Paganism vs One True God

"So rather than be just another mindless religious robot, mindlessly and aimlessly and blindly believing that all of this is in the hands of some spooky incompetent father figure who doesn't give a ****, I decided to look around for something else to worship. Something I could really count on.

And immediately, I thought of the sun. Happened like that. Overnight I became a sun-worshipper. Well, not overnight, you can't see the sun at night. But first thing the next morning, I became a sun-worshipper. Several reasons. First of all, I can see the sun, okay? Unlike some other gods I could mention, I can actually see the sun. I'm big on that. If I can see something, I don't know, it kind of helps the credibility along, you know? So everyday I can see the sun, as it gives me everything I need; heat, light, food, flowers in the park, reflections on the lake, an occasional skin cancer, but hey. At least there are no crucifixions, and we're not setting people on fire simply because they don't agree with us.

Sun worship is fairly simple. There's no mystery, no miracles, no pageantry, no one asks for money, there are no songs to learn, and we don't have a special building where we all gather once a week to compare clothing. And the best thing about the sun, it never tells me I'm unworthy. Doesn't tell me I'm a bad person who needs to be saved. Hasn't said an unkind word. Treats me fine. So, I worship the sun. But, I don't pray to the sun. Know why? I wouldn't presume on our friendship. It's not polite."
George Carlin

MildSteel said:

So you missed the omnipotent, omniscient and ubiquitous part. I was trying to explain how the attribute of being the causes of all causes was relevant. It's relevant because God's energy is everywhere, therefore everything rests on God's energy. The sun's energy influences a tree to produce citric acid. The sun did not directly produce the citric acid, the tree did. But the sun's energy is present in the citric acid. And without that energy there would be no citric acid or the various molecular or atomic interactions that exist in the the citric acid. In a similar way, because God's energy is present everywhere, God is relevant because everything rests on that energy, including things that influence us directly like the wind, rain, rivers, oceans, and sun.

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You keep adding things. Give the complete definition upfront. Still, nothing you're offering is more specific than natural physical forces. The only definition you gave was that this thing is everywhere, powerful, knowing (which is vague, and implies intelligence, though you didn't put intelligence in your definition), and causes everything else. Discounting gravity, which wouldn't necessarily have existed during the big bang (due to the lack of Higgs Boson particles and thus no mass to attract), the other three fundamental forces fit this description.

Theoretically, a magic water buffalo would also match, but there's no reason to think that a magic water buffalo exists, and without interaction as part of its fundamental definition, such a buffalo wouldn't matter. The "causing stuff to happen" bit doesn't establish interaction. Gravity causes stuff to happen. It doesn't interact with us in an intelligent way. But even if you include intelligence in your definition, it's still an irrelevant deist god. So again, please fully define your god. What does it do? What did it do? Did it lead a bunch of Jews out of Egypt? Does it tell the pope that a thousand years of babies going to limbo was just a joke?

Like everyone else, you resorted to vagueness to avoid your god being dispelled.

Jayhawker30 said:

Telling us that our feeble minds cannot comprehend God, and then telling us with certainty that this God exists and how he's above our understanding. As you understand it.

Maybe you're not one of us humans. Are you an angel?

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No, you misunderstood. It's not that humans cannot understand God, but that there are some attributes of God that cannot be perfectly comprehended with the human mind. Just like the example of the ape. An ape can comprehend the difference between one banana and two bananas. And actually Calculus is really just the study of the behavior of differences. But there are rather sophisticated concepts associated with those differences that are beyond the intellectual capacity of an ape to understand, although it can understand differences to a certain extent.

Paschendale said:

You keep adding things. Give the complete definition upfront.

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Wrong. I didn't add anything. Back in post 16 of this thread you said

Paschendale said:

But I'll even defeat that one. I'll make you the safe offer that I make to all theists. Define your god, and I will prove that it doesn't exist. Define some god whose existence matters, that interacts with us in some meaningful way, and I will prove that it's not real. No one has ever taken my challenge, except to try to argue some vague and nebulous god like "the source of goodness" or something like that. Such a deist position is completely irrelevant to our existence. Posit a relevant god, and I'll prove that it's not real.

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In post 18 I made the following response

I gladly accept that challenge. Prove to me that an omnipotent, omniscient, ubiquitous God, who is the cause of all causes does not exist.

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You need to read carefully.

Paschendale said:

Still, nothing you're offering is more specific than natural physical forces. The only definition you gave was that this thing is everywhere, powerful, knowing (which is vague, and implies intelligence, though you didn't put intelligence in your definition), and causes everything else. Discounting gravity, which wouldn't necessarily have existed during the big bang (due to the lack of Higgs Boson particles and thus no mass to attract), the other three fundamental forces fit this description.

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No they don't fit that description because no one his demonstrated how the phenomenon of sentience can be created from any of the fundamental forces.

Paschendale said:

Theoretically, a magic water buffalo would also match, but there's no reason to think that a magic water buffalo exists, and without interaction as part of its fundamental definition, such a buffalo wouldn't matter. The "causing stuff to happen" bit doesn't establish interaction. Gravity causes stuff to happen. It doesn't interact with us in an intelligent way. But even if you include intelligence in your definition, it's still an irrelevant deist god. So again, please fully define your god. What does it do?

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I have given the definition which you don't appear to fully comprehend. Again what I said as a reminder

Prove to me that an omnipotent, omniscient, ubiquitous God, who is the cause of all causes does not exist.

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Omniscient means that there is no limit to God's knowledge. In other words, God knows everything. You may know what you are thinking, but you don't know what I am thinking. God is not limited like that. God knows what everyone is thinking. That's one point. The next point is that God is omnipotent. That means that God has all of the power. That means that God is even in possession and control of what limited power that you have, and everyone else. It also implies that God has the power to give you your power and to take the power away. So that is most certainly of relevance. Furthermore since God has all of the power, that means that your heart is beating because God is causing it to beat. You don't even have to think about it. It's done for you. So such a God is most certainly relevant to your life because ultimately God has given you the power of life, is sustaining your life and will ultimately take your life one day. There is no limit to the power of God, therefore God is the most relevant.

Paschendale said:

Like everyone else, you resorted to vagueness to avoid your god being dispelled.

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There is nothing vague about what I have put forward. All you have done is blow a bunch of hot air so far. I'm still waiting for your proof.

MildSteel said:

No, you misunderstood. It's not that humans cannot understand God, but that there are some attributes of God that cannot be perfectly comprehended with the human mind. Just like the example of the ape. An ape can comprehend the difference between one banana and two bananas. And actually Calculus is really just the study of the behavior of differences. But there are rather sophisticated concepts associated with those differences that are beyond the intellectual capacity of an ape to understand, although it can understand differences to a certain extent.

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I still think it's a little weird to say that. To understand that there are things which are certainly not understandable to us is something I don't understand. It's one thing for a higher creature to see the limits of the mental capacity of a lower one, but how do we deem something to be of a higher plane of understanding than our own... through the limits of our own understanding?

Jayhawker30 said:

I still think it's a little weird to say that. To understand that there are things which are certainly not understandable to us is something I don't understand. It's one thing for a higher creature to see the limits of the mental capacity of a lower one, but how do we deem something to be of a higher plane of understanding than our own... through the limits of our own understanding?

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It's not that you deem it to be of a higher, it's just that God is higher. And the point is that any paradigm of understanding the world whether it be physics or philosophy makes some assumptions, things that are assumed to be true without proof, and then tries to explain reality from those assumptions. As a result of that, there is no good reason not to try to understand the world through a paradigm that assumes that there is an all powerful, all knowing, ubiquitous God, who is the cause of all causes.

Summerwind said:

I guess I'm trying to point out is that paganism in a way is a precursor to science, encourages the idea of respecting (worshiping) the awesome powers that make this planet inhabitable as well as the hope to exert enough influence to control small portions of those immense powers.

People say that the developed world is or has been mostly Christian, but I can look around and know for sure, reality is based on paganism.

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Ah yes. We all know how scientifically inclined the vikings when they would shout at the sky during an enclipse because they thought the great serpent was eating the moon and they tried to scare him off )

Meanwhile in England, they were translating Latin documents into Anglo-Saxon and trying to figure out one or two things about all the knowledge that was lost with the fall of Rome.

Paganism is silly. Christianity is a better in this remark... not only because it abolished human sacrifice but also because smarter people and scientists of the time, if they were clever enough, could claim that the ideas of such things come from God and they'd get a pass . Furthermore, after the Enlightenment and the role of religion was diminished, things got better. It's not religion that promotes scientific literacy, it's scientific literacy that does that.

MildSteel said:

It's not that you deem it to be of a higher, it's just that God is higher. And the point is that any paradigm of understanding the world whether it be physics or philosophy makes some assumptions, things that are assumed to be true without proof, and then tries to explain reality from those assumptions. As a result of that, there is no good reason not to try to understand the world through a paradigm that assumes that there is an all powerful, all knowing, ubiquitous God, who is the cause of all causes.

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I just find it weird for one to determine that something can never be possibly understood by themselves, or their species as a whole. I think it would make more sense to say "we don't know right now."

Jayhawker30 said:

I just find it weird for one to determine that something can never be possibly understood by themselves, or their species as a whole. I think it would make more sense to say "we don't know right now."

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First of all there is a difference between having a limited understanding of something, and having a complete understanding of it. You don't have to understand everything about how a car works in order to make use of the car. Next of all there is the issue of just who and what are we. There is a difference in the car and the driver of the car. A person who immersed in a virtual reality reacts according to the sensory input that he receives through various devices. However, a totally different set of circumstances can be presented that changes all that. The point is that we may be limited currently in our understanding of God, but that does not mean it is not possible that many of those limitations can be removed by the will of God. If we accept that God is all powerful, then God must have the power to remove those limitations.

Rainman05 said:

Ah yes. We all know how scientifically inclined the vikings when they would shout at the sky during an enclipse because they thought the great serpent was eating the moon and they tried to scare him off ) Meanwhile in England, they were translating Latin documents into Anglo-Saxon and trying to figure out one or two things about all the knowledge that was lost with the fall of Rome. Paganism is silly. Christianity is a better in this remark... not only because it abolished human sacrifice but also because smarter people and scientists of the time, if they were clever enough, could claim that the ideas of such things come from God and they'd get a pass . Furthermore, after the Enlightenment and the role of religion was diminished, things got better. It's not religion that promotes scientific literacy, it's scientific literacy that does that.

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Too many people have died due to strife among and amid the Judeo-Christian-Muslim "one true god" religions to legitimately claim no loss of human life, regardless of whether the term "sacrifice" is used.