The Search for God Page 3.2
The Declaration
So where are we at? We have covered laws that apply to 100% of the universe and humans, and we have defined the attributes of the greatest conceivable being, we term god. Now we are going to look at philosophy.
Do the attributes we expect god to possess make rational sense?
But, before even considering these topics, I had to ask myself, “What is it that I truly want to know?” Based on reason, I wanted to know what ultimate reality is and what is true about ultimate reality.
To me, that is the goal of philosophy, to know reality and to know reality in truth. When I ask those questions starting from myself, what do I realize? The only way to know ultimate reality and to know the truth about that reality is if a being we term god can inform us about reality.
Knowing ultimate reality
I, nor any human by ourselves, will NEVER know ultimate reality. In our consideration of just two concepts of philosophy (absolute truth and ultimate reality), we find that god must possess four important attributes to answer our questions.
So, we find attributes god should possess, but what I wanted to know is, does god actually exist? I want proof from reason and from wisdom that god exists. I know I stated previously that god must communicate with us, but I wanted some external evidence that god exists. So I declared myself an atheist.
| Based on Consideration of Ultimate Reality and Absolute Truth God Must Have: | Based on What We Know (laws of logic and experience) God Should Have the Following: |
| All-knowledge | All-Knowing |
| Being | Being |
| All-powerful | |
| Eternal | |
| Existence outside time (transcendent) | Transcendent over the realm of death |
| Non-dependence | Non-caused |
| Can be a Judge if he speaks | Judge |
| To know god, he must communicate with humans |
In college, I sat down one day and said, “I am an atheist. I don’t believe god exists.” Therefore I sought a Christian pastor, a philosopher, and myself and said to them, “Prove to me god exists.”
The philosopher said, “I can’t.” Immanuel Kant basically said, “reason cannot prove god exists.”
The Christian said, “Prove to me god does not exist.”
And I said, “Huh.” I sat stumped. What is an atheist?
An atheist is a person who believes in the declarative statement, “God does not exist.” That is an absolute truth claim about ultimate reality. So now let us consider the question, “What is atheism?”
What Next?
- What is the crucial concept?
- I became an atheist to try to understand atheism.
- Why is that significant?
- I wanted to find proof of atheism.
- If you agree, the next steps.
- If you disagree, please consider reading.
References and Links
- Medium – To know reality and to know reality in truth
- The Transformed Soul – Ultimate reality