the Holistic and Metaphysical View of Society.” I consider this specific part of the book to be my personal bible. My favorite quote that Mises has about religion is “The history of the world’s great religions is a record of battles and wars, as is the history of the present-day counterfeit religions: socialism, statolatry, and nationalism” (147-148).

    Another great quote, “The dictatorial rule of a minority cannot find any legitimation other than the appeal to an alleged mandate obtained from a superhuman absolute authority” (151).

    My big dispute with any religion is that it means submitting your will and your reason to the will and reason of other men. What another human being says, you must accept unquestionably. If someone were to tell me that I must obey them because God said so, I’d say they were full of crap. We all know that God speaking to humans or intervening in human affairs is a bunch of garbage written down by human beings who trembled at the sound of thunder.

    • Gamble says:

      I don’t think it is fair to blame religion for violence and totalitarian rule. You just said there is no God, so these hideous actions are resultant self. Secondly, these people simply found the easiest method to bring their desires to fruition. Absent religion, these same people would have tried a different method. They seem to have libido dominandi. An inherent lust for power.

      Regarding submission? Most Christians believe the Bible is the inspired word of God, so we think we are only submitting to God, rather than man.

      Absent the Bible, most people submit to hundreds, if not thousands of men on a daily basis. At least I know the names of all the men I submit to and their story rarely changes…

      • John says:

        It does mean you are submitting to the thoughts and reason of another human being however you want to dress it up. Unless you consider yourself a prophet who is capable of being THE ONE who acts as a Godhead in which case you would be commanding others to do your bidding like Jesus or Muhammed. The fact that someone like Jesus or Muhammed can convince people that they are speaking the word of God and therefore submission to them is submission to God is a fantastic piece of manipulation.

        • Gamble says:

          No, I am not a prophet nor Godhead.

          The Bible is the inspired word of God. The Bible is not man-made.

          So when I submit to the Bible, I am submitting to God, not man.

          Nobody is manipulating me, because if there is no God, as atheist claim, then this all stems from MY ego. So maybe I am manipulating myself, just in a different manner than say Ayn Rand manipulated herself and her fellow cult members…

          • Harold says:

            Whilst it is possible to derive a message from direct reading of the bible, most people use intermediaries who have studied the bible and arrived at interpretations of the meanings within. It is probably impossible for someone brought up in a nominally Christian country to avoid interpretations of the bible – it pervades everything. So when you say you are submitting to the bible, it is likely that you are in fact submitting to a person,s interpretation of the bible.

    • Bob Murphy says:

      John Becker wrote:

      We all know that God speaking to humans or intervening in human affairs is a bunch of garbage written down by human beings who trembled at the sound of thunder.

      Well don’t include me in that “we” because I know God speaking to humans isn’t a bunch of garbage.

      • Major_Freedom says:

        My mother once told me when I was young that God spoke to her. She was so sure about it. There was no question in her mind.

        I asked, “What did he say?”

        She said “I am..what I am.”

        Many years passed.

        Them I saw the movie The Ten Commandments. It’s one of her favorite movies. She’s seen it dozens of times.

        There is a scene in the movie where Moses, played by Heston, spoke to God on Mount Sinai.

        In that scene, God said the same exact thing. Word for word. Did she really hear God’s voice, or was she simply experiencing a memory recall of a movie that deeply affected her?

        I am willing to bet that the voice you heard in your head, was a similar memory recall of a time in your life.

        Crazy people hear voices all the time, and drug treatment can stop those voices. That is evidence that voices in people’s heads have a biological, not supernatural, origin.

        • Matt M (Dude Where's My Freedom) says:

          If God was in fact real, would it be that strange of him to use similar phrases when speaking to various different people?

          If you were visited tonight by the ghost of Ludwig Von Mises and he spoke to you and said “Tu Ne Cede Malis,” would that be proof you were hallucinating? Would your encounter be more believable if he said “I really hope the Packers beat the Cowboys next week?”

          • Bob Murphy says:

            Matt M wins the internet today.

          • Major_Freedom says:

            Religion wouldn’t persist if it didn’t have an explanation for everything.

            Problem though: you are implying that God says “I am..what I am” to everybody.

            Or are you extrapolating from two sources only?

            And funny enough, many people do bring God into sports. Just look at your typical victory speech of a Christian athlete. Fact is, we see different people saying different things as to what God is telling them all the time. Guess they don’t count. Or they would if I originally complained about that. Then I would hear “Duh, of course God says different things to different people.”

            But don’t let this prevent you from accepting an internet win from Murphy.

            • Matt M (Dude Where's My Freedom) says:

              I am implying no such thing. I’m not suggesting God’s specific message to your mother was “proof” of his having spoken to her one way or another.

              You were offering up the content of the message as evidence that she was hallucinating. I’m merely casting doubt on your claim.

              And of course people invoke God in sporting events. That wasn’t my point. They don’t invoke Mises. I was attempting to offer up an example of a figure and a quote that would be well known and expected for you to hear from such a figure, much as “I am what I am” is well known and expected from religious folks.

              If you want to suggest that everyone who “hears the voice of God” is merely hallucinating then I really don’t have much I can say to that, just don’t make sloppy arguments in favor of such a claim.

              • Major_Freedom says:

                But you aren’t casting doubt because it is also true that different people hear different things that God is telling them. To say that it isn’t evidence of hallucination because of the theory “God says the same thing to different people” is rendered moot because the theory that different people claim to hear different things from God has empirical validity.

                I wasn’t trying to argue that because I have observed my mother saying what she heard in a movie, it s therefore true that everyone who hears voices in their heads must be hallucinating for the same reason. I was merely proposing a possible reason for why Murphy might have heard voices, using an anecdote to show that it is not unique for there to be an association between voices in the head, and past real life experiences.

                Also, I wasn’t trying to say your point was that people invoke God at sporting events. I only mentioned it because you cavalierly dismissed “packers beat the cowboys” as being no more, or no less, significant a hallucination than the ghost of von mises, that’s all.

              • Matt M (Dude Where's My Freedom) says:

                The Packers and the Cowboys are irrelevant. I only brought them up as an example of some random thing you wouldn’t expect the ghost of Mises to talk about. My example could have just as easily had Mises saying “Did you ever notice that airline food tastes really bad” or “I don’t always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Eqis.”

                My general point here is that if God was real and if he did in fact speak directly to people, it would not be in any way surprising for that speech to consist of things he is already known to have said to other people according to the Bible.

                Your implication was that your mother hearing God repeat something from the Bible was her having a flashback to viewing The Ten Commandments. While that is entirely possible, and I offer no evidence for or against your theory in general, I think the overall logic is poor.

                If God was real and if he spoke to us, it would be natural for him to say God-like stuff as documented in the Bible. If the ghost of Mises visited you, you would probably expect him to talk about economics, not about sports or food or TV commercials.

              • Major_Freedom says:

                Matt M:

                The Packers and the Cowboys are irrelevant. I only brought them up as an example of some random thing you wouldn’t expect the ghost of Mises to talk about.

                I know. The only reason I brought up sports athletes thanking God is because I found your cavalier mention of it funny, given that it is quite applicable to theist sports athletes.

                You may be looking too much into that comment.

                My example could have just as easily had Mises saying “Did you ever notice that airline food tastes really bad” or “I don’t always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Eqis.”

                My general point here is that if God was real and if he did in fact speak directly to people, it would not be in any way surprising for that speech to consist of things he is already known to have said to other people according to the Bible.

                It would not be in any way surprising if God spoke to each individual differently either.

                You attempted to cast doubt on what I said by claiming that similar voices is to be expected. But is isn’t, given that it is indeed the case that different people also hear different voices.

                What you believe casts doubt, doesn’t cast doubt.

                Your implication was that your mother hearing God repeat something from the Bible was her having a flashback to viewing The Ten Commandments. While that is entirely possible

                That was my only point.

              • Ken B says:

                Matt, please pass that ‘internet’ you won to Major Freedom.

              • Matt M (Dude Where's My Freedom) says:

                When someone claims to have heard the voice of God speak to them, I would say there are three distinct possibilities.

                1. Lying – They didn’t hear anything at all, but are claiming they did for selfish/manipulative ends.

                2. Hallucination – They indeed did hear a voice, but it was not from God, it was a figment of their imagination.

                3. God – They did indeed hear the voice of God.

                I’ve listed them in the order of likelihood in my opinion. I consider 3 to be unlikely, but not impossible.

      • Ken B says:

        RPM “Well don’t include me in that “we” because I know God speaking to humans isn’t a bunch of garbage.”

        No you don’t, and that’s largely the problem with your religion threads. You call belief knowledge and make a travesty of reason and evidence.

        • Major_Freedom says:

          If God is understood only in pure thought, then believing in God and knowing God become the same thing.

        • Major_Freedom says:

          I mean, it’s not like theists are conducting experiments in a lab to try and prove the existence of God.

          They’re doing so for the most part sitting in their chambers engaging in introspection.

          God is a mental exercise.

          Or dodging toys laying on the floor, whatever the case may be…

      • John says:

        I know lots of people I respect a great deal who believe in ghosts and UFOs as well. Unless you can show a logical argument or scientific basis for the claim, I just have to ask which is more likely, self-deception or misinterpretation or an eternal ominscient being speaking to humans. If he speaks to humans, why doesn’t he speak to dogs or monkeys? Many of them can understand language. Heck maybe he does.

  8. joe says:

    This is just a rhetorical trick. Give two things the same name and then switch them. We start by agreeing that something exists. We then call that something God. Now we agree that God exists. But this is where the trick comes in. We then start to talk about God and shift to the Christian conception of God. Before you know it, you’re agreeing that Christianity is the “Truth.” The goal is always to get you to subscribe to the Christian faith.

    Christians have been selling their faith for 2000 years.

    • Oztrian says:

      Yeah, well, climate change fraudsters have been selling their faith for at least 5000 years.

  9. John says:

    There is no satisfactory proof of God’s existence — that has been so well established over the last 100 years that I think there’s nothing left to argue about in that regard. It seems relatively obvious to me — and I think the great weight of the actual evidence suggests — that people made the concept up a very long time ago. But some feel certain they have experienced God, and perceived His glory. If that’s how Bob feels, I for one have no desire to argue with him.

  10. Benjamin Cole says:

    I envy the religious, and the comfort religion brings, and I admire good works when done in God’s name.

    But if there is a God, does he have to be so coy? When not some more pillars of fire? Gigantic skywriting globally and simultaneously.

    Dude, show me the money.

    You know, of all people, Gene Scott, the now-dead L.A. televangelilst, asked one day, “Oh, I see. God is isn’t just going to come out and show you. You have to be shrewd enough to detect all the signs and make the proper determination that there is a God, and which one is the right God.”

    Quite a task!

    I would be delighted to find out there is a God, Bring it on. Show me the money.

    • GeePonder says:

      Gene Scott was awesome. He would get mad sometimes that his fundraising wasn’t going well, and he would storm off the set leaving his empty chair on camera. They would broadcast that empty chair sometimes for like 20 minutes! Such bravado.

      • Benjamin Cole says:

        GeePonder:

        I am surprised anyone out there remembers Gene Scott. Been a while, and he was a character. You must be an Angeleno, and not a young one either.

        But Scott did ask that question one day on the set, and he worded the question much better than I did.

        It was really an attack on the pomposity and hypocrisy of religious obscurantism.

        I agree with the sentiments of John, below, that religion is often a justification for intolerance also.

        In fact, maybe Bob Murphy would like to address the topic of legalized polygamy n the United States…if he is a libertarian….

        • GeePonder says:

          I remember Gene because he was on cable on the East coast, and I was fascinated with watching televangelists. The charisma and hokum and the hypnotic cadences were totally fascinating to me.

          I will not follow you down the intolerance hole. Maybe you are right, but that is not my area of interest in this matter. If one wishes to be intolerant or even aggressive, then one reason is as good as the next. While I think religion tends to stick out in this matter, it doesn’t have a lock on the category.

          Instead, I would rather recount one of Gene Scott’s answers to a question put to him. A viewer asked what was the answer to racism? Gene answered that interracial marriage and interracial breeding was the answer, because when we are all mixed, racism couldn’t exist.

          I don’t dispute his answer. It was both forward thinking and totally opportunistic as an answer. Who could forget a guy like Gene Scott. No one like him.

          Cheers,
          gpond

          • Gamble says:

            The answer to racism is love. Love is the utmost Biblical mandate. Everyone is a child of God, therefore you must love all of your brothers and sisters.

            Maybe at fist I was compelled, but now my love is because of understanding and completely voluntary.

    • Ben B says:

      “Show me the money.”

      But only if it’s fiat, right?

      • Major_Freedom says:

        It’s just not pragmatic to put the guns down at this time Ben B. We have to wait until something than our own purposeful activity changes our…uh…purposeful activities.

        Until then, just care about yourself and your family, but make sure you communicate it like you’re trying to help the poor, which is also pragmatic.

        Be a prag queen.

    • John says:

      What about the bad works done in his name? Look at any example of extreme, inhuman brutality throughout history-genocide, slavery, systematic rape-and I bet you’ll find a religious justification. Just read the book of Exodus to see all these things endorsed right next to the Ten Commandments.

      Religious ideas are often violent and intolerant. When they are pushed on someone over the course of a lifetime, they can make good people bad. It isn’t simply a case that bad people seek a justification to do bad things. A Jewish doctor who refuses to treat dying Arab patients, a Hindu who forces a widow to commit suicide, or an Arab who treats his own mother as a second class citizen are simply following the teachings of their holy books.

    • Gamble says:

      2 Corinthians 5:7

      We live by faith, not by sight.

      Hebrews 11:1

      Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

      1 Corinthians 2:5

      so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power

  11. Major_Freedom says:

    A: “My belief that God exists rests on faith.”

    B: “My belief that God does not exist rests on faith.”

    Who’s wrong, and why?

    • Tel says:

      I propose to more efficiently believe that God does not exist than anyone can believe that God does exist; because I can skip past any contemplation on the nature of God. There’s a line in the sand at least.

      • John says:

        I like that. Since God isn’t necessary to a theory of how the universe works, Occam’s razor says that God isn’t a good theory and you should just get rid of it.

        • Tel says:

          Except that the theory of Evolution seems to suggest that an inefficiency would have gradually died out already… but observation indicates it hasn’t. Then again, using Evolution to make predictions is as fraught as using Economics to make predictions.

          Religion tends to keep people working together as a team. Doesn’t matter what they believe, so long as it gives them some common experience. A lot of corporations try to create the same effect with their internal propaganda.

          • Harold says:

            “Evolution seems to suggest that an inefficiency would have gradually died out already…” I think you are mixing up truth with usefulness. The persistence and ubiquity of religions suggests that it has been a very successful strategy for human groups. This says nothing about its truth, nor about the future usefulness of the strategy. Compare the peacocks tail. Very inefficient, useful up to now, but possibly a bit of an evolutionary dead end.

    • Gamble says:

      I think you are going to tell us both camps are wrong because faith is pure bs?

      Personally, my walk is based on faith yet the longer I walk, the more of God I see and experience.

  12. rob says:

    “Yet in seeing Gene argue in the comments, I understand why Gene’s critic(s) think he is “redefining” terms when arguing that God must exist, even though Gene claims he is just using the original definition of “God”

    I was one of Gene’s “critics”. I admit that I know even less about theism than I do about economics and perhaps that was annoying fro Gene but I am sure I never said anything in the discussion that was the least bit insulting or out-of-order but apparently Gene is no longer accepting my comments on his blog now.

    Its his blog and he can do what he likes, but that’s a bit pathetic in my opinion.

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