Mopac

I must be too ignorant to see that, because I just see you projecting your haughtiness on to me.

I'm not even talking about a place of eternal torment. I'm talking about right here on Earth.

I never claimed to know how things truly are.

I said, to rephraee, I don't need to know The Truth to know The Truth exists.

Those who deny the existence of God are very wrong, and it isn't even honest to entertain the idea that they could be right. After all, they are not just denying any old thing, they are literally denying Truth itself. It is a self defeating position.

So really, if you were to say, "The Ultimate Reality does not exist", you would be the one contradicting yourself. You can't say, "It is the truth that the truth is a lie and there is no truth!" without obviously contradicting yourself, and that is exactly what someone is doing when they say there is no God.

In fact, it isn't even reasonable to be on the fence about this. 

I don't avoid calling people idiots because it is against the rules. I avoid calling people idiots because it is not a very charitable thing to do.

It is simply a matter of accepting what The Supreme and Ultimate Reality is.

I dispute that I have made any contradiction, I have been very consistent the entire time I have been posting on this forum.

If there is any inconsistency, it is certainly in your interpretation, because I understand what I am saying.

I do not need to know how things truly are to know that there is a way things truly are. You are asking an unreasonable question.

You ever hear the saying, 90% of all statistics are made up?

I don't need to address these things, because you have too narrow of an understanding of these concepts to really understand my answer to begin with.You want a God made in your own image, when really it is us who are made in the image of God.

You ever hear the saying that man is a microcosm of the universe?

The only example of that which is not contingent is God. Everything else is contingent on God, and something else.

There is no hot without cold. Their is no big without small. There is no motion without time. Something is not visible unless it can be seen. It is not food unless it can be eaten. You were born to be alive. Knowledge must have a knower. A being must have existence.

The instructions on how to use the dictionary are what say this, not me.

You are wrong.

God means The Supreme or Ultimate Reality.

Could you say that God is "the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped as creator and ruler of the universe"? Certainly, you could, many do understand God in this way and worship God as such.

Could you say that God is "the incorporeal divine Principle ruling over all as eternalSpirit : infinite Mind"? This is certainly what the church that was formed from the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy teaches.

You don't have to agree with any of these examples to believe God, indeed there are millions of people who don't. The essential definition is "the supreme or ultimate reality".

And I would say, The Supreme and Ultimate Reality, for they really are one and the same.

What is a religion but a way of life? Is the cobbler any more correct than the carpenter?

Those who receive not the love of The Truth will be cursed with strong delusion. Love The Truth. Love others as you love yourself. That is good religion.

When you are a bored and grumpy old man, you might not realize how foolsih this is, but you'll certainly be living in hell if you don't. 

From the dictionaty instructions....

Contingent means that it doesn't exist on its own. It requires something else to exist.

In other words, you have no argument

Everyone is deceived to an extent. We all probably deserve hell, even if that isn't what we get.

The easiest way to tell if something is created is if it has contingent existence. Can it exist on its own or does it need something else to exist? Does it only exist in the comparing of something to something else? 

The human mind can't really make sense of anything without comparing to something else so to rest on the mind is to rest in dualism. Creation is dualistic in nature. God is The Singularity.

Maybe you are interpreting what I'm saying as gibberish, and that is because your interpretation is wrong.

The Supreme and Ultimate Reality is by definition something that cannot be known, because knowledge of it is not the same as what it is.

The universe is a postulation. Is the universe part of the universe?

The Supreme And Ultimate Reality is greater than the universe.

And this is the difference between pantheism and panentheism.

This is true, but if you understand what Ultimate Reality means, you understand that it means something that completely transcends postulation. We can postulate an image of it, but as for what it actually is, that is very alien.

Definition of universe courtesy Merriam-webster...

"the whole body of things and phenomena observed or postulated"

The Supreme and Ultimate Reality is not contingent on observation or postulation. The Supreme and Ultimate Reality existed before the universe, is greater than the universe, and will exist long after the universe. If there is even a multiverse, The Supreme and Ultimate Reality is greater than all of this, existed before, willl exist after, and is eternal.

The Supreme and Ultimate Reality is The One True God and creator of the universe.

Calling me a nutcase is not an argument.

If you don't believe in truth, I'll have you know that it is better to love The Teuth than to embrace delusion.

I don't know what you mean by that.

But it seems to me that you want God to be an object of some kind. If you understand what "Ultimate Reality" means, those words together.. it sould be obvious that what I am refering to is beyond those words, and anything I tell about God is ultimately unreal. God is by definition that which is ultimately real. 

I would be doing a disservice to you and anyone who may be edified by this conversation if I were to equate God with anything other than that which is totally true.

The essence of God is that God is reality at its most extreme. There is nothing more real than God. All other realities are only real in some sense, but God is totally real.

So if I were to present you a reality that is only true in some sense, you would find the sense that it wasn't true and we'd go on playing a wizards game for 10 more pages. 

You have to understand that God is The Singularity. This is a very special case. We are not talking about a mere created thing, we are talking about The Ultimate Reality, The Supreme Being. For you to treat God as if it were just any other thing in creation is a type of identity fallacy. 

A man? A rock? These things are incomparable to The Supreme And Ultimate Reality.

Are you going to make fun your idol before The Truth?

You know, if you put "a" before something as a prefix it means "not or against".

It was said in greek mythology that inspiration came from a muse.

What does it mean to be amused?

Little etymology humor for you.

I wouldn't even bother starting a cult if you can't pass scientology auditing proving that you are a clear. Nothing proves conclusively that you are some type of secret agent psychopath like answering impossible questions that no one can answer honestly while not triggering a lie detector test.

The Supreme and Ultimate Reality, The Father

The Most Perfect Image of The Truth, The Son

The Spirit of Truth, The Holy Ghost.

Our relationship to The Father is through The Son guided by The Holy Ghost.

And in this Holy Trinity is the essence of Christian doctrine. 

The Truth is The Truth.

This is not a tautology. It can only be what it is. If I put into words what it is, it makes me a liar because it is more than what I can say it is. I would be limiting God, which would give you something to argue against that is not God.

No amount of cleverness is going to undermine the existence of God. There is no argument against God. Your accusations against God fall flat. You cannot accuse The Ultimate Reality of being a fallacy.

God does not react to anything, like a rock. If God could be effected by anything else, something would have power over God. Therefore, if something is effected by outside influence, it is not God.

If I told you yes, I would be lying. If I told you no, I would be lying. If I told you I didn't know, I'd also be lying.

Instead I will tell you that It Is What It Is.

Why don't you ask that question and really study for yourself? It would be more edifying for you in the long run I'm sure. After all, if you can't equate God's will with whatever ends up happening, what else can I tell you? If you are looking for an invisible bearded man in the clouds, that isn't what God means. God means The Ultimate Reality.

You say I'm being ridiculous, but all I'm saying is that my religion is Truth Worship. You are the one telling me otherwise as if you could understand what I believe. You clearly don't understand my faith, and you are only making a pretense of trying to clear things up.

You are not actually open to the possibility you are wrong. That is what I think.

That is what you think, but if that was the case I would not say I was a Christian. Maybe you don't understand the faith as well as you think you do.

You know what the word truth means. It's the simplest thing in the world. You are making it unnecessarily complicated, and now accusing me of doing the dancing.

Maybe it is too simple for someone as smart as you, or maybe you've been driven mad by your learning. I don't know.

Don't pin this on me, I grew weary of this futile dance pages ago.

Well, see, as long as you are in your epistemological black hole, you aren't going to accept anything I say, so we can really go on forever. You know it takes as much thought to immediately dismiss something as it does to immediately believe something. None. Yet what are you arguing against? All I'm saying is to Love The Truth. My religion is Truth Worship. Do you want me to do all the thinking for you? I can't do this. Practice of religion is inherently subjective.

See, you want me to assign probabilities to things. Probabilities are an absurdity. How do you come up with probabilities? It has been scientifically proven that it is impossible to isolate all variables, which is why we have probabilities to begin with. Probabilities themselves are based off of fuzzy premises, because we don't know. It would be meaningless to think in terms of probabilities.

You want knowledge, and there is a limit to knowledge, as you no doubt understand. Uncertainty can cripple you, especially if you want to do what is right. I'd say live life, and stay honest. It isn't important that everything makes sense or fits in a box. Be sincere. Be honest. Show charity to others. Love The Truth above all things.

You can be 100% certain that God exists. Everything else you can be so sure.

I am not backpedaling at all. We all have knowledge of good and evil, it is perspective we lack. God cannot be completely known, because to completely know God would be to completely know everything. Only God knows the thoughts of God.

You can certainly have knowledge about things. You clearly know English at least well enough to hold a conversation, and it would be silly to deny this.

The point isn't being 100% certain about stuff. You don't revert into a solipsistic black hole because you can only be 98% sure of anything. That is like treating dandruff by decapitation.

The point is that you want to be more honest, more sincere, and strive for reality. It is silly to even dispute that this isn't beneficial. But truly, it is best to love The Truth for the sake of it in itself than to do it for some type of gain. Gain is not godliness, and in fact, this in itself is an idol before God. To take gain as a reason to love The Truth actually gets in the way of loving The Truth.

In fact, some of the most brilliant people love The Truth as it relates to their gain. This is wickedness though, and a corrupted form of Truth worship.

Take the greatest good as being Truth. Take the greatest evil as being false.

You already know how to tell truth from falsehood, and the proof of this is that you are able to use language. You are clearly able to formulate thoughts and ideas.

Talk to me in gibberish, and see how beneficial it is.

The epistles are really the best writings in the bible for learning the faith, but you can spend an entire life studying the bible. I am very welll studied.

There are a lot of people who are very well studied too who have radically different views. For this reason, I try to break it down to the essence.

Christianity is Truth worship. It is all about the personal relationship one has with The Truth, and the entire discipline has to do with doing this more effectively.

It always amazes me how people struggle with such a simple concept.

But this is what happens when you feel you have to understand something.

The Truth. No, it isn't vague, it is very specific. It's Trurh in the truest sense.

Everything else is how you relate to that. 

It seems like what is being demanded from me is a grand unified theorem.

We do have a knowledge of good and evil, truth and falsehood. What we really lack is perspective. Acknowledging the limits of our perspective is loving The Truth.

If the choice is between truth and falsehood, choose truth.

If the choice is between holding on to things that keep us from being honest toward truth, and letting those things go, let go.

Be slow to judge. It is better to say to yourself, "I don't know" sometimes. Knowing everything is not necessary, nor possible.

All you can really do is be sincere and honest about the things that are keeping you from being sincere and honest.

Love of The Truth gives us inner peace. Love of The Truth gives us scientific advancement. Love of The Truth is beneficial in every way.

Reality is superior to unreality. Truth is good, falsehood is evil. We all fall short, but if we were to dwell on our shortcomings, we'd be crippled. The truth is that this is what we work with, so we have to make peace with it and work with what we got.

It's really quite alright.

Think of the word salvation in the broadest sense. If you are saved from anything, it is God who does it. 

But besides that, even if you are in a terrible situation, making peace with the reality of your situation will deliver you from the pain that comes from not accepting the situation and deairing to be somewhere else.

In every possible way, it is better to go with truth.

Yet even accepting reality is clearly better than embracing delusion.

People who love The Truth with sincerity tend to work their way through their delusions. People who embrace delusion tend to decend deeper and deeper into their own hell. It is a curse.

No, I told you thst God has the answers, and you should go to God.

Then I answered your question.

And the reason I don't why I am growing weary of this discussion is for the same reason that you did not perceive my answer. I can't do all the thinking for you. 

It's very simple.

My religion is Truth Worship.

Meditate that on your own. God is a better teacher than I am. I have made straight the path, now follow it. You know The Way. All that is left is for you to walk the path. I cannot walk the path for you. I must become less so that God becomes more in your life. 

Keep multiplying them

That is what ultimate reality means.

Not simply truth, but the essence of truth... the most true...The Truth.

And it is certainly less of a mouthful, but in the context of this discussion, that is what that means. The Truth is the same as The Ultimate Reality, is the same as The Supreme Being.

If you actually take these words and examine what they mean, they mean the same thing. 

The Way It Is in Actuality 

The Truth.

And you can take just about any of St. Augustine's writings, and he always makes sure to identify God as being The Truth. This is the identity of God. 

So if you say that God is anything other than the God I believe, I will not compromise or budge on this, because you are WRONG. I wouldn't ask you to start treating a 5 as if it was a 3 now would I? If you do not accept the identity of The One True God, you might as well be smashing idols, because you certainly aren't talking about my God. 

.There is no argument against God that can stand.

I would hope that the contrast between loving reality and embracing delusion is obvious.

The Good Teacher is God. Recognize God, and go with God. All your answers are there.

Know that you don't have to let the past define who you are, and that though the things of this world pass away, God is eternal. Abide in God. Abide in eternity.

Merriam-webster...

"capitalized : the supreme or ultimate reality"

In other words, The Truth is God.

So when you deny my God, you are saying there is no truth, because my religion is TRUTH WORSHIP.

And though you may deny the cloud of witnesses backing me up, I am certainly not making any innovations in religion, this has always been True Religion since the very beginning, and there was never a time when my God was not Lord of All.

That The Truth is God, your only salvation, your only liberator, and that loving The Truth above all else is the best possible thing you can do for yourself and everyone around you.

The Good News is that The Truth is God. You have been forgiven your offenses against God, now forgive others their offenses against you, and live with sincere faith and charity. Be a light to the world, pointing out The Way to those who will receive it.

With this shield of faith, this breastplate of righteousness, this helmet of salvation, the belt of truth, and the sword of the spirit, being The Word of God, go out equipped to resist every evil against you. Be a soldier of God. That is what I pray and wish for you.

But if nothing else, walk away knowing that The Supreme And Ultimate Reality is God, and there is none greater. There is no other worthy to be called God, and this is the One True God that can only be denied in ignorance and foolishness. There is no other like this God, none comparable. Go away believing in your heart with certainty that this is God, and be glad that no one can deceive you into believing otherwise, whether they be deniers of God or those false messengers and servants of God, who lead many astray in order that they make gain in this world. Their religion is vain, their rituals abominable, their sacrifices empty, and their hypocrisies are evident for all to see, those who use The Lord's name in vain, these wolves in sheeps clothing denying The One who can deliver them. 

I pray above all else that God will bring you to know The Divine Identity, that in your heart you be certain that The Supreme and Ultimate Reality is God. I pray that you find that everlasting peace that surpasses all understanding, that peace that comes from God, and God alone. I pray for you enlightenment.

I'm not expecting you to believe that God has a mind. If God has a mind, God has a mind. If God doesn't have a mind, God doesn't have a mind. Though it is written...

If you love reality, it will make you a saner person. It will make you a more rational person. It will make you a more stable person. It will benefit you in every way.

If you love a rock, you're going to have pretty much the opposite effect.

It's literally the difference between worshipping God and worshipping idols. 

Maybe reality does, and to outright deny the possibility seems foolish to me given the complexities of the universe and our relatively narrow and limited perspective.

I don't know. It isn't relevent to me.