• BrianW
    999
    I'm hanging out with family and we're having a discussion about belief, first in God, then in something and anything. So, my kid (11 year old) just asked whether he can pass exams if:
    1. He prayed to God and didn't study
    2. He studied appropriately and ignored God

    This has me cracking up coz it brings up the question of God's participation in our lives. What is God's role in our lives?
  • TheGreatArcanum
    298
    On the Intellect, the Understanding, A Priori Concepts, and God:

    In the process of intellectualization, two disjunctively separated (A ∉ B ∉ A) concepts (memory subsets) A and B are, through their relation(s), brought together into a union of concepts (A ∪ B) in the mind, and out of the intersection (A ∩ B) of those two concepts A and B, a new tertiary concept (C), is formulated in the understand, a concept which, by the Ontological Principle of Precedence and Intersection, necessarily preceded the existence of concepts A and B in time and therefore contains them as a subset of itself (concepts A and B ∈ concept C). If we extrapolate this principle back in time to the first thought that appeared in mind, we will find that when man first combined the concepts of “existence” and “I” in mind into the proclamation “I exist,” that the concepts of both “existence” and “I” necessarily preceded him in time, and therefore that, it wasn’t the case that man was born out of non-existence, or existence existing apart from subjectivity (I), but subjectivity itself; and when I man proclaims that ‘he exists,’ he proclaims that ‘God exists,’ and that since the subject of the sentence “I” is contained within its predicate “exist” (I ∈ Existence), that the proclamation “I Exist” is a necessary and eternal a priori truth of reason (analytic truth) such that existence itself (E) and therefore existence (e) is predicated of Subjectivity (P’’) (Existence ∈ Subjectivity) (Subjectivity ∈ Existence) ∴ (Existence ≡ Subjectivity). It goes without saying then that the concept of man as a genus necessarily preceded the existence of his body in time, and therefore that, when a new, tertiary concept is formulated in the mind by means of the intellect, that that idea comes, not from man, but from God; that is to say that all revelations in understanding are gifts from the unconscious mind (conscious mind ∈ unconscious mind); and that, in the process of coming to an understanding, since the mind of man is a subset of the mind of God, one’s level of knowledge and intuition is raised to a higher level which is closer to that of the absolute (i.e. Absolute Knowledge and Absolute Intuition). In coming to knowledge of himself and the world, mans knowing becomes towards the absolute. Thus to deny the value of the intellect is to consciously or unconsciously separate oneself from God.
  • Wayfarer
    20.6k
    A devout priest was once surrounded in his church by rising floodwaters. He climbed onto the roof of and trusted God to rescue him. A neighbour came by in a canoe and said, “The waters will soon be above your steeple. Hop in and we’ll paddle to safety.”

    “No thanks” replied the religious man. “I’ve prayed to God and I’m sure he will save me”

    A short time later the emergency services came by in a boat. “The waters will soon be above your steeple. Hop in and we’ll take you to safety.”

    “No thanks” replied the religious man. “I’ve prayed to God and I’m sure he will save me”

    A little time later a rescue services helicopter hovered overhead, let down a rope ladder and said. “The waters will soon be above your steeple. Climb the ladder and we’ll fly you to safety.”

    “No thanks” replied the religious man. “I’ve prayed to God and I’m sure he will save me”

    All this time the floodwaters continued to rise, until soon they reached above the roof and the priest drowned. When he arrived at heaven he demanded an audience with God. Ushered into God’s throne room he said, “Lord, why am I here in heaven? I prayed for you to save me, I trusted you to save me from that flood.”

    'We sent a canoe. We sent a boat. We sent a helicopter....'
bold
italic
underline
strike
code
quote
ulist
image
url
mention
reveal
youtube
tweet
Add a Comment

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.