Actually katieO, I think René Descartes would disagree with you.

In fact, he already proved you wrong over 350 years ago.

Polycarp wrote: I was just making the point, that given the grandure and enormity of the Universe.. and what this says about it's Creator, it would be rather pointless for us to expect to know much about Him other than what He himself reveals.

Dear Polycarp,

It would serve you well if you spent a little less time with your fairy tale book and a little more time studying the English language.

Grandeur is the correct spelling. My dictionary defines enormity as:
The great or extreme scale, seriousness or extent of something perceived as bad or morally wrong. Enormousness is probably the appropriate word. It’s is the abbreviation of it is. Ordinarily the possessive case does terminate in ‘s. However, the possessive case of it does not so as not to be confused with the abbreviation of ‘it is’.

Polycarp wrote: I'm not using the thread as a pulpit.

You are using the thread as a pulpit. It’s a rare post of yours that does not include quotes from your fairy tale book.

Polycarp wrote: The only things which separate our Lord from the other 'also ran' would be Messiah's are His signs, wonders and miracles....and His resurrection.

After the fact anybody can write about signs, wonders, miracles and resurrection.

What separates the real messiah from a false messiah is that the real messiah (not that I believe in that fiction) ushers in the messianic age where ‘nations study war no more’. The real miracle is that there is no messianic age, but somehow you believe in a messiah that did not produce a messianic age. As far as messiahs go he was a failure.

"Seemed", Boaz?

>>sorry if it seemed like I was picking on you<<

The entire post was directed at me. Nothing "seemed" about it.

Not that I mind in the least.

As Dennis Healey once said of Geoffrey Howe...

These intemperate and ill-directed outbursts of yours do nothing more than illuminate the barrenness of your argument, I'm afraid. More often than not - as you did here - you zoom off at a tangent, spilling biblical quotes like a clumsy waiter, carefully avoiding anything that might resemble logical thought.

The problem that you and your ilk have to combat is inhrent in this highly illuminating phrase of yours, Boaz.

>>...the grandure and enormity of the Universe.. and what this says about it's Creator...<<

You make the fundamental assumption that the Universe was actually "created", in the manner of a sculptor producing a bust, or a blacksmith fashioning a horseshoe - raw materials were assembled into a particular shape or pattern. Having made that decision, you then necessarily have to search for a "creator".

The idea that something just "is" goes against eveything that you believe in. In fact the very idea that we simply "are", a bizarre and extremely rare - possibly even unique - combination of galactic materials, makes you extremely uncomfortable.

It is from this discomfort, this fear of the unknown and unknowable, that your God appears.

I don't begrudge you this reassurance one whit.

I just wish you wouldn't use it as a weapon against other people whose ideas make you feel uncomfortable.

Bugsy,

Rene Descartes is in my camp: if we can conceive of God, then He exists.

Based on intuition and reason:

"because I cannot conceive God unless as existing, it follows that existence is inseparable from him, and therefore that he really exists: not that this is brought about by my thought, or that it imposes any necessity on things, but, on the contrary, the necessity which lies in the thing itself, that is, the necessity of the existence of God, determines me to think in this way: for it is not in my power to conceive a God without existence, that is, a being supremely perfect, and yet devoid of an absolute perfection, as I am free to imagine a horse with or without wings." (Descartes, Meditation 10)

Descartes' supposition is that God has provided him with a working mind and sensory system and does not desire to deceive him.

Here are the OBJECTIONS to Descartes:

1. The only way to prove something a priori is if its opposite implies a contradiction.

2. If something implies a contradiction, then it is inconceivable.

3. Everything can be conceived not to exist.

4. Nothing can be proven to exist a priori, including God.

Try it on:

1. The opposite: God IS NOT what he IS: implies a contradiction. (God is not God).

2. It would thus follow that God's claim to "AM-ness" implies a contradiction and is inconceivable.

3. I can conceive that I don’t exist. I am a figment of my own imagination. The fact of my non-existence implies God’s non-existence.

4. There cannot be a Creator of a non-existent self.

Honestly, it does my head in, but the foundational statement (I AM that I AM) is what it all hangs on and the objections are trite in application.

This is the sum of my "argument":

God exists. We exist only because He desires it. Not believing in his existence does not change the fundamental fact of His existence. Without Him, we could not exist, as the created must have a creator.

katieO, the statement "if we can conceive of God, then he exists", is more suited to pantheistic solipsism than the reality we find ourselves in.

You missed something in line 4.:
Nothing can be proven to exist, apart from the mind, a priori, including God.

Cogito ergo sum.

It is conceivable that I can exist independently of God, as I have already proven to myself that I exist.

KatieO, the only way that your logic can work is to make the assumption, before any other assumption, that God exists.

As in...

>>Try it on... The opposite: God IS NOT what he IS: implies a contradiction. (God is not God).<<

This can only stand up as an argument if you have already agreed that there is this thing called God. If there is no such agreement, there is no argument, and no contradiction.

But you and I and (as I understand it) Descartes appear to agree on one thing.

>>Rene Descartes is in my camp: if we can conceive of God, then He exists<<

I absolutely agree, that if you can conceive of God, then he exists for you. It's that brain chemistry thing again.

What it does not - and cannot - prove, is that you and I conceive of the same things, since our brains work differently.

And they most clearly do.

>>When Moses asked the same question, God replied “I AM that I AM” or “I shall be that I shall be”... From this statement, all other existence is derivative<<

With a small caveat.

You need a) to believe that God exists, in order to communicate this message, b) that God did actually somehow directly communicate this to Moses and c) that Moses reported this communication accurately, and didn't mishear something like "Well, I do what I can"

In sum, Descartes appears to give you licence to think and conceive anything you like, but the act of conceiving God does not bring him into existence for anyone else but yourself.

Anyway, this thread is supposed to elicit from you what form you believe God takes, not whether he exists or not.

So do tell, KatieO.

Is your God the one with the long flowing beard, who speaks to people from behind a cloud? Or perhaps Gerontius' "veilèd presence"?