First, there are parts of this discussion that I need help understanding and if I have trouble understanding it, then so will a lot of other people. The explanation could and should be more straightforward and readily understood by the average high school student and the bright grade school student.
Second, the naturalistic explanation must be finite in time. Infinity is a self-contradiction. Infinity will allow for anything that is physically possible, including an intelligence of unlimited knowledge and power. And what is that? It is a creator.
If you disagree, explain what would limit the intelligence of any creature that emerged from a naturalistic infinite world.
A naturalist must then explain what happened a finite amount of time ago to produce what we now observe.
Another issue is that it can be argued very persuasively that "evil" is a red herring. It does not exist and gets in the way of understanding. I understand that people love to use this word and point to suffering or unpleasant events as a contradiction with a loving creator. But it is all easily explained if one tries to understand how a creator would make a perfect world.
I like to use X => Y or basic logic as the foundation for discussion. If Y is a meaningful world, X must include unwanted events such as suffering. If not X were true, could we have a meaningful world? Or not X => not Y. (requires much more discussion but all could be at a level of a bright grade school student)
Perhaps I will respond to your other points later, if I find the time (not because they aren’t interesting, but because I am quite busy), but I should point out that this blog is not aimed at beginners or high school students, per se, so one should not expect everything here to be easily or even mildly accessible. Some of what we treat on this blog concerns quite specialized areas of philosophy. Ans for a conversation of that sort to be productive, the author must assume a certain (sometime extensive) amount of background knowledge on behalf of the reader. This will exclude people, of course, but so be it. Not every conversation is for every person.
That said, we have many entry level posts here for people just getting started. Beyond that, the reader will have to do the necessary homework to pick up the conversation wherever it begins. Or skip over and wait for the next one.
I am primarily interested in creating a belief in Catholicism. A simple, easily understandable approach could do it.
My target for this are in order 1) practicing Catholics, 2) lapsed Catholics, 3) those who are amenable to the truth about religion and 4) those who are educated and claim there is no creator or if there is a creator, he does not care what anyone does.
Yesterday, I was at a memorial for someone raised Catholic and had a Catholic education through college. He also had a master's degree from a Catholic university.
His children, all with college educations, said he never believed anything about Catholicism and that faith itself was a bogus concept. While none were raised Catholic, I didn't expect the open hostility towards religion per se. It took me aback.
At Mass today, it was primarily half-empty pews, as usual. The pastor's reaction to this was to have about ten greeters as you walked in. No one was greeting the 50-60% who weren't there. It wouldn't have made a difference anyway. They are not there because it is unfriendly. They are not there because they don't believe.
I said to myself, the issue is obvious. It is belief and I see absolutely nothing anywhere trying to inform Catholics on why they should be Catholics. It is not necessary to be esoteric to inculcate belief. It will inhibit belief.
So I push for simplicity, logic and evidence to persuade the target groups listed at the beginning.
I am not uneducated. I have 16 years of Catholic education and a master's degree from Stanford. I was ABD in a Ph.D. program before leaving to start a business. My experience with philosophy is that anything can be made simple if one tries hard to do so.
My thoughts here may be for the wrong audience but I write them at various places to organize what I believe is necessary to achieve my primary objective, convince people that Catholicism is necessary to lead a viable life.
Three comments:
First, there are parts of this discussion that I need help understanding and if I have trouble understanding it, then so will a lot of other people. The explanation could and should be more straightforward and readily understood by the average high school student and the bright grade school student.
Second, the naturalistic explanation must be finite in time. Infinity is a self-contradiction. Infinity will allow for anything that is physically possible, including an intelligence of unlimited knowledge and power. And what is that? It is a creator.
If you disagree, explain what would limit the intelligence of any creature that emerged from a naturalistic infinite world.
A naturalist must then explain what happened a finite amount of time ago to produce what we now observe.
Another issue is that it can be argued very persuasively that "evil" is a red herring. It does not exist and gets in the way of understanding. I understand that people love to use this word and point to suffering or unpleasant events as a contradiction with a loving creator. But it is all easily explained if one tries to understand how a creator would make a perfect world.
I like to use X => Y or basic logic as the foundation for discussion. If Y is a meaningful world, X must include unwanted events such as suffering. If not X were true, could we have a meaningful world? Or not X => not Y. (requires much more discussion but all could be at a level of a bright grade school student)
Perhaps I will respond to your other points later, if I find the time (not because they aren’t interesting, but because I am quite busy), but I should point out that this blog is not aimed at beginners or high school students, per se, so one should not expect everything here to be easily or even mildly accessible. Some of what we treat on this blog concerns quite specialized areas of philosophy. Ans for a conversation of that sort to be productive, the author must assume a certain (sometime extensive) amount of background knowledge on behalf of the reader. This will exclude people, of course, but so be it. Not every conversation is for every person.
That said, we have many entry level posts here for people just getting started. Beyond that, the reader will have to do the necessary homework to pick up the conversation wherever it begins. Or skip over and wait for the next one.
Cheers,
- Pat
I am primarily interested in creating a belief in Catholicism. A simple, easily understandable approach could do it.
My target for this are in order 1) practicing Catholics, 2) lapsed Catholics, 3) those who are amenable to the truth about religion and 4) those who are educated and claim there is no creator or if there is a creator, he does not care what anyone does.
Yesterday, I was at a memorial for someone raised Catholic and had a Catholic education through college. He also had a master's degree from a Catholic university.
His children, all with college educations, said he never believed anything about Catholicism and that faith itself was a bogus concept. While none were raised Catholic, I didn't expect the open hostility towards religion per se. It took me aback.
At Mass today, it was primarily half-empty pews, as usual. The pastor's reaction to this was to have about ten greeters as you walked in. No one was greeting the 50-60% who weren't there. It wouldn't have made a difference anyway. They are not there because it is unfriendly. They are not there because they don't believe.
I said to myself, the issue is obvious. It is belief and I see absolutely nothing anywhere trying to inform Catholics on why they should be Catholics. It is not necessary to be esoteric to inculcate belief. It will inhibit belief.
So I push for simplicity, logic and evidence to persuade the target groups listed at the beginning.
I am not uneducated. I have 16 years of Catholic education and a master's degree from Stanford. I was ABD in a Ph.D. program before leaving to start a business. My experience with philosophy is that anything can be made simple if one tries hard to do so.
My thoughts here may be for the wrong audience but I write them at various places to organize what I believe is necessary to achieve my primary objective, convince people that Catholicism is necessary to lead a viable life.