Re: “All knowing”
^ This. Takes us back to the starting argument, the trait of ‘all knowing’ is not compatible with freewill and judgment.
I don’t believe we have free will, but for other reasons, which I will save for some later time.
“Changing mind” is a rather human trait, shouldn’t apply to god. If his knowledge is alpha and omega, he knew everything from its nothingness to coming into existence till it goes back into nothingness, there isn’t much margin for a change of mind. Don’t know if this is the right way to put it, if he had to change his mind at some point, he would have known already that he would change his mind.
Iconoclast - I appreciate your input brother, but poetry really doesn’t cut it for me. I do appreciate poetry, art, music etc. But when it comes to ‘believing’ in something, you need facts and logic. Unfortunately, religion seems to have a problem with logic. This is where we throw in the towel and leave it all to faith in the unknown and unseen. Wish it worked for me, it doesn’t.
psyah - I really like how you build up an argument, although I wish you wouldn’t be too generous with words, but its quite interesting and thought provoking.
I do see your point about submission and I respect that since it is your belief, but when you say “We submit because we recognise the boundaries of human intellect”, I take it as an insult to intellect. Intellectual boundaries are not constant, they are ever expanding. What was a mystery a few decades ago is a well understood fact now. Look at how far we have come, and there is a long way ahead. You just can’t justify believing in the supernatural on the plea that human intellect is too limited to understand god.
May I point towards the concept of ‘the god of gaps’, human beings have always been associating everything they did not have any understanding of to the supernatural. Whatever the mind couldn’t comprehend, was associated with spirits, angels, god(s) etc. As the horizon of human understanding has expanded, so has the ‘scope’ of supernatural. Associating mysterious phenomenon with the supernatural is not merely something entirely related to abrahamic religions. The mayans did it, the greeks did it, egyptians did it, it has been going on since the dawn of time. Abrahamic religions are a more advanced form of this ‘submission’. While we are far away from fully understanding how things work, we do have a much better idea now. As the gaps are shrinking, so is the scope for the supernatural.
Not believing is god is a neutral position, not a claim. Belief in god is a claim and a claim warrants justification. Not liking football is not a hobby.