Who is This God Person Anyway?

God is ‘That Than Which None Other can be Greater’ or, in other words (sic),

 ‘That Than Which None Other can be Greater’ is God.

So, if one removes all prejudicial and pre-conceived ideas that one may have about God and his existence or not and starts asserting that ‘That Than Which None Other can be Greater’ is God I hope that we now have a proposition on which we can all agree: .

Then it begins to make sense. Find out whatever it is that you believe to be ‘That Than Which None Other can be Greater’ and you have God.   ‘Simples’ as Alexi says!

If you believe that God is a supernatural being, he exists. If you believe that ‘God’ (I.e. ‘That Than Which None can be Greater’) is the laws of Science, then he/it exists. So, God exists, that is an irrefutable point.

Any discussion about which of the 2 ‘Gods’, Science or the Deity, is the greatest, or between Theists; which of their Gods is greatest and with believers in the same God, which version of their God is the greater ceases to be a rancorous fight but a question of comparison and debate.

To me, being Christian, ‘that than which none other can be greater’ is Jesus Christ and I am prepared to discuss and compare my beliefs with any one, what I am not prepared to do is row about it.

Let’s have a look at Psalm 1 in the Bible

Psalm 1

King James Version

1 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

4 The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.

5 Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

6 For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

Replace or translate the theistic phraseology into ‘Scientific’ terminology and there is little in there to argue about is there!

Let’s move on to Psalm 40:

Psalm 40

King James Version

40 I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.

2 He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.

3 And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.

4 Blessed is that man that maketh the Lord his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.

5 Many, O Lord my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.

6 Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.

7 Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me,

8 I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.

9 I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, thou knowest.

10 I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation.

11 Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O Lord: let thy lovingkindness and thy truth continually preserve me.

12 For innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me.

13 Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me: O Lord, make haste to help me.

14 Let them be ashamed and confounded together that seek after my soul to destroy it; let them be driven backward and put to shame that wish me evil.

15 Let them be desolate for a reward of their shame that say unto me, Aha, aha.

16 Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: let such as love thy salvation say continually, The Lord be magnified.

17 But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me: thou art my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God.

Do the same transposing of words and you will find another uplifting and affirming statement.

One’s process to find God is an inward not an outward journey. If one finds him and ‘follows’ him   then as it says in Psalm 40 verse 2: He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. 

My God has given me certitude and confidence, I am no longer at the mercy of doubt and prone to thoughts and behaviours that ‘offend’ my God.

An argument based on or worded in emotional and scathing language ‘offends’ the ‘God’ (or principle)of reasoned and methodical scientific thought. One’s standpoint must be on the firm ground of reasoned thought processes, not personal insult and calumny (Psalm 40 v2)

I have read ‘arguments’ from the likes of Dawkins, Dennet and Hitchens that are couched in a most unscientific, unreasoned tone so as to make them useless and petty and I have read  stuff penned by written by Werleman, Steel and Thackery that are total tosh, yet these writers call upon Reason and ‘Science’ to justify their outpourings,  (outpourings that are totally unjustifiable!)

A quick dip into the New Testament:

Mark 12:28 Jesus Christ says ‘ This is the first commandment, You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength, and this is the second ‘you must love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.’

So it becomes apparent through their writings that these atheist writers do not Love their ‘God’ with all their heart otherwise they wouldn’t write such poorly argued papers and books.

I once had a delightful twitter conversation with an atheist who gave me a list of all the gods they didn’t believe in and I think that one of the authors I mentioned above has pulled the same stunt as well. That’s not atheism. To me Atheism is ‘There is no Deity and there are no non scientific entities, full stop.

The statement ‘I don’t believe in God’ is also ridiculous because for someone to say ‘I don’t believe in x’ requires ‘x’ to exist for them not to believe in it’s existence!

I am informed that the 19^th century German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach argued that if there was no God then religion is a matter of Anthropology.

If Yahweh does not exist then all the horrible things that he did in the Old Testament cannot be ‘blamed’ on him, and maybe they did not happen at all but the writers chose to write about theological and psychological things in a language and a style that was pertinent and understandable to the people of that age. How should we read the Bible today to make sense of it?

Think about it.

I have recently read 2 books (well, bits of 2 books) by CJ Werleman: ‘God Hates You…’ and ‘Jesus Lied…’ as well as a book explaining what Atheism is by Dan Steel

I have not enjoyed (sic) reading what I consider to be such utter trash since I read ‘The Christianity Myth’ by Ken Thackary.

I presume that Messrs Werleman and Steel, like Mr Thackary, are New Atheists, of the ilk that argue against the irrationality and absurdity of Faith by using irrational and absurd criteria to ‘support’ their claims.

So where does one start? Now, I am not claiming that all Theists are right but they, even the most basic Fundamentalists, do have one advantage over Atheists, their arguments are Logically Valid!

You may choose to disagree with their beliefs but, in most cases, you cannot fault their Argument. Atheists tend to waffle and make invalid

arguments.

The main thrust of my Argument is that if one has the intention of discussing, or arguing about, the existence or otherwise of God with another person then it behoves one, and the other one, to come to an agreement, even if only for the sake of Argument, as to what defines the term “God.’ and to define the term ‘God’ in as uncontentious a way as possible so that one is discussing what is ‘God’ and not what he, she or it, is named or whether you like him or not.

In any debate or discussion there must be a common starting point or agreement about what the issue is that is under scrutiny. In the absence of that commonality the debate cannot happen, or if it does it is little more than a slanging match which serves nobody any good at all.

I have tried to hold dialogues with Atheists but as soon as I mention the word ‘God’ they get all iffy and sniffy and go off in a sulk. So I will go into the situation further now.

In my endeavour to try and understand the nature and the whereabouts of God; I decided to revisit St Anselm’s ‘Proslogion , written in the 11^th century to propose  ontological proof of the existence of God, that God’s existence can be proved by reasoned and rational thought. Here’s what I found, or rather, where I stopped looking.

Anselm was the Archbishop of Canturbury, the most senior Christian clergyman in England. In writing his proof he called upon the works of scholars and philosophers from Classical Greece and mooted that  God was ‘That than none other can be Greater.’  He propounds that if the existence of God can be acknowledged in one’s mind then there could be something greater than that ‘imagined God’ and that would be a God that physically existed as physical reality is greater than mere mental existence.

He then proceeds to extol the virtues and nature of the Christian God as being ‘that of which none other can be greater’, after that statement, I have to be honest, he loses me…

St Anselm then argues, unsurprisingly for an Archbishop, that the Christian God is ‘That Than Which None Greater Can be Thought.’   He then goes on to detail an exposition of his statement which has invited elaboration and disputation through the ensuing centuries, even to the extent of convincing the great Bertrand Russell himself, albeit briefly, that the Argument was valid. (I suspect that it was St Anselm’s exposition that ‘de-convinced ‘ Russell!)

If we return to Anselm’s opening proposal then we can determine what God is; he is ‘That Than Which None can be Greater.’ and this has been elaborated further by stating that God is: ‘That Which Cannot be Thought Not to Exist.’ To my mind that would be defined as a Creator.

Here comes the problem facing interdisciplinary dialogue, Atheists cannot countenance using the word God and Theists can not countenance not using it in any discussion but until they do there can be no meaningful dialogue between the 2.

So, God is not non-existent neither is he an old grey bearded man sitting on a cloud, a sky fairy nor a flying spaghetti monster. To reverse Anselm’s statement ‘That Than Which None can be Greater’ is God. Which leads us to ponder Oolan Kaloofid’s query: Who is this God person anyway?

Think about it.

See you in the next post xx

My plan was to post this thread on my other blog: ‘From the Pulpit of…’ but I have decided that I will stay on this site as what I have to say is my  opinion and although we all know that I am right, Truth is best served by phrasing this as an opinion. (But not just any old opinion but it is MY opinion!

Many years have passed since I was accused of believing that ‘Eddie thinks it’s right because he has said it (I’m 66 years old now,  so that would first have been said about me some 58 years ago!) but that is not so, I don’t believe that something is right because I said it but I say something because it  is  right.( I’m a bit like the Pope on that score, only sometimes he says something that disagrees with what I believe,  so that proves that he is not always right!)

Not so many years have passed since  someone. I think that it was my wife..I  forget which one, number 2 or number 3 I suspect, told me,  during a row,  that I was the most arrogant man that she had ever met. My reply to her, and to any of you that may be thinking the same about me, was, Arrogance is for lesser men than me my dear.

Anyhoo, back to the matter in hand.  Atheists and the cognitive  thickness thereof.

I admit that my interactions have mostly been with Atheists on social media and as we all know, Twitter is not the best place for informed opinions and discussions but some of these people  have written books and articles. God bless their little cotton socks.

The 2 books that have occupied me lately are ‘All God Worshippers are Mad’  by JP Tate (hence my riposte ‘All Atheists are Thick!) and ‘Why God does not Exist…’ by Dan Steel, I have made short trips to books by CJ Werleman, his ‘God Hates You…’ and ‘Jesus Lied…’

What all these books have in common with all other Atheist works of the 20th and 21st centuries that I have read is a complete lack of understanding of what Atheism actually is and a vehement hatred for Christianity and Islam, blaming all the ills of the world on a God that they don’t  believe exists.

The title of this post is ‘in my opinion all atheists are thick’ but that is not necessarily true, not all of them are thick, some of them are stupid and the others may just be merely naive. (I suspect that there may be one or two intelligent ones out there but I have not seen any proof of that theory!

The main thrust of my Argument is that If one has the intention of discussing, or arguing about, the existence or otherwise of God with another person then it behooves one, and the other one, to come to an agreement, even if only for the sake of Argument, as to what defines the term “God.’ and to define the term ‘God’ in as uncontentious a way as possible so that one is discussing what is ‘God’ and not what he, she or it, is named. As in any d debate or discussion there must be a common starting point. In the absence of that commonality the debate cannot happen, or if it does it is little more than a slanging match which serves nobody any good.

I have tried to hold dialogues with Atheists but as soon as I mention the word ‘God’ they get all iffy and sniffy and go off in a sulk. So in my next post I will go into the situation furthrr.

Think about it

I have managed to get my WiFi signal to reach my Scriptorium at the bottom of my garden so I can now post from there! Here?

I call it my SCRIPTORIUM because it is where I now do all my writing and SCRIPTORIUM sounds better than TABLE IN THE SHED!

Think about it!

I have been so busy…and lazy…over the past few months that I have not found time to post. I am gonna change that soon and undertake a bit of a blogfest, so keep watching…

30 years ago, whilst I was on a train from the North of England to London I started to write a story about a vampire. Despite many breaks in my authorial efforts, some lasting YONKS, I took up my pen once more some 5 years ago and started to write it again.

I now have the story completely written…in my head and am in the process of editting it so that it is publishable.

I am like a man who has a ‘self-assembly’ bookcase in front of him but does not knowhow to put it all together in the right order.

 

I’ve got all the bits of the story but they are in a jumble in front of me. To paraphrase the great Eric Morecome. I have written all the right words but not necessarily in the right order

Actually they’re not in a jumble, some bits are fitted together but I am no longer sure if the bits that are fitted together really do go together!

Eggiebear

I decided to change my blog name again, so if you’ve seen my pold sites: ‘Musings and Perusings’ or ‘From the Pulpit…’ then follow this site!

Eggiebear

I had a lovely relaxing (sic) time while I was away and I bought a number of books to add to my collection of  ‘Books I will start to read but not finish’

One that I may get through though  is called “100 Plants that won’t Die in your Garden”  I take it with me in the garden  as I survey my efforts  and try to identify what the shrivelled lifeless things that are no longer of any use to me  once were. (I do a similar thing when I’m having a shower…)

I also bought a book of Robert Browning’s poetry and T S Eliot’s work,  Roger Penrose’s The Emporer’s New Mind’ and a couple of books on St Anselm’s Ontological Proof of the Existence of God.  A little light summer reading I’m sure you will agree!

As I was sitting on the Harbourside of my favourite holiday destination  next to people reading the latest John Grisham thriller and Aga sagas by various writers,  I was idly leafing through ‘Theories of Everything’ by John Barrow, a passer by asked me “What book are you reading?”  when I showed them they ran away…

I got to thinking  about ‘The Peter Principle’  does it apply to internal thinking processes as well as to business systems’ because I’m reading books that make my brain hurt and I wonder if I  am reading stuff that is really out of my league.  It’s lLike listening to music from a distant room; I know something is going on but I have to strain my senses to make out what it is!

I can recall the problems I had with Steven Hawkings’ ‘Brief History of Time’  My phone didn’t stop ringing “Eddie,” he  would say,”does this sound right? Can I pass this by you? Can I put this in the book?”  I would reply “Look Stevie just do your best, there’s only you and me that would know if you got it wrong again anyway!”

When I was a lad I used to get learned tomes out from the public library and write in pencil in the margins  things like NO! Think Again! and Check your Calculations! before returning them and wondering what the next reader would make of my annotations.  Such fun!   I still do it to books I give to charity shops and you should see the margin notes I’ve written in my Bible!  I have tried to explain to my wife about her duties and obligations by claiming…”You have to do such and such a thing, it’s written in my bible” and it is, albeit in biro!

I am a firm believer in Anselm’s Ontological Proof of God, partly because it makes sense and partly because I have not found any competent refutations of the Proof, even Bertrand Russel’s prognostications on it are bollocks!

So back to The Peter Principle’  Does it apply to internal thinking processes as well as to business systems?

Think about it!