Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God?

I wish Christian apologists would get their stories straight on this question. Apologists who seek to soften the problem of religious diversity, and who want to explain why a diverse number of religious believers have their prayers answered, will say Yahweh and Allah are the same god by different names. So say Paul Moser, David Marshall, Victor Reppert, Randal Rauser and many others.

Christians who seek to be honest however, will say no they're not the same god! Interestingly enough, William Lane Craig says they are not the same god! Jack Cottrell agrees with Craig. Roger Olsen's answer is both yes and no! Olsen:

Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? It’s not as simple a question as it appears and therefore no simple, straightforward answer should be given. The question itself begs analysis—before any answer can be given. I worry that people who jump to answer “yes” may be motivated more by political correctness and/or fear of persecution (of Muslims) than by clear thinking about the theological differences between Islam and Christianity. I also worry that people who jump to answer “no” may be motivated more by Christian fundamentalism and/or fear of terrorists than by clear thinking about the historical-theological roots of Islam in Jewish and Christian monotheism.

I've laid out what's at stake in several posts:

--Who Answers Prayers?
--The Empty Rhetoric of Christian Apologists.
--Do Christians Worship the Same God As Muslims and Jews Do? The Larycia Hawkins Test Case.
--It's Preposterous That Victor Reppert and David Marshall Believe in Allah.

Again, let me stress it's about being honest. Honesty has it's price though.

Do Christians Worship the Same God As Muslims and Jews Do? The Larycia Hawkins Test Case

Jack Cottrell is a Christian professor and author of many books and articles. I know him personally as a professor within the Christian Church and Churches of Christ (non)-denomination of which I was a part of before my deconversion. I've run into a lot of defenders of Christianity like Paul Moser, David Marshall, Victor Reppert, Randal Rauser and others who have said what Cottrell disputes. They have said they worship the same god as Muslims do, by a different name. The aforementioned defenders do so to de-fang the bite of religious diversity. This is typical of what they say.

Well forget them all, Cottrell argues differently right here, and strange as it sounds I agree with him. Now enters Wheaton College, the college that is home to the Billy Graham Center for Evangelism. They agree with Cottrell since they're planning on firing professor Larycia Hawkins for saying Muslims and Christians worship the same God, what Paul Moser, David Marshall, Victor Reppert, and Randal Rauser have all said! Strange isn't it?

Perhaps Cottrell and Wheaton College are forgetting the problem of religious diversity which I stress, which these Christian defenders are responding to when making that claim? Religious diversity is real and deep and world-wide. To say they worship the same God helps minimize the problem of religious diversity but it's disingenuous coming from people who are not honest in defending their faith. To honestly admit they don't worship the same God raises the bar of religious diversity where it rightfully belongs. I see this as a stubborn dilemma Christians must face. Are they worshiping the same God, or not? If so, see what professor Cottrell says. If not, then admit the problem of religious diversity is real and deep and worldwide, and that it's a powerful defeater to the epistemology of a sect-specific Christian faith. Here is Paul K. Moser's response to this news:

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Professor Victor Reppert on Natural Theology

Reppert is a good guy, but as a defender of Natural Theology he just doesn't get it.

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I Still Want a Respectful Educated Discussion of the Ideas That Separate Us

Have I changed my attitude from wanting a respectful discussion of the issues that divide us? If so, why? Have believers changed me? Should I let them change me? Will they be better off if they do?...or worse off? Can I remain steadfast in hopes of the ideal in the midst of some utterly ignorant comments and personal attacks from people I think are delusional? Am I that kind of person? Should I even care?

Once again Victor Reppert has taken a pot shot at me. He has become somewhat fixated on me. I guess that's a compliment since he wouldn't do this if I was not a threat to his faith. And while I don't respond to many criticisms posted by Christian Bloggers I do feel the need to respond to him, which is a compliment to him as well. Should I bother responding?

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Questions for Victor Reppert and The Argument From Reason

Edward T. Babinski's Reply to Victor Reppert at Dangerous Idea 2:

If you examine any two things you can find both similarities and differences. The organ known as the human brain (such as scientific experts presently know and examine it under their microscopes and via physical experiments), is of course different from the fullness of the mental world of our minds that we each experience. (But then, dissecting anything, like a frog, doesn't give you the fullness of that frog or its inner world either.)

Also, I agree with you that the connections linking our thoughts in long chains do not appear to be of the same kind of connections linking, say, actual metal chains. (However, we do know that the human brain like all other brains in nature features endless chain reactions of an electro-chemical sort. And the pathways of such electro-chemical activity are becoming more well known to scientists who are mapping them out.)

Question: If one is a "substance dualist" and believes that mental reasoning abilities are supernatural and enter the brain from outside the natural world, which part of the brain picks up these invisible signals from the supernatural world? In other words, if supernatural signals enter the brain at some point, what is that point? Or, if supernatural signals enter the brain at multiple points, then why can't both halves of a split-brain patient's brain "know" what the other half is thinking? Why can't one half of a split-brain patient "read the mind" of the other half of that same individual's brain? Why do split-brain patients, during such experiments, appear as if they were carrying on two separate thoughts and willing two different decisions at the same time?

Also, why the endless chain reactions of an electro-chemical sort that continue unabated between neurons and between entire sectors of the brain, traveling from one sector of the brain to the other and back again if the brain is being directed not by those reactions but by a supernatural force that is able to enter the brain and direct multiple brain sectors simultaneously?

SEE:

C. S. LEWIS’S “Argument From Reason,” vs. Christians Who Reject Mind-Body Dualism and Accept the Possibility of Artificial Intelligence, Even “Born Again” Machines!

C. S. Lewis and the Cardinal Difficulty of Naturalism

"Brain and Mind Question" and Christian Theistic Philosophers

Edward T. Babinski

The Gloves are Off Now! Slavery? NO, A Thousand Times NO!

I've had enough. I am sick and tired of Christian intellectuals, from Paul Copan (my friend), to Victor Reppert and a lot lower down the totem pole to David Wood, in their attempts to say that the slavery in the American South was different than what the Bible allows, and so it should never have been used to justify it. If you want to see me hot tempered, then just raise this asinine argument. I try to get along here at DC by being respectful of Christian beliefs, but on this issue I cannot bend for one nanosecond. Don't even suggest it, as Dr. Victor Reppert just did. Here's what I wrote in response:

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Victor Reppert and Jeff Lowder Again On Ridicule

Reppert still doesn't get it and it stuns me. Maybe he refuses to consider anything I say because I'm, well, an atheist, and he knows atheists are wrong about everything! ;-) He thinks one must come up with a argument and be able to defend it--on the Harvard Yard or something?--before being entitled to ridicule a belief. For one must be careful not to end up ridiculing a true belief. Of course, Reppert surely wants to be on the committee that decides which beliefs are false and deserving of ridicule, I'll bet.

Is he serious? I think he is.

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Victor Reppert: "There is a Boatload of Evidence for Theism"

Victor Reppert jumped into an evolution blog by making this claim: "I can't figure out what atheists mean when they say there is a complete lack of evidence. To me there is a boatload of evidence for theism, evidence from the existence of reason, the evidence of consciousness, the evidence of objective moral values, the evidence of man's inherent desire for God, the evidence supporting Christ's resurrection, the evidence for the reliability of the New Testament, the evidence for miracles in the present day, the evidence of the beginning of the universe, the evidence of the fine-tuning of the universe, the evidence of religious experience, the direct experience of God on our personal lives, etc. etc. etc. I can understand someone saying this isn't enough, or the nature of our claims requires a special standad of proof that hasn't met. In which case I would just ask "What would it take?" But to say that there is no evidence??? You've got to be kidding."

His comments have generated a good discussion. How can he say that? Evidence? Arguments, yes, but evidence? A whole boatload? I don't suppose he'd be surprized if I argued in the reverse. ;-)

Here's Proof Christians are Deluded!

Want to see an utterly ignorant analogy by a Christian intellectual named Ed Feser? He's not alone. Victor Reppert linked to what he said. Feser's gripe is against the "New Atheist Types." He says that "Richard Dawkins, P. Z. Myers, and their clones in the blogosphere routinely display exactly the sort of ignorance and bigotry of which they haughtily accuse their opponents."

But Feser ends up being the ignorant bigot on this one.

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Victor Reppert: Trump apologists are shooting Christianity in the foot

Previously I had argued Bernie Sanders is the atheist's candidate because his policies will raise societal health, which will in turn decrease people's need for a god. Now Christian apologists Victor Reppert chimed in, giving me permission to quote him:

If I were an atheist, and only concerned about the credibility of atheism and didn't care about the country, I would say go for four more years of Donald Trump. That is because evangelical Trump apologists follow him, and they do more damage to the credibility of Christianity than atheists like John Loftus. I seem to spend more time arguing with Trump apologists than atheists these days, because even though they don't know it, they're shooting Christianity in the foot.

This is an interesting proposal, but we do care for people and our country so we cannot do that. He's right though, Trump and his evangelical fan-boys are destroying the credibility of their Christian faith.

A Description of the Problem of Evil

Victor Reppert offered a great description of the problem of evil Here:

The problem is as old as Socrates’ Euthyphro. If...."good” must mean approximately the same thing when we apply it to God as what it means when we apply it to human beings, then the fact of suffering provides a clear empirical refutation of the existence of a being who is both omnipotent and perfectly good. If on the other hand, we are prepared to give up the idea that “Good” in reference to God means anything like what it means when we refer to humans as good, then the problem of evil can be sidestepped, but any hope of a rational defense of Christianity goes by the boards. - Victor Reppert.

I've already commented on the Euthyphro dilemna Here.

First posted 2/1/06

Victor Reppert On Priors, Biases and Probabilities

Victor Reppert recently said:

It all depends on your priors. I think an argument can be good even when it isn't strong enough such that it ought to convince any unbiased person. An argument might provide some evidence for its conclusion, which might be sufficient or insufficient given someone's personal prior probabilities....The trouble with "unbiased persons" is that you have to go through town with a lantern in broad daylight to find one. Unless, of course, you find the ones who agree with me! :) LINK.

In one sense I agree with Vic. We all have priors, that is, background knowledge, the information we have accumulated prior to encountering a new argument. We also have biases. We are prone to so many cognitive biases it's astounding. We don't reason that well because of them. When facing the fact of biases most people will even say they are not affected by them it's so bad. So I agree there are arguments that are good ones even though they cannot convince others. The problem is what Vic thinks this proves. The real problem unaddressed by him is how we can best solve this problem when it comes to debates about his evangelical faith.

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I Doubt Rauser is Even Trying To Understand Me

I have said that Dr. Randal Rauser is not being intellectually honest when it comes to his faith. This does not mean I think he's doing anything unethical or immoral. It means his faith blinds him from being honest with the arguments to the contrary. Let me try, yet once again, to persuade him to throw off his blinders with what I consider one of the dumbest rejoinders to my arguments I think I have ever heard. I do so in hopes he will see it for what it is, and then take seriously that this same blindness affects how he treats other arguments against his faith. I hope in vain though. Dr. Victor Reppert endorses what Rauser wrote, so hey, he's no different. Faith makes otherwise brilliant people stupid, and I mean this. They must hand out PhD's to almost anyone, is all I can say. Let me show you this stupidity from a post Rauser wrote titled, "Is John W. Loftus 'dumber than a box of rocks'?" Warning, this is going to get ugly.

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Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence

This is known as the ECREE principle mentioned by Carl Sagan and others. I think it's expressed better as "extraordinary claims require an extraordinary amount of evidence," or better yet, "extraordinary claims require an extraordinary amount of ordinary evidence," or even better yet, "extraordinary claims require an extraordinary amount of ordinary evidence, especially when we should expect that evidence to be there," but the point is the same. It's no surprise that Victor Reppert objects to it in these words:

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Should We Think Exclusively in Terms of Probabilities or Not?

Christians cannot agree on a definition of faith because faith cannot be consistently defined except that it is an irrational leap over the probabilities. They cannot agree on a definition because they refuse to admit this about faith. It's what they think best describes all other religious faiths except their own. It's what I think of all of them. I'm just more consistent. Faith can be described as a body of doctrine of course, but the word "doctrine" in the religious sense is "a codification of beliefs" best described in a creed. And a "creed" is a statement of faith shared by a religious community. There is no getting around these facts. A creed is a doctrinal statement of faith of a religious community. Faith is what all religious adherents accept and promote. Yet faith is an irrational leap over the probabilities.

Most all modern Christian definitions of faith are not biblically based. Others are irrelevant or superfluous. But regardless of they way they define faith I want a straight-up answer from Christian apologists like Drs. Victor Reppert, Randal Rauser and David Marshall who haunt these halls (it is the Halloween season ya know). Should we think exclusively in terms of probabilities, or not? If so, then why can't you admit faith is irrelevant, unnecessary, superfluous, unreasonable, irrational, and dangerous? If not, then why not? Come on boys, pony up. Put up or shut up!

For our lesson today let's look at what Jesus said about faith, and compare it with what Reppert said about it.

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Christian Philosopher Victor Reppert on a Craig/Loftus Debate

Dr. Reppert said to me: "He should debate you. But I think he would win the debate." Thanks Vic! He should debate me. I know of no stated criteria of Craig's where he will only debate people who could beat him, otherwise very few people are qualified. So bring it. None of Craig's stated reasons for refusing to debate me make any sense. With the endorsements of Reppert, Jeff Lowder, and Keith Parsons, this debate possibility is gaining momentum despite a few naysayers. In a recent poll here at DC, if we discount the people who don't like these kind of debates at all, 83% want to see it. To anyone who wonders why I would want to debate Craig even if I would probably lose, I say that I don't think I would lose depending on how one defines losing. I think I would offer several doubt producing arguments and that's good enough for me. [Fair Warning: To anyone who presumes to offer unasked for advice about what I should want to do, be careful.] ;-)

Either Choose Science or God, You Cannot Have Both

I think for a blog post I pretty much nailed it, arguing that science would not be possible if there were a miraculous intervening God. But since science does work then there isn't a miraculous intervening God. So choose ye this day: Either science isn't possible because there is a miraculous intervening God, or science works precisely because there isn't a miraculous intervening God.

Christian philosopher Victor Reppert objects of course, on two grounds as far as I can tell:

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Christian Philosopher Victor Reppert vs. Obnoxious Wanna-Be Paul Manata on Calvinism

To keep you up to date on the debate between Arminian Reppert and Calvinist Paul Manata which I previously reported about here, Reppert throws a knockout blow, which Manata doesn't realize because he's numbed by his faith. So all he can do is attempt a feeble reply. When will Calvinists like Manata ever understand how morally bankrupt their theology is and that it creates atheists?

Non-Exclusivism, Universalism, Evil, and, Philosophy As One Big "IF"

America's leading Evangelical Christian philosophers (influenced perhaps by the struggle to find a way to justify the devilish amount of sheer ignorance in the world) are more attracted to ideas of "non-exclusivism" (i.e., people who are not born-again nor confessing Christians can still be "saved"), including even universalism (i.e., everyone will one day be "saved"), than are America's leading Evangelical Christian theologians, the latter of whom spout relatively more exclusivistic views based on a stricter linguistic interpretation of the Scriptures.

Though Alvin Plantinga is not a universalist, he is apparently a non-exclusivist who is attracted to the idea that more than just born-again or confessing Christians will be "saved."

Evangelical Christian philosopher, Vic Reppert [who argues on a philosophical basis that there is a likelihood of a "second chance" after death] adds, "There really isn't a firm quotable statement [regarding exactly what Plantinga's views are]. However, when I used to attend SCP meeting on a regular basis, I would have to say that exclusivism was very much a minority position. The philosophers, Robert Merrihew Adams and his wife Marilyn McCord Adams, are both universalists, and next to Plantinga, they are the best-regarded [Evangelical] Christian philosophers." [email from Reppert to Babinski, Tuesday, October 24, 2006]

Victor Reppert at his blogsite also recently posted an entry debating questions concerning God's "middle knowledge," titled, Gale, Adams, and universal salvation, that ended with Vic's observation that "since Adams [mentioned above] is a card-carrying universalist, it looks like he can dodge this objection. Everyone gets saving grace."

PHILOSOPHY AS ONE BIG "IF"
PART 1

I suspect there are even more "ifs" if everyone looked harder at every argument--from eternal damnationism to universalism to simply death and rotting. I think it would demonstrate that philosophy is one big "if" when it comes to such questions.

Such "ifs" must also include the fact that the Bible is a book of words written by human beings, and such words are not equivalent to visibly seeing God, Jesus, the afterlife. Furthermore, people who claim to have seen God and/or the afterlife are also FEW in number. And many such "sights" are brief at best, or hazy (and they grow either "hazier" or "clearer" with the passage of time, depending on whether one is relying stictly on one's memory, or continually redefining one's memory of one's vision in verbal terms linked to increasingly dogmatic influences and interpretations applied from outside). Even of those few visions that some claim to have seen clearly, there's a wide variety of things seen, not simply Christian ones. So there is no coherent interpretation that includes and explains all such visions, let alone a "theologically systematic" whole, and as I said, FEW have ever seen such things.

PHILOSOPHY AS ONE BIG "IF"
PART 2
POINTS FOR PLANTINGA AND VIC TO PONDER CONCERNING EVIL AND FREEWILL

1) If freewill was truly free than maybe it's logically impossible to assert that a God with "freewill" can also be defined as "good," because a God with "freewill" could also act "evil" by definition of having "freewill." Such a "God" would then have to be defined first and foremost as "free" and His actions defined as "indeterminate" or "vacillating based on choice."

2) Even if someone tries to argue that the definition of "freewill" (i.e., "always being able to choose either good or evil") applies to "God," then there's yet another question.

Let's accept a tri-omni good God exists. The "defense" offered for evil in that case is that anything God creates would be inherently less than God and more subject to temptations toward evil. But such an argument simply redefines the words "less than God," as "evil," but there is no proof that such a redefinition is necessarily true. Being "less" than "God" does not necessarily entail a creature becoming "evil," not anymore than God's own "freewill" might leave God in the exact same situation of always having to choose between two options. And WHATEVER MAY BE SAID IN THE ONE CASE APPLIES TO BOTH. Whatever keeps a tri-omni good God from never using His freewill to choose evil, could just as well apply to a less than tri-omni creation that came directly out of that same God. I stick by that statement, but Plantinga and Vic deny it on no provable basis that I have yet seen.

CONCLUSION

So there is no way for theistic philosophy to prove it has argued its was to reality or THE truth, because it just tries to redefine "freewill" in different terms for God and man, (or, it tries to equate the phrase "less than God" with "evil," again without proving that it is necessarily so), just based on PRESUPPOSITIONS THAT IT MUST BE SO. And such presuppositions remain as QUESTIONABLE as any other view.

In the end the idea of evil coming out of perfect goodness remains an unproven proposition.

~~~~~~~~~~~

All such philosophical arguments also flounder on the fact that we grow up via experiences of this cosmos. We learn about "'good' and 'evil' and the spectrum of actions lying in the grey area" in this cosmos before we ever learn how to separate those examples and concepts fully from one another in the form of "words," and claim they are fully and absolutely separate from one another. So the separation takes place afterwards (after one's mental development and contact with the world), and only after such a separation do philosophers take one of those abstracted concepts and try to build a bridge over to the opposte word and concept:

Perfect goodness---> Evil

When I read about arguments that try to create such a bridge I can't help noting all of the sheer ingenuity and guess work employed in the process of trying to find a way to bridge those two things that WE as human beings experienced and learned about as they already co-existed together, a world with both good evil and many grey areas of various shades as well. People living in this cosmos in which all those things co-existed, have learned how to pull such things apart mentally, and imagine only one of them existing alone in the beginning, then philosophers try to mentally derive one FROM the other. But that proves nothing about reality itself, the one in which we were raised and in which such things co-existed already.

It's like beginning with

Perfect Cold----> Hotness

Perfect Darkness----> Luminosity

A philosopher can of course argue based on scientific knowledge that the answer in the above cases is that molecules start to move faster, generating more heat and even light. But then the philosopher must also recognize that "perfect coldness" has no molecules that move faster than "perfect coldness" allows. Not if you begin with NOTHING BUT "perfect coldness." So you can NEVER get to the opposite side or cross the bridge from the initial defining point--you can't cross the bridge from one word to the other if both are already so well defined to the complete exclusion of the opposite word. (*Don't misunderstand me, I am speaking in terms of the limitation of going from one abstract word or concept to another, which by definition excludes the former word or concept. I am not speaking in terms of a creationist argument in which the cosmos began in perfect darkness and coldness--and even that argument is fallacious because scientists admit many possibilities not simply the one that the cosmos was created out of an inert cold and dark mass. They admit cosmoses might oscillate, give birth to other cosmoses, there might be an infinity of cosmoses and super-cosmoses throughout infinite time and space. And using "God" to explain the existence of the cosmos is simply to employ an even greater mystery ("God") to explain a lesser one, a more immediate and universally recognizable one.)

Now consider these questions and how they might be bridged:

Perfect Cold----> Hotness

Perfect Darkness----> Luminosity

In nature, coldness can and does sometimes warm up and/or cool down again; and darkness can and does grow brighter, and/or dimmer again. We observe such things happening on earth and via telescopes. So in nature CHANGES OCCUR, including oscillating ones. We observe that to be a fact of which there is no facter. Because there's a variety and mix of forces and co-existence of forces in the cosmos, all of which exist TOGETHER, side by side, rather than there being "PERFECT cold" or "PERFECT darkness." Nature, isn't "perfect" in either respect, and unlike philosophy, nature appears to be multi-sided, changeable and filled with the co-existence of things philosphers simply want to purify down into "perfect" words of which there is no worder.

Therefore, philosophy invents and relies on abstractions from nature that philosophers then further elevate to "perfections" or "absolutes," but they are picked a bit here and there from nature, like gnats from nature's hair, and philosophers claim that each particular thing they plucked from nature mentally is the "IT" that began it all.

That's probably why philosophers continues running into the same debates and obstacles to agreement since the pre-Socratics, because philosophy begins with fragments of the whole natural world of experience and then after fragmenting nature has to try and reunite the fragments back together to get THIS whole cosmos. Philosophy is the Humpty Dumpty rhyme writ large.

Thus the BIG QUESTIONS appear to lay beyond the ability of philosophers to get people to agree upon their answers. Philosophy cannot prove it's various conflicting explanations for reality, for this cosmos in which things co-exist, mix, and change. Philosophy has so far proven nothing. It is a mere wax nose on the faces of all philosophers, as flexible as their brains that keep alive all sorts of opposing views and viewpoints concerning the BIG questions.

~~~~~~~~~

BACK TO THE QUESTION OF "ETERNAL SEPARATION"

Why speak about "eternal separation" as if change is no longer possible after some point? If there is "freewill" and if "freewill" is so vitally important, then why not retain freewill and that means retaining possibilities of change throughout eternity? Maybe people have their "up" and "down" periods throughout eternity? If you're looking at options PURELY PHILOSOPHICALL then eternal oscillation with no point of "no return," remains as good a purely mental option as any. But most people simply want the game of philosophy to end in some definitive way. They don't even begin to think in terms of life the universe and everything as an INFINITE game (rather than a finite one). I suppose that's partly because philosophers are lazy like the rest of the primates on this planet. Finish the job, reach the point of no return and get some sleep. (But read James Carse's FINITE AND INFINITE GAMES too, as well as Alan Watts's THE BOOK OF THE TABOO: AGAINST KNOWING WHO YOU REALLY ARE.)

Victor Reppert, Edward T. Babinski, Philosophical Problems of Knowledge & Communication

Victor Reppert recently left me a comment at his blog that began with an invitation for me to return to kindergarten, and concluded that my replies were full of "sound and fury," and my questions "signified nothing." My reply appears below.

Vic,
Since you wish to take me back to kindergarten, then let's do so. No evasions, let's begin from scratch.

Tell me all that you know about God, all that you've seen of God, touched of God, heard of God, tasted of God; and then tell me all that you know about the world you see and taste and touch and hear, the people you see everyday, and the cosmos where you see all things die.

The "God" knowledge appears relatively more "hidden" to me than the knowledge I have of the cosmos we all live in together.

I am not saying that the problem of evil has ceased being problematical any more than I am saying it is impossible for anything other than nature to exist. I'm simply telling you what I know with some degree of certainty compared with beliefs that I am less sure about.

I have also pointed out what I consider to be flaws in philosophizing about the Big Questions. Anyone may philosophize all they wish, and argue for whatever "God" or "force" they believe exists or doesn't.

However the more I read such arguments, the less convincing I find them. "Words" themsevles do not appear to provide absolutely accurate descriptions of the realities they are supposed to parallel. "Words" are stuck having to describe things that can also be understood as lying along spectrums of change. Words and concepts appear to be distilled from experiences within this cosmos where words/concepts and their opposites co-exist, or intermingle along spectrums of change. Neither am I of the opinion that verbal analogies constitute proof. Poetry yes. Proof no. I suspect the human mind of also being flexible enough to come up with counter analogies and counter arguments aplenty concerning all the BIG questions.

So I have simply come to trust direct experience a bit more than idealized philosophical arguments purporting to explain the answers to all the Big Questions. I also have grown more patient, not less, with living life day to day, and with the experimental process on both a personal level and in terms of humanity's groping toward greater knowledge. I choose patience even to the point of admitting I will very probably grow old and die with the same questions we have discussed, being debated still among philosophers.

Let me put it this way, I don't even know nor can I prove in a strictly philosophical fashion whether or not death ends "me" permanently, or, whether I or bits of me might survive after I die in a "ghostly" fashion, or, whether bits of me might not merge or join with others or bits of others that have died to form something new that begins again in a cosmos like ours or continues in some another dimension, or, whether I or bits of me might not "come back" in a reincarnate fashion, or, whether bits of me might survive after death for a long time and THEN even those bits die eventually, or, whether I have an immortal individual "soul" that can never die, or, perhaps I will die and an exact duplicate of me will be CREATED with the exact same knowledge and memories I had right up to the instant of my death (I don't know whether or not such a thing could be done by beings of super-intelligence from the future or past or parallel cosmoses, or by a demi-god or infinite Being who kept a copy of me in their "memory" and so could recreate me in some other place time or cosmos even if the "me" that lives here "dies"). Christian philosophers of mind also can't agree on the later two options, an immortal soul, or recreation after death by God. Some of them even use the Bible to argue that human beings don't "have" souls, they "are" souls. So, they agree the mind could be a function of the brain and the summation of experiences and knowledge each brain takes in as it grows and develops and becomes enculturated. Purely philosophically speaking, any or all of the above options might be true. It's even possible philosophically speaking to argue that what we call "consciousness" does not include our particular memories and knowledge and lives which might accrue and gather round "consciousness" and interact with it, so "consciousness" might be something that is more basic even to the cosmos itself, malleable and universal rather than individual. (Note, I'm not saying I view all options as equally appealling.)

There certainly are many weird things I've read about when it comes to consciousness, including mystical experiences, and weird visions people claim to have experienced which vary depending on one's culture. Though unfortunately, most people whose heart stop during surgery, or for long periods, and they are revived, recall nothing. And most sleep during the night is unconscious, dreamless. And there's questions that result from split-brain experiments, and there's cognitive science that is teaching us some of the many ways we each are influenced by items around us, or by others, unconsciously, and there's phermonal influences as well (scents we can't even consciouslly smell that affect us). Recently I read about how certain bacteria might be affecting people's brain/minds. Other experiment indicate that the brain/mind is an excuse generator, even a belief generator (as indicated in some-split brain experiments).

It also seems to me that humanity is young as an intellectual species. Heck we're still stuck on the cradle planet.

So tell me Vic, what do you really know? How much do you think you know about "God the universe and everything?" What percentage of that knowledge consists of philosophical conundrums that have remained unresolved for millennia? While just how much more do you interact with and know about the cosmos in which you live, move and have your being, and in which everything dies? I think you'd have to agree with me that you know more about the latter than the former.

P.S., By the way, your recent post about the Deity's "right to choose" as a possible reply to "evil," appears like you're thrashing blindly about for answers nearly as much as I am. I don't know how you can continue to believe you are building up "proofs" when you sink back in that post to relying on total mystery and faith in whatever "God does," which is close to relying on the mystery of "whatever will be will be." Are you honestly considering no longer even asking WHY "God" might "choose" the things "God" chooses, or what the definition of "good" is? Is it simply whatever God chooses? Whatever exists? Again, mystery. Didn't Aquinas and Barth also sink back into total mystery in the end and admit all of their philosophizing wasn't quite the point, or didn't provide the ultimate proofs they'd hoped to present?

I know you're not a fundamentalist Vic, and you DO admit uncertainties. I simply admit more than you do. By the way, there's a book about kindergarten that I enjoyed reading once, titled, Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.