A remote Island

[rowen]

You wake up in the middle of the Pacific.

You find wrapped bread on a table

Did some entity put the bread there at one stage?

Yes or No

[Solon]

You cannot ask how God got there because he always exists and is above our rational conceptions, that is something unfathomable, something we can hardly minutely grasp, I believe we can see the brushstrokes of the creator in the world which I see as marvellous which points to the sublime entity

Actually you can ask. It has been asked before and likely will be again. If god is beyond reason and cannot be known or understood then we cannot reason our way to god. You are speaking to men of reason. They make no bones about this, and if you cannot reply in kind you will find little traction. If you cannot reason your way to god then you believe because you want to. Perhaps it is comforting on some level, I don't know. You are claiming that you don't know, and indeed can't know. Why then would you take evidence that you admit cannot be reasoned as proving god and decide you know about the nature of this ineffable being?

however I just cannot rationally see a universe, an inanimate that stretches to infinity, I cannot see an uncaused inanimate!

Your personal limitations have no bearing on the truth, whatever it may be. However implausible or unappealing something may be, reality cares not for your opinion on the matter.

It would have to be a superior living being that sustains life and brings into existence the material

Have to be? Does this follow from your inability to conceive of it being otherwise that you admitted above? This is a gross logical fallacy.

If you are here to debate, then use reason, but if you are going to say reason cannot be used because god is beyond such things or that you will not follow reason because it leads to places you do not like or do not fathom then you may find yourself unsatisfied here. I am not a frequent poster, but I do read quite a number of the threads here. People who are irrational, meaning they claim reason has no bearing, or have difficulties sticking with logical arguments because they don't always line up with what they believe seem to have a difficult time here. Were I you, I would consider what my purpose is here and what the nature of this board is. What do you want to accomplish and what would you have to do here to reach those goals.

[rowen]

I did not say you cannot reason your way to god, but an infinite uncaused inanimate universe is not logical, theres a big difference,

you can reason your way to God, but not comprehend God

an ant cannot fathom a human, but it knows the human is there

The state of human sciences can hardly comprehend a minute aspect of one minute corner of our universe, a physical thing, so how can we even begin to comprehend the workings of the metaphysical, even though we can know it is there

[Solon]

I did not say you cannot reason your way to god, but an infinite uncaused inanimate universe is not logical, theres a big difference,

you can reason your way to God, but not comprehend God

What you said was:

You cannot ask how God got there because he always exists and is above our rational conceptions, that is something unfathomable, something we can hardly minutely grasp, I believe we can see the brushstrokes of the creator in the world which I see as marvellous which points to the sublime entity

If god is beyond our ability to reason and is unfathomable, then we, being such limited beings whose reason cannot grasp god, cannot reason our way to him. Either he is beyond our rational conceptions or not. If he is then we cannot use reason to reach him, if he isn't then we can and we can use logic to prove it. If he is unfathomable...

Main Entry:
un·fath·om·able Listen to the pronunciation of unfathomable
Pronunciation:
\-ˈfa-thə-mə-bəl\
Function:
adjective
Date:
1640

: not capable of being fathomed: a: immeasurable b: impossible to comprehend

.. then we cannot know him, he is incomprehensible. Without the ability to even have knowledge of him how can we reason our way to him, what could we know that would enable us to do so? Additionally, how could you possibly know anything about him, let alone that he even exists. Knowing he exists would constitute some level of comprehension which your words above deny we can have.

Also who says the universe is infinite? Is it? Can it be? Try to imagine a finite but very very large universe. Does that make it easier? And why is it easier to imagine an infinite uncaused intelligence? Wouldn't that be an even bigger stretch of the imagination since it would seem to require something even greater to cause it than an infinite inanimate universe?

[rowen]

As I said we can minutely grasp

Albert Einstein frequently said something similar

The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books---a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.

"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."

Surely my position is clear

[Goat]

As I said we can minutely grasp

Albert Einstein said something similar

The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books---a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.

Surely my position is clear

Of course, Einstein at most was a pantheist.. and did not believe in an intelligent personal god, but rather looked at the universe and it's complexities as God. He believed in Spinoza's god. To try to use the language of Einstein to 'prove' god is just plain silly.

[Solon]

As I said we can minutely grasp

Surely my position is clear

Your position is logically inconsistent. God cannot both be beyond our rational ability and be reasoned to. They are mutually exclusive. We cannot even "minutely grasp" what is unable to be grasped. You start with language that denies the possibility of knowing or reason about god and then say that we can just barely pull it off. Which is it? Is god beyond our rational abilities or not? If he is not then someone who claims to know of god should then be able to provide the reasoning to arrive at such a conclusion and it can be logically analyzed as valid or not. And if valid we can then verify the premises to see if it is sound, and if it is sound then we can agree there is a god.

[rowen]

He explicitly denies atheism, the best description is deist

[rowen]

Your position is logically inconsistent. God cannot both be beyond our rational ability and be reasoned to.

If you feel heat is there not a fire burning?

Perhaps a person is blind and has never seen a fire in his life, but feels warmth, has he not seen a manifestation of the fire but not the fire itself, and it is impossible for the blind man to completely comprehend?

[Goat]

He explicitly denies atheism, the best description is deist

"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.

"No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this..."

From an letter written in 1954 to Eric Gutkind

[Solon]

If you feel heat is there not a fire burning?

Perhaps a person is blind and has never seen a fire in his life, but feels warmth, has he not seen a manifestation of the fire but not the fire itself, and it is impossible for the blind man to completely comprehend?

How about you explicitly answer my question then. God is or is not beyond reason.