quote:
Originally posted by GoFish:
I am curious if anyone can give me one single observable, rational, measurable, testable thing that religion can do for a person that cannot be done by secular means.
You're right GoFish. There's not anything that's testable or observable. NO ONE who subscribes to any religion, myself included, can prove it.
Do you remember St. Anselm from those 400 level history classes?
St. Anselm’s Ontological Argument
St. Anselm, the Catholic archbishop of Canterbury, first devised something called the Ontological Argument. It's a philosophical argument and is one of the most extensively debated of the proofs of God's existence by notables such as the philosopher,Immanuel Kant,who denounced the proof and Hegel who defended it.
The proof is recognized because it alone claims to prove the existence of God by relying independently on human reason without the need for physical evidence.
The proof relies on the concept of God as a "perfect" entity.
Here is St. Anselm’s proof:
1. God exists in our understanding. This means that the concept of God resides as an idea in our minds.
2. God is a possible being, and might exist in reality. He is possible because the concept of God does not bear internal contradictions.
3. If something exists exclusively in our understanding and might have existed in reality then it might have been greater. This simply means that something that exists in reality is perfect (or great). Something that is only a concept in our minds could be greater by actually existing.
4. Suppose (theoretically) that God only exists in our understanding and not in reality.
5. If this were true, then it would be possible for God to be greater then he is (follows from premise #3).
This would mean that God is a being in which a greater is possible.
6. This is absurd because God, a being in which none greater is possible, is a being in which a greater is possible. Herein lies the contradiction.
7. Thus it follows that it is false for God to only exist in our understanding.
8. Hence God exists in reality as well as our understanding.
The proof states that God, a perfect being, must exist in all possible circumstances in order to satisfy the definition of his perfection. A God that can exist in only some circumstances, but fails to exist in others is a less than perfect being.
I wrote a coupla papers on it in school. My summary was that it was so confusing, you left the reader with the idea he ought to just give up and accept it. lol
But again, it no longer proves anything tangibly. I just thought I'd throw it out there as food for thought.