I know you all have put God in a safe little box. But you should understand that you’re in that box, too. — Joe Mello

God is a concept for you also. No-one experiences God because God is necessarily beyond finite representation. You're in a box, just like the rest of us.

emancipate, you didn’t just call me a liar or delusional for claiming to have received from God a direct revelation, you called everyone throughout the history of humanity with such claims, and they’re myriad, liars or delusional.

You must look at churches, temples, and mosques and giggle to yourself because you know every person in them is a fool.

You’re either a truly amazing fellow or just a superficial jerk. There is no middle ground for a hard atheist making such claims about God.

Hahaha..You made my thoughts visual!

emancipate, you didn’t just call me a liar or delusional for claiming to have received from God a direct revelation, you called everyone throughout the history of humanity with such claims, and they’re myriad, liars or delusional — Joe Mello

How are you 70 years old and as touchy as an angst ridden teenager? I called you neither a liar, nor delusional. And I am not an atheist. Completely wrong on all accounts.

MU, you are wandering into purpose.

The metaphysical principle I provided you is a journey into existence.

God's omnipotent existence would be the power behind the existence of evolution within the physical universe.

God's divine mind would be the "why", not the "how"? — Joe Mello

I am having 'great' difficulty understanding what you tried to tell me Joe. Isn't it true that "why?" is an inquiry as to purpose? So why do you dismiss my point as "wandering into purpose", and then say God's mind is the "why"? When wandering into purpose, "why?", is exactly what I am asking.

And every skeptic I have ever met refuses to understand the simple fact that, for example, a living being is "greater" than a rock.

When I tell a skeptic that a mother holding her dying child is a greater reality than the death of a star, that skeptic cannot for the life of him agree. It's truly dumbfounding. — Joe Mello

So this is where my difficulty lies, in your use of "greater". To judge something as greater than another requires principles or criteria, a scale of some sort. Often such scales are reducible to quantitative measurements, like larger, hotter, wider, taller, etc.. But you are obviously talking about a qualitative scale.

In terms of quality, I could give you a colour word, like "green" as an example, and we might judge one thing as greener than another. Then we'd need a criterion as to what constitutes "green", to validate our judgement. Your word is "great", so I want to know the principle whereby you would judge one thing as greater than another. Giving examples like "Life is greater than the elements, and thought is greater than life, and love is greater than thought" does not help, because you haven't explained how you make such a judgement, in order that we might extrapolate and judge something like God as greater than something else.

Another qualitative term often employed is "good". But "good" turns us toward purpose, as the goodness of something is always judged in relation to a specified purpose. You claim "existence" as your term, but I do not understand how you judge existence as a quality, to assume that one thing is a higher existence than another. Can you explain how you judge things to have a higher or a lower existence and are therefore greater or lesser?

God is a concept for you also. No-one experiences God because God is necessarily beyond finite representation. You're in a box, just like the rest of us. — emancipate

“God is a concept by which we measure our pain
I'll say it again
God is a concept by which we measure our pain

I don't believe in magic
I don't believe in I-Ching
I don't believe in Bible
I don't believe in tarot
I don't believe in Hitler
I don't believe in Jesus
I don't believe in Kennedy
I don't believe in Buddha
I don't believe in mantra
I don't believe in Gita
I don't believe in yoga
I don't believe in kings
I don't believe in Elvis
I don't believe in Zimmerman
I don't believe in Beatles

I just believe in me
Yoko and me
And that's reality”

John Lennon

MU, everything you’re saying is basically true. But it’s also off track because all I’m trying to get at is that the principle logically answers and points us to the necessity of an omnipotent power (the something greater than the greater thing) being added to lesser things when these lesser things evolved into greater things.

There were only the physical elements present in the forming of the Earth. Now there is a teeming biosphere. Science has only theories about how such an evolution came to be, and all these theories fall short to the degree that many scientists throw up their hands and admit that science will probably never discover the answer.

The principle is the answer.

And the parameters of science as subjectively drawn by philosophically inept human beings are not broad enough to include it.

But the science of Logic is a thing.

Why God does what he does in his infinite wisdom and willful choices is a fantastic question for another time that I would love to have at any time.

I know you all have put God in a safe little box. But you should understand that you’re in that box, too. — Joe Mello

Joe, I can't put in a box something that is already dead. I don't want share the space of my box with such useless thing

I called you neither a liar, nor delusional. And I am not an atheist. Completely wrong on all accounts. — emancipate

Uh-oh, you don’t fit in his safe little box.

Uh-oh, you don’t fit in his safe little box — praxis

:rofl: :monkey:

No-one experiences God because God is necessarily beyond finite representation. — emancipate

I don't think this is true. I think lots of people experience God. That doesn't mean I agree with Joe Mello on the things he's written.

emancipate, I told you that I have spent decades experiencing God, and you replied that “no one experiences God”.

So you implied that I was either lying or delusional, and your implication came as a declarative statement, so you “called” me one of these things, or both.

And “finite representation” is revelatory of God’s existence because he is the author of our finite universe. Who created it? Another universe?

But the revelations of God that I have also claimed to have had are far more revealing than some intellectual experiences that you can’t seem to rise above.

The word is “Spirit”, if you still need to be told it because you have chosen to forget it. And “Spirit” is not finite.

The greatest person who ever lived said to a group of confused people, like many confused people here:

“God is Spirit”

javi, proofread so your nonsense so it isn’t even more painful to read.

Why does everybody call you names, Joe? Good thing you don’t respond in kind, or else this thread would turn into a brawl instead of a peaceful, loving discussion.

Joshs, did you see the new Beatles documentary?

I watched every minute of it and enjoyed it immensely.

But I couldn’t look at John for too long because he was so filled with drugs he was a hollow shell of a person.

javi, proofread so your nonsense isn’t even more painful to read. — Joe Mello

Javi speaks English as a second language. Spanish is his primary tongue. We don't have any trouble understanding what he writes and he has valuable things to say. His English has improved since he's been on the forum. He's one of us. You are... well...not.

T Clark, then I gave him some good advice.

And the regulars on this forum don’t speak for the forum. The owner of this forum and the administrators do.

Groupthink is the death of every debate, not an antagonist.

You’re not posting to me out of intellectual curiosity but out of emotional needs.

But I couldn’t look at John for too long because he was so filled with drugs he was a hollow shell of a person. — Joe Mello

I was surprised he functioned so well considering.

Groupthink is the death of every debate, not an antagonist. — Joe Mello

Not true, unless you’re intimidated by groups, which you don’t seem to be.

Interesting that you consider yourself an antagonist. Is God cool with that?

I’m curious how your political views dovetail with the spiritual position you lay out in the OP. Give. that so many liberals are atheists , do you feel more comfortable with the social values of conservatives?

Interesting that you consider yourself an antagonist. Is God cool with that? — praxis

Onward Christian soliders, marching as to war…
At the sign of triumph
Satan's host doth flee;
On, then, Christian soldiers,
on to victory!

What should I proofread? Was my phrase out of sense/context? This is the first time I ever received in this forum. Please tell me because I always want to improve.
It is no easy when you mix two languages in your mind writing about difficult aspects as philosophy.
But, anyways, it is interesting what you said to me because I passed exams in my school and university and I never been told anything related to proofread my sense or writings.
It is true that sometimes I do not know what word use because we are debating about aspects with a complex vocabulary.

His English has improved since he's been on the forum — T Clark

Thanks friend :up: :100:

Apparently communing with God makes a person mysterious and arrogant. A story as old as time. — praxis

:up:

Joshs, do you know the difference between an evangelical conservative Christian and a scholastically trained theologian and philosopher?

It’s quite vast.

I don’t identify with liberals or conservatives or Christians or atheists or any groups actually.

What I have identified, however, is that Donald Trump is obviously a self-loving greedy piece of shit, politicians obviously only want to stay politicians, the far-right tend to be racist bigots, the far-left tend to be worldly idiots, and people mostly tend to be mediocre faces in a crowd.

But it’s also off track because all I’m trying to get at is that the principle logically answers and points us to the necessity of an omnipotent power (the something greater than the greater thing) being added to lesser things when these lesser things evolved into greater things. — Joe Mello

It's not off track, because your designation of "greater" might be purely subjective, and in itself off track. You might say stone is greater than water, and all you are really doing is referring to a difference between the two. But to be able to truthfully say that a thing which is different from another thing is "greater" than that other thing, you need a principle to validate your judgement. That's why I referred you to the concept of "order" in my first post.

Otherwise, all you are saying, when you say "thought is greater than life" for example, is that thought is different from life, because you have provided nothing to support your judgement of "greater". And when this is all that you mean, then obviously every different thing is different from every other thing, but it doesn't make sense to say that thing E is more different than thing D which is more different than thing C, and so on. To make a hierarchy you need a principle to build it on. And an undefined "greater" doesn't provide that principle because "greater" only make sense when it is qualified as to greater in what sense.

javi, you wrote:

I do not want [to] share the space [in] my box with such [a] useless thing.

The brackets are the corrections. But since English is your second language, your mistakes are certainly not the hasty and sloppy writing I thought they were. So don’t worry about.

But you should worry that God is “useless” to you.

One day God will be the only useful one you will need. And your life today is not any richer without God.

What I have identified, however, is that Donald Trump is obviously a self-loving greedy piece of shit, politicians obviously only want to stay politicians, the far-right tend to be racist bigots — Joe Mello

Now you’re talking my language.

MU, you simply can’t get out of your head.

If I have to “define” for you how a living being is greater than a material object, then you’re not in touch with common sense.

Skeptics all share the same nonsensical relationship with things as dictionary definitions first and foremost.

My God, man … see the nonsense you write. As a human being, you are the spokesperson for reality. Get the intellectual marbles out of your mouth.

A true skeptic is skeptical of himself, too.

Joshs, do you know the difference between an evangelical conservative Christian and a scholastically trained theologian and philosopher?

It’s quite vast. — Joe Mello

What would be your critique of liberal theology of the 19th and 20th century( Kierkegaard, Buber, Niebuhr, Tillich)?