I believe in a Creator

Religion and Secularism
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I see. The bible is founded on the four Vedas? And God is a Hindu God?

I don’t care what you or Oxford says something means when it pertains to;
“relating to knowledge, especially esoteric mystical knowledge”.

None of it is knowledge as defined in Websters

What is a good synonym for knowledge?
Frequently Asked Questions About knowledge

Some common synonyms of knowledge are erudition, learning, and scholarship.

> While all these words mean “what is or can be known by an individual or by humankind,” knowledge applies to facts or ideas acquired by study, investigation, observation, or experience.

Merriam-Websterhttps://www.merriam-webster.com › thesaurus › knowledge

Search for: What is a good synonym for knowledge?

How God Is Both Incomprehensible and Knowable at the Same Time

Scripture teaches that we can have a true and personal knowledge of God, but this does not mean we will ever understand him exhaustively. The Bible is clear that God is ultimately incomprehensible to us; that is, we can never fully comprehend his whole being. The following passages show this:

Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable. (Ps. 145:3)

Then how do we know it needs to be praised?

Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand? (Job 26:14)

What thunder, thunder and lightning (a weatherfront)?

Chimpanzees think that Thunder and Lightning is made by an unseen enemy in the sky. You watch them run around with a stick beating the bushes and shaking it at the sky to protect his family from this threat.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isa. 55:8–9)

And why should that impress me?

Yes, you gotta have faith to absorb all this nonsense. Sheep also have faith in their shepherd. They are gnostic!

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Take Jesus out of the bible and you most likely will not have a religion. Books have been written that show most of Jesus’ sayings are older sayings out of India. The best doctors don’t have to be the ones that invented the cures. They must be good at administering the cures. And Jesus was the best.

At the time of Jesus there were several concepts of how gods worked. For example, a baby is born without any knowledge. So, how does that baby get knowledge from the sun to the heart, where knowledge is stored? The bible shows this being done. But if you don’t understand the basic thought patterns of the people at the time. There is no way you would be able to pickup on what the bible might really talking about when it comes to key points. Basic morals are simple.

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OK, the bible is made of many stories and letters. And you choose one that was not about morals. And I know less than nothing about Revelations. None of those pieces will fit the puzzles I am working on. So, I don’t spend any time with Revelations. There is a mountain of data to work with. And most of the data about religion is outside of the bible.

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It doesn’t and it isn’t.
Knowledge is stored in the genes and long term memories (engrams) are stored in the pyramidal neurons in the brain

The bible shows this being done. But if you don’t understand the basic thought patterns of the people at the time. There is no way you would be able to pickup on what the bible might really talking about when it comes to key points.

Basic morals are simple and are found in all constructive philosophies of human behavior, based on observation of natural survival behaviors in many animals, except perhaps in reptiles.

In nature Patriarchies and Matriarchies established forms of social order long before man walked the earth. The Bonobo chimp is the most generous animal on earth. When they have a disagreement, they resolve with love making. And of course the Bonobo Tribe is a matriarchy.

And curiosly, for all its social moral guidance, man is the only animal that kills for sport. On the whole, mammals in nature are much more civilized and moral than man.

Morals are not a result of religion. Morals are secular values that have been incorporated into religions. Moral behavior can be found throughout the animal kingdom.

You come from the perspective that religion started with Adam and Eve, but that is just not true. Religion did not start with the first humans. It did start with early humans who imagined gods caused the weather and climates. Those gods have all been laid to rest.

The Abrahamic god started with the Talmud long before Jesus “Christ” was born. And Mary was not a virgin, or Jesus could not have been a male and would have been a clone of Mary. This is genetically determined andcannot be replaced by any genetic miracle.

IOW, the bible is full of untruths and that is perfectly understandable given the lack of “knowledge” (gnostics) at that time.

There is no way they would know how to write the bible when it comes to key points.
Basic morals are simple and secular!

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I did not choose a particular paragraph from the bible. The bible is rife with behaviors that were moral at that time but have since been declared immoral and are conveniently ignored when citing the bible as a moral authority.

If you want to gather knowledge of Theism read the Skeptics Annotated Bible/ Q’uran/ Book of Mormons and it will inform you of the various civilized and uncivilized behaviors that were practiced at that time.

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https://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/

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eli1: The big bang is such a small event to infinity. it is more likely that everything as far out as earth people can see through whatever means is just part of a small creak of mass to the larger universal picture. again if you look into a small creak there are particles and small whirlpools the same as galaxies are moving about our universe in much the same way. What if like our brain the universe and beyond is the Brain of God. And what Everything is a thought or memory of that. because God is life everything in the universe is life no matter how big or how small. in a dream of God he could visit any part of his Brain, Even Earth.
That is my Thought of what God is. Thanks Tom

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What was the name of this Abrahamic God?

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It’s a long list

Or, one of these guys

List of knowledge deities - Wikipedia.

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You want to start with the definition of Jesus? Why don’t we start with what you believe he looked like, before we do that- was he white with blue eyes and blond hair or brown with brown eyes and dark wavey, maybe curly hair? If Jesus existed, only one of those descriptions is correct. I can tell you right now, the way most people view him, is not the historical Jesus. If you want to find the historical Jesus, you need to look where he allegedly lived.

The stories are tribal stories, more or less similar to other tribal stories to explain various things and a means to control members of said tribe. The 10 Commandments are not much different than the Code of Hammurabi, which by the way, there are at least two versions in the OT, just like there are two Creation stories. You can boil these commandments down to one, which is the Golden Rule, found in many cultures. The idea of a deity is purely a human concept.

Well, both Krishna/Vishnu (The Gita) and the Xian God (The OT or Torah) were the “I AM”.

Jesus wasn’t in the OT and the Jews have done very well with their religion for centuries.

Quite true. In fact, some scholars think one of the Gnostic Gospels, I think Thomas, but I’m not sure of hand, is the Q source of the Four Gospels.

The Jews have a word, which I have to look up again, but Jews believe God’s name is not to be spoken or written.

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Never takes you very long to insult others does it Lausten!

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People who throw insults are often the ones who complain the loudest when others do it. Generally, you’re correct, you might say “technically”. Eli1 is making a poor argument and is taking feedback personally. Sometimes I get tired of being subtle about responding to posts like that.

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Looks to me as though he was making an observation, not trying to insult you.

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Coming late to an interesting thread. But it still seems not unlike the other threads in this topic. The science oriented folks are discussing the shadows on the cave wall, as if they are talking about what’s outside the cave. And the religious oriented folks (eli mostly it seems) are talking about what’s outside the cave. One problem is that the religious folks seem to think historical folks like Jesus somehow tie the two together. I guess that’s kind of interesting, but of course we use Jesus mostly because I’ll betcha any money eli, and most of us here were born, raised, and “submersed to the point of not even knowing it” in the West. So of course we talk about Jesus and THE link between the inside and outside of the cave. I’ll bet other forums populated by mostly Eastern-oriented folks hardly ever mention Jesus. Why would they?

Anyway, all these types of discussions always seem to suffer a couple problems - definition of terms. I see “God this” and “God that” as if we even know what we’re talking about. We don’t, we can’t. Even the smartest among us are almost nothing compared to the whole of history and reality. Why do we think the stupid little concepts bouncing around our little brains are even slightly effective in explaining things that are outside the cave?

Even the notion of Why there’s something rather than Nothing implies there was a start, and presumably an end. Why do we think that? We’re limited beings who see things start, progress, and end. Limited viewpoint. Pretend to be godlike, or immortal let’s say. You wouldn’t think in terms of beginnings and endings, but processes that take on varying characteristics. Speaking poetically, you might say atoms arrange themselves into molecules, etc etc etc then into babies, adults, back to worm food etc etc. Just a process, no real beginning or end, except as viewed by us limited beings. And yet we talk as if we have the ultimate concepts that CAN explain. It’s not very satisfying but that seems to me to be the best we can do without adding in some kind of “local” bias like historical figures, this or that scientific theory, this or that religious doctrine, etc.

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I love that thought experiment of a similar forum in India or somewhere, saying “creator” and meaning Vishnu.

I get your point about us even needing to talk in terms of a start. I don’t know that I can really let go of that, but by studying cosmology, I at least can put my existence in perspective, as part of cycles that take billions of years to play out. It gets me focus on things like people who are need now, instead of some eternal after life.

One problem I’ve had with this thread is the discussion of Plato’s cave. Without looking it up, I think there are misrepresentations here. I thought the images on the wall of the cave were things the “regular” folks see, like we’re sitting in a dark cave and seeing them on a wall, BUT, we don’t know that, we think that’s the real world. Meanwhile, clergy of some kind, and I can’t remember what Plato called them at the time, they are using projected light and shadow puppets to project those images. They know what the real world looks like, but they don’t want us to know.

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The Plato’s allegory depicts men chained and immobilized in a cave. They turn their backs to the entrance and see not objects, but the shadows of objects that are projected against the wall. They think they see the truth, when they only see an appearance. Nobody projects the shadows.

One must leave the cave to understand one’s condition, the risk being that when one goes back in the cave, one is not believed. It is easier to believe in a comfortable fallacy than accepting the truth.

The idea that in some cases, the priest are creating the shadows is interesting. But in most cases, they do believe them.

In fact, i would rather say that they interpret them.

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I believe in a Creator

I believe in Creation, but not in a Creator. IMO, one does not necessarily follow the other.
I base my belief on the principle of “necessity and sufficiency”.

Can anyone explain the necessity of a Creator in more detail?

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I did a quick review. They aren’t priests, but they are people. It’s not clear how the allegory got set up but maybe that’s not the point. Plato did seem to think philosophers are better, and that’s something I don’t like about him. We don’t know why he got to have all this free time to just think about stuff, but it doesn’t appear that he ever reflected on his own lucky station in life.

I agree that we can lack perspective due to what we were born into. It can be hard to adjust when we are shown new information.

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If you limit yourself to Newtonian physics, everything needs a cause, but the more powerful creator doesn’t fit the logic. I don’t think there is anymore detail

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It seems to me that the “necessity” for a more powerful creator does not exist at all.

I think an All-Powerful Creator is an attempt to fashion a Recorde’s Equation ( “=” ),
i.e. The Universe is really big, therefore the Creator is really powerful. That’s logical.
And that would fit the theory of the Big Bang and resultant Chaos.

But where is the necessity for “motivated intent” as a substitute for “inherent potential” ?

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If have to review some Plantiga to even attempt to answer that, but I would be taking a point of view I don’t actually believe