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[Bohandas]

Whoa! Brainwave! I think I've figured out a scenario/experiment that could provide reliable evidence for or against the existence of a creator deity; However it only applies if that creator deity is at least to some degree fallible. To wit, if the world was created by an omnipotent but fallible creator there could be fundamentally unresolvable inconsistencies^* in things such as the laws of physics and the general laws as they operate on different scales or settings, analogously to how the mechanics of fortress mode in Dwarf Fortress cannot be derived from just looking at the mechanics of world-generation.



^* As opposed to outwardly different physical laws that mathematically reduce to each other at certain limits

[RedKing]

This thread just got a lot more interesting to me, as someone who was raised Lutheran (Missouri Synod), broke from the Church, and converted to Taoism 20 years ago. (Initially daojia [Philosophical Taoism], but with time I've added more and more daojiao [Religious Taoism], with all the attendant oddness it brings.)

I actually felt perfectly normal and earnest when I went to a temple in Hangzhou and made a donation and prayed before a statue of the god of Mt. Taishan to ask for a safe passage on a planned pilgrimage to the mountain. I wound up not being able to get a train and headed on to Beijing instead. For all I know, I would have fallen off or been bitten by a poisonous snake, and this was my request being granted. It didn't feel like an empty outcome.

It's been a weird sort of inner dialogue over the years, between the Western, highly rational, highly educated side of my brain and the side of me that has actually felt qi flowing, has had that "religious experience" if you want to call it that, the part that knows that thinking and analyzing is actually the worst way to approach my own faith, and that this core paradox is somehow utterly valid. I constantly think of one of the examples I was given early on when I was learning the Tao: "A deer in the woods doesn't try to be a deer. It just is." The problem with humans is that we're aware enough to know there's something not quite right about us. And so we try really hard to fix it. And in trying really hard, we get further from our natural selves. Or as Vonnegut put it, the trouble with us humans is "those damn big brains."

There was a school of thought in the Celestial Masters branch of Taoism that extolled the virtues of being drunk, because in being drunk we lose our social conditioning and our inhibitions and we come closer to our true natures. That part actually dovetailed nicely with my Lutheran upbringing, because I distinctly remember part of my Confirmation (in my church, it was a 2-year religious education...like Seminary Lite) being about Luther going through the Bible and finding all the verses that indicated drinking was a good thing. I figure he knew he couldn't sell a religion to Germans without that. 

I wonder what's the yuan-fen (the chance , coincident 緣分/缘分) cause you to convert into 道教? I believe you can read Chinese. And 氣 is not just an idea from Taoism. It's one of the foundations in Chinese medicines practices. And Kongfu, not as in the Hollywood movie, is also a practice of martial arts that based on the assumption that qi 氣, is all around us and flowing through our body, so we can live. There is also a common phrase in Chinese as inferring someone dies as 沒氣/斷氣, literally means "out of qi / cut off from qi". I myself practice Taiji, and absolutely understand what you mean when you feel you become one with nature. But I take a more literal sense about practices and believes, rather than taking a philosophy and accept it, I like to question it and examine it. It should be the right questions with no answers. You CAN NOT say it and you CAN NOT name it. It's dao 道. (I wonder why not Doaism but Taoism, the one who translated it years ago can't pronounce it right, I will sound like 逃教.)

Yeah, I was just using qi as an example of one of those things that I can't rationally explain and yet have perceived. As to why I began adopting 道教 practices....I don't even really know that myself. I think following Taoism purely as a philosophy felt too sterile. It's still mostly philosophy as far as practice is concerned, but I do have a small shrine to Guan Yu and Xuan Wu in my house, I go visit my grandparents' graves during certain festivals (and leave offerings of food), little things like that.

And yeah, it's a weird anachronism with using "Taoism". I use pinyin for everything else, but when I first started studying China way back when, it was all in Wade-Giles, so "Daoism" just looks wrong to me--even though if I'm using native terms like daojiao it's always done according to proper pinyin. Go figure.

[counting]

Well, I do believe in the existence of heaven, but there are a few discrepancies that don't really fit your theory. For one, God has described himself as the one and only god, and a jealous one at that. He would be by his own admission be unwelcoming to other deities. So while the Taoist view of heaven is perfectly viable on its own, if tried to merge with Christianity it doesn't really make sense.

A second issue is that our God is defined as literally Truth incarnate, among other things. Lying, even for our own sake, is simply something he doesn't do. Not to mention the Bible is full of visions of things that simply don't make sense, and if this were true probably would have been edited a bit.

I am asking because someone in the history actually trying to do that - the Taiping Rebellion 太平天國 in 19th century China. Their name in Chinese literally means "Great peacefully Heaven (on earth)". Though it maybe a bit different than the original religion, like the Mormonism in US, the movement in China created this unusual hybrid, more unusual than Mormonism. But it did in term believing in Bible, but adding one more figure as the founder Hong Xiuquan (洪秀全) believed that in a vision, he is the brother of Jesus. I know it sound weird, but blood/family relationships is the core of Eastern Culture elements. And he intend to build a Christian kingdoms in China, but most people here are Taoism/Buddhism/Confucianism in the first place, its quicker for he to adaptive new doctrines than slowly converting people. And he saw the common elements in Taoism and Christianity believes. If he didn't fail politically, like in history, we might have a new branch of Christian believes. (I am not arguing it's right or wrong, in history believing in Jesus as the son of God in Judaism is also new and unacceptable, and minority believes, as long as it gather enough followers later, it too becomes a center believe doctrine), And I think it should be a constant struggle of keeping old faith, or accepting new possibility that hold a believe system together. You may support it or against it, but they both existed in balanced. However I think most will be against accepting new elements in a mostly converted/culture-stable society, so it can hold its current believers. How many or the degree of acceptance is related with the ratio of non-believers/population. More non-believers around you, more open minded you need to be.

About truth, I agree for the consistency and maintaining believes it has to be forbidden to lie, in order for followers not questioning the believe itself. (Sorry for the tone sounds a little academic, like observers, since I AM not Christian, not even Westerners) But, do it forbid not telling everything and the whole picture of truth? Like there is a possibility that God as an unimaginable entities such that the whole courts/government of deities in Taoism heaven is just in God's mind/body/entity-self, like the concept of trinity (its defined later, rather than state in the old bible), but multi-entities-unity? And he didn't show it to the followers in the western world is because God can be as many forms as it can be, so he shows in different faces to different people in Eastern world, and the one recorded that, like the people wrote/recorder bible, has to use the concepts of their time to write it down, so it looks outdated/not-make-much-sense to us now. It's the fault of us humans that they are recoded differently. Like in a scenario there are many Abraham/prophets not recorded in ancient land of China, or did recorded but due to language difference/distances, so didn't incorporate their vision of God into current version of Bible (chapters are collected and selected in Rome-era churches, many are discards, and I don't believe even they have the scrolls, written about God from prophets in Chinese, they would understand the language, let along accept it). So the memory of Gods show itself to different prophets in different faces, granting different prayers, are viewed by the rest as many deities from heaven - like in Taoism. Anyone told any lies? No, and perhaps not even faults (not intentionally), but just restricted by the limitations of human themselves (in traveling, knowledge, comprehensions, languages, even our short lived lifespan), you can't blame those forerunners/prophets really.  So why can't they be both telling a different perspective of a single truth as you have faith in it? Or is this point of view, will be seen by you as devil's advocate to you?

[counting]

Yeah, I was just using qi as an example of one of those things that I can't rationally explain and yet have perceived. As to why I began adopting 道教 practices....I don't even really know that myself. I think following Taoism purely as a philosophy felt too sterile. It's still mostly philosophy as far as practice is concerned, but I do have a small shrine to Guan Yu and Xuan Wu in my house, I go visit my grandparents' graves during certain festivals (and leave offerings of food), little things like that.

And yeah, it's a weird anachronism with using "Taoism". I use pinyin for everything else, but when I first started studying China way back when, it was all in Wade-Giles, so "Daoism" just looks wrong to me--even though if I'm using native terms like daojiao it's always done according to proper pinyin. Go figure.

Language is such a FUN thing isn't it? I myself find it from time to time it just can't be translated like yuan-fen as a unspeakable attraction thing, like you said, but lack of proper terms in English (perhaps it's just me, not knowing enough terminologies). And pinyin can't help only so much. There are tones difference in Chinese, phoneme can't be linked to any pronunciations in English.

But the unspeakable connections which unspeakable and can't not be rationalize. I like it, just as my believes/philosophy as to be Zenist. We should compare notes. 道教 and 禪宗 are related quite closely in history and in the way of thinking. You can almost say it's the spread of Buddhism in China with people believing in Taoism produced the Zenists. It's a relatively recent thing in history. For others wonder which came first in China, from the forming of Taoism/proto-folk believes(before 6th century BCE) -> to Confucius(5th century BCE) -> and 'import' of Buddhism(1st~3rd century AD) -> then Bodhidharma came to China(5th century) with Tathāgatagarbha doctrine(如來藏楞伽宗) -> finally Zenists (disciples from Bodhidharma) revised their believes/philosophy of Buddhism (7th century).

[Virex]

Whoa! Brainwave! I think I've figured out a scenario/experiment that could provide reliable evidence for or against the existence of a creator deity; However it only applies if that creator deity is at least to some degree fallible. To wit, if the world was created by an omnipotent but fallible creator there could be fundamentally unresolvable inconsistencies^* in things such as the laws of physics and the general laws as they operate on different scales or settings, analogously to how the mechanics of fortress mode in Dwarf Fortress cannot be derived from just looking at the mechanics of world-generation.



^* As opposed to outwardly different physical laws that mathematically reduce to each other at certain limits

That rings a bell... (assuming you accept mathematics itself as part of this line of reasoning)

[Siquo]

a unspeakable [...] thing

That sounds more like Cthulhu mythos. 

[counting]

Whoa! Brainwave! I think I've figured out a scenario/experiment that could provide reliable evidence for or against the existence of a creator deity; However it only applies if that creator deity is at least to some degree fallible. To wit, if the world was created by an omnipotent but fallible creator there could be fundamentally unresolvable inconsistencies^* in things such as the laws of physics and the general laws as they operate on different scales or settings, analogously to how the mechanics of fortress mode in Dwarf Fortress cannot be derived from just looking at the mechanics of world-generation.

^* As opposed to outwardly different physical laws that mathematically reduce to each other at certain limits

As to the macro phenomena we found in gravitational (in cosmology large scale) incompatible with micro phenomena we observed described by standard model in quantum mechanics? The force of gravity is so weak in comparison to other 3 forces, some theory even suggests it leaks to other parallel universes (as  in M theory, called other membranes). And thus prove only there might be some other things outside the universe. But not necessary it has to be coming from a creation. It may as well be just a process of evolution of the universes, created the world. Like you find the rules of living thing (they grow, aged, and die, but new generations will rise) is different from the rules of physics world (constant, and keeps decaying, no turning back), and physical worlds rules evolves from a higher sets of different rules only governs the fabric of space-time only. (And gravity as we theorize in general relativity really IS caused by distortions in the fabric of space-time), And on top of that another M-dimensional rules govern another different ones, and keeps going on and on, like a Russian doll?

[counting]

a unspeakable [...] thing

That sounds more like Cthulhu mythos. 

It may just be the 'dao' 道 of Lovecraft. (I wonder what's the dao of Minecraft, invisible creepers coming behind you? )

[counting]

Whoa! Brainwave! I think I've figured out a scenario/experiment that could provide reliable evidence for or against the existence of a creator deity; However it only applies if that creator deity is at least to some degree fallible. To wit, if the world was created by an omnipotent but fallible creator there could be fundamentally unresolvable inconsistencies^* in things such as the laws of physics and the general laws as they operate on different scales or settings, analogously to how the mechanics of fortress mode in Dwarf Fortress cannot be derived from just looking at the mechanics of world-generation.



^* As opposed to outwardly different physical laws that mathematically reduce to each other at certain limits

That rings a bell... (assuming you accept mathematics itself as part of this line of reasoning)

Incompleteness theorem only phrases the tern "one can not lift oneself up" using the language of math. Even birds need air to fly, things need external force to accelerate. So there must be a predetermined/pre-existed assumptions/existences in any 'limited' system in order to operate(prove) itself. Hence if there are things can not be observed / with limitation, than the statement is true. It has nothing to do with HOW the existences come to be, or WHERE it comes from, by WHAT kind of procedures (or by WHOM).

[Virex]

That's not what the whole of the incompleteness theorem says. It's often quoted as 'you can't prove your assumptions', but the theorem goes beyond that, saying that there are actually an infinite amount of things you can't prove about the natural numbers for a finite or even a countable set of axioms, with the axioms only being a subset of that. The only way to have a set of axioms that escapes this is to define it as all truths about basic numbers.

[counting]

That's not what the whole of the incompleteness theorem says. It's often quoted as 'you can't prove your assumptions', but the theorem goes beyond that, saying that there are actually an infinite amount of things you can't prove about the natural numbers for a finite or even a countable set of axioms, with the axioms only being a subset of that. The only way to have a set of axioms that escapes this is to define it as all truths about basic numbers.

It's either be limited and incomplete, or infinite, but not all (there is no all in infinite) systems with infinite axioms should be or will be complete. The only impossible is a system both limited and complete. is that right?

[G-Flex]

Whoa! Brainwave! I think I've figured out a scenario/experiment that could provide reliable evidence for or against the existence of a creator deity; However it only applies if that creator deity is at least to some degree fallible. To wit, if the world was created by an omnipotent but fallible creator there could be fundamentally unresolvable inconsistencies^* in things such as the laws of physics and the general laws as they operate on different scales or settings, analogously to how the mechanics of fortress mode in Dwarf Fortress cannot be derived from just looking at the mechanics of world-generation.

No, not really. It's possible for an infallible deity to create something that's flawed, or at least flawed by our standards.

Honestly, your argument is a little confused here. First it sounds like you're arguing that you can disprove the existence of a fallible deity, but then you go on to sound like you're arguing that you can prove a deity is fallible.

At any rate, saying that an infallible deity (whatever that means; remind me why we aren't defining terms here?) can't create something fallible implies too much about that deity that we can't readily assume. Why shouldn't an infallible deity be able to create a universe with inconsistencies in its rules? Hell, isn't that basically the definition of a miracle?

[Virex]

That's not what the whole of the incompleteness theorem says. It's often quoted as 'you can't prove your assumptions', but the theorem goes beyond that, saying that there are actually an infinite amount of things you can't prove about the natural numbers for a finite or even a countable set of axioms, with the axioms only being a subset of that. The only way to have a set of axioms that escapes this is to define it as all truths about basic numbers.

It's either be limited and incomplete, or infinite, but not all (there is no all in infinite) systems with infinite axioms should be or will be complete. The only impossible is a system both limited and complete. is that right?

To be more precise, the systems that are impossible are the systems that are complete and countable (but not necessarily finite).

[counting]

Whoa! Brainwave! I think I've figured out a scenario/experiment that could provide reliable evidence for or against the existence of a creator deity; However it only applies if that creator deity is at least to some degree fallible. To wit, if the world was created by an omnipotent but fallible creator there could be fundamentally unresolvable inconsistencies^* in things such as the laws of physics and the general laws as they operate on different scales or settings, analogously to how the mechanics of fortress mode in Dwarf Fortress cannot be derived from just looking at the mechanics of world-generation.

No, not really. It's possible for an infallible deity to create something that's flawed, or at least flawed by our standards.

Honestly, your argument is a little confused here. First it sounds like you're arguing that you can disprove the existence of a fallible deity, but then you go on to sound like you're arguing that you can prove a deity is fallible.

At any rate, saying that an infallible deity (whatever that means; remind me why we aren't defining terms here?) can't create something fallible implies too much about that deity that we can't readily assume. Why shouldn't an infallible deity be able to create a universe with inconsistencies in its rules? Hell, isn't that basically the definition of a miracle?

Test a if A then B statement is true of false, you only need to test if B true or not when A is true, when A is false you don't need to test B at all, the statement if A then B, always true. And it only test the "causality" between A and B, Nothing to do with the true of false about A. When the world is flawed or flawless, and there is not creator, or its infallible, all makes A false, but the statement if A then B stays true.

Only you accepted the assumption of existing creator AND its fallible in the first place, than the test can determine the causality of A->B true of not. That is a fallible creator exited and we observed a flawless world, then it will shock us. That will be a true miracle. Sometime fallible creates a flawless thing.

PS. about the analysis of if A->B, All the below is what need to be analysis, let's see these statements:
 
1. there is no creator, the world is flawed, need to be true, no problem here, check.

2. there is no creator, the world is somehow flawless, need to be true at the same time. I don't know how, but it can be. check.

3. there is a creator, and he is infallible, but he purposely create a flawed world, toying with us. It can be true. but I will not say anything about the creator's character. check

4. there is a creator, and he is fallible, the world is flawed, true, it's an obvious statement. check.

5. there is a creator, and he is fallible, the world is flawless, need to be false, and obviously is a contradiction statement itself. check.

Then we get a statement about causality of if A->B true. If you think the implication about this statements above, you won't feel it's a causality worth mention. (Or you want to, because may lead to the funny conclusion that God is simply playing us), you can't test the assumption true of not from its implication statement.

[counting]

That's not what the whole of the incompleteness theorem says. It's often quoted as 'you can't prove your assumptions', but the theorem goes beyond that, saying that there are actually an infinite amount of things you can't prove about the natural numbers for a finite or even a countable set of axioms, with the axioms only being a subset of that. The only way to have a set of axioms that escapes this is to define it as all truths about basic numbers.

It's either be limited and incomplete, or infinite, but not all (there is no all in infinite) systems with infinite axioms should be or will be complete. The only impossible is a system both limited and complete. is that right?

To be more precise, the systems that are impossible are the systems that are complete and countable (but not necessarily finite).

Yes, the negative statement is more precious, and short although they are the same, I just split the combinations, and state they independently.