Jesus said in the Gospels — Fooloso4

It's not crazy to believe God exists. Jesus might have been God, might have not existed, might have been evil, might have been a lesser god, or an infinity of other things. However: "Through analogies and types we can form a representative concept expressive of what is revealed, but we cannot attain that fuller knowledge which supposes that the various elements of the concept are clearly grasped and their reciprocal compatibility manifest. As regards the vindication of a mystery, the office of the natural reason is solely to show that it contains no intrinsic impossibility"- George Joyce

Actually... yes. Bet that plays havoc with your faith in initiation rituals. — Banno

I don't know what you mean about rituals. I don't do rituals. But it's a surprise you've read Aquinas considering what you say on this thread and others. But kudos to you

Have you read Aquinas's treatise on the Trinity or read Scotian counters to some of his finer points? No. So your claim is like an algebra student critiquing a paper on calculus. Formulations on the Trinity are as intricate, deep, and difficult as high level mathematics

Ye. I am Catholic in a way, culturally at least. I don't like when Christians try to prove their beliefs but if they aren't doing that then I'm one of them in a sense although they probably regard me as more a Buddhist or something.

God is the same as his power and his love and his justice and everything about him. He is one thing. That is what monotheism is about. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share an intellect and will. There is ONE God but three relations of consciousness within it. Once that is understood (as far as is possible) you can get to the Incarnation and see how a human nature can be subsumed up into the divine nature and live a consciousness that is and is not the same consciousness as the divine nature. It's in different respects. There is three Gods and one God but not in the same respect. The divine nature is one but the relations of consciousness utilizing the same intellect and will in God to love each other is how Christians understand the Trinity. You can say there are three Gods although this is not perfectly accurate, just as you can say there are three persons in one nature although this is not accurate because there is one intellect and will used by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Even the will and reason of God is one and not distinct from his justice love, mercy, ect. These are high level ideas and should not be dismissed by forum posters who haven't considered them seriously enough

The obvious answer is that God could have created your memories along with all the rest of the universe. — T Clark

That's not obvious. It sounds like your more a skeptic than I am

The one where we live. — T Clark

The one we live IN. That is key. Do you appreciate how old 14 billions years is and how big trillions of light years of space is? There are things that are too old and too big for us to know anything about. That's my view and I think i have a good intuition of time and how causality can change over epochs. There are few things that I can say I know them for sure, but other writers on this forum think cosmology as understood nowadays is very highly reliable. I'm not convinced that is the case. One billion years can erase billions of traces of the casual series

First off, your statement has nothing to do with the Problem of Induction as described by Hume.

What you have described is the Reverse Principle of Relativity - we can never know anything because everything changes everywhere and always. As I noted, you're welcome to that assumption, but it takes you outside of science. You have to play the science game by the science rules. As in the common example, God could have created the universe complete as we find it three seconds ago. In order to go about our business in the world, we assume that didn't happen. — T Clark

How much of Hume have you read? He wrote that causality applies within the universe but not necessarily to the universe as a whole. I used this logic in a slightly different way in saying we can reverse causality to find origin in the universe within a certain scope but not necessarily to the universe at large.

Also, God could not have created the universe 3 seconds ago because I infallibly remember the universe existing since as far back as my memories go (age 3). So the universe from my perspective has certainly existed for 32 years, and possibly for much longer

Christians discover ideas that can be thought of but which are above reason. Those doctrines are amazing and mind expanding.

Principles that must apply to things on earth (such that we can rewind causes to find an origin) don't apply to the universe at large. Aka, Hume's theory

Einstein knew that space expands faster than light latter in his life. They had shown it. I was questioning the idea that they can logically follow the expansion back to a singularity.

https://www.space.com/universe-expanding-fast-new-physics.html

https://www.space.com/39815-hubble-suggests-universe-expanding-faster-study.html

Physicists also say that light is mass-less but still they can weigh it. They also say a tightened string has more MASS than a relaxed one and that most molecules and atoms weigh less than the sum of their parts. Rather strange philosophical assumptions are needed to make sense of all this. There are certainly a lot of paradoxes in modern science to say the least.. Fortunately, the eternity of whatever arises mysticism in us coincides with all time and reality.

Einstein said in 1905 that the maximum speed of causality was the same as the speed of light in a vacuum. Then he found that space expands faster then light and causes gravity (causality). So he violated his own rule by making an exception. Who can know all the exceptions, factors, powers and forces, and all the peaks and valleys of causality? Just because something expands this doesn't mean it must contract exactly as you think it would given that we don't know all the exceptions, factors, powers ect involved in our universe. If this makes you incapable of trusting everyday science that affects your life then you think "mechanically" to use Heidegger's term

What is the speed of light outside the universe? We know its speed within it, but if the universe turns inside out the speed of light changes. So the laws may not be the same for future eternity.

You guys analyize the Trinity with logic instead of intuition intertwined with logic. The Trinity and incarnation are high philosophical ideas and shouldnt be rejected just because you can't understand them. Few do

you are typing on a device that was built with our scientific understanding of the world — Banno

Not cosmology. Have good day

Rubbish — Banno

False. You said

If all you are doing is presenting bits of autobiography — Banno

I did not do that at all. I was talking about existentialism in response to the solipsist comment. And I clarified this before your remark.

Hume wrote:

"The great subverter of Pyrrhonism or the excessive principles of skepticism is action, and employment, and the occupations of common life. These principles may flourish and triumph in the schools; where it is, indeed, difficult, if not impossible, to refute them. But as soon as they leave the shade, and by the presence of the real objects, which actuate our passions and sentiments, are put in opposition to the more powerful principles of our nature, they vanish like smoke, and leave the most determined skeptic in the same condition as other mortals." (Hume 1974:425)

He is indeed right in that when we say "there is no causality" we are not saying anything different from "an elephant can appear out of nowhere". We know life only from first person knowledge. Heidegger's Being and Time provides an excellent way to understand time in relation to existentialism. We know time and we can know that time becomes more opaque in the past. Philosophy can't do away with "the presence of the real objects" but it doesn't have to accept that scientists know in detail a causal series that goes back over 14 billions to an exact micro-second. The whole idea can be rejected solely for being ridiculous on the face of it

If all you are doing is presenting bits of autobiography, why should we be attentive to your posts? — Banno

All my posts had a point. You and debate tactics, gee. You debate, you don't try to dialogue

The account given by science, from big bang through star and planet formation, abiogenesis, evolution, geological change - it's extraordinary! It's brilliant - in the literal sense of shining brightly on who and what we are. And we built it ourselves, using our little ape minds. This must count amongst the greatest achievements of humanity. — Banno

That's your opinion. You can't prove it's better than another philosophical view point. You argue "it's science, not philosophy", right? Well this discussion shows that your belief in the formation of the universe is based on philosophy. I accept science in how it operates in the present but not necessarily in what it says about different ages

I think a philosophy of time will necessarily consider the past more doubtful than the present

Yes I mistype sometimes and autocorrect does a poor job. My point about solipsism was that we shouldn't have a doubt about others' existence but instead be existentially connected to time

No scientific claim is infallible but the past is far more opaque than the present.

Christians say Jesus had two separate consciousness, one divine and one human. The human one prayed to unite more with the divine consciousness. His prayer would be different from a Christian's prayer. That's how I understand it

Usually on this forum people just try to argue instead of trying to see what someone is really saying. This discussion is an example of that

I do have a specific point and have not changed my views. We know certain elements have specific effects but other things can have this as well. So we can know "so-and-so causes cancer" but not what happened millions of years ago because other things (call it a dragon, exotic matters, parallel worlds, God, or whatever) could have caused the effect ("now") other than the causes they assign to it

My last remark is to repeat that scientists analyze rays from the sun and infer what's inside it. But it could be an unknown substance inside that gives off rays similar to what a small man made sun would do. As scientist travel the past in their minds, they cannot be certain they know all the factors that lead to the few traces we have of years past

It does apply. All kinds of dark matters and many worlds and all that stuff could have hidden the true origin of the universe

If you find a document from ancient times that says Jesus rose from the dead, we can infer that there were many factors from back then that could taint the authority of the witness. Modern history we can test better. The further we go in history the less we know and this applies to all the sciences that deals with the past

Scientific thinking is very prominent, but any number of actions can produce a pattern that seems to indicate one specific series. We are all solipsists in that we know the world from our perspective. The world could have started at my birth as Bertrand Russell did or may have said. Science makes people give up personal thinking for "group think". I remember back to my first experiences of consciousness and free will and see his I've seen science make things. They know about Banno's heaters. But they don't know billions of years ago for the same reason we can't trust ancient history as being as reliable as modern history

As it said, we can't know for sure what's in the sun nor what happened billions of years ago. Theories fit their predictions and predictions fit their theories. It goes both ways. But we don't know when time started and what flux of matter happened in order to produce the patterns that we see in the CMB ect. It could have been anything

As I understand Buddhism, the world is real but we hold it in existence by our desires. Transcending to Nirvana finds the true world behind the appearance

Praising science is founded on philosophy, a philosophy that is new to humanity. Billions of years can erase so much that we think what appears to have happened did. You have a deficient philosophical world view. Why even praise science when it can only make us comfortable

Let me just add:

Saying 1) that we can rewind the clock of causality billions of years is the same logic as saying 2) "we know this can power the sun so it does. There is no metaphysics necessity to either statement. If you studied the wind patterns in a room to determine where certain papers flew to this doesn't rule out all kinds of factors that could have brought the papers to their place and put the wind into its structure. It's impossible to rule out unknown forces to create a theory of everything

In my opinion science only knows how to make things and cure diseases. There is no way it can know what happened a million years ago from physics. Their theories say what COULD have happened, but there could have been a dragon that breathed the world out of its mouth a million are so years ago. That makes more sense then a fiery singularity. An eternal dragon. There is no real truth in science. Its about trial and error to see what we can DO, not what we know. Scientists say "this is what is in the sun" based solely on what they know COULD power a sun. They don't really know what's inside that thing and the idea that philosophy will go away while science will find the theory that explains everything is preposterous. If there was no more to search for everyone would kill each other anyway

Immanence and panentheism are words that refer to the divine inside, or a least along side, everything. We face a destiny we can't understand presently but the faith and hope is for joys that don't end. People said "all is matter" while others say "all is spirit or at least there is a dualism". Making these distinctions can be spiritual in themselves, even if someone does fit into a category

I think we really don't have any idea what "not existing" is since we exist and becoming nothing is the strangest concept a mammal can contemplate. So we fill the sky with parent figures whom we believe loves us and try to live our lives as if we were still in the freshness of our childhood. You were never closer to "nothingness" then right now, whatever it might be

True. You defined God as energy and if the world is enchanted and mystical then to me that makes a lot of sense. Matter is the "form" energy takes. Free will is a monkey wrench for a lot of people because they say "how can God do bad" or "can God go to hell". However, it is the ego that does bad. And free will works within the parameters of divinity. I think its entirely possible everyone goes to heaven, their true home, when they die. Humans fight because they see other people as rivals and get envious

Humans have two minds, one which the Indians call Brahmin and one they call Atman. It is a falsehood of Atman that true love is "for another" because we are all one and can love everyone without selfishness. Once distinctions fall we can be spiritually strong. Even Christian theology speaks of this in that the union between us and Jesus is so complete that his goodness becomes our goodness. This is not a hippie dream but our future

You don't seem to see the world with mystical eyes

I don't think all possibilities will happen. Will you become king of France and go to the gullotine?

A decade after Galileo came up with his relativity, Descartes said that motion was prior to that which moves. This was the second step towards Einstein's complete formulation of relativity. It was Newton who thought time was immaterial and now such an idea is seen as superfluous. There is no "pure potentiality" or "perfect actuality". The world has both potentials and activities and time is only linear in how we experience it. As Heidegger said, you are over a bridge before you reach it. The meaning in life is to find your soul. Why there is a rock on the ground may or may not be a pureposeless question

I see soul as the substance of the person and spirit as the good action of the soul